Ok, technically they never went away. But when United announced their plan to go to unlimited complimentary domestic upgrades next year, they were going to drop confirmed regional upgrades for 1Ks from the mix. As I noted at the time, As speculated yesterday, confirmed regional upgrades go away. Currently 1K members get up to 8 of these a year (promotions aside) and they’re good for confirming a domestic (including Hawaii) upgrade at time of booking from any fare. While there are no more 500 mile upgrades to worry about, there are no more special domestic confirmed upgrades either, there will be far fewer upgrades at booking and more upgrades pushed to the complimentary upgrade window. Of course any Mileage Plus member can use miles to upgrade domestically, elite or not, but mileage upgrades will have…
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Continental and United Will Offer Reciprocal Upgrades and Preferred Coach Seating Mid-2010
Continental and United will offer reciprocal upgrades starting “mid-2010.” Full details are on Flyertalk. United 1Ks and Global Services will get complimentary upgrades on Continental behind Continental’s Platinums but before Golds. (Premier Executives come after Golds and Premiers come after Silver — good luck with that unless United’s lower tiers are flying on major holidays.) Continental Platinums and Golds will get complimentary upgrades on United after United’s Premier Executives. (Continental Silvers will get complimentary upgrades on United after Premiers, but in theory before employees.) Continental elites will get economy plus on United. United elites get ‘preferred seating’ (the same awful coach seats at the front of the plane) and Premier Executives and above can pre-reserve exit rows. (Via Lucky.)
bmi Introduces Family Accounts and Confirmed Upgrades for Gold Members
Here’s the Flyertalk discussion. bmi is following British Airways’ lead, allowing you to pool miles from pre-registered accounts. This option begins December 1, you can link up to 8 accounts, and they don’t require that family accounts actually share an address. Moreover, even those under 18 can now join bmi Diamond Club is they’re a member of a family account. bmi is also changing their space available upgrades to electronic confirmed upgrades, valid on any fare and on bmi flights only, exercisable within 7 days of departure. Definitely positive changes!
FTD 30 Miles Per Dollar Offers
FTD now offers 30 Delta miles per dollar, which is new. Of course, I prefer the ongoing offering of 30 United miles per dollar, as much as United miles frustrate me due to Starnet blocking. Delta miles still worth less…
United Introduces Lounge Access for Business Class and Top Elites Flying p.s. Flights
Lucky reports that United is now offering lounge access to Business Class passengers flying “p.s.” routes between JFK and San Francisco/Los Angeles, as well as to Global Services and 1Ks. They already provided lounge access (and international first access, no less) to First Class passengers. It’s about time they ‘enhanced’ the p.s. offering, it’s been so degraded since its introduction, and especially since they still consider it to be ‘special’ and won’t be providing complimentary upgrades to elites flying p.s. next year when they abolish 500-mile e-certificates and confirmed regionals. Now, if only the Red Carpet Club was a better lounge…
Flyertalk down again, AAAARRRRGH
Flyertalk came back online for me on Saturday, much of the world couldn’t access it until Sunday night. But now… the occasional page will partially come up for me after a long wait, but that’s it. Best guess — and this is just speculation, I really have no idea — is that all Internet Brands websites have been under a DDOS attack by someone or some group angry at the way they’ve managed the vBulletin software which they acquired in 2007. This likely has nothing to do with Flyertalk, per se, but is really driving me nuts! Keep hitting the comments here to express yourself about miles and points in the interim, hopefully it’ll help to keep us all sane while we’re without Flyertalk. UPDATE: Flyertalk appears back at 9am easern!
Free Up in the Air Movie Screening Tickets
Sign up with Entertainment Weekly to receive passes to a Wednesday, December 2 screening of Up in the Air. Available cities are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
How to Think About an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet
This is a miraculous discussion, incredibly comprehensive and insightful even if a bit tongue-in-cheek. On the whole I’m not a fan of buffets, most of the time they’re lowest common denominator, they skimp on quality ingredients to present big ticket items at lowest cost or they’re more about quantity than quality which isn’t usually how I like to eat. But they certainly have thier place, and in some locales like Vegas they’re part of both history and culture. This bizarre discussion covers the different types of buffets, how to think about buffets, pre-meal preparation, strategy once you’re ready to eat, and post-meal care. Clearly people think about buffets a great deal, certainly a great deal more than I. At least there’s a reminder to be courteous to other diners, perhaps other diners like me not…
Alaska Airlines Wins Lawsuit Against Mileage Broker
Alaska Airlines won the trial phase of a federal lawsuit arguing against buying and selling of award tickets. The argument that work (or at least that I find persuasive), I think, is that when consumers join a frequent flyer program they agree to abide by its rules, which include only redeeming or trading milesa according to its sanctioned practices. That is, consumers agree not to sell awards, so they shouldn’t be allowed to. The relevant questions are whether consumers actually own the miles in their accounts, or whether the airlines do (an important question as it has implications for taxation as well), and whether an airline can create a monopoly in the sale of its miles as well as a monopoly in aftermarket trading via platforms like Points.com. But Alaska does make some pretty silly…
A Comparison of First Class A380 Products
The Global Traveller has flown the Airbus A380 on Qantas, Emirates, and Singapore. I still haven’t flown it at all. So he makes me quite jealous when he offers his comparison of the three A380 first class products. And at the same time, I appreciate his bringing the compare and contrast together in one place. Upshot is that Qantas isn’t a true suite with doors, and is staffed by Qantas crew, but is otherwise an excellent hard product. Emirates is gimmicky as always, but give me the onboard showers gimmick any day! And Singapore is, well, Singapore — they’re almost as good as they think they are! If you’re curious about the A380, or about the best in first class products, read the whole thing.
