Avianca is a Star Alliance airline that regularly sells miles cheap, I bought quite a haul at around 1.35 cents per mile recently.
They offer one way awards, cash and points awards, and make their Star Alliance partner awards bookable online. They do not add fuel surcharges to award tickets.
And Avianca LifeMiles can once again book Lufthansa First Class awards!
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.
American Airlines flight AA199 from Milan to New York JFK made an emergency landing at London Heathrow yesterday when the plane’s windshield shattered.
Given the story about Alaska Airlines luggage handlers playing a 30 minute game of horseshoes with luggage not to mention the care shown by these Air Canada baggage handlers, and that you never know when your bags will have bullets planted in them or your personal items stolen right out from inside them, it seemed worth flagging an interesting kickstarter idea.
BagSentry plans to let you monitor your luggage throughout the trip.
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.
Bangkok has some of the world’s worst traffic. It may not be quite as bad as Jakarta or Manila, but traffic in Bangkok is certainly far worse than anything most Americans have ever experienced.
So the Thai military junta is trying a new approach: The city’s police chief has been given 3 months to fix the problem. That’s the approach.
Yesterday morning my flying day started super early in Yakima, Washington. I had a 6:35 a.m. flight on Horizon Air to Seattle. On the way to the airport I stopped at Starbucks.
By the time I made it to the check-in counter I was almost done with my coffee. I placed it on the counter to hand the agent my ID. And it tipped over and spilled.
The agent played a practical joke on me, poking fun at how uncoordinated I was I suppose…
Last week’s Airline Weekly included third quarter profit margins from 48 airlines that had reported thus far. Here’s the top 10:
Delta reported a 21% margin (16th), Southwest and American 20% margins (19th and 21st respectively), and United a 19% margin (22nd). A 10% operating margin only placed an airline (Finnair) 34th out of 48 reporting airlines. What’s surprising is the top 10.
Traveling a good deal I accumulate status — some useful, some less so. I value my American AAdvantage Executive Platinum, Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond, and Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum. I much valued my Avis status when I had it.
Not all status is brings meaningful benefits, however. I wouldn’t go out of my way to earn Hyatt Platinum or Hilton Silver, for instance.
There’s one status that’s below them all, that fails to deliver anything of meaningful value, and thus truly stands out in a world of overinflated metals.
It can be really hard to get seats together for flights during the holidays. Flights are full. More families are traveling together so more people are trying to sit together (compared to solo business travelers). And more and more airlines are holding back the number of seats they assign for ‘free’.
For most passengers, your ticket doesn’t come with a ‘seat’. Obviously that isn’t literally true, since safety rules require all passengers to be seated. But there’s a limited number of seats on the seat map that airlines will let passengers reserve in advance.
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 »
