Category Archives for Discounts & Deals.
There’s a fare war to Tokyo going on from a variety of U.S. cities, and roundtrip fares start at just $198 roundtrip for Cleveland – Tokyo. Other great fares in the $200 – $250 range are available from Fort Lauderdale and Miami; St. Louis; Raleigh; Washington D.C.; Philadelphia; Dallas Fort-Worth; Charlotte; and Phoenix – and probably others. These fares aren’t going to last long.
During the American Airlines first quarter earnings call, the airline’s Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja dropped a hint about finding the best airfares. The landscape booking airline tickets is changing rapidly and they’re afraid of selling future flights too cheap. They’re keeping prices high for late 2021 holiday travel on purpose so that people don’t buy their travel yet.
In response to a question by CNBC journalist Leslie Josephs, Raju explained that ticket sales are up in the near term but looking further out where bookings are falling, it’s because of a conscious decision by the airline “so that we don’t sell out Thanksgiving too soon” – they are keeping prices high so they don’t fill up planes too cheaply.
Early in the pandemic you might pay $7 or even $10 per N95 mask, and there’s been a tremendous amount of fraud and scammy masks (especially scammy KN95 masks, made in China ostensibly to the Chinese standard) and KF94 South Korean masks that strangely have all Chinese language writing on the packaging.
But the truth is that masks just aren’t that hard to come by anymore.
One of the prizes in the American Airlines 40th anniversary game and sweepstakes is 20% off a Hyatt stay. American and Hyatt launched a double dip partnership two years ago.
When you win the Hyatt prize though it’s not 20% off a single stay, instead you’re sent a coupon code for 20% off the standard rate at a specific set of hotels which is usable by anyone and reusable. Here it is.
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards is offering 20% off the points required for all flight redemptions booked by March 25 for travel through April 30, 2021 using promo code SAVENOW.
When I wrote about this fare on Wednesday, I offered that “I would not make non-refundable travel plans around this for a few days, just in case the airline gets a case of seller’s remorse.”
That’s exactly what has happened. TAP Air Portugal is cancelling tickets and refunding purchases.
United Airlines partner and Star Alliance member TAP Air Portugal has business class roundtrip fares from several U.S. cities to several points in Europe starting at just $245 roundtrip.
Departures are available from Chicago, New York JFK, Boston, Miami, Washington Dulles, and San Francisco. And you can travel to TAP Air Portugal destinations such as Rome, Amsterdam, Vienna, Dublin, Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Milan, Dublin and Brussels – possibly others as well.
If you’re a resident of California, and not already a member of Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, you can join and get a free intra-state trip. Technically what they’re offering is a $0.01 base fare, plus taxes.
I’m going to argue this isn’t a mistake fare, but you can currently fly roundtrip business class to Brazil from $470 roundtrip. Routings to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are on American Airlines, with São Paulo about $50 more.
If you want to continue to other Brazilian cities for about $20 more than that, connections beyond São Paulo can be included on American’s partner Gol.
American Airlines is doing something different. They are targeting discounts to try to drive incremental business. They ran a targeted promotion with discounts some months ago, and now are sending out 25% off codes to some members, including for premium cabin travel (purchase by February 20 for travel by May).
Well-targeted promotions can help answer whether discounts can drive incremental business, and whether that’s more travel overall or stealing business from competitors.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
