Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program should be interesting to U.S. frequent flyers for several reasons. They offer one-way awards, which Delta won’t have until next year. They are an American Express Membership Rewards and a Citi Thank You points transfer partner. They have access to award space that Delta won’t let you have. They have most of their partners available for online booking Unfortunately their call centers are frustrating, their website can be too (and has been known to show ‘phantom’ award availability, seats that look available but aren’t really here to book). And they add fuel surcharges onto award tickets. One of the great values, historically, has been their ‘promo awards’. Award tickets discounted as much as half the cost of their regular award chart can be a great value, for a relatively…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for November 2014.
50% Off Audi Car Rentals With Loads of Features from Silvercar
All-Audi all-inclusive car rental company Silvercar (see How I Made $12 on My Audi Rental Car) is offering 50% off rentals (!) with promo code WACKFRIDAY if you book by December 1 at midnight and rent in December. Silvercar has locations in: Austin Dallas Love Field Dallas Ft. Worth Denver Los Angeles Miami Phoenix San Francisco When you rent from Silvercar, their all-inclusive model comes with free GPS, wifi, and satellite radio. You pay only actual tolls (no administrative charges) and can pay a flat $5 and they’ll refuel your car at market rate. No $9.79 per gallon charges, and no filling up at the gas station near rental car return charging nearly $5 a gallon. Here’s my referral code. They’re giving out $100 for referring new renters currently, and I’d much appreciate it if…
Free Hotel Nights for Your Facebook Friends, and How to Fix Heathrow
News and notes from around the interweb: Swedish hotel gives free stays to people with lots of Instagram followers and Facebook friends. (HT: Alan H.) Entrepreneurial flight attendant sells extra business class meal to economy passenger. The TSA’s instagram feed (HT: Lots of folks in my Facebook feed) Man enroute to a movie shoot in Dubai was arrested at JFK airport taking a stun gun, pellet gun, and machete through security. The amazing thing? The TSA caught it. (HT: Alan H.) Here’s what seems a rather ingenious proposal to extend Heathrow’s runways to allow for simultaneous takeoffs and landings and expand the airport’s capacity. There will be many objections, likely coming from the local community and incumbent airlines owning existing takeoff and landing slots who don’t want more competition. You can join the 40,000+ people…
The World’s First Suitcase With Its Own Smartphone App
It purports to be the first suitcase with its own smartphone app. The luggage: Weighs itself Lets you know whether it’s onboard your flight Tells you if it has been opened by anyone between the time you drop it off an pick it up at baggage claim Acts as a stereo in your hotel room. I’d be surprised if this suitcase is permitted to be transported in a luggage hold, since it uses wifi technology that I don’t believe shuts off inflight. Surely the Department of Homeland Security will consider it a risk in some sort of movie theater-style plot, given the possibility of remote detonation. But if it is allowed, would you buy high tech luggage? Or would you prefer an old fashioned suitcase on wheels that lacks this sort of connectivity? Would it…
US Airways Reduces Top Tier Elite Qualification Requirement.. for One Year Only
US Airways Dividend Miles will be combined into American AAdvantage next year — the official word is second quarter 2015. If I had to be it would be on the early end of that timeframe, since they’ve made an announcement of when they’ll do it they are confident they’ll be able to hit the target (why announce a target you may not hit?). That tells me they think they can be ready even earlier. When the two programs are combined, elite qualifying activity from 2014 between the two programs will get combined to determine 2015 elite status. So someone that had qualifying miles or segments in both American and US Airways during 2014 can get their status bumped up as a result of merging the programs. Someone might have 90,000 qualifying miles with American and…
Signup Bonus: 2000 Free IHG Rewards Club Points
IHG Rewards Club is offering 2000 points for new signups through December 7. I view that as worth about $8. It’s only for new members, but there isn’t usually a bonus just for signing up. So if you aren’t already a member it may be worth the minute or so to pocket 2000 while you do it. (HT: Frequent Flyer Bonuses) 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!
Is Every Travel Day About to Become Like Thanksgiving Travel?
Via Tyler Cowen, the ‘Thanksgiving rush’ is something that many airports already experience at least one day a week, and some major airports regularly experience twice every week. According to the group’s analysis, a true “Thanksgiving rush” involves passenger volumes that run between 108 percent and 259 percent above an average day. ..Of the 30 busiest U.S. airports (accounting for 70 percent of total U.S. passenger flow), 13 already feel like the day before Thanksgiving one day a week on average. Three airports — Midway, Las Vegas McCarran, and Orlando International — suffer those levels of congestion twice a week. Worse yet, the capacity improvements that are currently slated won’t help much. Within six years, the study notes, 27 of the 30 busiest airports will be Thanksgiving-busy at least once a week. The piece argues…
The Credit Card That Gives Automatic Delta Gold Status
In a comment on my post about the card that earns 2 Delta miles per dollar on all spend, Tokyo Hyatt Fan points out that there’s also a card that gives you Delta Gold Medallion status. It’s an American Express card. And it’s issued in Japan. US carriers in foreign markets have unique challenges. Generally speaking their benefits are geared towards US consumers, but with a substantial presence elsewhere they may try to tailor their offerings. Delta in particular inherited a big Japan presence from Northwest Airlines (formerly Northwest Orient) in their merger. Delta, through their Seattle hub and with longer range aircraft, are now overflying their Tokyo operation to a much greater degree than in the past. But there’s a large historic tie to Japan. Several US carriers used to offer non-US members complimentary…
Don’t Mileage Run!
Win asked whether or not he should mileage run. I’ve not flown since before September 11, 2001 and am tired of driving around in the car. Time to get in the air! An American Airlines/US Air mileage run (using weekends only) to earn elite status might be fun – any thoughts on an optimal strategy? (I’ve got the US Airways Premier World MasterCard but not earned any preferred qualifying miles). Thanks for a great blog! If you’re flying for leisure purposes, and you’re not flying constantly, you do not need and probably shouldn’t, mileage run. See also: the Final Death of the Mileage Run Now, if you’re flying just for the fun of flying, then by all means. Fly a lot and focus on a single airline. Earn status, and the flying will become more…
Getting an Extra Free One-Way Ticket Each Time You Book an Award: The Programs That Still Let You Do It
Peter asked about “free one-way tickets on awards.” If you can summarize which airlines allow for free one-ways on international award tickets, that would be helpful. I know there’s been some changes in the past few months. The idea of the “free one-way” is that when you redeem a roundtrip award ticket, with an airline that allows stopovers, you can ‘throw in’ an extra flight at the end of your award without spending an additional miles. For instance, if you need to fly Newark – London – Newark, why not fly Newark – London (destination), and then fly back London – Newark (your allowable stopover) – Los Angeles (destination). You fly Newark – Los Angeles at some later date, basically you get a free cross country flight to use later. And changing dates on award…
