Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for April 2015.

US Airways Credit Card Signup Links, Mutiny on a Plane, Julianne Moore Fired by Airline for Poor Acting

by Gary Leff

Apr 05 2015

News and notes from around the interweb: 2250 Bonus American Miles from the AAdvantage Shopping Portal Well, that’s one way to protest. Turkish Tourism Minitry Fires Julianne Moore for Bad Acting The government of Sri Lanka is accusing their oneworld member and national airline of corruption. The airline is state-owned, and the accusations stem from aircraft purchases while the government was controlled by a different party which means the airline is a political football in partisan political politics. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that a state owned airline isn’t a politically corrupt plaything, just that the complaints are that the airline used to be someone else’s corrupt plaything. Passenger mutiny: police had to be called twice during a 5 hour Qatar Airways tarmac delay in Birmingham. The US Airways credit card was supposed to disappear…

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Why Does Everyone Keep Trying to Smuggle Gold into Bangladesh?

by Gary Leff

A Kuwait Airways cabin crew member was arrested on Saturday in Dhaka, Bangladesh for smuggling gold in his body: Eighty two grams of gold jewellery and four gold bars weighing 10 Tola each were recovered from him. (HT: Reid F.) That’s worth about $32,300 at 1.00 BDT to 0.0129175 USD. Perhaps this is money that could have funded the down payment for a new business class seat onboard one of the airline’s Boeing 777s. What’s strange is that there’s a trend of trying to smuggle gold into Bangladesh. And people keep getting caught trying to do it. Just a month ago Bangladesh seized $1.4 million worth of gold from a North Korean diplomat. Moinul told Reuters that the diplomat was passing through the green channel from Dhaka’s international airport – Hazrat Shahjalal International airport –…

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One Simple Upgrade Trick I Just Learned

by Gary Leff

Apr 04 2015

Mainstream articles on “how to upgrade to first class” are almost uniformly: Dead wrong Laughable At their best they usually offer some variant of: Dress nicely Be a member of the airline’s loyalty program They never explain, of everyone ‘dressed nicely’ (as though this will matter for folks who aren’t airline empoloyees) and who are members of the program, who will get the upgrade if there are seats available and how to increase your chances it’s you. No, just ask isn’t sufficient (although up until last weekend it was necessary to submit a request for a complimentary upgrade on American — so I guess asking was sort of part of it there). Via Miles Remaining comes an article pushing a totally different trick. Naturally it begins with all of the usual claptrap about dressing nicely,…

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Review: Lounge, Flight and Boat from Male to the Park Hyatt Hadahaa Maldives

by Gary Leff

Here I review the Male airport’s domestic lounge and Maldivian’s Male – Kooddoo flight to get to the Park Hyatt Hadahaa Maldives. Previous installments: Introduction, overview, and costs Star Alliance first class and business class lounges, LAX Etihad First Class, Los Angles – Abu Dhabi.. the 3rd Longest Flight in the World! Premier Inn, Abu Dhabi International Airport Etihad’s new business class lounge, Abu Dhabi Etihad Business Class, Abu Dhabi – Male When you get off of your flight to Male, you walk out on the tarmac over to the arrivals building, which is more a shack than anything else. You walk inside and queue for immigration. There’s a premium line on the far left, though it may not be especially fast. On this visit there were two lines working, although one was far faster…

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As The Credit Card Issuers Churn

by Gary Leff

Barclaycard lost the US Airways co-brand as a result of the airline’s merger with American, with Citibank retaining the right to issue new American AAdvantage cards.. American Express lost the JetBlue co-brand (to Barclaycard) and the Costco product (to Citi) In an unofficial statement, Amtrak Guest Rewards says that their relationship with Chase is ending. I’ve heard this from two sources, but it hasn’t been stated publicly and could well wind up being premature (that the ink isn’t dry). For their part, Chase spokesman Rob Tacey simply replies, We are not accepting new applications at this time for the Amtrak Rewards card. (Amtrak promises an ‘official’ statement next week.) Until very recently I would have thought that we had reached something of a steady state with airline, hotel, and credit card co-brand partnerships.

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Tipping for an Upgrade and Refunding Priceline Reservations Plus 30,000 Bonus Points

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb: Club Carlson will no longer give the last night free on an award to co-brand credit card holders. However, they’re offering a bit of a make-good: 30,000 bonus points on your next stay paid with the card by August 31. Should you use the $20 trick when checking into a hotel?> (HT: Alan H.) Here’s my primer on tipping at check-in for upgrades and video on how to score the best hotel upgrades. Priceline refunds a rental car booking that a woman claims was made by her infant. Interview with Hector Adler, American’s VP of Inflight. Delta: behind the scenes with your checked bag. (HT: World Airline News)

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How Not to Get Tripped Up When You Want to Upgrade on American and US Airways

by Gary Leff

The Points Guy blog runs advice on American and US Airways upgrades in a piece written by Nick Ewen. Since that blog is widely read I thought it would be important to highlight some mistakes in the piece that – understanding them – double as tricks to better understand how to maximize your chances of an upgrade when flying American and US Airways. (I left my caveats and concerns in the comments there but a day later they remain unapproved.)

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New View From The Wing Site Goes Live Saturday Morning: Here’s What it Means for You

by Gary Leff

Tomorrow morning (around 10am Eastern) we’re going to start to transition the blog over to a refreshed site. There’s not going to be a lot that’s substantively different, at least at first. The biggest changes are to the ‘guts’ (yes, that’s the, um, technical term) of the site. It will let me: Better organize information and allow it to be searched Be more responsive for mobile devices, only about 55% of you are reading this on a desktop of laptop and the site hasn’t been redesigned since around 2009. Build more features in the future. For now thought all you’ll see is a bit of a fresher and more modern face. I’m sure there will be a few hiccups as I learn how to work with it.

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United Plans to Introduce Revenue-Based Redemptions This Year

by Gary Leff

Wandering Aramean notes that United plans to “begin introducing dynamic award pricing”. He quotes a United spokesperson as describing this as part of their strategy of “giving customers a broad set of redemption options” and the spokesperson also notes United’s “focus on ensuring saver-award availability in general” which seems to suggest that this would be an add-on offering rather than a replacement for award charts, at least in the near-term. Delta is clearly preparing to move towards more revenue-based redemptions so it should come as no surprise that United is trying to do the same, since United’s modus operandi is to ‘manage by doing what Delta does.’ I’ve heard several airline executives say that revenue-based is clearly the way to go “since Delta is doing it, and Delta is profitable.” (Nevermind that the history of…

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