Airlines

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USAirways Quietly Devalues Award Chart

by Gary Leff on March 8, 2007

Mar 08 2007

USAirways seems to have updated their award chart with no notice whatsoever. The first item I’ve noticed is that flights between North America and “South and Central Asia” now run 80,000 miles for coach/120,000 for business/160,000 for first class — up from 60/90/120 thousand respectively.This really is a disappointment. I know that USAirways has had a much maligned program, and things have generally changed for the worse since America West took over things. But I was just starting to collect USAirways miles again over the past few months, racking up about 90,000. And now that doesn’t buy my favorite award any longer. Update: This was discussed briefly earlier in the week on Flyertalk. It surprises me that there’s less attention being paid to it than I would have expected. One summary of the changes to…

United Airlines Matches Varig — or Most Airline — Status

by Gary Leff on February 26, 2007

Feb 26 2007

Continuing my kick of linking to just about anything Upgrade: Travel Better has to say, Mark points to the Star Alliance offer to match status held with Varig. Varig went bankrupt and lost its membership the Star Alliance, so other Star Alliance members are jockeying to pick up the elite frequent flyers in the now-defunct Varig “Smiles” program. The Star Alliance webpage lists the different status match programs that are available to Smiles members until April 30, 2007. Air Canada, Lufthansa, South African, Swiss, and TAP are all granting status matches to Varig’s elites. BUT: United goes one further. Their rules doesn’t specify that the status match is only open to Varig flyers, either on the Star Alliance site or on their own page. So this is where it gets interesting. This is a good…

Delaying the USAirways Reservation System Changeover?

by Gary Leff on February 25, 2007

Feb 25 2007

I’m flying USAirways next weekend and was a bit apprehensive, because that’s supposedly when the airline cuts over from Sabre to Shares (and more specifically, to the America West implemention of Shares called Qik). A Customer Service Director for a USAirways call center details some of the difficulties that the switchover is going to cause in a thread on Flyertalk. It looks like the transition may be delayed because of a data error compromising the privacy of some frequent flyer members. It doesn’t appear to be a widespread problem, but it’s changed the priorities for their programmers. ”We’ve got our entire development team, which is supposed to be working hard on migrating our systems, pulled off and working on this,” Danziger said Friday. “And they are hoping they will have a solution to make an…

Alaska Airlines Introduces One-Way Awards

by Gary Leff on February 18, 2007

Feb 18 2007

Alaska Mileage Plan is now offering one way awards at half the mileage of a roundtrip. This even applies to ‘award sale’ destinations, e.g. one-way San Francisco to Puerta Vallarta currently runs 7500 miles (subject to award space availability). This also means that “split awards” are now possible — used to be that award space needed to be open in both directions to get an award at the standard mileage price, if it was unavailable one-way you’d need to book at double the miles. Now you just book two one-ways, one at the standard price and one at the higher rule-buster price, in order to do a split award. (Their technology doesn’t seem to automate the pricing and you do need to do two separate awards if you want this option.). As always, more choices…

Delta Skymiles Head Posts to Flyertalk

by Gary Leff on February 9, 2007

Feb 09 2007

Jeff Robertson, who runs the Delta Skymiles program, is now participating regularly on Flyertalk. He’s only made six posts so far, but they’re excellent. By excellent I mean that he avoids the usual marketing speak. Explaining the change to Delta’s mileage expiration policy, he actually says [R]egardless of how “loyal” someone may be to us, anyone who hasn’t had activity with Delta in anyway in the last two years, is not all that valuable to us. Of course, I disagree harshly with Jeff’s assessment (not about the value proposition of customers hurt by mileage expiration, he has better access to the numbers than I do). Making the change essentially retroactive is inherently dishonest. This is a company that years ago advertised during the superbowl that their miles would never expire. Perhaps they now find they…

Two American Airlines International Upgrades

by Gary Leff on February 9, 2007

Feb 09 2007

The Upgrade: Travel Better blog discusses American’s discounted business fares that include upgrades to 3-cabin first class. Meanwhile, American is launching non-stop service from Chicago to Shannon, Ireland using domestic configured aircraft. As with their existing Boston to Manchester, England flights, they’ll use a Boeing 757 with 22 domestic first class seats. Only thing is they’re selling only coach for these flights, and providing coach service. But American and Oneworld elites can reserve these seats like any other. Not a great international upgrade, but better than coach, much like the Premium Economy products offered by international carriers.

United Changes its Expiration Rules

by Gary Leff on January 19, 2007

Jan 19 2007

United announced today that its miles will now expire after 18 months of inactivity rather than the current 36 months. The worst part of the change, though, is that instead of giving useful advance notice of the change, it’s retroactive to July, 2006. Accounts without activity from July ’06 through December ’07 will be terminated at the end of the year.The press release contains some whoppers: By shortening the amount of time a Mileage Plus account can remain inactive, United’s most loyal customers will compete with fewer people for award seats, making it easier for them to redeem their miles. Sure, I compete every day for international first class awards with the median member with 17,000 miles in their account striving for 25,000. Heh. As though it’s the fault of members (rather than the airline…

United reduces online booking bonus

by Gary Leff on January 19, 2007

Jan 19 2007

United’s online booking bonus has been reduced from 1000 miles to 500 – though on the upside, one-way itineraries now earn 250 miles rather than being ineligible. A sad day, truly, though certainly in line with the direction of the rest of the industry.

Alaska 20,000 Mile Visa Signup Bonus Continues

by Gary Leff on January 19, 2007

Jan 19 2007

The 20,000 mile signup bonus for an Alaska Visa has been extended to January 31, according to the most recent e-newsletter for the airline. It’s a great offer — though they aren’t waiving the $75 annual fee, the miles plus $50 companion ticket (that’s really usable) and club passes make the cost worthwhile.

Delta Clamps Down on Award Routings

by Gary Leff on January 18, 2007

Jan 18 2007

This is probably too inside baseball and technical for most frequent flyer program members, but Delta has implemented some nasty changes in the way they allow (or don’t allow!) you to book awards. There’s a current discussion of this on Flyertalk, naturally. As of this month, awards can only have two stops each way domestically and three internationally. If you live in, say, Montana and want to get somewhere on the East Coast you already have to make two stops (in Salt Lake City and Atlanta) most of the time. No extra stops in order to find an available award, and no extra stops to utilize your allowable stopover in a non-hub city.You can also only use ‘published routings’ when constructing your award itinerary. I have a United award flying DC-New York-San Francisco-Osaka-Bangkok-Phuket (with stops…

Airlines

USAirways Quietly Devalues Award Chart

United Airlines Matches Varig — or Most Airline — Status

Delaying the USAirways Reservation System Changeover?

Alaska Airlines Introduces One-Way Awards

Delta Skymiles Head Posts to Flyertalk

Two American Airlines International Upgrades

United Changes its Expiration Rules

United reduces online booking bonus

Alaska 20,000 Mile Visa Signup Bonus Continues

Delta Clamps Down on Award Routings

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About Gary Leff

	Bilt Mastercard® Earn Points Paying Rent (up to 100,000 each year) plus earn 3x at restaurants; 2x on travel; as long as you make at least 5 purchases per month. No annual fee.
	Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months (See rates and fees)
	Citi® / AAdvantage Business^TM World Elite Mastercard® For a limited time, earn 75,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $5,000 in purchases within the first 5 months of account opening. AAdvantage miles are the currency I've redeemed most.[See rates and fees]