Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for July 2015.

How Well Do Starwood’s New Keyless Rooms Work? Review of the W Times Square

by Gary Leff

Jul 02 2015

I needed to be in New York on Monday for meetings, so I flew up Sunday night. I spent less than 20 hours in the city.

My plan was a hotel near my first meeting of the day. And the W Times Square was both reasonably close and priced ~ $180 on a ‘AAA Hot Deal’. I hadn’t ever stayed there, so figured I’d give it a go.

I used Starwood’s app and was happy to see the hotel come up as ready for their new ‘keyless’ option — you check-in with your phone, your phone acts as a room key, and you can bypass the front desk entirely. At about 10pm, wanting to get sleep before morning meetings, that appealed to me.

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How to Book Cathay Pacific Award Space that American Tells You is Unavailable

by Gary Leff

Jul 02 2015

Cathay Pacific first class award seats especially have gotten much tougher to book in recent months. Cathay still regularly makes unsold seats available in the week and even day prior to travel, but advance award availability can be scarce. Business class awards aren’t as easy as they used to be, but aren’t as restrictive as first class.

…[W]hen you see award seats available online using the customary sources for this data — the Qantas frequent flyer website and the British Airways site — but an American telephone agent says it isn’t available, it’s natural to think that the space is being blocked (either on the American side, or that Cathay is imposing point of sale restrictions to prevent American’s members from booking the space).

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Have Airline Elite Status? Get Priority Services Flying Delta and Other Skyteam Carriers

by Gary Leff

Jul 01 2015

Last week I showed you a foreign airline in each of the 3 alliances that will match your current elite status. That’s useful because it may get you free lounge access (even on the airline you usually fly), or at least airport priority like check-in and boarding when flying an airline that isn’t your usual carrier.

Skyteam member and Delta partner Alitalia now has an official website detailing their offer to give you complimentary elite status.

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Federal Government Launches Investigation of U.S. Airline Collusion

by Gary Leff

Jul 01 2015

Scott Mayerowitz and David Koenig broke the story that the Department of Justice is demanding copies of communications between major airlines as part of an investigation into unlawful collusion to limit capacity and increase airfares.

..In the face of the double whammy of recession (which kept people out of the air) and high fuel prices, the airlines developed capacity discipline as a means of survival. It’s conceivable there were unlawful communications or signaling along the way and no doubt the Department of Justice will find that.

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