At the end of last month, Delta started charging more for stopovers on international awards when booked online. For instance, if you booked a business class award from the US to Prague via Paris — and stopped over for a few days in Paris — that used to be included in the mileage cost of an award (increased from 100,000 miles to 125,000 miles for the award overall, but still included for no extra miles for the stopover). As part of their preparations for next year’s Skymiles program, which includes five award tiers and finally allows one-way awards, they rolled out a change to their pricing system early: stopovers price as an extra one-way award. Delta didn’t change the published rules of their awards (yet). So stopovers are supposed to be included, but the website…
About Gary Leff
Why Airports Can Successfully Raise Their Minimum Wage (at Least a Little)
Airlines are suing to block an increase in the minimum wage at Seattle airport to $11.22 per hour in January 2and then $13 in 2017. I won’t delve into the legal merits of the case, just into the unique circumstances of airports. Seattle itself has voted to raise its wages even higher than this, and we’ll see what effects that has, but I suspect that an airport can do it with far fewer negative consequences. An airport is a huge capital investment in an airport, that’s not easily moved or replicated. So passengers (as customers) and airlines (as employers) are captive — there are alternative options, but they’re limited. And many of the jobs don’t have simple substitutes. At a certain margin airports can probably force higher wages without corresponding reductions in employment. Surely there…
My Request for Your Requests: Tell Me What’s On Your Mind, and How I Can Help
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 what I’d love is for you to share what’s on your mind here in the comments. What’s important to you in the world of travel? What’s the biggest thing right now? What would you love to understand better? What do you want to know? What do you think I could do a better job of covering for you? What would you like to see me write about? What’s on your mind? I won’t promise up front to cover everything, though I’ll read and ponder everything that’s written here in the comments. I have several upcoming…
American’s Offer is Live to Let You Buy Status Instead of End of Year Flying
As I wrote that I expected yesterday, American is back with their offer to let you buy the difference in miles or segments you need for the elite status you’re after. US Airways will have something that should be identical coming within a few weeks. You don’t have to take an end of year mileage run. You don’t have to spend time in planes, away from family at the holidays. And you don’t have to take seats and upgrades when planes are already full. It’s not inexpensive. In fact it’s quite pricey. But for some, especially those who highly value their time, it could be just the trick. But you’ll need to play it strategically.
This Video of a Pilot’s View from a Swiss Airbus A330 Taught Me Something About The Hobby, and Myself
I’ve always said that this frequent flyer hobby attracted a varying mix of: Frequent flyers Luxury travelers Deal seekers Aviation enthusiasts ..and that these are very much different people. We often don’t understand, when we criticize a deal or interest in a particular subject, that we’re really talking past each other. Why would you spend more miles for first class? Why would you every spend money for an airline ticket? Why would you spend a weekend just looking at planes….? And yet sometimes there’s a real commonality across the hobby, something cool enough in one space to be of interest to folks starting with a different perspective. In an odd way, this Swiss video offered me reflections on the demographics, interests, and communications challenges within the frequent flyer community. Or maybe I’m just reading too…
Airline Service is Bad Because They Can’t Fire flight attendants, Another Massive Devaluation, and 500 Free Starpoints
News and notes from around the interweb: Airline service is bad because they can’t fire flight attendants. I think it’s deeper than that, here’s why flight attendants offer poor service and why airlines aren’t nice. Massive devaluation of the El Al Matmid program coming in February. That’s one I didn’t see coming. A germaphobe’s strategies for a clean hotel room (HT: Alan H.) New York JFK air traffic controllers lied for $170,000 in extra compensation EU Flyer says you can get 500 free Starwood Starpoints for updating your preferences Join the flight crew of a 737 and enjoy the ride! 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 per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free.…
British Airways Pre-Order Meals, Copying American and Rolling Out Next Week
First discussed over the summer, British Airways pre order meals are rolling out. According to Flyertalk the British Airways pre order meals program begins November 18, taking meals for flights December 1 onward, and the offering will be available in premium economy and not just business and first class. Customers can simply select their meal from 30 days before their flight departs, right up to 24 hours prior to take-off through the ‘manage my booking’ tool on ba.com. The pre-order service will initially be available on flights between Heathrow and Las Vegas, Phoenix, Rio de Janeiro, Vancouver, Dallas and Seattle, with more routes to be added in early 2015. This Works Just Like American Airlines Pre-Order We may not usually think of American Airlines as a global leader, but they remain the only U.S. airline…
American Bringing Back Year-End Purchase of Qualifying Miles Tomorrow
Over the weekend American’s “status buy back / buy up” page went from ‘offer expired’ to ‘coming soon.’ That made it a pretty good bet that American would be re-introducing a way to either buy back status you had in the previous year but didn’t requalify for, or buy elite qualifying miles to put you over the top towards elite status without taking an end of year mileage run, or extra trip just for the flown miles. Their offer will go online tomorrow. Unlike in years’ past, it will be open for purchase right away (you won’t have to wait until the year ends to take advantage of it). The American offer will be live right away. The US Airways Dividend Miles version of the offer may take a couple of weeks to go online,…
Hyatt Doesn’t Like Monetizing Their Points But Will Sell Them To You With a Bonus
Hyatt Gold Passport is offering a 30% bonus on purchased points of 5000 or more through December 10. With a 30% bonus Hyatt is selling you points at 1.85 cents apiece. I personally value them at not more than 1.5 cents apiece so this doesn’t make me a buyer (points would have to be priced at less than 1.5 cents for that). You can sometimes get more than 2 cents apiece out of your points so if you were going to pay cash for a room anyway buying points can be used to get a room discount. This is a very limiting case. And topping off an account could make sense if you were close to an award (in my experience though Hyatt will allow Diamonds to make award bookings without sufficient points in their…
Starwood: Soon You’ll Have More Upgrade Transparency, and Suite Night Award Update
Starwood Preferred Guest has been on a tear over the past three years. First they introduced a whole new suite of elite status benefits including suite night awards and free breakfast along with 24 hour check-in for top elites. Then a year later — in early 2013 — they introduced additional points-earning and elite recognition in conjunction with Delta (and then added upgradeson Delta for Starwood Platinums). And they’ve launched several initiatives in just the past two months: Starwood launched its new Emirates partnership, Your World Rewards They became the first major chain to offer keyless room entry, using your mobile phone for room access SPG Preferences — customizing room assignments — was introduced SPG Pro bringing their meetings and executive assistant programs under the same umbrella with SPG. I had a great conversation with…
