The CEOs of the major airlines make easy targets for criticism and derision these days, what with the billions of dollars in shareholder value they were entrusted with rapidly turning into absolutely nothing. And yet they (or more specifically, Continental CEO Gordon Bethune) keep opening their (his) mouth. Joe Brancatelli explains how two recent sentences by Gordo shed light on just how wrong the major airlines’ business models are.
About Gary Leff
Going to the Freddies
I just made plans to go to the Freddie Awards, the annual award ceremony for airline/hotel/credit card loyalty programs. Thanks to the generosity of this website’s host, Randy Petersen, attendance is free. The event is being held at the Wyndham in Colorado Springs on April 24th. I even nabbed a room at that hotel via Priceline for $32. (There’s a special Freddie Awards rate of $79 night, as well.) Anyone care to join me there?
You Know You Want to Belong
Air Tahiti Nui has announced that its frequent flyer program is no longer restricted to residents of Tahiti. Woo hoo! And it must be good, since they charge for membership.
Covering My Butt, or First They Came For the Bloggers…
My professional life rarely intersects with my travel opinions (even when those opinions are formed while traveling as part of my professional life). And it’s a good thing, too, according to a recent article in Human Resources Executive. I’d hate to get zetzed by an ill-fated corporate blog policy! By the way, Disclaimer The opinions expressed on this web page belong to the author alone and in no way represent the opinions, beliefs, inclinations, or hunches of his employer. Any similarity to any persons, living or dead, are unintentional, purely coincidental and really, really, not the fault of author . . . This website’s author, his employer, its service provider(s), equipment manufacturers, owners of networks this data may have passed through, red quarks used to bring you this page, and the telephone company that spawned…
Sofitel Hotels Takes Down French Flag, Fears American Street Rioters
The Sofitel Hotel in midtown Manhattan is no longer flying a French flag. CNN reports this as protecting the safety and security of staffers at the hotels. Seriously. They fear American street riots or other retaliation for their being French. While Americans may not think highly of the French generally (Tom Palmer once appeared on ABC News referring to the country derisely as an amusement park, Franceland, where there are castles to see and cheese to eat but no innovation), and even less now that they are standing in the way of U.S. action against Iraq, this hardly seems a realistic threat. It may make good business sense, though. Immediately after 9/11, the lcal Chinese restaurant that I order from started sending me chopsticks with pro-U.S. statements on the wrappers. Since these are mass-produced wrappers,…
Spend Miles or Money?
Yesterday I was asked whether it was worth spending miles on a domestic roundtrip ticket, or saving them up for vacations later. Here were my thoughts: Don’t bank your miles. Lots of folks see their miles as an account to use for unlimited travel in some far off future. Problem is, airlines control the creation of the currency and its redemption. Airlines regularly inflate the currency, and the raise the number of miles necessary for awards. Except for special award sales (like after September 11th, and possibly to come in the event of a war with Iraq), the number of points required for awards goes up and not down. The best value for miles is international premium class travel. Of course, this all varies by person — some people don’t value business or first class…
Concentrate All Your Flying On One Airline
A colleague asked me whether concentrating all of her flying on a single airline would get her free upgrades to first class. Without going into the particulars of just how much flying (25,000 miles in a year? 50,000 miles? 75,000? 100,000?), here was my oversimplified answer — Different airlines have different upgrade policies. With American you can either use miles OR upgrade certificates that you earn by flying (you basically earn 25% of your flying in first class free). United, Delta, and USAIrways have similar policies. With Continental, Northwest, and America West you get all of your domestic upgrades for free. They process them based on your status and give the seat to you if it’s available. No additional cost. Alaska Airlines is my favorite program of all — elites who fly 35,000 miles or…
Microsoft Outlook Delivers Free Frequent Flyer Miles
The little box to enter your email address on the upper left hand corner of the screen is really quite useful. MilesLink is a newsletter with all sorts of miles and points news. There were even a couple of offers that I didn’t know about in my mailbox this morning: Earn 20,000 Alaska miles by flying Alaska and Northwest (Okay, maybe I knew about this — I may even have posted about this — but I had forgotten!) Earn a free companion ticket to Mexico when you fly 4 roundtrips on America West So sign up… Oh, and of course if you enter your email in the box on the right hand side of your screen, you get this blog — View from the Wing — delivered to your email box each night…
Afghanistan Plants a Flag in Cyberspace
The BBC reports that Afghanistan has “launched its own national internet domain, .af, for websites and e-mail addresses.” But Afghanistan is far from a wired nation because Under the former fundamentalist Taleban authorities, all non-governmental use of e-mail services and websites was punishable by death. Will this formerly fundamentalist Islam nation become the new home of “Size Does Matter” spam?
You Gotta Be in it to Win it
Enter by March 31 for a chance to win 1,000,000 American Airlines miles from Travelocity.
