Condé Nast Traveler‘s long-time consumer Consumer editor Wendy Perrin wrote about the launch party for her new endeavor, at WendyPerrin.com. She’s taken a position at TripAdvisor as ‘Travel Advocate’ and is also launching her own travel site, and I was able to hop up to New York on Friday afternoon to join the festivities. The Andaz 5th Avenue (regular readers know, my all-around favorite Manhattan hotel) and Singapore Airlines’ James Boyd hosted the event. Now, I’ll admit that part of the attraction was that the event was held at the Andaz. There are a lot of suites at this hotel, and I’ve had good luck on short one-night stays being upgraded to a suite. I know that when the property first opened there were frustrated Diamonds not getting great upgrades, so the previous general manager…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for May 2014.
IHG Changes PointBreaks Terms, 300 Free Miles, and the Cheapest Deals on Hotel Suites (Bits ‘n Pieces for May 19, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: When IHG Rewards Club announces their discounted short-term 5000 point per night ‘PointBreaks’ redemptions, you need to act fast as the most popular hotels sell out quickly. Lots of folks put down points to cover any possible night they’d need, making separate reservations. IHG is pushing back on this, and changing their terms to say you can only book 2 reservations per hotel using PointsBreaks during each offer period. The idea is to prevent folks from sitting on (or bartering) reservations. A pain for some, will help avoid too many cancellations for participating hotels, and should help others to get in on the deal too. 300 free Lufthansa Miles & More miles for adding your frequent flyer account to Facebook. New website for getting the best deals on…
The 10 Airline Frequent Flyer Programs That You Should Know About Now
Airlines devalue their miles. Your points will never be worth more in the future than they are today. You should earn miles, and then redeem them, ideally within the same ‘period’ or under the same award chart. That way you don’t get hurt by increasing award charts. Earn miles, redeem them, and then earn some more is a much better strategy for most people than saving up miles now for some future point in your life when you’ll take advantage of them. That said, I don’t worry too much about devaluations although I do not like them. And the ‘game’ or hobby is far from over. You just need to diversity. If all of your points were with United, and you like partner airline awards, then you are not a happy mileage earner. But if…
How to Book 4 Premium Cabin Seats — And How to Avoid Fuel Surcharges
ck asks Hi can you list which airlines fly London/new York and the best way to access them using points, and minimising the fuel surcharges? Eg fly united metal but use krisflyer points, or never use BA points for a BA flight. Also, which airlines release 4 seats in premium cabins. Thanks for the question, I’ve covered these things over time so let me pull some of it together. Last fall I did a series on the airlines routes that make 4 premium cabin award seats available: How to Find Business Class Award Seats for the Whole Family Book Award Travel For Your Whole Family to the Middle East and Indian Subcontinental Using Delta Skymiles American’s Fantastic First Class Availability to Asia for the Whole Family Fuel surcharges are the bane of any frequent flyer’s…
Can Economy Be Good? Bread Crumbs Bad? And A New Place to Stay On Kauai! (Bits ‘n Pieces for May 18, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: This review makes flying Singapore Airlines economy sound downright appealing. Hot towels. Nuts. Printed menus. Beef rendang, ice cream, and chicken rice for meal service. Extensive video on demand. And thoughtful flight attendants. Sounds pretty good (not that I’ll mistake it for first class). This story made my head hurt on so many levels. Hyatt will be bringing us a hotel on Kauai! Burning bread crumbs force an American flight to turn around You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
These Are the World’s Best Business Class Airlines – You’ll Be Surprised Who Makes the List
Earlier today I wrote about the world’s best first class airline products. I know a lot more about first class than I do business class, though I’ve flown my share of the latter. cb writes, Can you do such a list for business class too? I’d especially be interested in the most consistently good business class products — i.e. carriers that don’t have hidden traps where an equipment change leaves you with terrible old recliner seats. The truth is this:
Forget Everything You’ve Read, These Are the 9 Best Airline First Class Products
Business Insider runs a piece on “10 First-Class Airplane Seats That Are Nicer Than Your Apartment” and it’s probably better than many of these pieces since it actually lists products that are mostly actually good (United and American do not make the list). On the other hand, it includes products that don’t exist yet — Etihad’s 3-room Residence which will debut in late December on the airline’s new A380, and Air France’s new La Premier cabin which features curtains instead of doors and doesn’t much impress me. And it does include products like British Airways’ which simply doesn’t belong, classy a cabin as though it may be. My own view is that it’s really hard to put together a list like this if you haven’t flown a lot of the products involved. And that the…
The Business Class Award Routes to Europe United Doesn’t Want You to Know About
The most natural thing in the world for a frequent flyer member to believe is that one can go to their airline’s website, type the city they’re starting from and where they want to go into the search box, and that website will return results showing all the ways they can travel. Seasoned frequent flyers know that isn’t true at all — some airline partners may not appear on their program’s website at all, the search technology may not check all possible routings, and any number of other technical glitches may interfere — but there’s no reason why in modern times that should be true, or that a program’s 70 to 100 million members ought to be expected to know that it is true.
Big Virgin Atlantic Economy Bonus Plus Surprising Facts About China, Egypt, and Lufthansa (Bits ‘n Pieces for May 17, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Lufhansa fact of the day: Animals outnumber people when connecting in Frankfurt Transatlantic bonus of the day: Virgin Atlantic is offering double tier points and 50% bonus miles for economy China fact of the day: In the two years of 2011 and 2012 China produced more cement than the US did in the entire 20th century. Egypt fact of the day: They will change their clocks four times this year apparently because of Ramadan. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
2000 Miles From Each of American and US Airways for Your First Dine in Their Free Restaurant Programs
On Thursday I showed you how to earn 500 miles just for signing up for United’s free dining program plus more miles if you actually use it. Now word of a new bonus of 2000 American miles for joining their dining program and making just one qualifying dine within 30 days. Here’s the scoop: There’s an identical offer from the US Airways Dividend Miles dining program. It’s well worth registering for these programs even just in case you go to a participating restaurant, I’ve often earned miles I wasn’t even expecting. And if you happen to find one that’s convenient and that you actually like it can be a goldmine. You’ll wind up fighting for the check and collecting lots of cash from co-workers and friends, and making it your go-to for all reimbursable meals……
