Ameican Express Membership Rewards is offering a 35% bonus on transfers to British Airways Avios through June 7. Avios are most useful for short-haul non-stop flights (longer flights cost more points). And where there’s a fuel surcharge on a paid ticket British Airways adds that to the fees on a paid ticket. For transatlantic travel there’s savings in flying Air Berlin (no fuel surcharges) or Aer Lingus (very low charges) rather than flying British Airways or American. There are no fuel surcharges on domestic US travel or flights to and from South America on American or LAN. (HT: Rob on Milepoint)
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Bits ‘n Pieces for April 21, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Head for Points says that you can avoid KLM’s new intra-Europe checked baggage fee just by joining the Flying Blue program — which is useful to do anyway so that you can use their website to search for award availability on lots of the Delta frequent flyer partners that the Delta website doesn’t support. Miles from Blighty walks through the changes to Hyatt’s website. The biggest one is that you can now see points cost and availability next to paid room rates — you don’t need to search for awards separately, and don’t need to have enough points in an account to see award availability online (you used to have to call if you didn’t have enough points in your account to search). Upgraded rooms on points aren’t…
Boeing’s 787 Returning to the Skies!
The Boeing 787 could be flying again within a week! The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it would send airlines instructions and publish a notice next week lifting the 3-month-old grounding order that day. Boeing will then have the go-ahead to begin retrofitting planes with an enhanced lithium ion battery system. Dreamliner flights could resume within a week, the agency told members of Congress. Boeing said it has stationed teams around the world to begin installing the fix. November’s Star MegaDO was a frequent flyer trip which chartered United’s first 787. Frequent flyers got to experience it in a fantastic party atmosphere, and it was covered by the Economist, by the New York Times, by the Wall Street Journal and by… the Wall Street Journal. My own personal interest is that ABC’s Nightline came along…
United Airlines Increases Change Fees to $200 for Domestic and $300 for International Tickets
United has upped their standard domestic change fee on a non-refundable ticket from $150 to $200 (and has also gone from $250 to $300 as the standard on their international tickets). This applies to tickets purchased from April 18 onward, purchases before then would incur the change fee in effect at time of purchase if making a change. Other airlines have not yet matched this change that I have seen. When my business travel life started in earnest domestic change fees were generally $50. Sometime in the late 90s they moved to $75, and in 2001 the standard became $100. When JetBlue started flying their change fee was $25 and flight credits were cancellable — if you weren’t going to take the trip you would cancel your reservation and for that $25 fee the balance…
Preparing for Lufthansa’s Monday Strike Which Starts on Sunday
Lufthansa is facing a one-day ‘warning’ strike by one of its unions on Monday. As a result they have cancelled the bulk of their schedule for Monday, including all intra-European flying. They’ve also cancelled the bulk of their US departures for Europe tomorrow as well. And there are a handful of Tuesday flights affected. Lufthansa’s list of cancelled flights is online. Usually when strikes occur they’ll be scrambling for replacement staff, and those aren’t always fully up to speed on their roles. As a result even limited schedules can be a struggle to operate let alone operate on time, so expect delays even if your flight remains on the schedule. Fortunately, which the exception of Europe-bound flights departing the US, most flights are affected only for a day (most but not all US flights will…
Bits ‘n Pieces for April 20, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: On Thursday I wrote that upgrades are no longer a good use of miles but noted a handful of exceptions — one of the biggest being British Airways upgrades from premium economy to business class. Here’s a great discussion of the exceptional value these upgrades offer, and how to get them. Macaulay Culkin Snaps, Then Checks Into an Ibis Hotel. If he picked Ibis because of free Le Club Accorhotels Platinum status, he was sorely disappointed, the program doesn’t offer upgrade benefits with Ibis… Virgin Australia frequent flyer cards will become mileage-earning prepaid Visa cards. Loyalty Lobby has the scoop on the Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles 25% discount on award redemptions for travel through end of May. Vanity Fair takes on the New York Times‘ ’36 Hours In…” features…
Is Starwood About to Reduce the Points to Miles Transfer Ratio with LAN?
Chinese-language blogger Troy gives me the heads up that Starwood points appear to be transferring to LAN at 1 to 1.5, instead of the usual 1 to 2. The Starwood page listing transfers still shows that 1 Starpoint yields 2 LAN points (20,000 Starpoints transfer to 50,000 LAN kilometers with bonuses). Here’s the confirmation e-mail he received, though, showing the reduced rate when he made a transfer. I tried to make a transfer earlier today to test things and the website wasn’t working properly for me, instead of bringing me to the confirmation page it would dump me into my account summary. But things seem to be working again, and the confirmation screen shows the usual 1:2 ratio for LAN. So I don’t know if Troy’s experience is a glitch, or if Starwood is in…
Instant Top Tier Platinum Status for new Le Club Accorhotels Signups
Instant Platinum (top tier) status in the Accor Hotels loyalty program comes around with some frequency, each time it does the signup link won’t stay active for long — sometimes a couple of days, sometimes just hours. Here’s a current offer for instant Platinum status. (HT: Loyalty Lobby) Note that the signup page is just a signup page, no indication on that page that accounts will start at the Platinum level, but indeed it’s currently working as of this writing. You must open a new account, it cannot be applied to existing accounts. And when you do so you must use an email address that’s not currently on file with them. Even if you don’t frequently stay at Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, and other related properties frequently, you never know when you might find yourself…
Looking at the Future of Frequent Flyer Programs By Watching Experiments in Europe and the Middle East
Etihad Guest is one of the most innovative programs in terms of monetizing their product and their frequent flyer program. They offer a bidding system for flight upgrades. They also offer LoyLogic’s PointsPay system where you essentially carry your points with you in you wallet and use them to buy whatever you wish — though never as good a value as using miles for flights. When points are redeemed for flights they are both a rebate and leveraging deep discounts the program makes on the bulk purchase of inventory which would otherwise spoil. When points are used as cash to buy other things, they’re just the rebate without the leverage. It’s useful to look at the experimentation that programs around the world are engaged in. While the US has historically been the leader in frequent…
Airline Arrivals Lounges, and American’s Offering at London Heathrow
Most airport lounges are places to wait before getting on a flight. Some are even designated as departure lounges only, which is to say that you need to show a departing boarding pass to get in (either a business class or above boarding pass, or a coach boarding pass and something else to demonstrate you’re entitled to access like an eligible elite frequent flyer card). But there are also designated arrivals lounges, usually places to shower up after a long flight. This is especially important in some markets where many long haul flights arrive in the early morning — business travelers turning up and needing to go straight to the office, a place to clean up and even have a suit pressed, leisure travelers who get into the city too early to check into their…
