Reader Jered asked, Why don’t airlines open all remaining international premium cabin seats for awards for day-of travel? Surely getting something for them is better than having them go empty? Here’s Jered’s question — if a seat is going to go empty, an airline is getting literally nothing in exchange for that seat. They get something, whether reduction in liability (and thus recognition in revenue) for their frequent flyer program and a transfer of funds from the program to the airline… or cash for the seat from an airline partner. So why would an airline let a seat take off empty, rather than reaping an incremental revenue gain for it? Now, many airlines do follow this strategy. They make seats they expect to go unsold available as awards. Some seats may be opened early on…
About Gary Leff
How Do Airlines Compensate Each Other For Taking Passengers During Irregular Operations?
Reader Jered wants to know: How do airline awards work when redeeming points for travel on a partners? How much if anything do they compensate each other for award seats? More broadly, “when I am accommodated on another airline, how does that work behind the scenes?” e.g. “[D]istressed United passengers on the BOS-ICN mistake fare having boarding passes for re-accommodation on Singapore Airlines being torn up by the Singapore gate agent because the passengers weren’t ‘worth enough’ so clearly some money is changing hands…” Accounting for award tickets varies when you’re using an airline’s miles to fly on their own flights. Generallhy speaking the actualy cost of that ticket to the mileage program may be close to the marginal cost of carrying an additional passenger, such as $50 for a domestic flight. It’s a little…
6 Easy Ways to Get More Enjoyment from Your Trips
I’ve shared this before but it really bears repeating — the best advice comes down to: spend time planning vacations, take more trips, work while you’re gone, and experience new and unusual things. Planning vacations contributes more to your happiness than actually taking them. You may need to go on vacation to justify all of the planning time. You get all of your relaxation benefits on the trip itself, but don’t expect to be relaxed when you get back. We quickly snap back into the stress of daily life, sans any benefit from the vacation. Go in knowing you’ll enjoy yourself while you’re gone, but don’t set the bar for “needing a vacation” that you expect to be reset, relaxed, and in a different place with work upon your return. Being on vacation can actually…
How to Ensure You and Your Family Sit Together During the Busy Holiday Travel Season
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 unless the passenger: is paying the exorbitant full fare is an ‘elite’ frequent flyer doing 25,000 miles or more a year (usually) on the airline pays a fee for a ‘premium’ seat which sometimes just means an aisle or being closer…
6 Things That Will Make Your Thanksgiving Travel Easier
If you’re traveling this week in the U.S., best of luck to you! Here is my nickel’s worth of free advice as you prepare to depart along with 40 million other Americans for the Thanksgiving holiday (fortunately they won’t all be flying). Give yourself lots of time. Wednesday and Sunday are amateur days. Everyone else will slow you down. Flights instead of being 80% full are 100% full (that alone would be a 25% increase in people) and frequent travelers are replaced by occasional travelers who don’t know the drill as well. Be patient, across the whole process — getting to the airport, parking (if that’s your thing), clearing security, boarding while other passengers try to sneak bags into the overhead bins on that wouldn’t fit in a shipping container. Avoid checking bags. That’s counterintuitive…
Fuel Dumps Explained
Reader doug asked about “fuel dumping on award and paid tickets[.]” What he’s asking about is the idea of adding a flight segment to a ticket that you do not intend to fly but that has the effect of reducing the fuel surcharges you have to pay for the ticket. This is soemthing airlines doubly frown upon: Ticketing a flight you don’t intend to fly “Tricking” their pricing systems into charging you less. Nonetheless, it is a technique that generates savings. And I explain how it works with both paid and award tickets in some detail in these posts: “Fuel Dumps” Explained Here’s how ‘fuel dumps’ work on award tickets, too You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one…
Korean Air Expected To Return As a Chase Points Transfer Partner
I reached out to Chase about the removal of Korean Air Skypass as a points-transfer partner. For many members, Korean Air is too obscure to matter. For me, it’s essential. It’s one of my favorite transfer partners, and something that sets Chase apart from key competitors. First class awards have been so darned easy to get. There are real sweet spots in their Skyteam award chart They offer cheap awards to Hawaii It’s hard to get a lot of detail over the weekend, but I reached out to Chase and did get a quick note that suggests Korean Air will return as a points transfer partner, although I wasn’t yet given a timeframe. Chase is not currently processing point transfers to the Korean Air SKYPASS program. We will update the Ultimate Rewards Web site when…
How Many Elite Members Do Frequent Flyer Programs Have?
Reader Jered asked how many elite members of United’s MileagePlus program there are. And the easy answer is I do not know precisely, these are closely-guarded numbers. But I do have some “bigger than a breadbox” sorts of estimates. In other words, I have a general idea of the size of the elite pool, within a few hundred thousand members. It should give an idea of roughly what percentage of total members are elites, and how the relative size of each elite tier looks compared to each other. I do have some knowledge of old numbers, but these are from when programs were much smaller — before United and Continental merged, before Delta and Northwest merged, before American and US Airways merged. Roughly speaking, the combined American-US Airways program is about 100 million members. United’s…
United’s Sucker Bet: If You’re Hungry Enough, You’ll Waste Your Miles
Conde’ Nast‘s Barbara Peterson looks at the United MileagePlus option to redeem miles for meals at their Newark hub. As part of an impressive re-do launching for United’s terminal at Newark, there are several top-end eateries going in. One feature that’s being played up is the ability to use miles for food as an instant redemption. Peterson suggests that this could make sense if your miles have become so devalued that they are now less than a penny. Roughly speaking it looks like the miles-for-food option gives you about 7/10ths of a penny per point. Which is pathetic. It’s a valuation at which MileagePlus ought to be ashamed of themselves. It’s as though they are telling members that their miles have been devalued to that point. As much of a beating as United’s miles have…
Never Believe an Airline When Its Lips Move
Airlines are like politicians. If the claims they make are non-binding (and very few are binding, even more so in a post-Ginsberg world), and they want something — a merger, or just customers to swallow a change without defecting and pulling business — there’s little incentive to keep their word. This is strange in a way. We expect that airline customers are repeat customers, especially an airline’s most valuable customers. So in this iterative game it would make sense to maintain trust. But consumers overall buy on price, have a low opinion of airlines generously, and repeat customers behave like Charlie Brown to the airlines’ Lucy who keep putting the football in front of us, in a triumph of hope over experience. The latest example comes from Delta, which committed in its merger with Northwest…
