News and notes from around the interweb: I’m giving away $400, it’s easy to enter with a comment. The record gets set for a Starbucks free drink American will subleasing gates from United in LAX’s terminal 6. Here’s what it means for travelers. As American tries to grow in such a space-constrained airport, their operations wind up all over the place. CardWatchdog is giving away a roundtrip flight to Europe Club Carlson is running a 35% off sale for stays of 2 nights or longer booked by May 30 and consumed between June 1 and September 30. Of course, nothing beats second night free on award stays with their co-brand credit card…! You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for May 2014.
Etihad Lounge and First Class Washington Dulles – Abu Dhabi
Previous installments Introduction: Maldives and Malaysia in First Class, How I Booked It and What it Cost Etihad will arrange car service pickup for business and first class passengers. Make your reservation online using your Etihad record locator (something I got from American, who issued my ticket, this confirmation number is different than American’s). You can also make the reservation over the phone with Etihad. The car service will ring you 1-2 days prior to the trip to confirm your pickup time. I had them come get us about 3 hours prior to departure. That way I figured I’d be at the airport about 2 hours 15 minutes out, know that I’d want to spend a little while in the lounge. It’s not a great lounge, but it is a great lounge for Dulles, it’s…
What Award Space Can You ASK American to Release That Doesn’t Show Available?
Over the weekend I explained that it’s possible to ask American Airlines to release seats as award space under certain circumstances. If you have built most of an award itinerary, but you need space on an American flight to complete it, you can ask for that seat to be released even if it isn’t showing award space (“to complete an itinerary”). If you have found space for part of your traveling party, but need one more seat than is showing as available, you can ask for that seat (“to complete a party”). Factors like how full the flight is and your perceived value as a customer affect whether American will approve these requests. They are responded to automatically and near-instantaneously by a system called “QMAX.” In recent times there have been fewer approved requests, and…
I’m sorry.
For the past several hours View from the Wing was unreachable. Many of you reached out by email, starting conversations with me at Milepoint.com, and otherwise. All is well (with me, thank you for your concern) We’re back (the site is live again) I haven’t been able to successfully approve dozens of comments in the pending (possible spam) queue yet, but expect to be able to soon. I apologize deeply for the outage. I appreciate deeply that being offline for a few hours causes concern and withdrawal! You have no idea how much that means to me. Meanwhile, it’s incredibly vexing for me as well. No comments! No ability to post and share thoughts on the day’s developments. Frankly, I’m addicted to my blog too. Apparently some system upgrades were being done over the weekend…
Free Money Opportunity, Bonus Miles for Young Flyers, and Walking Away from $10 Billion (Bits ‘n Pieces for May 27, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: I’m giving away $400, it’s easy to enter with a comment. Pilot calls 911.. on himself. Friday’s post on the IRS’ plans to impose a greater tax burden on loyalty programs got picked up by the Tax Foundation, at Reason.com and the New York Sun (Full disclosure: eighteen years ago the Tax Foundation published a study I wrote on the historical federal tax burden on small business.) Register by May 31 and fly Finnair by June 30 and earn 2000 bonus Finnair Plus points. Intercontinental Hotels Group (parent of Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and related brands) rejected a $10 billion takeover offer apparently made by Starwood. If you’re between 14 and 25, Alitalia will give you 2000 miles for joining, 2000 more miles for account activity within…
$35 Off and 10% Discount on a Hotel Booking Today Only
Update via Mommy Points you can no longer stack the new member signup bonus and the 10% off discount code. She emails a further explanation, Travel Pony doesn’t let you stack the 10% with the sign-up $35 on a $200 rez anymore. It’s a use one code situation – though it used to let you stack them both when I signed up, and does still let you stack using the referral credits you earn from others with codes like the 10% FLASHPONY. Thanks for the clarification! Hotel booking website TravelPony offers new members a $25 first-time booking credit, but ups that to $35 if you’re referred by an existing member. So here’s my referral link since you’re better off signing up with it than signing up on the site directly without it. (Feel free to…
I’m Giving Away $400 to My Blog Readers. Click Here to Enter. All You Have to Do Is Be Positive!
It’s been a tough 18 months in the frequent flyer world. It’s easier than ever to earn points, but the cost of awards has gone up, up, up. Miles and points have been very good to me, and I do my best to give back where I can. I don’t make a public show of my charity, but I do my best to give the best advice I can and to offer giveaways when things are offered to me. And when I have gift cards, I can either turn them into money orders or do various frequent flyer experiments, or I can give them away. So here, I thought I would give away $400. And what better way to give them away than to my readers who comment on this post?
Introducing My Next Trip Report, Maldives and Malaysia in First Class, How I Booked It and What it Cost
I’m recently back from a trip to the Maldives and Malaysia. I used American miles for the air, Hyatt points for the hotel in Maldives and to upgrade a paid stay in Kuala Lumpur (one of my favorite world food cities, along with Singapore). The trip was prompted by an opportunity to meet friends in the Maldives, and celebrate a 40th birthday (fortunately not yet mine!). As an introduction to the report, I wanted to lay out what I booked, how I booked it, and what each part of the trip cost. I think the most valuable thing I can do in a trip report is explain my thinking and logic, because that can help others – agree or disagree – in thinking about points and making use of them.
Earn 750 Miles Per Award Stay, 100% Bonus Extended, and 5 Points Per 1 Cent Purchase (Bits ‘n Pieces for May 26, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Is today’s IHG Rewards Club discounted points purchase ‘daily deal’ worth it? You can buy a whole bunch of points at a deep discount, but I’d rather wait until I need them and buy the points for only $0.001 per point more. This is the most appealing American Express – US Travel Association Daily Deal yet this year.. but I’m giving it a miss. 300 free La Quinta points for watching videos is back. (It’s been offered here, here, here, here, here, and here.) Incidentally, my entire mental model of La Quinta was blown this weekend when I saw a La Quinta across the street from — rather than next to — Denny’s. Air Canada’s Aeroplan is offering 750 bonus miles when you redeem miles between June 1…
The W Austin Upped Their Game… But Was it Because They Knew I’m a Blogger?
Last month I wrote a generally positive review of the W Austin hotel. It wasn’t a perfect hotel, but on the whole the hotel works for me — because it is in a great location (downtown but not on 6th by the bars, with a view of the lake) and the staff are friendly. And it’s just around the corner from the world’s best barbecue restaurant that offers sit down service, online reservations, and a bar. I noted a few minor gripes — housekeeping not especially thorough, toileteries go unreplaced, and room service trays littering the halls much of the time. And requests for chocolate cake (on the menu) and a yoga mat went unfulfilled by “Whatever/Whenever.” I like the hotel though, and on balance I found it worth returning to (although readers made a…
