On the heels of Brazilian carrier TAM joining Star Alliance, comes news that Air India’s entry is delayed again. The invitation for Air India to join Star was made in late 2007, and their new timeline for getting their act together and meeting all requirements is now March, 2011. So it will have taken them more than 3 years. The biggest remaining hurdle, apparently, is that they have to integrate the IT systems of their two separate carriers (Air India and Indian Airlines). Meanwhile, Star must be getting impatient as Air India acknowledges that Star is having conversations with Jet Airways as well. ‘India is a growing market. So it can have more than one member. The market is bound to grow. But we have made it clear to Star Alliance that Jet Airways should…
About Gary Leff
Lunch At The Fat Duck Restaurant
(…The Fat Duck Review: a continuation of my trip report “Cathay & British Airways First Class, Philippines and Macau, a Presidential Suite, and the Fat Duck Restaurant”) When planning my American Airlines Oneworld award, I decided to pop through London on the way back to the US. It meant that I’d be able to try British Airways First Class (I’ve flown ClubWorld only in the past) and I’d be able to eat at the Fat Duck Restaurant. Ever since my meal at El Bulli in 2008, I’ve wanted to try the Fat Duck. At the time of the meal, only Heston Blumenthal and his three Michelin stars had bested El Bulli in the San Pellegrino/Restaurant Magazine ratings over the previous 5 years. Now, in fairness I’ll be the first to quibble with those rankings. In…
What are the Very Best Value Mileage Awards?
By reader request, here’s my take on the very best airline mileage award values. I’ll offer my top five. New York-JFK – London Heathrow roundtrip in Virgin Upper Class for 63,000 ANA points. What’s more, they don’t hit you with the extortionate fuel surcharges that Virgin does with their own program when you redeem the same flights. (Theirs is a distance-based chart, from other nearby East Coast cities the roundtrip award is 68,000 points). The award would cost the same on other Star carriers as well. East Coast of the US to Europe in business class, 4 stopovers in addition to destination, for 80,000 Asiana points using Star Alliance partners. Even better if you earn those miles for $40,000 in spend on the Bank of America-issued Asiana American Express. The Asiana chart is distance-based, the…
20,000 American Airlines Miles for a Citibank Checking Account
Ripped from Gary Steiger’s site: 20,000 American Airlines offer. Open and fund a qualifying Citibank regular checking account with a minimum of $1,000 by June 30, 2010. Within the first month of opening your account, start making:at least one (1) monthly direct deposit into your checking account; or at least two (2) electronic bill payments each month from your account; or five (5) or more qualifying signature purchase transactions each month using your Citibank debit card and continue doing so for three (3) consecutive months and earn your first 10,000 American Airlines dvantage® bonus miles. Continue for the next nine (9) months and earn an additional 10,000 Advantage® bonus miles. I leave it to you to carefully read the terms and conditions and fees for both the miles offer and for the account.
The Waldorf Hilton, London: a continuation of “Cathay & British Airways First Class, Philippines and Macau, a Presidential Suite, and the Fat Duck Restaurant”
Last November, after my stay at the Prince de Galles in Paris, I decided that I would always endeavor to pick a hotel in a major European city that had an executive lounge. Now, the Euro has been falling relative to the dollar in recent weeks (oh, those profligate Greeks, Portugese, and Spaniards, you make the Italians look fiscally responsible!). But Europe is just really hard on my wallet, and a lounge there yields especially good value — for my morning coffee, for breakfast, for access to water. I’ll never ‘get’ Europeans who don’t drink water and no I’m not willing to chug multiple bottles of marked-up Evian over lunch every day. So I decided to burn some Hilton points for London, and as a Diamond I had heard that the executive lounge at the…
The Broad Array of Travel Sites Offering Cashback via Ebates
To follow up on my earlier post about receiving cashback or miles for travel bookings — something I try to remember to do for the myriad bookings I wind up making for other people especially — I surveyed the cashback offers at e-bates. Some of them are pretty good, and several of them are ones I hadn’t realized existed. For instance, I rent from Avis all the time. I book at their website, and never go through a portal. So I’m giving up my 3% cashback from ebates. (Dollar offers 3.5%, Thrifty 3%, and Enterprise 2% but I wouldn’t ever rent from Enterprise.) I’m an Intercontinental Royal Ambassador member, I make my bookings on their website, and don’t go through the ebates portal — I’m giving up 5% cashback on Intercontinental/Priority Club family hotels. Wow,…
TAM Joins Star Alliance, ANA Website Updated to Search Awards on TAM!
TAM joined the Star Alliance today. Never heard of TAM? They’re the the biggest airline in the Southern Hemisphere and they’re based in Brazil. They fly to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, the US, and the biggest destinations in Europe. TAM appears to have a nice new first class product, not true suites (and no doors – hah!) but certainly a good looking seat. So you know I’m happy with their joining Star! Maybe I can convince US Airways to route a US – Europe award via Sao Paolo? Wednesday night S&P downgraded TAM’s debt but the timing seems odd. Their concern is that yields won’t recover sufficiently in the Brazilian market, but goodness knows that the Star tie-in should help. Most importantly, the ANA Mileage Club award search website – the Star Alliance…
Emirates Bringing their A380 Back to JFK
Emirates is bringing A380 service back to JFK beginning October 31. They had served New York – Dubai with this aircraft and then moved 380 service up to Toronto where they were only permitted service 3 days a week and could better utilize the extra capacity of the aircraft. Now, the A380 is still just cool. And Emirates offers one of the most over-the-top first class cabins on that aircraft. Like Singapore’s A380 and Jet Airways 777s (and thus Turkish leased Jet Airways 777s), they offer suites with doors. And unlike anyone else in the sky, they have showers. I’ve not much paid attention to Emirates, I do realize that they are a Continental partner at reasonable award pricing and a United partner at more expensive mileage pricing. My impression had been that Continental only…
Macau – Hong Kong – London by Ferry and Cathay Pacific First Class: a continuation of “Cathay & British Airways First Class, Philippines and Macau, a Presidential Suite, and the Fat Duck Restaurant”
After our last complimentary ‘all you can order off the menu’ breakfast, we said goodbye to the Westin. I had a bit of a confusing interaction with the front desk over the bill, but it was minor. I should have had complimentary internet, but they charged for two days’ worth. When I asked about this they explained that their system offered two speeds, the slower internet was free, I had selected the faster option. Now, I’m confident that I didn’t do that, as I guessed that they might charge for the faster speed, I didn’t really need it, and I didn’t feel like asking. But they initially stood their ground. As did I, and they removed it from my bill. Rather than taking the hotel’s free shuttle, I opted to hang around an extra 15…
Measuring and Quantifying Airline Award Redemption: Not all Programs are Created Equal
Scott McCartney covers the IdeaWorks ‘study’ of award availability (.pdf), it points to some interesting results though the methodology of the underlying research is somewhat suspect. And some of the results are so strange that it calls for what’s pretty commonplace in science — the notion that a single study is rarely meaningful, it’s only when results are replicable and pointing in the same direction that we can begin to reasonably draw conclusions. Still, I certainly applaud efforts to systematically measure and quantify the performance of frequent flyer programs! A study testing the availability of free seats showed that Southwest Airlines Co. could fulfill 99.3% of requests for award seats requiring standard mileage levels, and Alaska Air Group Inc.’s Alaska Airlines offered choices on 75% of requests. US Airways Group Inc. could fulfil just 10.7%.…
