The Atlantic runs a piece that argues the real allure of a service like Silver — a car rental company that offers uniformly good cars, filled with features, and all-in pricing — is avoiding other people and not having to see Ford Tauruses. I disagree. Luxury services nearly always require seeing and being seen by others if they’re about making the customer feel better than someone else. It’s a novel theory indeed that Silvercar is selling the luxury of not interacting. That’s especially strange when Silvercar offers more service from people. In Austin at least you get picked up by a person and driven to their off-airport location. You are taken in a car, for sure, but you are driven rather than walking directly across to your car there where the major agencies are located.…
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2000 Bonus Miles for Each of Your Kids, Last Call for $20, and Award Shenanigans With United and Air China (Bits ‘n Pieces for April 24, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Enter my giveaway for lounge passes and miles Possible new routing rules for United awards between the US and North Asia Tomorrow is the last day for Uber referral links to offer a $20 first-time user credit. After that the first time incentive drops to $10 (but look out for better offers). (“Why Taxis Suck and What You Can Do About It“) Turkish Miles&Smiles will give your kids 1000 bonus miles for signup and 1000 more with first flight within 90 days (including partner flights on United). You can sign up each of your kids, and then combine the points. Are Air China employees cancelling United award tickets on their airline, to help other travelers clear upgrades for a fee? You can join the 40,000+ people who see…
Five Times When Consumers Won Against Frequent Flyer Program Changes
Yesterday I wrote about frequent flyer programs rolling back unpopular changes they’ve made to their programs. One reaction was that the example I gave was atypical. I focused on a 2008 announced change by American to begin charging a $5 fee to redeem miles online. Here’s one comment, That’s a valid point but this is just one example from 6 years ago. Pretty thin argument IMHO. It seemed relevant to me, but as far as American’s changes go it was a change in the past made by American and contemporaneously with the last major change they made to their overall award pricing. But more importantly it was just an interesting case study in how a frequent flyer program can learn while still attempting to save face. There are plenty more examples of where consumer outrage…
Frequent Flyer Programs Do Roll Back Changes — But Don’t Like to Admit They’re Wrong
At this morning’s Global Flight conference, Randy Petersen reminded the audience of a change that American AAdvantage put forward in May 2008 to begin imposing a $5 for booking award tickets on its website. This announcement — which was to go into effect the following month — set off a firestorm. The old argument was that reservation centers were more costly than web, an airline wanted to (a) push its reservations online to lower costs and (b) charge a fee for the ‘extra’ service of having a person handle the booking. This proposed change turned that on its head. And it’s worse than Spirit imposing a fee for buying paid airfare everywhere except the airport ticket counter… because it actually served as a tax on those who had accumulated miles in a past, a fee…
There’s a Real Future For Low Spend Frequent Flyers In This Game Moving Forward
I moderated an interesting panel this morning at a loyalty industry conference. We had a technology provider talking about the different ways to engage customers well, a survey specialist talking about who loyalty members are and where to find them (programs are often surprised at how many programs their own members belong to, it’s easy to think members pay attention to all of your messaging rather than being busy and inundated with multiple messages) and loyalty executives from a hotel chain and an airline. While taking questions from the audience, someone from a credit card issuer asked the panel about Delta’s move towards a more revenue-based program (next year miles will be earned based on the cost of a ticket rather than distance flown, and already earning elite status requires a minimum amount of spend…
Comment Here for a Chance to Win American AAdvantage Miles and Lounge Passes!
A couple of weeks ago I wrote that American Express Platinum cards would still get you into US Airways and American lounges through the end of April. Platinum cards lost access a month ago. Citibank is now the sole issuer of cards that offer lounge access with the new American Airlines. And they’ve got – by far – the best credit card offer in the market with a 100,000 mile signup bonus for their Executive Card which bundles American and US Airways lounge access. This month they’re ready to tell you about this card in American and US Airways lounges. If you come in with a card that used to come with lounge access, they’ll give you a club pass (valid for a year). They’ve also given me plenty of miles and club passes to…
Act Fast: $600 Off Airfare to Israel
Norwegian booking site Wideroe has dirt cheap flights from many US cities to Tel Aviv, Israel. This is available from many cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Washington DC. When you go to their site, switch the currency to US dollars. I’m seeing prices between $499 and $750 roundtrip for travel on US Airways, depending on travel dates and the US city you start in. Even at their most expensive, I’m seeing real savings. For instance, Los Angeles – Tel Aviv roundtrip on US Airways in July appears to be running ~ $1700… but on Wideroe closer to $1000. Here’s the month of July for a 5-7 day trip: But here’s if you price such a trip at Wideroe. What’s going on is that Wideroe appears to be dropping the fuel surcharge out of…
The Consumer Advocate Who Wants Your Frequent Flyer Program to Get Worse
When Christopher Elliott loves your loyalty program, you know you’re doing something wrong. He loves Delta’s planned changes for 2015 to go revenue-based, even though he doesn’t seem to get that they take what he hates about loyalty programs in an even more extreme direction. The way I square this circle is that I actually think he: Hates the people who like and benefit from loyalty programs. Finds that writing provocative things generates traffic and kudos from his employers, even when those things are utterly non-sensical. The thrust of the over complaint of ‘Elliott-the-Populist’ is that frequent flyer programs reward some people and not other people. And those who benefit from the program reap unjustified benefits. To Elliott, it doesn’t matter that those are the most profitable customers that airline has. Those benefits must come…
American Made Another Change to Their Program On April 8th That They Didn’t Tell You About
Two weeks ago American AAdvantage made several changes to its program: Rolling out a new three-tier pricing model for AAnytime awards (paying extra miles when regular award seats aren’t available). Eliminating free stopovers on international awards at the North American gateway city Eliminating distance-based oneworld explorer awards Increasing the telephone booking fee from $25 to $35 (they still do not waive this fee for awards that cannot be booked online, and most airline partner awards cannot be). That’s stuff we knew about, or at least that American publicly acknowledged. There wasn’t a single web page with the changes that they made, and the email they sent out didn’t detail them either. It turns out though that there was another change made at the same time that’s gone mostly unreported on — and as far as…
Earn Miles for Online Searches, Unload Your Gift Cards for Free, and Earn Double Miles While You Save (Bits ‘n Pieces for April 22, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: You can load Amex Serve cards at Walmart using Visa/MasterCard gift cards. If you’re a US Airways elite, then today is the last day to use your miles to confirm a domestic upgrade without a co-pay. Judging from the traffic logs on this blog, no one uses Bing for search. So Microsoft has to pay you to. In fact Bing will let you earn frequent flyer miles for searches. You just need to give up your Google addiction. It’s not a lot of miles, but you can keep an account active.. Save 5% – 10% off Emirates tickets and earn double miles crediting those flights to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. (HT: @travelwithgrant) Which Hotel Chains Are Still Charging for Wifi and Why? You can join the 40,000+ people…
