News and notes from around the interweb: 4 Ways to Earn Miles You Probably Don’t Know (from me, over at USA Today Travel A searchable list of hotel wifi speed and reliability. An increasingly important factor on which to base your lodging decisions. (HT: Rapid Travel Chai As I’ve written several times in recent months to expect, Amex is losing the JetBlue co-brand in favor of Barclays Scott Mayerowitz profiles the new JetBlue CEO who is making the airline much more like the legacy airlines it used to differentiate itself from. I need to get better with video. A Beginner’s Guide to Using a GoPro Camera on Vacation
About Gary Leff
Why Prices Have Been High and Awards Tough to Get — And Why That Will Change
Yesterday joe said, Is domestic capacity ever going to increase, even a little? The economy is relatively strong, certainly compared to the past several years. More people are flying. But the number of seats in the air hasn’t kept pace. This means planes are full. That drives up the price of tickets And makes award tickets harder to come by. “Capacity discipline” began with the Great Recession. With airlines losing billions of dollars they faced extreme crisis. Passenger counts were shrinking and so airlines managed to shrink seats. At the same time there were fewer passengers, their costs were higher, fuel was at historic highs and that represents one of the three major expenses of an airline (aircraft and labor being the two other largest). Airlines haven’t made money historically over long periods of time.…
Which Airlines Are the Worst to Deal With By Phone?
When American Express runs a transfer bonus for moving points to Aeromexico, and folks start paying attention to their award charts (which can be generous even without the bonus) I shrug. The last thing I want is Aeromexico points, since that means I’m going to have to deal with the fine folks at Aeromexico Club Premier. You can’t book partner awards online. That means talking to their call center. Thinking about what call centers are the worst, it’s actually tough because each airline with frustrating call centers is frustrating in different ways. They’re just tough to compare. Delta agents tend not to know who their partners are, and I’ve had them try to book awards into the wrong class. (I’ve also been told “Vietnam Airlines isn’t a member of Skyteam. Only Air France is a…
What Are The Biggest Questions in Travel? Your Sunday Open Thread.
This is a Sunday Open Thread The comments are yours to do with as you wish. Share whatever is on your mind. How are you feeling about your miles and points balances? What (anything) are you wondering, or what would you like to know? I often write posts answering questions from these threads. What’s bothering you? Most of the time what I write on a given day is really just ‘whatever pops into my head’ although sometimes the very best pieces are those prompted by reader questions. You’re always welcome to email me of course, but I’d love for you to share what’s on your mind here. As always, I won’t promise up front to cover everything, though I’ll read and ponder everything that’s written here in the comments. So ask questions, or just spout…
Scorpions on a Plane and How to Get an Expedia Make-Good
News and notes from around the interweb: It looks like people are calling and getting $200 coupons from Expedia as compensation for Expedia fabricating terms and conditions as an excuse for cancelling last week’s really great hotel deal. The fake United CEO Jeff Smisek tweets about the pending launch of the airline’s new website: Woman bitten by scorpion on Alaska Airlines Los Angeles – Portland flight. FAA unveils new proposed rules for commercial drones Visa is going to want you to share your phone’s geolocation, so it can better determine fraudulent charges.
Etihad’s Brand New Boeing 787 First Class Cabin Report
Lost in the hoopla over the new 3-room Etihad Residence onboard their new Airbus A380 (I covered the first trip report back in December) is that Etihad has also added the Boeing 787 to its fleet, with a new first class. What’s more, unlike the Residence you can use partner airline miles to redeem for it and unlike the First Apartments onboard the A380 they’ll be flying the aircraft from the United States. Washington-Dulles service starts in mid-March. So while the ‘old’ first class onboard Airbus A340 and Boeing 777 aircraft is familiar… Not much attention has been paid to Etihad’s ‘other’ new product onboard the 787. There’s now, however, a video trip report by Sam Chui on Youtube that’s worth a look. Up next: Etihad’s 9-bedroom Villa on Select Aircraft
Free Hotel Day Rooms Announced!
Last week a new app and website launched to let you easily find, compare, and book hotel day use rooms. Hotels By Day solves the real problem of how difficult it is to find and reserve these. They sponsored a giveaway of 5 day rooms, three drawn at random from comments on the blog and 2 selected from social media. I asked What would you use a hotel day room for? And I drew 3 winning comments using random.org: And I selected 2 winning tweets: Congratulations, each of you, on the free day use room you’ve won through HotelsByDay.com!
Questions I Haven’t Seen Asked About Delta Destroying Its Mileage Program
I asked on Twitter: Delta says their spiffy new award calendars are so good you don’t need an award chart anymore — even though having a functional award calendar in no way precludes showing an award chart as American AAdvantage and United MileagePlus both do… and even though many of Delta’s partners aren’t available online through their award calendar. But there’s no such thing as an upgrade calendar at Delta.com. Why did they get rid of the upgrade chart? How much does an upgrade cost? How would we know how many miles to save if we wanted to upgrade a future trip we haven’t booked yet? If they’re going revenue-based, how will that work for upgrades — do we have to pay the difference in miles between the fare paid and the current business fare?…
American Discounted Off Peak Awards Now Let You Book US Airways Flights
American’s award chart for flying its own aircraft (as opposed to oneworld and other partners) includes discounted, off-peak economy awards. Reduced mileage awards are also available to: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela at 15,000 miles each way (instead of 17,500) Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay at 20,000 miles each way (instead of 30,000) Europe at 20,000 miles each way (instead of 30,000) Japan, Korea at 25,000 miles each way (instead of 32,500) Starting today, it seems, US Airways flights can be included and priced at off-peak pricing on the AA.com website. Here are the dates eligible for this discount for each region: Of course US Airways does not fly to Asia and their South/Central America destinations are limited compared to American’s route network. Let’s look at Charlotte – Mexico City, starting September 7 economy awards…
Congressman Who Used to Post on Flyertalk: It was a Threesome, But Not With a Lobbyist…
The Congressman whose posts on Flyertalk are being used in a sexual harassment suit against him by a former staffer has filed his formal response to the suit. The frequent flyer forum postings were certainly interesting musings, sometimes lascivious boastings that were probably not believed by most at the time they were posted (and before he was a Republican Member of Congress from Texas). In the Congressman’s legal response, he: Admits he finds redheads attractive, though claims staff didn’t have to be “on redhead patrol” to keep him out of trouble as the suit alleges. Admits telling staff about being propositioned for a threesome, but denies the woman suggesting it was a lobbyist. Denies having sexual fantasies and dreams about the former staffer that is suing him. The entire pleading makes for an interesting read…
