Southwest Airlines has an offer for a free movie download from Movielink.com as part of their effort to introduce in-flight entertainment. They won’t install movie screens or inflight audio. Instead, they encourage you to download a movie and watch it.
The eFax 30 Day Free Trial offer is back on the Free Mac Mini site. I did the eFax trial for my photo iPod. It’s a 30 day free trial, which is good because it makes it plenty easy to cancel. Cancellation is done via online chat, so you can even save the chat in case something goes wrong (just copy and paste it into your wordprocessor). So if you’re looking for an easy offer to complete, this is a good one. The past few days had seen only sketchy offers like 7 day trials that required you to stay signed up for the full 7 days, or even a 1-day trial for $1. Too much hassle. Much prefer to have a month…
Randy Petersen believes that United’s Mileage Plus is worth $2.4 to $2.7 billion and that a public offering could lie in the future.
Engadget reviews the iPod Shuffle: This thing is tiny — and light. You’ll never feel it around your neck or in your pocket. It’s like a stick of gum, not a pack. Just be sure not to leave it in your jeans when you wash them. Gets me excited about the new Free iPod Shuffle offer from Gratis, not to mention the Free Mac Mini.
Continental and United are both offering 42,000 bonus miles for business class flights across the Atlantic, matching British Airways and American.
USAirways is offering double miles for purchases made through the end of the month on all flights through the end of 2005. Business class flights to Europe earn 40,000 bonus miles (like American and British Airways) and all flights to the Carribean and Latin America earn 10,000 bonus miles. Registration is required, and again the bonus applies only to tickets purchased by January 31.
The year started with a bleak outlook for Independence Air, as news broke that they had missed an interest payment on some bonds leading to speculation that they were close to a bankruptcy filing. (If they were going to file for bankruptcy there was no reason to make the payment, and they’d want to conserve cash in any case.) Then they announced plans for job cuts, renegotiated lease payments on aircraft, agreed to return some aircraft, and obtained a loan from GE. All of this bought some breathing space for the carrier, though did little to improve their revenue outlook. But my opinion of the carrier is somewhat boosted by two big bets being made on the carrier by Wall Street heavyweights. Regulatory filings late Friday indicate that two major hedge funds have acquired 12.5%…
Members of the machinists union at USAirways approved pay cuts. They were the last union to do so. Coupled with the bankruptcy court’s decision to allow USAirways to draw on the cash behind its federally back load guarantee, the airline has been given a few more months of life. There’s currently no indication that they’ll return to profitability, especially since March is generally their lowpoint in cash for the year. But I don’t see an immediate liquidation threat. In other words, it should be fine to book February flights on the airline.
The Hagerstown, Maryland airport currently serves an average of fewer than 45 passengers a day. So it may be no surprise that the airport is currently slated to lose commercial service on April 30. But they’re spending $60 million to upgrade the runways for bigger planes starting in April anyway. And bizarrely enough, the fact that they’re losing all service is seen as bolstering the decision to invest in support for larger aircraft.
Gratis Networks, the semi-secret company behind the free electronics offers like the free Photo iPod, looks like it is beginning to come out of the closet. Their corporate website now features a blog with updates on their offers and newsclips. It makes for an interesting read, as they’ve been covered across the mainstream media. It also signifies a bit of a shift for them, I think. They seem to have tried to fly a bit ‘under the radar’ in the past, making it difficult to find out who or where they were. Part of their business model has been to keep everything automated and to provide nearly no customer service whatsoever. I wonder whether that’s changing. I have had absolutely outstanding luck with them. I’ve received an iPod, a Photo iPod, a flatscreen TV, a…
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
