The Chicago-area Regional Transportation Authority will file suit against United Airlines today for tax evasion — there’s a tax on jet fuel that depends on where the fuel is being purchased, and United keeps an office in DeKalb County to confuct fuel purchase transactions in order to save on the much higher Chicago taxes. American apparently engages in a similar arrangement, but they aren’t being sued while they’re in bankruptcy — though the Transportation Authority may sue them once they emerge. How much money is at stake? The RTA said in a prepared statement that “sales tax dodges” have cost the city of Chicago $133 million in lost sales tax revenue since 2005. They have cost Cook County an additional $60 million and Metra, Pace and the Chicago Transit Authority another $96 million, according to…
About Gary Leff
New Years in Paris: Air France Business, British Airways First, and the Park Hyatt Vendome: Washington Dulles-Paris Onboard the A380
A trip report in five parts Air France A380 Business Class, Washington Dulles – Paris Park Hyatt Vendome Mostly Eating in Paris British Airways Paris Orly – London and the Concorde Room British Airways “New” First Class, London – Washington Dulles Looking for something to do for New Years I settled on Paris, there was non-stop business class availability on the Washington Dulles – Paris non-stop. And it’s their Airbus A380. I’m not one to chase aircraft. I’m much more interested in the inflight product than the model of the plane itself. And believe it or not (it’s sort of something I hadn’t even realized until I stopped to think about it), I hadn’t actually ever been on an A380 other than crawling around one of Qantas’ during the oneworld MegaDO back at the end…
Renting a Wireless Internet Device for International Travel
Renting Wireless Internet for International Travel: I first learned about XCOM Global from this Milepoint thread which is a good discussion of getting wireless internet access while traveling abroad. XCOM Global offers pocket-sized wireless internet routers (“MiFi”) that will work in most any of the destinations you’ll be traveling to, and they give you unlimited data for a fixed per-day price. My Usual Solution On most of my trips I just turn my phone into airplane mode so that I don’t eat any roaming charges, and log into the hotel’s wireless internet. If I want to make calls I use the Skype app and I’m only paying about 3 cents a minute to talk to the U.S. And this works well for me because (1) just about anywhere I stay, I get free internet —…
Time to Burn Your Wyndham Points? Another Program Diminishes Trust By Devaluing Without Notice
Mommy Points discovers that Wyndham Rewards has made a no-notice devaluation in their award chart. Previously, the most expensive hotel redemption for most of their brands was ‘category 4’ at 16,000 points per night. Which is why when they would run a 16,000 point bonus promotion they would advertise it as a free night, anywhere. But now, apparently, some hotels have gotten more expensive than that, out of the blue — a lot more expensive. She reports that the Wingate Midtown Manhattan has gone from 16,000 points to 45,000 points per night. Airline mileage transfer rates remain the same (for now). 8,000 Wyndham Rewards points -> 3200 airline miles 17,500 Wyndham Rewards points -> 7000 airline miles 30,000 Wyndham Rewards points -> 12,000 airline miles I’m inclined to just transfer all of my Wyndham points…
74 HawaiianMiles Per Dollar at Amazon Local — If They Honor It
Lucky writes that the Hawaiian Airlines online shopping portal is offering 74 HawaiianMiles per dollar for purchases at Amazon Local. The Hawaiian Airlines online mall seems to be offering 74 HawaiianMiles per dollar spent at Amazon Local. Once you get to the online mall just enter “Amazon” in the top right search bar, and the offer should come up. And indeed, it does come up: I imagine this is either a mistake, or they’ll decide later that this is a mistake. The Hawaiian Airlines shopping portal has a of not honoring super lucrative deals even when the terms and conditions of the offer explicitly say ‘no restrictions’. And in this case there’s a bit of murkiness, because when you click through to the Amazon Local offer it says “Earn 74 miles / member signup” rather then per…
One of My Favorite Reader Comments, Ever.
When you write a blog, you ‘put yourself out there’. I tend to be more analytical and less personal than some bloggers, but my travel decisions are certainly open to criticism. But a lot of readers. Every single day. It can take a tough skin sometimes to hear all of the comments and second guessing. It’s nice to get positive comments, though, and I thought I’d share one of my favorites, I think, to date. Michael S. writes, Thanks for the informative site. I can see why “Mommy Points” calls you fancy pants. You are a very elegant man with elegant tastes in food, wine and travel which is fine by me. I don’t know that I’m actually elegant, but I certainly do have preferences that I share here on a daily basis!
Expedia Rewards Warns Us of Unspecified Changes Coming Throughout 2013
I’ve been an ‘Expedia Elite Plus’ member since that program was launched, and an Expedia VIP member long before that. I actually like booking through Expedia, I often use Expedia Rewards as part of my quintuple dipping strategy when booking airfare. The website interface is pretty good. Online travel agencies can be advantageous versus airline websites not just for the rewards, but for ease of booking specific flights and connections, for combining airlines on a single ticket, not to mention that several US airline sites don’t allow use of a foreign-issued credit card, that you don’t have to show the credit card at check-in since it’s an agency ticket, and you can even choose which country your ticket is issued in (I can book through Expedia’s German, Spanish, Canadian or New Zealand websites for instance).…
50% Bonus on American Express Membership Rewards Transfers to Starwood
American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 50% bonus on transfers to Starwood Preferred Guest through March 31. Normally it takes 3 Membership Rewards points to yield one Starpoint. Under this offer it takes 2 Membership Rewards points to yield one Starpoints. So better than usual, and in my view better than other straight-up hotel transfer options that American Express offers. But still not good or in most cases worth doing except to top off to towards a specific award with SPG. (Then, your relevant comparison is the cost to buy Starpoints.) American Express Membership Rewards are almost always best (1) transferring to airline miles (2) during a bonus promotion (3) for low-level premium cabin award redemptions. The hotel transfer options just aren’t as good. Alternatively, this does represent an opportunity with some devaluation to…
Will Buying Miles from the Mint Save Us All? Obama’s Debt Ceiling Plan B Came From Frequent Flyers
One of the frequent controversies in the frequent flyer world is, should the mileage-earning opportunity be shared? On the one hand, the community benefits by sharing with each other. Before internet forums and blogs a mistake fare might be discovered by one person, they would share with a few friends, but that would be it. In the modern age a mistake fare is discovered, it goes viral, and many more people either have their tickets cancelled or luck our and wind up with a once in a lifetime to travel the world at ridiculously low prices. (And what’s once in a lifetime for many turns out to be ‘just another Wednesday’ for many of us.) The fear is that ‘too much exposure’ will lead to a deal being pulled more quickly than if it had…
Waiting (Im)patiently for the Return of Icelandair’s Alaska Airlines Redemptions
ChangeDetection.com is a really useful website, I use it to track changes to pages like US Airways Grand Slam (I kept hoping they’d bring it back, and would get an early heads up if they changed the page which hosted it). I’ve also been using it to track if and when Alaska Airlines awards come back to Icelandair’s Saga Club program. Back in August lots of folks were hitting Icelandair pretty hard with their partner redemptions on Alaska Airlines. You could straight up buy miles and redeem them on Alaska for first class to Hawaii for about $350. Icelandair was aware of the deal. Their award chart was very very good, 30,000 miles roundtrip in first class, and it was cheap to buy miles in part because of weakness in their country’s currency. And if…
