Jared Blank offers a basic point that I was too dense to see. Priceline acquired Travelweb, the hotel booking service, for the same reason they began offering retail airfare — so that they could sell travel to consumers whose bids failed. They don’t expect consumers to start at Priceline for their retail travel, but they don’t need to lose all of their customers who are unsuccessful with their opaque bidding product.
About Gary Leff
The Business of the Backend of Bookings
Expedia, which processed most of its airline bookings through Worldspan, has inked a relationship with Sabre. It’s unclear how much Expedia business will move over, but I was surprised to learn that Expedia accounts for more than 10% of Worldspan revenues.
Boston Attacks Airport Congestion Sort Of
Boston’s Logan Airport plans to adopt peak pricing for landing fees. Prices certainly matter, but the specific plan amounts to Mn attempt to pacify all sides, from airlines likely to balk at the fees, to passengers concerned about long delays, to regulators that want to head them off. The specifics are unfortunately driven by an attempt to pacify litigious constituents, and ignore some really great ideas. A couple of months ago Lynne Kiesling wrote about the potential for auctioning off slots to allocate them to their highest valued uses and control congestion. (I argued then that technological solutions to improve air traffic control were equally important.)
New Service to New Zealand
Air New Zealand is offering $748 roundtrip airfare to inaugurate its new San Francisco-Auckland service.Service starts June 30th, and also represents a great opportunity for frequent flyers with miles in United or USAirways accounts to head Down Under. There are likely to be award tickets available as these flights are just now bookable.
Miles for Music is Now Online
The Sony-United Airlines music download partnership is now online. They’re promoting it with a live Sheryl Crow concert about a United flight from Chicago to Los Angeles. This new website allows you to redeem 10,000 United miles for 100 song downloads or 10 album downloads. At a rough rule of $1 a song, this deal translates into a value of one cent a mile — hardly the best use of miles, but also about average for mileage-to-merchandise redemption opportunities. And it could certainly be a good use for acounts with either stray mileage or an abundance of miles (after all, how many first class flights to Hong Kong or Sydney can one person take?). The partnership also provides 2 miles per dollar spent on music downloads when paying with the United Visa instead of the…
My take on this year’s Freddie Awards
A full recap of this year’s Freddie Awards is available online, complete with all of the results. Air Canada received an Industry Impact Award for introducing personalized elite-level benefits, allowing members to select from several “Experience” benefits packages. This actually isn’t the first time an airline has tried this. United offered its elite members “the Gift of Choice,” a menu of extra benefits including upgrades and lounge access after its disastrous summer of 2000 which was dubbed “the Summer From Hell.” But it didn’t catch on, and United didn’t continue the practice.Certainly personalizing benefits to member interests is a way to differentiate a program, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s the wave of the future — it can be costly to administer and costly to maintain as tailored benefits are…
When to spend and when to save
Chris Elliott offers some advice on when to save money on travel and when not to. He gets more right than wrong, but his piece needs a few corrections. Elliott is on the money that: a good travel agent is worth paying for, it’s worth spending miles to upgrade to business class on (most) international trips, and that the Hilton Garden Inn is generally a good business hotel. Bear in mind that similar brands may not be as consistent — Four Points by Sheraton has some good properties (Los Angeles airport and Sydney’s Darling Harbor locations, for instance) but also some real dogs. While my own travel preferences tend more towards a W or at least a Westin, mid-price business hotels remains sound advice. Elliott properly cautions that paying a travel agent is overkill on…
USAirways Takes a Page from the Launch of United’s TED
They’re trying to burnish their image in Philadelphia with guerilla marketing. The “guerrilla” term refers to events such as delivering breakfast to radio stations around town tomorrow, hoping to get an on-air mention of the low fares, or surprising workers in Center City office buildings next week by offering free slices of pizza. On Saturday, flowers will be delivered to the homes of dozens of the most frequent US Airways customers who live in the region, as a way to say thanks. There will be a roulette wheel, similar to that on TV’s Wheel of Fortune, that will be set up next week in shopping malls. With each spin, passersby can win free tickets, 5,000 frequent-flier miles, or other, less valuable prizes. Free car washes will be offered in Cherry Hill and on the Main…
Don’t just fly right, park right
Private, off-airport lots sometimes offer extras which can make them more convenient and a better deal than airport parking.They compete on price, to be sure, but they also compete on service (such as luggage assistance and direct car-to-terminal service) and extras.Some lots offer oil change, carwashes, detailing, newspapers, bottled water, and frequent flyer miles. One lot in Atlanta even offers pet boarding.Private lots also tend to adjust their prices to fill up spaces during less busy periods, offering coupons and online discounts.Traveling during peak holidays? Consider making a reservation — something unknown at public airport lots.
It was only a matter of time before Justice Scalia’s foibles became journalistic fodder
Scott McCartney writes about airline tariff rules such as prohibitions on hidden city, back to back, and throwaway ticketing — and how to get around those rules. The basic advice: if you’re breaking a rule, don’t give the airline your frequent flyer number and they’ll have a harder time tracking you. And, I might add, don’t write publicly about breaking the rules. Unless you’re a Supreme Court Justice.
