The next time someone offers a screed on the horrors of air travel and the need for the government to re-regulate, just remind them what it’s done for pricing. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics said the average domestic airfare in the first quarter was $315, down 5.9% from a year earlier. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2008, fares fell 9.1%, the biggest quarter-to-quarter drop recorded by BTS. The average fare in the BTS quarterly survey hit a high of $360 in the third quarter of 2008. BTS has been surveying fares since 1995. Since the start, the average airfare has increased 6.1% compared to a 40.5% inflation rate, the government said. (Emphasis mine.) Mind you, that’s following a period in which The average airfare, for example, dropped by more than…
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Parker Meridien Palm Springs Discounts
Le Parker Meridien Palm Springs is offering either a 17% discount on award bookings (each 12,000 point redemption night earns a 2000 point rebate – not sure if this is combinable with 5th night free to earn the rebate on a night you’re not actually ‘paying for’ but I would assume so since the hotel gets paid just the same). The paid offer is for a $200 food and beverage credit each night on a $199 room rate. The offer is valid through September 3. Combine a slow hotel year with the off-season in the desert and the offers get pretty crazy (read: hotels get pretty desperate — this hotel didn’t even participate in Starwood Preferred Guest a year ago!).
5000 Delta Miles for Free Lasik Eye Exam
It’s not quite as rewarding as last summer’s Bosley hair replacement consultation promo, but you can earn 5000 Delta miles for a free Lasik exam/consultation. Not valid at Virginia and New York locations so folks in those locations will need to cross state lines… If you actually choose to do the procedure they’ll give you another 20,000. (Hat tip to Randy.)
Delta New 125,000 Qualifying Mile Top Tier… Unimpressive.
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…
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!
