News and notes from around the interweb: The abandoned 5-star resort of North Cyprus Propeller slices through plane window, hits woman in the head. A woman, nervous about flying Malaysia Airlines, claims to have been sexually assaulted instead of comforted. (HT: Alan H.) Something is fishy about this story. Not sure how I didn’t know this, but American Airlines is pursuing a beacon technology project at Dallas that will tell you if you’re lost and where you need to be via their mobile app LAX wants 4 new fire trucks. Apparently that costs $3.8 million. Which is a bargain compared to what Boston Logan pays — $1.3 million per truck. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail…
About Gary Leff
Emirates: the Clear Winner to and from Australia
Qantas, a member of the oneworld alliance, has an odd set of partnerships. Its closest partner is Emirates, which isn’t a member of oneworld. One of Emirates’ main rivals is Qatar, which is in oneworld. Qantas dumped British Airways, also a member of the oneworld alliance, in favor of its Emirates deal. Here’s the thing: while the Qantas-British Airways deal didn’t make a lot of sense… flying passengers between Europe and Australia via London isn’t attractive for most Europeans outside the U.K. or for most Aussies heading places other than the U.K. because of the extra flying on what’s already a tortuously long route… but also because of Heathrow. An interchange in the Middle East does make sense, or even Eastern or potentially Southern Europe. But Emirates would seem to get the far better end…
What Happens to Existing Reservations When Your Status Goes Up or Down?
One of the classic data challenges with frequent flyer programs is: what happens when your elite status changes? Historically you would make a reservation, and your status would attach to it. When I dropped from Starwood Platinum status down to Gold at the beginning of 2010, my Platinum status still stayed in my reservations I had already booked. When I first went from United Premier to Premier Executive about 13 years ago, United didn’t see that I had a higher status with those initial reservations that I had made prior to my status increasing. But as IT systems have become better, this has begun to catch up. Still, not all programs have improved here, and it’s worth knowing about yours specifically. If your status is going up, do you need to proactively have something done…
100% Bonus on Citibank Transfers to Hilton HHonors Through January 8
Over the summer Citibank drastically improved the value proposition of its Thank You Points program, making the points transferable to a variety of airline mileage programs. Two years ago they introduced the program’s first transfer partner — Hilton. But transfers to Hilton are normally a really poor value at 1:1. Doubly so because Hilton massively devalued their program a mere month later. Current transfer partners are: Air France-KLM Asia Miles Etihad Airways Guest EVA Air Infinity MileageLands Garuda Indonesia GarudaMiles Hilton HHonorsTM Malaysia Airlines Enrich Qatar Airways Privilege Club Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus The Air France KLM Flying Blue program is useful, and so is Asia Miles… their distance-based chart though gets expensive for long distance premium cabin flying. Singapore Airlines is my favorite option here — for cheap US domestic…
Real World Travel Tip: Take Care of Your Airline Club Agents, and They Will Really Take Care Of You
When I was young my family had a big gathering each year at the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden. I remember being quite young, maybe 5 or 6, and spilling something on my shirt at brunch beforehand, so had to make a stop at a department store on the way to the event for a replacement. And… I spilled food on that shirt later in the day, too. My great uncle bought me a t-shirt at a concession stand to wear. It was a young boy sharing his ice cream cone with his horse. The horse was licking the ice cream. And the caption read, “treat your pony as you would like to be treated yourself.” I still have that shirt, although it doesn’t fit anymore. But it was my lesson very young…
An Update to Cookie-Gate: Another Change to the Beloved Cookie!
A couple of weeks ago I shared my rant about the American Airlines cookie. First world problems, right? If a cookie is going to be what they serve as dessert even on dinner flights, then I’d hope they would make it the cookie that actually used to be gooey, moist, and delicious … There even used to be a choice of cookies. But they replaced my American Airlines cookie with an inedible piece of cake shaped like a (msaller) cookie. At first I accepted the cookie, took a bite, and stopped. After a few times realizing it wasn’t the vagaries of a particular flight, batch, or flight attendant I simply started declining the cookie. Last night flying American I finished my meal and the flight attendant brought out what I assumed would be cookies. Instead…
Delta Massively Improves Award Search Calendar: Shows Partner Availability and Mileage Cost By Day!
Just after writing that there are five good reasons to fly Delta over other US airlines, along comes the elimination of one reason not to focus on Delta’s Skymiles program. Their award search calendar has been very, very broken — it showed only availability on Delta flights, and only whether there were seats at the high, medium, and low level… often not corresponding at all with actual availability even on Delta’s aircraft. (It might well show a ‘high’ availability only day, even though there was low saver award space on a partner that was bookable on the website.. but you had to click through to see it.) Delta took one step towards transparency last week telling you that you’d have to call up reservations if you wanted to book a stopover on an international award…
Why Nearly All Airline Advertising Fails
British Airways has a new ‘Experience the Welcome of Home’ video, telling the story of an Indian woman living in Toronto. She apparently flies British Airways to visit her family in India. Great story, we all have places to go, and it’s well-produced. But I have no idea after watching it why it’s better to transit Heathrow on BA enroute to India than to fly any of their competitors? The ad gives me no reason whatsoever to choose British Airways, and I’m pretty sure that would be true even if I were an Indian woman living in Canada. There are, best as I can tell, five types of airline ads: Those that sell flying (airlines used to do this for a reason – people were scared or flying was new – and now seem to…
Five Good Reasons to Choose Delta
I give Delta a hard time frequently on this blog. I’m pretty transparent about my travel patterns and choices, and how I go about making those. Delta hasn’t been my choice and I think I’m justified in that. I’m not going to rehash all of the reasons here. Instead I thought I’d take a contrary position for this post, and offer up five good reasons why someone would want to choose Delta and/or Skymiles as their primary air carrier/loyalty program. See what you think, and whether any of these reasons apply to you. You’re a super frequent flyer. American and United both have top tiers at the 100,000 mile level. Delta, like United, requires minimum spend for elite status. If you’re flying more than 125,000 miles a year and spending more than $15,000 on airline…
Here’s Something Travel Providers Don’t Seem to Understand: Coffee Fuels Business Travel
I’ve written before about the monumental importance of hotel coffee. A business hotel needs to be able to provide coffee 24 hours a day. There are lots of ways to do this: in-room machines, club lounge, lobby, and even room service. The coffee needs to be drinkable, and that includes making it possible to get the real milk or creamer of your choice. That’s just basics. Hotels without in-room coffee, and a lobby option, and that do not offer 24 hour room service are a complete and total #fail. Claiming to be an upscale or full service property, and aiming at business travelers, they’re completely missing the point. I’ve been to too many properties where there’s no coffee before 6 a.m. That’s great, until: You’re coming in from another time zone, and getting up at…
