To follow up on my earlier post about receiving cashback or miles for travel bookings — something I try to remember to do for the myriad bookings I wind up making for other people especially — I surveyed the cashback offers at e-bates. Some of them are pretty good, and several of them are ones I hadn’t realized existed. For instance, I rent from Avis all the time. I book at their website, and never go through a portal. So I’m giving up my 3% cashback from ebates. (Dollar offers 3.5%, Thrifty 3%, and Enterprise 2% but I wouldn’t ever rent from Enterprise.) I’m an Intercontinental Royal Ambassador member, I make my bookings on their website, and don’t go through the ebates portal — I’m giving up 5% cashback on Intercontinental/Priority Club family hotels. Wow,…
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TAM Joins Star Alliance, ANA Website Updated to Search Awards on TAM!
TAM joined the Star Alliance today. Never heard of TAM? They’re the the biggest airline in the Southern Hemisphere and they’re based in Brazil. They fly to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, the US, and the biggest destinations in Europe. TAM appears to have a nice new first class product, not true suites (and no doors – hah!) but certainly a good looking seat. So you know I’m happy with their joining Star! Maybe I can convince US Airways to route a US – Europe award via Sao Paolo? Wednesday night S&P downgraded TAM’s debt but the timing seems odd. Their concern is that yields won’t recover sufficiently in the Brazilian market, but goodness knows that the Star tie-in should help. Most importantly, the ANA Mileage Club award search website – the Star Alliance…
Emirates Bringing their A380 Back to JFK
Emirates is bringing A380 service back to JFK beginning October 31. They had served New York – Dubai with this aircraft and then moved 380 service up to Toronto where they were only permitted service 3 days a week and could better utilize the extra capacity of the aircraft. Now, the A380 is still just cool. And Emirates offers one of the most over-the-top first class cabins on that aircraft. Like Singapore’s A380 and Jet Airways 777s (and thus Turkish leased Jet Airways 777s), they offer suites with doors. And unlike anyone else in the sky, they have showers. I’ve not much paid attention to Emirates, I do realize that they are a Continental partner at reasonable award pricing and a United partner at more expensive mileage pricing. My impression had been that Continental only…
Macau – Hong Kong – London by Ferry and Cathay Pacific First Class: a continuation of “Cathay & British Airways First Class, Philippines and Macau, a Presidential Suite, and the Fat Duck Restaurant”
After our last complimentary ‘all you can order off the menu’ breakfast, we said goodbye to the Westin. I had a bit of a confusing interaction with the front desk over the bill, but it was minor. I should have had complimentary internet, but they charged for two days’ worth. When I asked about this they explained that their system offered two speeds, the slower internet was free, I had selected the faster option. Now, I’m confident that I didn’t do that, as I guessed that they might charge for the faster speed, I didn’t really need it, and I didn’t feel like asking. But they initially stood their ground. As did I, and they removed it from my bill. Rather than taking the hotel’s free shuttle, I opted to hang around an extra 15…
Measuring and Quantifying Airline Award Redemption: Not all Programs are Created Equal
Scott McCartney covers the IdeaWorks ‘study’ of award availability (.pdf), it points to some interesting results though the methodology of the underlying research is somewhat suspect. And some of the results are so strange that it calls for what’s pretty commonplace in science — the notion that a single study is rarely meaningful, it’s only when results are replicable and pointing in the same direction that we can begin to reasonably draw conclusions. Still, I certainly applaud efforts to systematically measure and quantify the performance of frequent flyer programs! A study testing the availability of free seats showed that Southwest Airlines Co. could fulfill 99.3% of requests for award seats requiring standard mileage levels, and Alaska Air Group Inc.’s Alaska Airlines offered choices on 75% of requests. US Airways Group Inc. could fulfil just 10.7%.…
Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminar October 16 and 17… Registration Now Open!
Full details of the Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminar are out and posted on Flyertalk. The event is being organized by Rick Ingersoll, the Frugal Travel Guy and will be held October 16 and 17 at the Holiday Inn Elk Grove near Chicago-O’Hare. Naturally they’ve got a special rate of $89+tax per night including breakfast and lunch for one person as well as internet, airport shuttle, parking, and Saturday night cocktails. The current plan is a total buyout of the hotel by frequent flyers. Registration is a whopping $20, no media or recording and no one under 18. (I didn’t make the rules.) And it’ll be possible to attend (5) of the following seminars: 1. Rookie Bootcamp led by Bikeguy 2. Mileage Run #1 with Viajero Joven as leader. Hooray VJ is back. 3. Mileage Run…
Please Turn Off All Electronic Devices…
I’ve always assumed that the requirement to turn off all electronic devices prior to takeoff (and landing), and not to transmit signals inflight, was silly and not based in science. That perhaps if you could pick up cell signals it would be problematic for your providers, hopping around as you are. But that the median electronic device carried by the average business traveler couldn’t possibly interfere with an aircraft’s navigation systems. But as with so many rules, once implemented they’re hard to dislodge. But I know nothing of the science of these things, and I know little of aircraft systems, so I don’t pontificate (or at least I try to shut my mouth about things I actually don’t know anything about, more or less). I was most surprised to read this from Through the Lens,…
2.5 Hours Left to WIN MONEY!
Regular readers of this blog probably know and have already entered, for but you newbies out there act quickly — I’m actually giving away money, courtesy of Bing Travel and their summer travel forecast. And all you have to do is leave a comment in the official entry thread about where you’ll be traveling this summer. Note that there’s only just over 500 comments in that thread so far, so the chances to win are really really good. You can have a second entry for the total of (20) $75 prizes I’m giving away by following @garyleff on twitter and tweeting: RT this and follow @garyleff and @fareologist to win actual CA$H http://tinyurl.com/vftw-bing Only one entry per person for each method, and the contest ends Tuesday, May 11 (today!) at noon Eastern time. Full details in the…
25% Bonus on Membership Rewards Transfers to Delta
Delta is offering a 25% bonus on miles transferred from American Express Membership Rewards through June 30. Registration required. You should register for this promo, but not transfer any points. That way if you find you happen to need to top off a Delta Skymiles account, you don’t forget about this bonus and are poised to benefit from it. But one should never give up the flexibility and value of alternative uses of Membership Rewards points for a modest transfer bonus to Delta on the if-come. Delta miles are too hard to use, and the program tends to extract too many points for redemptions, to make it a worthwhile place to stash your miles. Note also that while points tend to post instantly when transferred from Amex to Delta, and though they promise two-day transfers,…
Purchasing Airline Tickets for Others, Getting Something Back for Yourself
You might guess that a lot of folks wind up having me book their travel. And I’m not a travel agent, and don’t get commission (or ‘overrides,’ heh). But I may be able to get something in my pocket for it anyway. For instance, since airlines stopped offering bonus miles for online booking in most cases and online agencies stopped charging a service fee in most cases, there really weren’t many compelling reasons left to book directly with an airline over a travel site like Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity. And sometimes those sites are easier to buy from, or even cheaper (depending on how they’re updating GDS inventory, or pricing fuel surcharges, for instance). I personally like booking on Expedia the best, for its simple interface, though for complex multi-carrier itineraries I’ll sometimes use Orbitz. …
