Pay with an American Express card by November 25 for travel between November 1 and December 15, 2009 or from January 11 to February 10, 2010 on Air Canada flights from the U.S. to Canada and promo code 4CKJFR91 will generate a 10% discount.
About Gary Leff
EliteTravelGal’s Luxury Hotel Giveaway
Elite Travel Gal is turning 40. (She doesn’t look it!) Her take on luxury hotels is worth following, and I read her infrequent posts and follow her on Twitter (@EliteTravelGal). She’s raising money for breast cancer research, and is about $800 away from her goal that she’s trying to hit on her birthday. Generously, Small Luxury Hotels of the World is donating a 5-night hotel stay to reward on of the folks that contribute to her birthday fundraiser. It’s both what strikes me as a good cause and a generous offer. Now, I haven’t run the numbers, but on a net present value basis the prize may even be worth the donation! That’s not the reason to give, of course. If you decide to help Stacy out, that would be a meaningful gesture. Thanks for…
bmi Silver status for a single premium economy flight
If you book a premium economy or business class flight on bmi with American Express by January 15 you can receive complimentary silver status. If you are already Silver or Gold with Diamond Club you’ll receive 10,000 qualifying miles. The terms and conditions are a bit odd, they say you have to ‘book’ rather than fly (can you refund?) the ticket. They don’t say when travel needs to be complete by. And they say the status miles for existing elites comes after registering for the promotion rather than after travel. Oh well, it’s Diamond Club, and I love them for the looseness of their rules more often than not.
Mileage Award Booking Tips, or Stories of Some of This Week’s Successes and Frustrations
I book a lot of award travel and I much love doing it. But since I’ve started offering it as a service I’ve had a whole bunch more people to do it for, and that means that I’m getting more even more experience and seeing real-time what’s going on in award and revenue management across a whole variety of ariliens. (Plus it helps when people like Wendy Perrin say such kind things about my service — seriously I don’t think I’ve ever been called anything quite like “the answer to many a Condé Nast Traveler reader’s prayers” before.) Booking award travel for myself I’ve had a chance to see first hand just how erratic award availability on Cathay Pacific can be. It changes day by day, and as you approach departure of a given flight…
Am I Being Too Hard on Skyteam?
Jared Blank thinks that in my excitement over Continental’s entry into Star Alliance that I’m too hard on Skyteam. He agrees that Star will be better for Continental Onepass members in terms of “first class options, lounge access and choice of carriers ” And he agrees with some of the limitations of Skyteam Was it the best alliance out there? No. Did they have a large array of world class carriers associated? No. Did Continental and Delta have miserable – truly miserable – reward availability, especially in business? Yes. But he defends Air France, KLM, and Alitalia business class availability. And his priorities were “quick trips to Latin America, or a long weekend in Europe.” But I think the defense of Skyteam here is a bit of a straw man. I’m not saying it’s impossible…
Trust, But Verify: Fact Checking the FrequentFlier.com Newsletter
I make mistakes, too. Read what I have to say, but make sure I really mean what I said. I don’t proofread very well, so I imagine it’s possible that I could make a similar mistake some day. If I do, I apologize in advance. I was reading the FrequentFlier.com emal newsletter and came across what seemed like an interesting offer. Continental will sell you 50% bonus miles — up to 17,500 for $175 (or a 30% bonus up to 12,500 for $125). You have to max out your flying under the offer in order to be paying only a penny a point for the miles. For someone who is going to hit the flying targets anyway it’s probably worth it. It wouldn’t have been when Continental was a member of Skyteam, but their miles…
Top 10 Excuses for the Northwest Pilots
Scott McCartney reproduces David Letterman’s Top 10 Excuses for the Northwest pilots who got distracted and missed Minneapolis… what caused this, you ask? 10. Bunch of fat guys seated on the right side of the plane made us vector east. 9. We get paid by the hour. 8. Mapquest always takes you the long way, am I right, people? 7. Tired of that show-off Sullenberger getting all the attention. 6. You try steering one of those airplanes after eight or nine cocktails. 5. Wanted to catch the end of the in-flight movie. 4. Activating autopilot and making occasional P.A. announcements is exhausting. 3. According to our map, we only missed our target by half an inch. 2. For a change, we decided to send luggage to the right city and lose the passengers. 1. Thought…
The Benefits of Continental’s Entry into Star Alliance
Continental is a Star Alliance member now, and they’re promoting the news on Twitter with a sweepstakes. You just need to follow @Continental and tweet something with the hashtag #StarTreatment to enter. You can do this up to 5 times a day through November 3rd for more entries to with 2 business class tickets to any Continental destination or one of two $1000 Continental Vacations gift cards. The big news of course is Star Alliance lounge access, and earn and burn in the Star Alliance. Especially burn. Continental was miserable for redemption as part of Skyteam, but now members have access to the wonders of the Star Alliance — including first class products, something Continental itself doesn’t offer. A real kudos to the Continental IT team, they’ve made redemptions on United Airlines, US Airways, Air…
What Customers Want from Their Frequent Flyer Program
CrankyFlier attended the ARAC Frequent Flyer Mega Event, asked for blog reader feedback on what he should tell the program folks, and then posted a wrapup of his presentation. He said that offers don’t need to be simple and easy, but the value proposition needs to make sense to the customer. [L]ast minute award bookings fees..may make sense in the context of revenue management, but from a pure customer perspective, they can’t really be justified. The disconnect is the problem there. (Emphasis mine.) Cranky suggested that customers want to feel valued, both for their current revenue contribution and for their lifetime value. And he offered up honesty and integrity, that the airlines make the rules. Customers will work with whatever game is offered as long as the programs shoot straight and play fair. And in…
Reader Mail: Should I Get a Hilton Amex, Should I Redeem an Award to CDG?
Reader Robert writes: Hilton Amex talked me into upgrading from Hilton Amex Plat to “Surpass” mostly because of Gold status; it’s $75/yr + ~ 15k bonus miles?; I have Plat Amex and Plat Intercontinental (ambassador); I almost never stay w/Hilton. Should I back out? and just ask for a match? Should I use US Air winter discount (60k ea) for Envoy to CDG from BOS for my mom & me just to burn? we ea have ~65k dividend mi or is there something better? (membership rewards, CO, Delta, AA) So here’s my rather rambling reply, a bit off-the-cuff and unedited. The value in the Hilton Surpass card is $40k in spend gets you Diamond (top tier) status with Hilton. If you can put $40k in spend on the card, it’s great. Otherwise not worth a…
