Three weeks ago Hack My Trip wrote about Aerolineas Argentinas offering status matches in their program. The reason this is interesting — because why would you care about having elite status in the Aerolineas Argentinas program unless you’re actually going to, like, fly Aerolineas Argentinas, right? — is that they are a Skyteam airline. Which means having status in their program confers certain benefits when flying other Skyteam airlines. Like Delta. This is even a published offer from Aerolineas Argentinas. You have to join the Aerolineas Argentinas program first. You have to have status in a competing program that you can demonstrate. You aren’t allowed to already have elite status in a Skyteam frequent flyer program (but how would they know?). How to Get the Status Match They’ve published a chart to illustrate what status…
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Reducing the Cost of Delta Skymiles One-Way Awards
While we’re on the subject of getting the most out of Delta Skymiles, I wanted to point out that it’s possible to get one-way awards for less than the published price on their award charts. First, some context. United, American, and British Airways (among other programs) offer one-way awards for half the cost of a roundtrip. Alaska Airlines and Aeroplan offer one-way awards for half roundtrip cost only on their own flights and not on partners. US Airways and Delta do not.allow one-ways at all for a discount, they charge the full roundtrip award even if you only fly one-way. Different programs have different features, and this in and of itself isn’t an indictment of the program. But I do find it to be a real drawback, since I can’t combine Delta miles one-way with…
Bits ‘n Pieces for December 29, 2012
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Jet Airways JetPrivilege is offering 2500 miles just for signing up. Lufthansa’s Miles&More has an award sale. American Airlines pilots seem to agree with Bob Crandall: they believe that they and US Airways pilots need to come to agreement with management on new contract terms before a merger. And that’s no uncomplicated matter, since US Airways own pilots haven’t managed to do that with each other since the airline combined with America West. Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus is going to quarterly (rather than annual) expiration of miles unused after three years and changing the qualifying period for status (.pdf).
Morgans Group’s The Hudson: So this is What a Normal Hotel Room in New York City is Like?
A few weeks ago I went up to New York to tape a segment for The Colbert Report. It won’t run for awhile, if it runs at all, but doing the taping was a blast. They first thought we’d get started in the early afternoon and were going to arrange the train up and back same-day. But when they went to schedule crew and studio time they ran into some snags, and wanted to schedule a first thing in the morning start time so I headed up to the city the night before. I go to New York all the time, living in the DC area and 10 minutes from the airport it’s almost like going to the exuurbs for me, and I do it with greater frequency. I’m pretty much always given towards staying…
Alaska Airlines Miles Will Be Able to Redeem Awards on Emirates Starting January 16
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan members will be able to redeem miles for Emirates flights beginning January 16. Alaska’s award chart for Emirates has not yet been published. And to date — I’ve long expected this to change, but no luck so far — Alaska requires roundtrip awards on partners (no one ways), and the roundtrip must be on a single partner (plus Alaska flights optionally), no mixing and matching partners in an itinerary. Still, depending on award pricing, this could be outstanding. For now Japan Airlines miles (which can be obtained via Starwood Preferred Guest) remain the best way to score awards — including A380 suites awards — on Emirates.
What Won’t Actually Happen to Travel if We Go Over the Fiscal Cliff
First of all there is no ‘fiscal cliff’ — there’s a series of changes in law as well as fiscal circumstances that cluster around the same time. And the analogy is misleading because in most cases nothing irreversible happens on January 1; tax rates if reset can be done so retroactively to the start of the year, program spending put on hold a few days can still be greenlit, etc. But even if we go past December 31 under current law, none of the Really. Scary. Things.(tm) being predicted in travel will actually come to pass. At least not the bad stuff leading this USA Today piece. The big threat is that if Congress and President Obama can’t reach an agreement on spending cuts and tax increases, automatic spending cuts are scheduled to hit the…
Top Eight Best Uses of Delta Skymiles
What do Delta Skymiles redeem for? I give Delta Skymiles a hard time, and deservedly so. I’m known as the guy who coined the term ‘Skypesos’ for their currency, on the whole their miles are worth less than miles in the United, American, and US Airways frequent flyer programs. They’re harder to use. They don’t permit one-way awards for half the cost of roundtrip (neither does US Airways). Their agents are clueless, their award booking website offers limited partners and is generally quite broken. International first class awards aren’t allowed. But because I give such a hard time to Skypesos, I also feel like I have a special responsibility to help figure out how to make the most of them. And I’m the first to say that the miles you should collect and use very…
Online Travel Agencies Provide Just as Bad Customer Service to Hotels as They Do Travelers
LarryInNYC posted a story on Milepoint about a small hotel owner’s experiences working with Expedia. The hotel owner reports: Expedia takes a 25% commission. I’m actually surprised it’s that low, I’ve heard of small independent hotels paying as much as 40% with commissions in the 20’s reserved for the big chains with negotiating clout. Expedia made several mistakes in describing the property and its rooms. The hotel kept asking Expedia to make updates and corrections, but the process was a mess and corrections didn’t get made properly. Guests were getting rooms that were different than what they thought they had booked as a result. Website links stopped working, the hotel no longer came up on Expedia, and the hotel owners couldn’t get Expedia to fix it while the problem got passed around between the travel…
Sheraton LAX Remains the Best Choice Near the Airport
I’ve stayed at the Sheraton LAX more than half a dozen times. It’s the best of a bad lot of LAX airport hotels. There’s a Westin at the airport which is probably the worst Westin in the United States, don’t tell me it’s gotten better unless they’ve soundproofed the walls. There’s a Four Points which has some pretty decent rooms and some not-so-decent rooms. The Hilton needs investment. I admit to having no experience with the Marriott properties in the area. But if you want a really good experience you have to go beyond the properties that offer free airport shuttle services and get over to Marina del Rey or Hermosa Beach. The Sheraton remains the best of the airport properties, though, and though it’s been a few years since its last makeover it continues…
Bob Crandall Comes Out For, or I Mean Against, a US Airways-American Merger
Retired American Airlines CEO Bob Crandall has a video message to American pilots on a potential merger with US Airways. He says he favors the concept of a merger which makes American the largest carrier in the world again. But I read him as arguing against a merger, or giving pilots a reason to change their minds about the desirability of a merger. He says a merger is great only if there’s a pilot seniority integration agreement in place first and that it needs to include all the pilot work groups of US Airways West (former America West pilots), US Airways East (US Airways legacy pilots), and American pilots. The warning here is that the merger will mean closing pilot bases, opening other ones. Pilots will have to move, some pilots will wind up flying…
