One Mile at a Time reports that Virgin America passengers flying paid first class from San Francisco can now use the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse there.. for an additional $40. Naturally, a move to charge folks flying in paid first class for lounge access will seem strange to many. But since most US airlines don’t offer lounge access for paid domestic first class tickets (Alaska Airlines is one exception), since the price of a one-way first class ticket from San Francisco to Los Angeles isn’t especially high, and since the Virgin Clubhouse is a rather nice lounge by US standards, this seems more than reasonable to me. I’ll be visiting the Virgin Clubhouse at Washington-Dulles for the first time in a few weeks, I understand that it’s rather underwhelming for a Virgin lounge but still the…
About Gary Leff
Details of Delta’s Miles as Money Option for Redeeming Towards Airfare
Webflyer.com wrote up details of Delta’s new pay with miles feature. Skymiles members with a co-branded American Express card can now use their miles to pay directly for tickets rather than searching award availability. I haven’t previously mentioned that this was coming (I don’t think) mainly because it doesn’t merit much attention. As I expected, the best you’ll ever do by using miles as cash for a ticket is one cent per mile in value. Now, Delta miles aren’t generally worth much more than a cent, I use my United and American miles to redeem (with ease, relatively speaking) for premium cabin international awards. In recent years I’ve booked international first class tickets on tons of airlines including Qantas, Air Tahiti Nui, Asiana, United, Thai, ANA, and Lufthansa (not to mention business class on many…
WebFlyer Writeup of United and Continental Frequent Flyer Programs
Webflyer.com has a feature called Head2Head, where you can compare any two programs next to each such that the features, pros, and cons of each are side by side. I contributed descriptions of Continental OnePass and United Mileage Plus for them. With Continental I made substantial revisions to what was already there, for United I started from scratch. I’d appeciate comments or thoughts from readers here about whether I was fair to the programs, whether I should have highlighted something I left off, etc.
Last Call for Freddies Balloting
This is your last chance to vote in the annual Freddie Awards, voting ends tomorrow February 29th. This is the one that matters, there are an almost limitless number of travel awards out there and it’s always shocking the results that some of them offer (and one suspects that in some cases they’re bought and paid for). Travel providers seem to really care how they do in this set of awards, the programs almost all promote it to their members to get out the vote of those likely to support them. But even so, all the politicking in the world is unlikely to skew the vote — over 400,000 travelers will cast their ballots in the Freddies. So even when I disagree with an outcome I have to respect it. On the whole (and in…
Currency Controls and Cheap Airfare
Here’s a little bit of creativity on Flyertalk that requires a more adventurous spirit than I have, represents a great deal, and also teaches a little something about global economics. Venezuela imposes currency controls. If you buy your tickets there, the dollar price of the fare is converted to Venezuelan currency at the official rate. But you can buy your Venezuelan funds at the much more favorable black market rate. So you wind up saving about 60% on your tickets. This only works for tickets issued in Venezuela. There’s some discussion of whether the tickets need to be purchased in Venezuela or just from Venezuela, and whether tickets would need to originate in Venezuela (think flying from Caracas to somewhere else as the first segment on a much larger itinerary with stopovers taking you to…
Southwest Goes Online to Respond to Silly Travel Stories
I thus far had resisted the non-urge to comment on the ‘too pretty to fly Southwest’ non-story. Certainly the reason that the two girls ‘who really aren’t all that’ had a confrontation with flight attendants isn’t because they’re supposedly good looking. And apparently regularly outsmarted by cheese… I think they were just discriminating against because we were young decent-looking girls. I mean, nobody else on the plane looked like us except us,” she said. “[The flight attendants] were like older ladies. We were younger. The real story, though, is that being a bit grumpy on a plane these days can get you a one-way ticket to interrogation and detention by law enforcement. That’s not the piece of the story the media is covering. But what prompts this post is Cranky Flier pointing to Southwest using…
Up to 20,000 Points for a Choice Visa
The standard offer for a Choice Privileges Visa is 8000 points. But through May 31 the offer is much better. 10,000 points with first use by August 14. 10,000 points when you use the card to pay for a stay at a Choice property by August 14. The card is offered by Bank of America and comes with no annual fee. Each 5,000 points will transfer to 1,000 miles with several different airlines, or points can be used for hotel stays. (Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)
Some People Really Don’t Like Annual Category Creep at Starwood
The New York Post runs a piece on the devaluation of Starwood points resulting from annual ‘category creep’. The author of the piece (and her editors at the Post, apparently) can’t do match and or catch reverses of some of the numbers. For example: A 66 percent hike for what Starwood calls “elite” hotels, including W New York, the Westin St. John Resort and the Meridien Beach Plaza in Monte Carlo (now 12,000 points instead of 20,000). A 40 percent hike in points needed to stay at the Westin Embassy Row, Washington, DC, or the Westin Sydney Australia (now 16,000 points instead of 10,000). (Emphasis mine.) I find the tone of the piece overly alarmist, especially this year as compared to last. But then I guess that’s the New York Post. “It’s sneaky. Did they…
Some Airfare Discounts, Specific Routes
American is offering a 15% discount to either Cozumel or Cabo San Lucas for tickets purchased by February 27, 2008 for travel between March 1, 2008, and April 30, 2008 with promotion code AA44MEX3. American is offering a 10% discount between New York-JFK and Los Angeles or San Francisco and between Washington-Dulles and Los Angeles for tickets purchased by February 26, 2008 for travel between February 26, 2008, and April 7, 2008 with promotion code AA178E1W. American is offering a 15% discount to Hawaii for tickets purchased by March 4, 2008 for travel between April 1, 2008 and June 20, 2008 with promotion code DFHAWAII. Alaska is offering a 10% discount to Seattle from any US or Canadian city for travel between June 22, 2008 and July 2, 2008 with code ECCMR9910.
5000 Delta Miles for Airport Budget Rentals of a Day or More
Budget is offering 5000 Delta miles for car rentals at airport locations through March 31. There are a few terms and conditions, and not all Budget locations participate, but it’s rare to see a large mileage bonus that’s valid on just a single day’s rental. So I have a feeling that some folks may want to steer their airport business to Budget for the next month.
