It’s been all over the media since yesterday, but Delta is introducing a new fourth tier to their elite program. It’s been mentioned before, but now there are details. And I should say it’s at least been as all over the media as elite status issues get! One Mile at a Time has a rundown. The new level, Diamond, clocks in at 125,000 elite qualifying miles. That’s not as daunting as it sounds when you can get more than halfway there with credit card spend if you’re a high enough volume charger nad use the right cards. The biggest benefit is that Diamonds are ahead of Platinums for upgrades. With a low top tier of only 75,000 qualifying miles, with plenty of non-flying methods of earning qualifying miles, and with a huge combined Delta/Northwest route…
About Gary Leff
United Eliminates Last Minute Award Booking Fees
United Airlines just tweeted that they will eliminated fees for close-in award bookings on July 30. Currently awards booked less then three weeks in advance cost an extra $75 and awards booked within a week of travel cost $100. The United website confirms the elimination of these fees. A real positive change. Many airlines have these fees, and they have served two purposes — first, just as a junk fee to extract revenue from an otherwise supposedly ‘free’ ticket and second, to discourage the use of miles instead of cash on last minute tickets that might otherwise be pricey by squeezing the potential savings. United first introduces these fees to the Mileage Plus program on October 16, 2006. Glad ot see they lasted less than three years.
The Economics of Airlines’ Mileage Addiction
This short Business Week piece discusses the importance of frequent flyer miles to airlines — selling billions of dollars in miles, using miles to good moribund bookings and launch new routes — and includes a couple of interesting statistics. I’m sure I’ve mentioned in the past, though flying accounts for a plurality of mileage earning (base miles at least, not counting bonuses) it no longer accounts for a majority of mileage earning. Credit card spend represents about 20% of earned mileage. Banks vie to issue co-branded cards because they’re influential in attracting customers, and those customers tend to be high-spending. The article mentions the customer battles between US Bank, which was the issuer of the Northwest Visa, and American Express which offers the Delta American Express. With the Delta-Northwest merger, American Express comes out on…
Free Wifi on American Airlines through September 6
You can get free wifi (on American Airlines planes that are equipped) using promo code AAWiFi80208A2 through September 6.
View from the Wing Goes Home
Home, for me, means the Westin Diplomat. It’s not the single most modern property, the single best service, the most intimate. But as an all around hotel experience it delivers, consistently. And no other property delivers as good a value in terms of elite status recognition. Sometimes the property is very busy, but a combination of off-season and the economy means poolside chairs were much easier to come by (people do save chairs starting around 8am). Alternatively they offer pay cabanas and ‘beach cabanas’ which are covered chairs on the beach. Some folks don’t like to pay, but when there’s a shortage I do appreciate having the options. This is not a small, intimate property. But when ensconced in a suite, and visiting the club lounge frequently, it actually feels as though it is. There…
Morning air travel chuckles
Via Chris, 7 True Stories That Prove The Airlines Hate You. When I reached number one, I couldn’t stop laughing at the graphic of the United Airlines assasin. While we’re at it, via Lucky and several other sources, you can’t bring a whip on a plane, apparently because you might “attack one of the flight attendants and whip her/him into such a state of excitement that s/he’ll beg to help .. hijack the plane?”
I Can’t Get No Respect!
Invesp Consulting lists me as only the #65 travel blog in their list of top 150, largely it appears because they’re leaving out half my stats such as RSS feed subscribers. I’d easily be in the top 15 in daily unique readership, and top 10 in RSS readership, if they’d only bother listing me… at least they know I’m one of the top 20 most linked to!
Global Traveller Interviews Lucky
The Global Traveller interviews lucky from the One Mile at a Time blog. Nothing earthshattering, but basic good advice on the Tumi T-Tech bag, being nice, Aeroplan, and the order in which you should build miles in one account versus diversifying.
The Sorry State of US Airways Domestic First Class
I had come across a very cheap first class fare and made a trip down to Florida (I purchased the tickets at $256 all-in, by the time I posted the deal it was $309, still a value). Of course, the fare was on US Airways. Now, I understand their desire to cut costs in all dimensions. Their stock symbol is LCC after all! And their current market valuation is not just lower than other mainline carriers, it is actually substantially lower than niche players like Hawaiian Airlines. True enough, this is an airline with problems. But the low levels of service provided by their flight attendants on this trip can’t really be justified by cost cutting, the airline is paying the flight attendants the same amount whether they service passengers or sit in the galley…
Continental-Alaska Partnership Ends October 24
Continental has long been a partner with Alaska Airlines, along with most Skyteam and oneworld carriers. Their partnership wasn’t as tight as Northwest’s and Delta’s, flights between the partners did not earn elite qualifying miles. Alaska’s model has been to partner with basically everyone who wasn’t partnering with United, the carrier’s primary competition (other than Southwest) up and down the West Coast of the U.S. And since Continental is leaving Skyteam and partnering up with Star Alliance and United, the Continental-Alaska partnership is coming to an end. The last day is October 24, 2009. Of course, within a few days of that Continental flying will be able to be credited to United (or any Star Alliance program) and vice versa.
