I used to think 500 mile upgrades made sense. I no longer do — although I still don’t believe complimentary unlimited upgrades for all elites make sense.
There’s two changes that have happened. (1) American has raised the price of 500 mile upgrades from $30 to $40 apiece. (2) The price of buying first class outright has gone done.
Incoming Delta President Glen Hauenstein, the key architect of the airline’s revenue-based this-and-that over the past decade (hint: Jeff Robertson was always a great cheerleader for the efforts, but not their driver), has declared the end of awards.
He told Bloomberg‘s Justin Bachman, “We want people to be able to use those miles not to fly for free but to control your experience,” says Glen Hauenstein, Delta’s incoming president and architect of the airline’s revenue plans.”
Instead of free flights he wants SkyMiles used at a penny apiece towards more spending on Delta products. And that’s the value many internally wanted to place on miles in a revenue-based redemption program.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Starwood is offering a discount of up to 25% on purchased points through April 15. Starwood points are the most valuable loyalty currency, and there’s leverage in any bonus they offer, however I don’t think this offer quite is cheap enough to justify buying.
Still, if you need to top off most any frequent flyer account this could be strategically useful.
Some readers are going to see this as a niche product, but it’s a great signup offer and two and a half times as big as the usual offer.
It’s from Barclaycard and there are some real gem opportunities for the miles.
There are really two ways to leverage this card: Lufthansa first class awards (and not just within 2 weeks of travel) and United domestic first class at a low mileage cost. And it now comes with lounge passes as well.
There are truly disgusting things in the world. Last year a family was ‘forced’ to sit in vomit on a flight to DC. A couple flying to Hawaii found a full barf bag in their seat back pocket.
Of course there’s the whole bare feet thing. Worse yet, in the lavatory. And a man was hospitalized last year in a freak airport toilet accident.
There was Three Mile Island. There was Chernobyl. And there’s that Qantas A380 flying Sydney Dallas packed full oftentimes in economy, the American Airlines Dallas – Hong Kong flight, and Delta Atlanta – Johannesburg. The lavatories at the end of those flights…
There are a number of ways to rank the busiest airports. You can look at total aircraft movements (takeoffs and landings). You can look at total available seats (because a whole lot of small regional jets may skew those results). Or – the most common measure – you can look at total passengers.
It was really exciting when Atlanta airport crossed 100 million passengers for the year, even if they faked the 100 millionth passenger.
Some cities like London and New York have multiple major airports in their metropolitan areas. In fact, London is the single largest passenger traffic market if you combine the region’s airports and that’s followed by New York and then Tokyo and Paris.
Airlines may soon be tracking your inflight entertainment choices, whether you’re sending emails, and what websites you visit inflight.
The CEO of Thales USA, which offers inflight entertainment systems, gave a presentation talking about the privacy issues that airlines will need to confront given the new technologies at their disposal.
Do you trust Delta, American, and United to log your viewing habits or to access your Google or Outlook calendar? What if it saves you time, or means they can offer special accommodations?
A year ago Delta, American, and United started beating the drum that the US government ought to shut down our markets to Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar because of subsidies.
In the mythology promoted by US airlines, the big Gulf carriers Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar don’t care about economics, they only care about winning market share and providing luxurious products in the sky that US airlines cannot match. So they irrationally throw planes one routes at low prices and lure US customers (that ‘belong’ to US airlines) with quality product that no ‘sane’ airline would offer.
Except.. Emirates will unveil a new business class seat that’s worse than the current business class products the US airlines offer.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
