Yesterday morning I had breakfast with Mark Weinstein, Vice President of Hilton for the HHonors program. (Full disclosure: He offered, but I bought breakfast; we met at my hotel – a Marriott – and so I was the only one in a position to earn points.) My sense is that they know they took a hit with last year’s devaluation. And they’d like to build some of the passion back amongst the most dedicated flyers. Of course they’re not going to undo last year’s major changes… Mark heard from me more than he revealed things to me, but he did promise that there were no big negative changes looming on the horizon. (They’ve already done that.) My message to him was that: The program is too complex, hopelessly so. Reducing complexity isn’t about taking away…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for April 2014.
United’s Jeff Smisek Wants MileagePlus to Be More Revenue-Based
While everyone else is making money — $200 million or more for the quarter for American, Delta, and Southwest — United lost $600 million and says it’s not their fault. If it wasn’t for the same bad weather the airline faced, they say they would have only lost $400 million. When it comes to an airline that believes their customers are the problem, they’re clearly doing it wrong. So what do you do? Be more like the cool kids, Southwest and Delta. In all things, and certain in the frequent flyer space. From United’s earnings call: Michael Linenberg – Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division Okay, good. And then just one other question here. And I guess maybe this would be for you, Jim, as well. You look at how Delta is sort of rethinking their…
Cheap Virgin America Coach and First Class Fares for Flights That Don’t Exist
Virgin America claims they are getting two gates at Dallas Love Field (the rights to which are being given up by American as part of their deal with the Department of Justice so they could merge with US Airways). Other airlines say they haven’t heard anything about losing out on the competition for these gates. The City of Dallas denies any decision has been made. Virgin America is running a sale on those routes anyway. The offer is $79+tax each way between Dallas Love Field and: San Francisco Washington National Los Angeles New York LaGuardia They are also offering 50% off nonrefundable first-class and Main Cabin Select on these routes. Purchase tickets by 11:59pm Central on April 26. Travel for Love Field – San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington National must be between October 13…
1000 Free Club Carlson Points!
Club Carlson will give you 1000 points for filling out a form with your email address, account number and twitter handle and following Club Carlson on twitter but you must be one of the first 15,000 to do so, so act now. Points won’t post for 4-6 weeks. You must be a Club CarlsonSM member to receive 1,000 bonus Gold Points® (the “Bonus Award”) as part of the #HashtagHotel promotion (“Promotion”). To earn your Bonus Award, complete the registration form on the Club Carlson blog (http://blog.clubcarlson.com/) and “follow” the Club Carlson Twitter handle (www.twitter.com/clubcarlson). Promotion limited to one Bonus Award per member. We will award a maximum of 15,000 Bonus Awards. Your Twitter account must be active for a minimum of 30 days to be eligible for the Bonus Award. We will credit your account…
Get a Free Starbucks Star!
This isn’t for everyone, but at the same time when I notice these offers they’re surprisingly popular. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that my readers on the whole like Starbucks. (I already know that you like something free, especially something that starts out too expensive.) I first wrote about free Starbucks stars a month ago. And then more Starbucks stars. And then two weeks ago yet again. Some may say this is too much coffee, too much of a buzz, but we go once more into that breach. Reader @Tdrag97 tweeted me to go to Starbucks.com and log into my account. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you’ll see: Click on the link and an additional link will appear at the bottom of the screen to watch a video. Click…
The Craziest Things We’ve Done to Earn Miles
I asked readers to share what’s on their mind and one reader mentioned earning miles for a hair loss consultation even though she had a full head of hair. That’s a famous one. The offer was 20,000 Delta miles for going in to see Bosley, I did it (with more hair then than I have today) and picked up my own miles as well. I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my life to earn miles. There are things that some people only think are crazy — like buying coins from the US mint with a credit card, depositing those coins in the bank and paying off the credit card; like opening online checking accounts and funding them with a credit card (with banks coding the transactions as purchases) and using the new checks…
Your Advice Please on Taking a Comp?
I had an interesting dilemma this morning and I’m not sure I handled it the right way. Last week I wrote about being downgraded from Diamond to Silver status, missing the ‘soft landing’ to Gold that I expected. And I missed several opportunities for quick and easy Gold status (from Milepoint’s premium membership, from American Express Platinum, and from the Hilton credit card that I gave up). I had breakfast this morning with Mark Weinstein, a Hilton Vice President for the HHonors program. We’re both in Seattle for the same events. By the way I’m at the Marriott by the airport, he came to me, and as the only one of us registered at the hotel and able to earn points I insisted on picking up the check. Unsurprisingly, like any good executive he did…
Class Warfare’s New Target: Silvercar
The Atlantic runs a piece that argues the real allure of a service like Silver — a car rental company that offers uniformly good cars, filled with features, and all-in pricing — is avoiding other people and not having to see Ford Tauruses. I disagree. Luxury services nearly always require seeing and being seen by others if they’re about making the customer feel better than someone else. It’s a novel theory indeed that Silvercar is selling the luxury of not interacting. That’s especially strange when Silvercar offers more service from people. In Austin at least you get picked up by a person and driven to their off-airport location. You are taken in a car, for sure, but you are driven rather than walking directly across to your car there where the major agencies are located.…
2000 Bonus Miles for Each of Your Kids, Last Call for $20, and Award Shenanigans With United and Air China (Bits ‘n Pieces for April 24, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Enter my giveaway for lounge passes and miles Possible new routing rules for United awards between the US and North Asia Tomorrow is the last day for Uber referral links to offer a $20 first-time user credit. After that the first time incentive drops to $10 (but look out for better offers). (“Why Taxis Suck and What You Can Do About It“) Turkish Miles&Smiles will give your kids 1000 bonus miles for signup and 1000 more with first flight within 90 days (including partner flights on United). You can sign up each of your kids, and then combine the points. Are Air China employees cancelling United award tickets on their airline, to help other travelers clear upgrades for a fee? You can join the 40,000+ people who see…
Five Times When Consumers Won Against Frequent Flyer Program Changes
Yesterday I wrote about frequent flyer programs rolling back unpopular changes they’ve made to their programs. One reaction was that the example I gave was atypical. I focused on a 2008 announced change by American to begin charging a $5 fee to redeem miles online. Here’s one comment, That’s a valid point but this is just one example from 6 years ago. Pretty thin argument IMHO. It seemed relevant to me, but as far as American’s changes go it was a change in the past made by American and contemporaneously with the last major change they made to their overall award pricing. But more importantly it was just an interesting case study in how a frequent flyer program can learn while still attempting to save face. There are plenty more examples of where consumer outrage…
