Thai Airways is offering a 50% discount when redeeming awards on Thai international flights for 2 or 3 passengers for bookings made between July 29 and August 12 and travel through October 31. Award travel is valid for member self and an Award Nominee, or 2 Award Nominees, and both must travel together on the same departing flight and in the same class of service. Return travel can be separate. (Via TM Travel World.)
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US Airways 90 Days of Silver Status for Ticket Purchase
US Airways is offering free silver status for 90 days. Registration required by August 15. Must purchase a non-refundable ticket at usairways.com for travel only on US Airways/US Airways Express and only for travel in the United States. Ticket purchase required by August 15 for travel beginning by September 15. Status will take up to 7 days to be reflected in your account after purchasing a ticket. Members who were elite members in 2009 or who have had complimentary or trial US Airways elite status within the past two years aren’t eligible. US Airways Silver status is of course also Star Alliance Silver, which gets you a free checked baggage allowance. (Via One Mile at a Time)
Vietnam Airlines Award Availability a Boon for Skyteam
Vietnam Airlines has joined Skyteam, and Wandering Aramean (sbm12 on Flyertalk) notes that they publish their award inventory publicly in global distribution systems like Worldspan and Apollo. And most importantly that partners are booking business class awards into what’s traditionally thought of as a discounte dbusiness class inventory. If indeed Skyteam partners like Delta are booking business class awards on Vietnam Airlines from the J bucket as it appears, and they allow members to book whatever seats that “VN” releases into J inventory, Vietnam Airliens’ addition to Skyteam is huge. Vietnam Airlines flies to Frankfurt and Paris, providing a great redemption opportunity from Europe to South Asia and beyond. They have decent North-South routes as well. If you can find a seat to Asia, most of the time you get then get where you’re going…
Mileage Accounts Frozen, Under Audit: How to Avoid It, What to Do When it Happens
TMTravelWorld notes that there have been some recent discussions about US Airways Dividend Miles investigating fraudulent account activity and freezing accounts that are under investigation. This is something that both United and American have been known to do aggressively, but not something that US Airways was much known for until several months ago. And whenever something ‘new’ like this pops up, there’s much consternation, not to mention folks posting on Flyertalk with (what I’d speculate to be) less than all of the facts disclosed. It seems like a good time to review the kinds of activity that most frequently draw the scrutiny of fraud departments of mileage programs. While not an exhaustive list, these are some of the biggest factors: premium class international award redemptions for other people, especially several in a short period of…
Swiss CEO Takes a Swipe at United
United’s single-class TED operation is no more, but its lesson shouldn’t be forgotten — and don’t underestimate the ability to forget, as it wasn’t United’s first foray into the low cost carrier subsidiary market (though Ted was a worse idea – Shuttle by United at least offered a first class cabin and with complimentary upgrades for 1Ks years before United introduced that feature for elites program-wide). CrankFlier interviews Swiss CEO Harry Hohmeister, and Hohmeister makes the point that you cannot have a successful international premium class operation without premium connecting flight offerings. Cranky: And what about the premium cabin? Harry: It’s very much under pressure, so we have to rethink it. But, business class has an important value with hub connecting itineraries. You can’t fly someone in business class from San Francisco to Zurich in…
Upgrd.com Podcast: The United-Continental Merger, Upgrades on Award Tickets, and Fortress Hubs
The Upgrd Podcast is back after a several weeks’ hiatus and there’s a full cohort of panelists (including yours truly). We discuss the Continental – United merger, Continental’s new initiative of upgrades on award tickets for co-branded credit card holders, we debate the merits of the various New York airports and I advance the notion that US Airways is the Star Alliance’s designated consolidator for premium class inventory. (The fact that this got the biggest chorus of laughs in the half hour show suggests just what sort of a group this is…!)
New Priority Club PointBreaks List is out!
Priority Club discounts awards each quarter down to 5000 points per night, and the new list is up. The list includes notable properties such as Intercontinentals in Stockholm, Hanoi, O’Hare airport (hah!), Johannesburg Airport, and Miramar, Panama. If you see a property on it, jump on the chance, hotels are frequently added and then pulled from the offer relatively quickly with fewer and fewer hotels participating as a quarter wears on. I’ve discussed these awards many times in the past (e.g. here, here, here, and here). They’re great for a very limited number of properties, one can never count on being able to redeem for a PointBreaks participating hotel but it does make a small number of Priority Club points actually useful. After all, you can purchase 5000 Priority Club points for $30 – $50…
Kingfisher Progresses Towards Oneworld Membership
Kingfisher has formally become a member-elect of oneworld, has passed its alliance safety audit, and has received regulatory approval from the Indian government to join the alliance. The airline signed a Memorandum of Understanding which set in motion the process for it to join oneworld back in February. Kingfisher flies to 8 countries outside of India, but the prize is their vast network within India: The 58 destinations across India that Kingfisher Airlines will add to the oneworld map include Agartala, Agatti, Agra, Ahmedabad, Aizwal, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bagdogra, Bhavnagar, Bhubaneswar, Bhuj, Calicut, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Dharamsala, Goa, Guwahati, Hubli, Imphal, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jammu, Jodhpur, Kandla, Khajuraho, Kochi, Kolhapur, Kolkata, Kullu, Latur, Leh, Lucknow, Madurai, Mangalore, Nagpur, Nanded, Nasik, Patna, Port Blair, Pune, Raipur, Rajahmundry, Ranchi, Salem, Sholapur, Silchar, Simla, Srinagar, Tirupati, Trichy, Trivandrum, Tuticorin,…
Purchasing Money from the US Mint for Miles is Still Alive
Frugal Travel Guy reports that the US mint has lifted the per-household restriction on the purchase of coins online (which you do with your credit card to earn miles, then deposit into the bank to pay off your credit card). In its place is a limit of $1000 in purchases every 10 days. There is a 4-box $1 Coin limit for every 10-day period on any and all $1 Coin orders. Beyond that your credit card will not be authorized. If you need quantities greater than this, please send an e-mail before placing your order to directship@usmint.treas.gov explain why your order should be exempted from the limit. The above is from the US Mint website. Now the speculation begins. One caller to the Mint reports it is based on address so you can’t get 4…
Award Routing Quirks and Making the Most of Award Stopovers
I think about award booking a lot, getting the most out of miles, and piecing together available award seats to manage an itinerary that agents say isn’t otherwise available. And a couple of Flyertalk threads got me thinking about the quirks and inconsistencies of frequent flyer program rules. It’s often the case with some carriers that the rules are inconsistently applied, and while this can be frustrating for travelers it’s also an opportunity for those with patience and perseverance. US Airways is uniquely known for its flexible award routings, and also its inconsistency. Call a different agent on the phone, get a different answer almost every time. There are some rules that are clearly in the Dividend Miles Membership Guide, though not many, and those that exist aren’t always followed. You can have one stopover…
