The Washington Times carries another piece on United’s blocking its Mileage Plus members from redeeming for award seats offered by its Star Alliance partner carriers. Despite significant increases in the mileage cost of many awards beginning in the New Year, United will not be ending the practice. According to the article, they’re the only Star Alliance carrier which blocks award seats offered by other Star airlines, and they plan to continue to do this. United just wants its customers to understand why — they have to pay for award seats and they’re expensive, darnit! Of course, as I’ve written about in the past, United’s frequent flyer program is already the most (and at times only) profitable part of the company. That was true even before they began engaging in blocking of awards. That’s not to…
About Gary Leff
You Know it’s December When…
One Mile at a Time notes that on my IAD-SEA flight, which was an A319 with only eight F seats, four of us were on mileage runs! End of year means runs for status requalification. There have been plenty of alternative methods of acquiring status enter frequent flyer programs the past few years, most prominent being co-branded credit card spend. Delta has offered double qualifying miles for specific routes, for Rewards Network dining, and for Hilton stays. But I’m surprised not to have seen a repeat (or dpread to other programs) of US Airways’ ‘everything counts’ promotion from two years ago. It seemed like an interesting way to generate partner revenue while not cramming up the front cabin with mileage runners.
Delta Waiving Admin Fee on Mileage Transfers in December
Frugal Travel Guy says that Delta is waiving the processing fee on mileage transfers in December. You pay just the 1 cent a point to transfer miles between accounts, without the extra charge. Discounts are great, transferring 30,000 miles usually costs $330 but would cost $300 with this offer instead. Those for whom Delta is honoring the up to 150% bonus on partner transactions (the original terms of which included transferring miles) may have an outstanding opportunity here. I still don’t trust Delta enough to believe I won’t have to fight for my 150% partner bonus, so I’ll probably take a pass on this. I may have to fight for the points I transferred into Delta from Diners Club as it is. But if you registered for the partner bonus in time, before the offer…
$150 in Free ZipCar Credits
This has been posted on FatWallet and on Flyertalk, I’ve just verified that it works. ZipCar has $25 driving credits with promotion codes linked to their specific markets. Codes are entered on the Zipcar website and are valid for only 15 days. The great thing is that the codes are stackable — you can enter codes from each region, not just the region you are in, and you can successfully enter them all. So (6) codes yields $150 in driving credits. The codes are: DriveNowPHL DriveNowDC DriveNowATL DriveNowSEA DriveNowBOS9842 DriveNowPDX Update: It seems that Zipcar has pulled the bonus dollars out of my account, though no word from them at this point.
Credit Card for Foreign Purchases
Reader Sam points me to the Schwab Bank Visa Card which, according to its FAQ, doesn’t hit you with foreign transaction fees. There are other cards with the same feature, it’s the only redeeming aspect of Capital One for instance, but this card also gives you 2% cash back into a Schwab One brokerage account.
Northwest Worldperks Award Changes Coming January 15
As part of integrating the Northwest Worldperks program into Delta Skymiles, Worldperks is making changes to their award chart effective January 15. They’re introducing Delta-pioneered three-tiered award pricing and increasing the mileage cost of several awards. Here’s the old award chart and here’s the new chart which displays only coach awards. Here are the changes in coach saver award pricing: Hawaii goes up to 40,000 miles (14% increase) Europe goes to 60,000 miles (20% increase) Northern South America goes up to 45,000 miles (29% increase) Southern South America goes up to 60,000 miles (20% increase) Indian Subcontinent, Africa, Middle East drop to 80,000 miles (9% reduction) Naturally, this is not good for Worldperks members but on the whole pretty much as expected — the programs are being aligned, Skymiles is the surviving program, and they…
Tail Wagging the Dog Saga (or are Frequent Flyer Programs the Dog Now?)
Where does an airline go for cash when it’s short? Its frequent flyer program, even when that program is a separately traded entity. Aeroplan is pre-paying Air Canada for award tickets: Air Canada (ACa.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Monday that Groupe Aeroplan Inc (AER.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the operator the airline’s frequent flyer plan, has agreed to speed payment for reward tickets issued under the plan, raising C$70 million ($56.6 million) for the cash-strapped carrier. Air Canada, the country’s biggest airline, said in a statement the payment is for reward tickets issued by Aeroplan through May 29, 2009. The airline also said Air Canada and Aeroplan have also agreed to unspecified “commercial terms that are beneficial to both parties.” Air Canada said the deal was a part of a move…
Be Careful Driving to Detroit Metro Airport
The Airport Authority is warning passengers of speed traps on the way to the airport, and the city enforcing those speed traps is miffed. The City posted signs which read “The Romulus Police Department has dramatically increased its patrols at the entrances and exits to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, using unmarked vehicles. Please be careful to observe all speed limits and traffic laws when driving in and out of the airport.” But that’s not all they do. “When they see one of our cars … sitting stationary with radar on, they will pull their cars in front of ours and turn on their lights, so people are warned that police are there.” Apparently the city of Romulus has issued 10,000 tickets since July. And, ironically, they’re miffed that the airport authority has taken steps which discourage…
Delta 150% Partner Promotion Bonus to Be Honored, Sort of, Maybe
A week and a half ago, Delta introduced an amazing partner promotion, offering up to a 150% bonus on most partner activity. This presented some amazing opportunities. Too amazing, perhaps. Because Delta pulled the plug. Turns out that Delta either was testing the idea, mocked it up, but offered it live by mistake. Or, depending on who you believe, only intended to offer it as a targeted promotion but didn’t include that in the terms and conditions and didn’t restrict who could sign up. In any case, a disaster — because folks who signed up started transferring points into their Delta Skymiles accounts to take advantage of the offer. And Delta pulled the promo off their website. Personally, I transferred Diners Club points to my Delta account (to take advantage of the up to 35%…
Rebookings as a Result of the Bangkok Airport Shutdown
I mentioned a couple of days ago that a friend was scheduled to transit Bangkok overnight on the way back home from Kathmandu, Nepal. With the Bangkok airport closed, this was a challenge. (And to top it all off, many connections out of Kathmandu involve flying to Delhi and onward through Mumbai.) To complicate matters further, the flight from Kathmandu to Bangkok was on a separate ticket from the rest of the journey. United has historically refused to issue awards on the Thai Airways Bangkok-Kathmandu segment despite generally good availability in business class. I tried once for the award and found availability on two days only out of sixty I queried, and then only in coach. Thai was offering award seats on the flight on more than fifty days during that period. United has a travel…
