American Express is offering a 35% bonus on transfers from Membership Rewards to the Air France KLM Flying Blue program between September 10 and September 16, that’s one week only. The page to transfer to Flying Blue now reflects the transfer bonus. For flights in coach or business class departing the U.S., Delta is usually the better American Express transfer partner. Flying Blue adds fuel surcharges to awards whenever paid tickets would include those charges, while Delta doesn’t on most though not all partners (but does add an international origination surcharge, so if you’re beginning your trip in Europe Delta may not turn out to be the better option). This 35% bonus may compensate for the fuel surcharges that the Flying Blue program adds on to awards. There are other advantages as well. Delta frequently…
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Bits ‘n Pieces for September 9, 2012
News and Notable Items from Around the Interweb: Lucky points out that Delta isn’t currently adding fuel surcharges to awards on Virgin Australia. This space is even bookable on the Delta website, and offers the best availability in business class Down Under. Getting US domestic connections to Los Angeles to start the trip can always be a challenge with Delta, but remember that flying Alaska Airliens is also an option for some. The best availability on Virgin Australia, especially during peak travel periods, is flying Los Angeles – Brisbane. A great opportunity to grab business class awards to Australia for about $780 less out of pocket than usual. Congratulations to Award Wallet on 100,000 members. Award Wallet is the tool I use to track my own miles, it’s free to sign up an lets you…
Milepoint Premium: Just a Few Hundred Packages Left
Yesterday I was talking with Randy Petersen and he mentioned that there are fewer than 500 Milepoint Premium membership packages left. The limitation is based on what the frequent flyer community has been able to secure from its partners, a limited number of free or deeply discounted benefits. I’ve mentioned Milepoint Premium membership in the past, here, here, and here. Milepoint premium was rolled out on a test basis, I blogged it and it turned out to be hugely popular. It was brought back, sold out, and then more packages were made available. But I’m told that the $59 annual package which includes United miles, Hyatt status (or Hyatt points for those who already have Hyatt status), and National Car Rental status is only going to be available as long as these few remaining packages…
United Takes Away Customer Ability to View Upgrade Inventory Online (Website ‘Expert Mode’)
United announced yesterday that they were removing the ability to see the seats availability by fare class on their website (so-called “expert mode”). They explained their reasoning: [F]or many customers who are not as familiar with the ins and outs of fare structures, there was often room for this information to be misinterpreted. It also left the door open for undesired exposure that allowed automated scripts to scrape and re-display information in ways for which it was not intended. In other words, (1) too much information in the hands of customers isn’t something they wanted to deal with, and (2) they didn’t like that other websites and tools accessed this information. FlightStats.com will still show you availability for paid tickets, by fare class, for any given United flight. But the neat thing about what United…
Marriott Lets You Call Up and Request Top Tier Elite Status
LoyaltyLobby reports that Marriott has changed the requirements for its elite status challenges. Marriott will offer almost anyone and everyone a status challenge just for the asking. They do not ask you to prove that you have any existing status. You just tell them, for instance, that you are a current top tier elite with a competing hotel chain and are interesting in moving some business to Marriott and it would be a lot easier to do that if they would match your current status. They won’t “match” status, they’ll usually tell you, but as an exception they will register you for a status challenge that will give you temporary status — the rest of the current month and then an upcoming three months. You can request the status challenge via telephone or e-mail. In…
New York City Government Cracking Down on Uber’s New Taxi On Demand Service
Earlier in the week The Points Guy wrote about car service Uber giving away free taxi rides in New York City this week. It’s to promote Uber‘s new service that lets you hail a cab with their app — solving the problem of how to available cabs connect up with riders, besides just driving around the city looking for people stepped half in the street waiting an arm in the air? Uber is a technology company. The have an app you download and they use GPS information from your phone to identify where you are. When you double tap, you order a car to show up. Cars for hire also have apps on iPhones given to them by Uber. When those cars have downtime, they can pick up rides. Basically Uber takes the very same…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 7, 2012
News and Notables from Around the Interweb: American AAdvantage Transfer Bonus. American is offering up to a 25% bonus on miles transferred between accounts through September 30th. The airline based on a range of points transferred but roughly speaking a penny a mile plus tax and a $30 ‘processing fee’. The $300 is costs to transfer 25,000 miles will yield 31,250 miles under this promo. Good for topping off between accounts, but not worth it just to do it. Scoring Business Class Awards to Australia During High Season with Skypesos. Some folks will recall my pointing out that Delta’s Skyteam partner China Southern offers amazing business class award availability on its Los Angeles – Guangzhou, China route and the seats on its Airbus A380 look really good. Point Me to the Plane highlights that Delta…
Some Non-obvious Frequent Flyer Programs to Consider
Gabriel Leigh has a CNNgo column on 7 top frequent flyer programs — offering a perspective on the unique value proposition of each. For the most part, he’s spot on, worth highlighting and also some modest disagreement. Aegean Airlines Miles&Bonus. Easiest Star Alliance status, you get 1000 qualifying miles for signing up and 3000 more within the first year means Star Alliance Silver (so some boarding priority and a free checked bag on your domestic US flying on United and US Airways). 16,000 more qualifying miles to hit Star Alliance Gold which gets you lounge access. I outlined the pluses and minuses of the program when I became an Aegean Airlines Gold member, since then they’ve made it possible to change date and time on award tickets and also cancel awards and redeposit miles (both…
New United Passenger Service System Interface Rolling Out October 1
United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek presented today at the Deutsche Bank Aviation and Transportation Conference. Some key nuggets of his presentation (a .pdf of his powerpoint is available on the United website): They’re paying just 2% more for jet fuel than they were in 2008, and they’re profitable. I wonder what the point of ‘fuel surcharges’ is then, they should have been able to build ‘jet fuel’ into their base costs. Of course it’s partly just a convenient quick and dirty way of adjusting prices across-the-board for a market rather than filing whole sets of new fares in each market. Reducing capacity. Of course the merger was going to shrink compared to United and Continental, no matter what sorts of protestations were offered before the merger closed. 90 million members of MileagePlus. I had heard…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 6, 2012
News, Notes, and Offers from Around the Interweb: US Airways is offering double elite qualifying miles on Shuttle flights (between Washington National, New York LaGuardia, and Boston Logan) through October 31, registration required. Aegean Airlines Miles&Bonus — an especially useful Star Alliance program because of how easy it is to gain and keep status — used to be somewhat difficult on the redemption side. They’ve eased up a bit and now allow changes to the date and time of an award after booking, and also cancelling the award and redepositing miles, for 20 euros. That’s especially important to me now that I’m an Aegean Airlines Gold member (for life?). American Express will give you $100 off a $1000 purchase on SAS. Book by November 30, registration required. Ryanair’s CEO probably burned up all the press…
