News and notes from around the interweb: Buying and re-selling Hyatt gift cards while earning miles on American Express business cards. If you want a hotel upgrade, aim for a one-category upgrade (HT: Alan H.) Meh. Here’s how to ask for – and get – an upgrade. See also tipping at check-in for hotel upgrades. Lufthansa will be launching Winter 2015-2016 Maldives service. Only two days a week, I expect award space to be tough to get. But Star has made great adds to Male given the relatively recent add of Turkish from Istanbul, and new Star Alliance member Air India’s Bangalore and Trivandrum service. I contend that the distance to the Maldives is a feature, not a bug. The Inside Story of the A350 (HT: Alan H.) Starting January 1 Delta’s ‘pay with miles’…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for December 2014.
American’s 3-Cabin International Flights Sold as 2-Cabin, and Who Can Book International First Class Seats Free!
Back in April we learned the details of American’s plans for their Boeing 777-200s. American is dropping first class from these planes (international first class will remain only on their 777-300ERs). Business class goes fully flat. And there are some changes from the 777-300ER new business class seat. It’s fully flat, all aisle access with international wireless internet. And there are rear-facing seats and slightly bigger personal TV screens than the 777-300ER. Economy of course goes from 9 to 10 seats across. In June we learned that the initially-reconfigured 777-200s would get reconfigured again, as new management from US Airways decided to add seats to the planes – going from 260 total up to 289. The initial planes get 45 business class seats and 45 Main Cabin Extra. The higher-density planes will have 37 business…
AMAZING FARES That Won’t Last from $178 Roundtrip to Abu Dhabi; India, Asia and Africa Deals Too!
The Flight Deal is an awesome resource. Head over to their post on this for all the details. I’ve just confirmed as of this writing that the deal is still working. You won’t find it using the ITA Matrix, but search Kayak or Google Flights, purchase on sites like Priceline. (Orbitz may show a higher fare initially, but if you’ve found the lower fare on Google Flights it should show a price drop when you click through to the itinerary.) Booking through US Online Travel Agencies should give you 24 hours to cancel. Etihad has some holiday specials for you folks in New York / Dallas / Chicago / Washington D.C. / Los Angeles / San Francisco to the Middle East, India and Africa. We did some primarily checks for the following: Johannesburg [JNB] –…
How to Outsmart Immigration Screening and Sneak Into Europe, Go to Jail for Changing Seats, and an easyJet Christmas
More great links from around the web: The CIA’s Guide to Dealing With Immigration Screening. More from The Economist. American ended its frequent flyer partnership with El Al November 1. And yet they’re now expanding codesharing between Europe and Tel Aviv. Passenger suing United after she was jailed for attempting to change seats. Self-upgrading has consequences, people! A Very TSA Christmas (Grandma got indefinitely detained) and I Saw Daddy Pat Down Santa Claus Even easyJet’s YouTube Christmas video is low budget. 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!
Singapore to Allow Driverless Cars in 2015!
Many people think of Singapore as just a stopover, but it’s one of my favorite places with a very special food culture. There are certainly reasonable complaints about the city state, especially if you’re a resident rather than a visitor. For both better and worse they have a truly unique governance system. They are both restrictive and experimental at the same time. Populist concerns don’t necessarily stand in the way of testing innovation. testing the use of driverless cars in one neighborhood next year, Uber-style it seems. And either ironically or predictability it’s all a part of Singapore’s social engineering desires: Lam Wee Shann, director of the futures division for Singapore’s Ministry of Transport, said during a panel held at MIT last month that the government wants to explore whether autonomous vehicles could reduce congestion…
500 Free and Easy Miles, Marriott Asks Permission to Block Your Internet, and a Letter to a 5 Year Old Elite Flyer
News and notes from around the interweb: 500 free Virgin America points just for entering name and account information. And Virgin America points are roughly like 1000 miles in other programs. Really heartwarming. My Fox News Happening Now appearance yesterday with tips for holiday travel: be aware, be nice, and be persistent. Know where your aircraft is coming and weather along to way to assist in planning, be kind to agents and they’ll be more helpful, and there are plenty of different touch points where you can ask for help if you aren’t getting what you need. American and Alaska are increasing codesharing across 16 additional routes, and it strikes me interesting that American will be helping to sell seats on 4 routes Alaska is operating out of Salt Lake City. Marriott adopts only the…
Free and Discounted Lounge Access
Last week the LoungeBuddy iPhone App offered readers a chance for free credit towards lounge day passes. And anyone that didn’t win? Still start off with a free $10 credit towards your first pur purchase with code viewftwing (you get all the credit, no referral benefit to me). I’m not a part of the Apple ecosystem, which is a bummer because I’d personally use the app to make advance (and sometimes discounted) purchase of a pass for the Minute Suites location at DFW. I pass by it in Terminal D all the time and haven’t ever gone in. A Private Minute Suites Room in Philadelphia) I asked folks what their favorite airport lounge is. The winners of the contest are entry #s 263 and 165: Bob likes the San Francisco Centurion lounge: Johnny likes first…
How Can You Use Chase Points to Travel to Alaska?
Reader l.C asks, I need to fly 3 people to Alaska using those Chase points. What is the best and most efficient way to do this. I have Alaska, but not Korean airlines, account. Certainly Alaska Airlines has the most flights. And Korean’s award chart for travel on Alasks is very reasonable. To say whether or not Alaska is best option I’d need to know this readers starting city and of course travel dates to know if award space is available. Unfortunately Korean Airlines is offline as a Chase transfer partner (though should come back, although I do not know exactly when) which means to ticket right away the partner to use would be British Airways which charges for awards based on distance and charges separately for each flight segment. You need to find seats…
The West Coast Flight That Has Plenty of First Class Award Space to Europe Using American or British Airways Miles
British Airways dropped first class from a handful of routes, but they’ve changed their mind and first is coming back. And that creates an opportunity for award travel. Here’s what prompted my realizing it: MileCards wrote that British Airways award availability was wide open in first class for next summer between Los Angeles and London and Seattle and London. That seemed strange to me, it certainly hadn’t been my experience. And I search for a lot of awards. West Coast – Europe non-stop premium cabin awards are tough to get, even on British Airways which has a ton of premium cabin seats and which adds fuel surcharges onto awards. Perhaps it just happened and there was a huge short term opportunity to grab a couple of first class awards? So I went about searching myself…
Chase Points Transfers to Korean Air To Return in January!
Korean Air has been one of my favorite uses of Chase points. First class awards have been so darned easy to get. There are real sweet spots in their Skyteam award chart They offer cheap awards to Hawaii Although they are of course very Korean and their processes for redeeming awards are unique. Korean went offline as a Chase transfer partner last month, though I wrote that it was expected to come back. Korean Air’s Skypass website lists Chase Ultimate Rewards as a partner and the page says transfers will be back next month. ※ Chase Ultimate Rewards point transfer is temporarily unavailable. It is planned to re-open during Jan, 2015. I don’t take the date as definitive and there isn’t yet a specific date, but it’s good to be hearing from both side that…
