Jun 24 2015

After Hilton’s dramatic award chart gutting of nearly two years ago, there weren’t huge changes again this year.

Hilton decided to change the way they made changes to how they re-assign hotels to award categories. Instead of an annual change to tons of hotels (a schedule they really weren’t wedded to in the past anyway) they decided they would make rolling changes throughout the year. And instead of informing all members proactively of these changes, they would just post them on a web page in the name of ‘transparency’.

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Jun 23 2015

Lufthansa first class award space is almost never made available to partner airlines more than 14 days in advance of travel. If you want to book Lufthansa first class you either need to be using Lufthansa’s own Miles & More points (they’re a transfer partner of Starwood Preferred Guest) or waiting until close-in to departure and changing flights.

However…

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Jun 23 2015

A reader asks, “Any idea when AA will allow award booking on their planned flights to Australia? Do you think they are likely to offer more than 2 C award seats per flight? (I’m trying to figure out how to get a family of 4 to Australia with AA miles in business class, a dad you know, Quantas never releases more than 2 seats per flight)”

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Jun 23 2015

Airlines are interested in poaching the best customers of their competitors.

Frequent flyers sometimes want to switch airlines, but it’s tough — you’ve flown enough to earn perks, you don’t want to give up those perks and start from scratch with another carrier.

So many airlines will offer a status match: show that you have elite status on a competitor airline, and they’re willing to give you similar status to make it easier to move your business over.

There’s news, even, of a new alliance carrier offering a formal status match program. So it’s worth understanding what you can easily get…

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Jun 23 2015

Via the indispensable Magic of Miles, the Carmelo Resort & Spa in Uruguay has become a Hyatt.

The hotel is set in a forest overlooking the river. It’s a former Four Seasons which has only 44 rooms. The base room is 970 square feet. It’s a category 5 redemption (20,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points per night, you can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt).

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Jun 23 2015

A collection of the most interesting links you’ll want to see, many you’ll want to click. And two videos you’ll want to watch.

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Jun 22 2015

This afternoon I popped over to Dallas to learn about upcoming catering changes at American. I was able to try some of the new entrees, that appear to be improvements, and most importantly signal that the airline is investing in product which has been an ongoing open question for the US Airways-American merger.

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Jun 22 2015

Here’s your chance. I will my best to cover your questions. Please leave requests in the comments section.

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Jun 22 2015

I’m giving away the EVA Air Hello Kitty service swag I received at the Taipei-Houston launch event last week. All you have to do to enter to win is leave a comment.

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Jun 22 2015

EVA Air ran Hello Kitty flights from 2005 through 2008, and brought them back in 2011. They’ve been running Hello Kitty flights ever since, and current Hello Kitty routes have some of the highest load factors in their system (around 85%). Of course they make smart business decisions about the routes, and while the Hello Kitty livery draws some passengers it’s clearly planes they’re filling and drawing enough revenue that justifies the expense of the onboard product. For instance, one of their Los Angeles flights had been operated with Hello Kitty aircraft but no longer is. The Hello Kitty Fleet Here are the current Hello Kitty routes: There are a total of (7) Hello Kitty planes currently: (3) Airbus A330-300s (2) Airbus A330-200s (2) Boeing 777-300ERs Which Hello Kitty Planes Fly Where? Hello Kitty Shining…

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