Ben Mutzabaugh reports that Air India is again on track to join the Star Alliance. Air India had been invited to become a member of Star at the end of 2007 (rumored as far back as 2006), in a process that generally takes 18 to 24 months. After a series of delays, supposedly they were ready in May 2011. But in July 2011, however, Star gave up on the project and walked away. Air India was too much of a basket case, taking too long to meet entrance standards, including in IT (at the time they hadn’t managed to successfully integrate with Indian Airlines, which they had acquired). Star wanted to take a stab at having Jet Airways join, but the Indian government balked. Etihad has since taken an equity stake. (Kingfisher was supposed to…

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DeltaPoints interviewed me for his ‘fireside chat’ series. On Southwest Airlines: I flew Southwest once.  That was 1993.  They used to have seats that faced backwards, but of course not like British Airways or United (lie flat seats).  Southwest is great, it isn’t generally cheaper than its head-to-head competition but I think they’re a good reliable airline and they’ve brought a lot to the communities they serve.  I used to love sparring online with their founding President Lamar Muse, and his autobiography is a great must-read.  I loved the stories about their commitment to putting skylights in their first planes so passengers could look up to the heavens (helped them get financial backing) and of how the La Quinta chain got its name (a Southwest board member founded it, and was looking for the cheapest furniture…

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The worst thing a loyal program can do, in my opinion, is change its rules without notice. I suppose the asterisk here is that they can compound the sin by changing their rules without notice and not even tell their members. I don’t like to be caught off-guard, so a trick I employ the is website ChangeDetection.com. It will send me emails whenever an internet page I want to monitor changes. I set up an alert for most major programs’ terms and conditions changes. This works well most of the time. Some programs, like Delta’s, change their page daily if only to update the current date making the exercise not very useful. But that’s the exception. One of my alerts is for changes to the Hilton HHonors terms and conditions. And I got on such…

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US Airways is running a 100% bonus for mileage purchases through December 20th. For purchases of 50,000 miles you get 50,000 bonus miles, and your 100,000 miles cost you 1.88 cents per mile. They ran this targeted last month and in July. They ran it non-targeted in August. October and also a couple of weeks back they had the much better 100% share miles bonus. US Airways IT Challenges Making Bookings Limit Value Somewhat US Airways has been dubbed the ‘consolidator of Star Alliance premium class seats’ (credit to eponymous coward) since seats that aren’t expected to be sold (distressed inventory) tend to be offered as awards, and US Airways has been the most aggressive about letting members straight up buy those seats cheaply via purchased miles — even putting awards on hold before buying…

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I’m giving away Milepoint premium packages (1000 United miles, Hilton Gold status, National Car Rental Executive status, and more), $200 Gift Cards, Amazon Gift Cards, and miles in winner’s choice of several programs. Comment in the official entry thread. All you do to enter is go to that thread and either share a travel tip of your own, or something you’ve learned from this blog. And since these are ‘real’ answers, you can enter as many times as you like. That also makes it really worth reading the comments as there are a lot of great tips there, an opportunity to learn a lot not just from whatever I write on the blog but from really smart readers as well. In some ways the comments there represent one of the best posts ever on the…

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On Thursday I wrote that IHG Rewards (formerly Priority Club) would be bringing back their ‘Big Win’ promotion for the first quarter and that the website to register would be up by some time over the weekend. And indeed the registration website is now available. I logged in to find out the offer I was targeted for. To remind, members receive customized offers based on their stay histories. With the last round of the Big Win I was offered just over 70,000 points which could be earned in a minimum of 7 nights. Some people were offered more than double that amount with varying requirements. And of course these points are stackable with other bonuses that the program may be running. Stay more and earn. 5 nights for 8400 points. Explore our brands. Stay at…

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Reader Rick D. had elite status with another airline and got Delta to match his status as a result (airlines will often give the best customers of another airline complimentary status to try to woo their business). Delta extended their program for doing this over the summer. But Rick stopped earning bonus miles for his flying that are normally received by elite frequent flyers. Delta offers its elites the following bonuses: Diamond, 125% Platinum and Gold, 100% Silver, 25% 500 mile minimum per flight segment, and bonuses based on this minimum no matter how short the flight. Delta pointed out, however, that these bonuses are no longer offered to members who received their status via a match or challenge. Delta has the following exclusion: (1) In order to receive the Medallion mileage bonus, a member…

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The Lufthansa Premier Miles & More World MasterCard® Earn 20,000 award miles after your first purchase Earn an additional 30,000 award miles when you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 90 days $79 annual fee There is only one day left before the offer ends: The signup offer plus points from minimum spend are enough for (3) one-way domestic first class flights (since Lufthansa charges just 17,000 miles, and there are no fuel surcharges on US domestic awards). And Lufthansa’s Miles&More are the best way to access Lufthansa first class award space, long before it’s made available to Lufthansa’s Star Alliance partners. (Note that cards in this post offer credit to me if you’re approved using my links. The opinions, analyses, and evaluations here are mine. The content is not provided or commissioned by…

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Last month Hyatt mistakenly offered lifetime Diamond status to, it seems, Diamond members of the program who didn’t already have a Hyatt Visa (if they applied for, were approved, and for as long as they kept the card). That offer is being honored for those who were targeted and applied before being informed it was a mistake. (Those who applied using the offer, but who weren’t targeted for it, aren’t being given lifetime Diamond.) Now another group is being given Diamond: MGM M Life Noir members. Hyatt and MGM introduced reciprocal points-earning and status recognition over the summer. Hyatt’s top tier members were given MGM M Life Platinum status, which is second from the top tier — the exclusive Noir status which, as I understand it, is generally given to gamblers with a theoretical loss…

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News and Notes from Around the Interweb: If you even think you might have purchased a ticket from Southwest Airlines at a ticket counter from October 2007 through October 2012, you may be eligible for a cash payout due to a class action settlement over the airline printing full credit card numbers on receipts. A bunch of United expiring upgrades being given away Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan has really generous stopover rules… not just on one-way tickets on their international partners, but also on domestic awards when flying on Alaska itself. United is proactively taking away the ability to search for and book Singapore Airlines award tickets from its website. United is apparently “taking functionality away from your customers-friendly” — and they insist that booking Singapore awards over the phone will incur a telephone booking…

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