Through February 17 United is offering up to a 40% discount on purchased miles. Buy 15,000 to 39,000 miles and receive a 25% discount, or buy 40,000 miles or more for a 40% discount. United now allows the purchase of up to 150,000 miles per year. But would you want to at this price? You’ll still pay 2.26 cents per mile all-in with the 40% discount (requiring you to buy at least 40,000 miles). And while that would have been a little high — I’d not really have wanted to buy miles above 2 cents, though this is as low a price as United directly sells miles for — in a post-devaluation MileagePlus world I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where I’d be buying 40,000 United miles, enough to get the price down…
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Lufthansa First Class Award Space Wide Open from Montreal (and Vancouver)
Lufthansa generally does not release first class award seats more than 14 days prior to travel to members of its partner frequent flyer programs like United MileagePlus, Air Canada’s Aeroplan, or Avianca’s LifeMiles. That makes it really hard to book. Most people make their award travel plans more than two weeks out, and even if you’re booking close to departure there’s also the return flight to worry about. As a result, Lufthansa first class awards don’t really exist for most people anymore. Which is a shame, because Lufthansa has tons of flights from so many North American cities. And they offer one of the better products across the Atlantic, especially on the ground in Germany (to read about the incredible Lufthansa First Class Terminal in Frankfurt, including photos and menus, see here, here, and here).…
Earn Miles for Paying Your Mortgage and Other Bills (and Liquidate Gift Cards for Free)
You should read this blog post by ‘Frequent Miler’. He describes Evolve Money, a new service that will let you pay bills (for free) with prepaid debit cards and gift cards. It’s a great way to liquidate those. They don’t publish a comprehensive list of the bills they let you pay. This service is a loss leader for them so they don’t just let you add your own merchants to pay. But you may be able to pay your mortgage, even, with a mileage-earning debit card (like the Suntrust Delta debit card) or liquidate a MyVanilla Debit card (that you funded with Vanilla Reloads) or even MasterCard/Visa gift cards that you purchased with a credit card at a store where you earned bonus miles. You’re allowed $1000 per day in bill payments currently. As they…
Frequent Traveler University Hotel Sold Out, Where to Stay?
On Friday I mentioned that the upcoming Frequent Traveler University event in Seattle (April 25-27) was nearly 90% sold out. Now, it seems, it’s 95% sold out and not only is the hotel room block full, the host hotel — the Seattle Airport Marriott — is completely sold out. There are still about 25 tickets available for the event as of this writing. So if you want to attend the event and pick up one of the last remaining tickets, where should you stay? My suggestion is the Hilton Seattle Airport. According to Google it’s 0.3 miles, a 6 minute walk, between the two hotels. The current cancellable rate there is $129, and both points and cash and points rates are available. Cash and points is 12,000 points plus $50. There may be additional discounted…
Discounted Inflight Internet, When Buses are Good, and Improving US Airways (Bits ‘n Pieces for February 9, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: When I discussed the challenges of American and US Airways combining operations at LAX, I expressed hope for the least bad option of offering busing inside security between American’s terminal 4 and the much smaller US Airways operation that’s moving to terminal 3. It turns out that the move and shuttle are supposed to start February 12. I’d prefer greater frequency, but the shuttle will run every 20 minutes. US Airways will be extra legroom Main Cabin Extra seating to its coach cabins. Gogo inflight internet is offering 15% off an American/US Airways monthly unlimited pass. Apparently the $39.95 price will be going up March 15, but existing monthly customers will be grandfathered at the old rates. Etihad Guest is offering status matches up to their Gold (mid-tier)…
The Sheraton Macao Accused Me of Stealing Coffee (And Showed Up to Investigate)!
Several days ago I woke up a little after 6am at the Sheraton Macao Hotel (full trip report to come) and decided to order up coffee from room service. They explained that I could tell them how many cups of coffee I wanted, and that’s what they would fill the pot to. So I asked for 6 cups. A short while later room service delivered the coffee. It seemed awfully light for 6 cups. I poured two cups, and the pot felt nearly empty. So I called back down to in room dining. The same person I ordered from answered, and she remembered that I had ordered 6 cups. She said she’d send up 4 more cups right away. So at 6:30am there’s a knock on the door, and the man who delivered the first…
Your Air Traffic Controller May No Longer Be Required to Have a High School Diploma
The FAA has considered itself to be highly budget-constrained for years, and in 1997 found a way to reduce its training costs — encouraging college air traffic control programs so that they could hire new controllers that were effectively already trained. There’s a wait list of over 3000 air traffic control college graduates in line for FAA positions. The FAA is killing off that wait list and, according to transportation researcher Bob Poole in the February Air Traffic Control Reform News will be announcing plans to ‘hire off the street’ with a requirement only of a high school degree or three years of work experience. This is apparently a move driven by the FAA’s HR department to improve diversity. But it would mean less qualified candidates, it would mean higher training costs, and it would…
Air New Zealand’s New Swimsuit Model Safety Video
Air New Zealand debuts a new safety video on February 11, marking 40 years of flying to the Cook Islands. And it’s a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit safety video, “Safety in Paradise” Here’s ‘the making of,’ in anticipation of the safety video’s release: (HT: Point Me to the Plane) You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Fantastic First Class Award Availability on TAM to Brazil (Bookable With Points from United, American, US Airways, Amex, Chase)
Brazilian airline TAM has pretty much never released first class award space, occasionally I saw seats when they first joined Star Alliance but more or less not at all since then. So it was a surprise to see reports that the floodgates had opened. First class seats are now (either by change in policy or mistake, and I cannot say how long this circumstance will last) being released in droves. They fly from New York JFK, Miami, Orlando and Mexico City to São Paulo. They also fly from New York JFK and Miami to Rio de Janeiro, but that’s with a 767 that doesn’t offer first class. Their 777s offer a new first class product with just one row of 4 seats. Some flights are on A330s with an older first class product. Here’s current…
Spirit Airlines Wants You to Pay More for Your Ticket on the Day of Departure if the Price of Fuel Rises
I love that Spirit Airlines exists. They serve a different market niche than I find myself in. Air Asia uses the slogan, “Now Everyone Can Fly!” and Spirit is very much in that same mold. I don’t like their miles. I love their advertising. But at root I can appreciate that if their route network serves you and you can navigate their myriad fees, you can often fly cheaper than any other alternative. And they do seem really transparent about their fees if you book on their website. It’s bookings through third party sites that can lead to confusion, where folks may not know what they’re getting into. That’s the key, and don’t book Spirit if you don’t want the product Spirit offers. The AP’s Scott Mayerowitz spends time playing board games in the home…
