A couple of weeks ago I wrote about American closing an international upgrade loophole. American AAdvantage gives out 8 confirmed upgrades per year valid on any American flight (both domestic and international) to their 100,000 mile ‘Executive Platinum’ members. They also give out these certificates at million-mile thresholds. The rules of the certificates are that they have to be used to travel by the expiration date on the certificate. But it wasn’t actually enforced that way. If you had any certificates that would be valid into the future, you could use your earlier expiring upgrades, because the system was set up to pull the closest-to-expire upgrade certificate first. This meant that it was possible to use systemwide upgrade certificates for travel beyond their expiration date, stated rules notwithstanding. A system update, though, meant that the…
About Gary Leff
The Luggage You’re About to See Invading Airports Should Scare You
This frightens me. LuggagePros.com will sell you personalized luggage. Choose a 20″ or 24″ bag, add images, a background, and text. Here are examples: I could see someone plastering on the side: I Paid My Airline $35 And All I Got Was This Stupid Bag. LuggagePros does offer cash back through three of the major shopping portals… (HT: Joe Brancatelli) 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. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Court Smacks Down Holiday Inn Express, Timetable for India Travel Without Visa, and How to Organize Your Credit Cards
Frequent travel news of note: Malaysia Airlines — struggling even before the disappearance of MH370 — is being considered for a restructuring and privatization. I’ve certainly seen cutbacks at the Kuala Lumpur first class lounge though they do have my favorite inflight satay. An airline ticket out of Venezuela is like Gold. At first flights were just currency arbitrage but now there are far fewer international flights. Holiday Inn Express can’t claim breakfast is free anymore in the U.K. since you have to pay for a room – which isn’t free – to get breakfast. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, either. First Friday is a great day to stack those big dining for miles bonuses. How to Organize When You Have Too Many Credit Cards. India is looking at December for…
How Are You Spending Your 4th of July?
A very US-centric post but then more than 90% of my readers visit this site from the U.S. Are you traveling this Fourth of July weekend? Does the weekend carry any special significance for you? I’m home, and fortunate in the DC area to have impressive fireworks to watch and more importantly a rooftop on my building that has a straight shot out to the fireworks. We’ll have friends over for the evening, as we did last year. I love three day weekends. I don’t always like to travel on three day weekends. Everyone else is traveling, and leisure fares go up. But it’s a nice respite — if only to catch up on work because the demands from everyone else subside. I’m not sure how many of us actually connect to the underlying meaning…
American’s New 777-200 Cabin Interior Layout Revealed!
I’m really looking forward to American reconfiguring their international fleet with new business class. I love the new product on their Boeing 777-300ER and they’re finally getting started on the 767s and the 777-200s. Here’s what we’ve seen with the 777-200 seat. American’s new 777-200 retrofit revealed Details of American’s new 777-200 refurbishment revealed American’s new 767 Business Class Seat Revealed From what I’ve heard about the new 777-200 seat, it’s even better than the 777-300ER seat. It has more space. There are both forward and rear-facing seats, and from what I’ve been told the rear seats are better with substantially increased work space. Apparently one aircraft is being reconfigured now, or has just completed, but no one in the media or general public has experienced the product yet. Still, there’s enough public information to…
Here are the Deleted Scenes from the Movie Airplane!
These scenes didn’t make it into the original theatrical release, but if you spent years watching the movie on Saturday afternoon television they’re probably familiar to you. Much to my surprise, they’re apparently not on the long haul special edition DVD which supposedly includes deleted scenes. But they’re some of the most memorable from the film. So this evening I leave you with… Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? Sure glad they didn’t delete this though: First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di’s underwear… You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every…
100% Bonus on Transferred Miles: Cheap Star Alliance Premium Cabin Award Tickets
Star Alliance member Avianca is offering a 100% bonus on transferred miles in its LifeMiles program through July 17. Be careful, there are probably states where it’s illegal to give someone “the double” without their explicit consent. You can transfer up to 75,000 miles (with the recipient receiving 150,000) at a cost of $17.70 per 1000 miles transferred. That means you’re buying incremental miles generated through the promotion at 1.77 cents apiece, an increase over earlier pricing. Note that an account cannot receive more then 150,000 miles (which is reached with one 75,000 transfer) in a year. I don’t like investing in LifeMiles speculatively: Last May they tweaked some award prices without notice and increased the cash cost of cash and points awards as well. When Avianca joined Star Alliance I declared their program the…
1000 Free Miles, 40% Off Hyatt Sale, and $25 off $25 at Costco
What Others Are Writing That You Need to Know: The Only Packing Tips You Need to Know $25 off $25 at Costco Hilton makes mid-year award category changes — with no notification to members, other than on an obscure website, and with just one week’s notice Hyatt Asia Pacific 40% Off Sale this weekend only. 1000 Free Air Berlin Miles How an airport sign designer pursues their craft 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. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
10,000 Bonus American Miles for Eating Out 10 Times
There are some great bonuses for signing up for free programs that let you earn miles when you eat out at restaurants. And once signed up, there are also some current strong bonuses for eating out frequently at participating restaurants. Via Rapid Travel Chai, you need to log into your account to see what bonuses you’re being offered. The American AAdvantage-branded version of the program has a live offer of 10,000 bonus miles after 10 dines of $40 or more by August 15, 2014. There’s a United offer as well for 5000 miles after 10 dines of $40 or more by August 15 as well. Be sure to read How to Earn Miles for Dining Out at Restaurants. It includes a list of all of the dining programs, and you can check with each once…
I Need Your Help to Redesign This Site
It’s time for a refresh. I started this blog in 2002, over at blogspot before blogspot was part of Google. Randy Petersen offered to host the blog and in early 2003 it was moved to webflyer.com/blog. There have been a few tweaks since then but for the most part the look and feel of the blog has remained the same for the past six years or so. I don’t think much about aesthetics, I’ve always been far more interested in information, but I also realize that the way a website looks and feels influences how easy it is to access that information. For instance, with an increasing number of people reading via mobile the page needs to be far more mobile-friendly. Nonetheless, my computer knowledge is frozen in time from decades ago. Once upon a…
