Gary Steiger of Free Frequent Flyer Miles passed along this article which details frequent flyer award useage (how many awards claimed, what percentage of travel that accounts for) at each carrier, drawn from their most recent 10-K filings. The April issue of Inside Flyer (subscription required) has more to say about these 10-Ks, outlining what they reveal about the economics of frequent flyer miles. In simple terms, American thus estimates that a domestic roundtrip will cost them about $12.90. This is in fairly stark contrast to Delta and Northwest, which estimate their costs at $16.01 and $16.57, respectively. On average, it seems the cost of your free ticket is about $14.74. That’s a three-dollar drop from 2002. To illustrate just how profitable a frequent flyer program can be, then, let’s play with that $14.74 figure.…
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A weird, weird world
Just when I thought the world couldn’t get stranger than a man suing an airline for failing to warn him that drinking too much could be dangerous, come these stories: A 15 year old girl is charged with child pornography for sexually exploiting herself. A Virginia woman is charged with a felony for receiving oral sex. The judge in the case says that, the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas decision notwithstanding, a law’s constitutionality is the purview of the legislature and not the courts. The Georgia House of Representatives has passed a ban on women piercing their genitals.
10,000 Bonus Miles for Grocery Shopping Online
Residents of California, Seattle and Vancouver Washington, Portland Oregon and Las Vegas can shop online with a minimum $100 purchase per order at Safeway or Vons and earn up to 10,000 bonus United miles on top of the standard 125 miles for every $250 spent. The offer is valid from March 31th to June 9th, 2004 and bonuses are awarded as follows: Shop 2 times – 1,000 Bonus miles Shop 4 times – 3,000 Bonus miles Shop 6 times – 5,000 Bonus miles Shop 8 times – 7,000 Bonus miles Shop 10 times – 10,000 Bonus miles
Drink Beer, Earn Points
The U.S. Beer Drinking Team has a loyalty program. Details are sketchy, but the potential exists to turn 90 million American beer drinkers into a sophisticated database of consumer preferences.Mmmmm… Beer.
Man sues airline after falling down escalator after drinking on flight
Sometimes a comment isn’t even necessary. A West Virginia man is suing an airline company, alleging it didn’t notify him that drinking alcohol at night might adversely affect passengers before he fell down an escalator at Southwest Florida International Airport. Floyd W. Shuler, 61, filed the lawsuit against Virginia-based US Airways Inc. in circuit court in Fort Myers. Shuler, who has lived part-time on Marco Island, said in the suit that US Airways was negligent by failing to warn him the effects of alcohol are greater at night on airline passengers, and that the company did not properly maintain the escalator at the airport when he fell down while using it on Aug. 28, 1999. “US Airways failed to warn (Shuler) and its other passengers of the increased effect that consumption of alcoholic beverages has…
Meeting planner programs
The major hotel chains offer perks and points to meeting planners. In my experience, these points are generally ‘left on the table’ — that is, meeting planners don’t know about them. In most cases these offers don’t drive up the cost of a meeting. They’re really just a marketing expense that the hotel chains incur and the points can be had by those in the know. So if you plan meetings for a living or occasionally, be sure to take note: Marriott, Starwood, Hilton, and Hyatt all offer formal rewards programs for meeting planners. Priority Club offers American Express Gift Cheques for paying for meetings with an Amex. If you’re aware of other programs in this category, please let me know.
In the event of an emergency landing, smoke ’em if you got ’em
Tony Woodlief has some observations on air travel and the silly consequences that flow from a legal obsession with safety. [P]art of my trip required me to fly from Phoenix to Tucson. It’s a 22-minute flight over sand and rock and an occasional patch of farmland cultivated no doubt at the expense of low-income taxpayers in New Jersey. As we prepared for take-off, the stewardess explained to us how we can use our seat cushions as flotation devices in the event of a water landing. I’ll let that sink in for a minute. It’s not her fault — our safety-obsession leads us to make silly rules, like the one that requires stewardesses to demonstrate how to work a seatbelt Oh, and Tony warns us about peeing in a bucket on the train.
Scalia Update
Update to the Scalia/Throwaway Ticketing story. I’m told that Scalia did indeed fly New Orleans-Washington National non-stop on USAirways, and USAirways’ Contract of Carriage clearly prohibits the practice of throwaway ticketing.Now that Justice Scalia’s cirumvention of fare rules is public knowledge, will USAirways go after the Supreme Court Justice for the difference in fare? I’m guessing not.I bet that if the hidden city ticketing class action suit returns to the Supreme Court, there’ll be another request for Scalia to recuse himself.
When Fear of Inflation Hits, I’m Investing in Miles Rather Than Gold
In another sign that frequent flyer miles are no longer just proprietary currencies, but an alternative medium of exchange, ANA has entered into a points exchange agreement with an internet shopping mall.
Supersize my Earning
I’ll be earning miles even more quickly now that McDonald’s will be accepting credit cards. What the piece doesn’t say is the reason — their tests have found that customers using credit cards spend more on food than those using cash.While I’m not sure if this is selection bias (people who don’t have credit cards might tend to have less cash to spend?), it still sounds about right.
