Register to earn double points on Amtrak when booking Acela Express and Metroliner trains online in August (for August travel).
About Gary Leff
Chris Elliott’s Travel Notes
I cruised on over to Chris Elliott’s Travel Notes blog for the first time in awhile and Chris is doing a bang-up job summarizing the day’s travel news and offering brief commentary. There’s a lot more content each day than I remember, he seems to be doing a better job keeping his website up to date than I am. Just as I offer each day’s writing by email, so does Chris. I’ve signed up because I want to read his content but I’m terrible about remembering to check all the websites I enjoy reading.(I offer a simple solution for regular readers of blogs, just add my RSS feed to your favorite Blog Reader software.)
Taxing Miles in Australia
Paying business expenses on personal credit cards for the miles is a time-honored tradition. And there’s even a new company, Zevez, which helps businesses run their accounts payable through rewards credit cards in order to capture cash back or frequent flyer miles.But the practice of earning miles by charging business expenses to a credit card may be coming to an end in Australia. Australian taxpayers earning miles on business travel are clearly not liable for the tax. However a new Australian Tax Office initiative (“ATO Practice Statement”) will tax business people earning miles on their personal credit cards. The tax office will scrutinize Australians who earn 250,000 or more frequent flyer miles in a year to determine whether those miles are being earned by putting business expenses on personal cards “for no economic purpose” other…
Dangerous Mechanical Delay
This piece has one of the best opening paragraphs of any travel story I’ve read: Our plane went mechanical in Mexico City on the way to Costa Rica. The local mechanics said they didn’t have the parts on hand and it would be at least 38 hours before our aircraft was going anywhere. The airline decided to hedge its bets and set us free for a 30-hour layover at the Mexico City airport hotel. That’s when I almost lost my penis. The rest of the short story doesn’t live up to its opening, so you can choose to read it all or not.
Marriott offer
Marriott is offering third night free in conjunction with a United Airlines flight for stays booked by September 2nd for travel through December 25. (Hat tip to Samir.)
Build in extra time to Wichita
Wichita, Kansas isn’t a good place to fly to if you need to be on time. Nearly one of four flights from major commercial airlines arrived late at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport in the first five months of this year. … Late arrivals in Wichita ran an average of 56 minutes behind schedule. “The delays at Mid-Continent Airport are not delays at Mid-Continent Airport,” said Bailis Bell, the airport’s director. “They are delays at other airports in the system. Delays at this airport because of congestion, bad weather or equipment are rare.” About one-third of daily flights serving Mid-Continent operate between Wichita and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport or Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport. Atlanta ranked 27th out of the nation’s 31 biggest airports in on-time performance. Chicago was last. Atlantic Coast Airlines had the most delays of…
KLM Under Fire, Fires Back
This opinion column trashing KLM’s service to Ghana is a fun read, but even more enjoyable is KLM’s point-by-point refutation.No doubt the original author gets some details wrong and KLM uses that to cast doubt over the whole story. And some of KLM’s claims may be unfair, suggesting that since the author isn’t a member of the airline’s frequent flyer program that they must not have actually flown the airline (when they could simply have not sought frequent flyer credit, or credited their flights to a partner airline’s program).Nevertheless I wish there was a greater dialogue like this on the part of airlines instead of marketing platitudes. It’s refreshing to see a major corporation go on the attack with specifics.
Credit Cards are Big Business
I earn a plurality of my miles from credit card spending. And Inside Flyer has reported that more miles are earned nationwide from credit card spending than from flying (actual flight miles, not counting elite bonuses and other special promotions). One indication of how big the credit card business is: the domain name CreditCards.com has been sold for $2.75 million.
But low fare carriers aren’t a magic bullet for success
Airtran is pulling out of Piedmont Triad International even though they’re running at about 80% load factors. Airtran also pulled their Washington Reagan-National to West Palm Beach flights almost immediately after their introduction (inconveniencing me!). It’s worth remembering that in spite of the conventional wisdom that the low cost carriers can do no wrong, not every business decision works out for them. But at least pulling out of a market is a sign that they care about profitability and are willing to make tough and even embarassing decisions in furtherance of their bottom line, a lesson that the major carriers need desperately to learn.
Conventional Wisdom Explained
It may be obvious, but low cost carriers are now driving the airline industry. In a business in which everyone sells the same thing, the low-cost producer usually comes out on top. It took 25 years, but that is exactly what has happened in the airline business. … Give the major airlines credit: They managed to hold off the challengers for an awfully long time. They used their muscle at big airports to deny gates to the upstarts. They employed frequent-flier programs to build brand loyalty. And they kept a stranglehold on the business traveler, the guy who would pay $2,300 to fly round-trip from Boston to Los Angeles. … The discounters kept getting bigger. In 1993 they flew 8.4 percent of the nation’s passengers. By 2003 their market share was up to 21.7 percent.…
