American and US Airways wanted a November 12 trial date to adjudicate the Department of Justice’s anti-trust lawsuit. DOJ first wanted a February date, and then when that represented a conflict with the judge’s calendar they suggested March. My original guess about the DOJ suit when it was filed was that, regardless of the legal merits, the biggest risk to the merger was endless delays in the courts — companies can’t make long term plans or investments while they don’t know their futures. A March trial date would have meant the DOJ effectively would have won its anti-trust suit by default. Today the judge in the case ruled to set a November 25th trial date, which means that the anti-trust claims will ultimately either be settled or adjudicated on the merits. In other words, the…
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Category Archives for General.
National Car Rental’s Technology and Travel Discussion Highlights Online
I learned quite a bit hosting the National Car Rental-sponsored Google Hangout discussion of travel and technology earlier in the month. (I also hosted a @NationalPro twitter chat on travel and technology earlier that day.) National was promoting their new mobile app, of course, which I’ve found to be really functional (and was something on my personal wish list since I rent from National frequently and they hadn’t had an app before). But what came together was a really good discussion of travel and tech, and the reason I wanted to be involved in the first place was the other folks who were joining — people like JohnnyJet, Chris McGinnis, and Scott Mackenzie in addition to Rob Connors from National. First off, I was exposed to Google Hangout for the first time, which is a…
Managing Flight Delays and Cancellations
I thought I would share my thinking process for a delayed flight this morning, how I kept abreast of flight status, and how I made a decision to change flights. Some of y’all are going to find this to be a rather pedantic post. If you’re an expert, feel free to skip this post. There wasn’t any great jeopardy involved, it’s about a simple domestic trip. Hopefully some might find the thinking process I used useful. Flying today I had a planned 55 minute connection in Dallas. I got an email that my outbound flight was delayed 17 minutes, giving me a 38 minute connection. I looked up my flight on FlightAware. I used that site to “Track Inbound Flight” to see the status of the flight that was on its way to DC that…
Double Points on Amtrak Between September 9 and October 31
Amtrak Guest Rewards is going to be running double points earning for Amtrak travel between September 9 and October 31. Amtrak points-earning isn’t especially generous on a “dollars required to earn comparable free travel basis” — on non-Acela Express routes you earn 2 points per dollar spent normally, and a roundtrip coach ticket between Washington DC and New York runs 8000 points. That means you need to spend $4000, or perhaps make 25 roundtrips, before getting a free ticket. Double points helps, of course, but shouldn’t sway the majority of folks make plans to choose train rather than air (or other transport methods). The link for the offer is not yet live, but registration will become available no later than September 9 at AmtrakGuestRewards.com/DoubleDays. You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and…
Here’s Why Today’s American AAdvantage Fuel Surcharge Award Glitch Shouldn’t Scare You
This morning American appeared to be starting to collect fuel surcharges on international award tickets (and not just on British Airways and Iberia award travel). This was sounding as though they were going to spread this out across all of their airline partners, and would have meant new out of pocket cash costs of several hundred dollars per ticket. Within a few hours, American explained that this was all a mistake, that there were some changes which were supposed to apply to revenue tickets only but that accidentally affected some award travel as well — it was unintentional and would be fixed. Specifically, American said: Last night, in a routine effort to better align American to industry standards with other global carriers, American begin collecting carrier-imposed surcharges on tickets for travel on other carrier’s metal.…
Bits ‘n Pieces for August 28, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: How can I avoid extra fees on award tickets? “The entire frequent flyer universe breathes a collective sigh of relief.” @gster78 tweeted that he successfully used this advice to get out of a non-refundable advance purchase booking. Sometimes the shelf life on blog posts is longer than I think! Hyatt is buying the Peabody Orlando attached to the Orlando convention center. When the transaction closes (expected October 1) it will be rebranded a Hyatt Regency. Unless I am mistaken this 1,641 room hotel will have the most guest rooms of any Hyatt. (Update: As pointed out by many of you emailing me, the Hyatt Regency on Wacker Street in Chicago remains the largest.) I frequently have bunches of web browser windows open throughout the day, things I intend…
No New Fuel Surcharges on American AAdvantage Awards!
There are no new fuel surcharges on American AAdvantage awards. American issued the following statement: Last night, in a routine effort to better align American to industry standards with other global carriers, American begin collecting carrier-imposed surcharges on tickets for travel on other carrier’s metal. This change was intended for revenue tickets only, but the surcharge was erroneously added to AAdvantage award redemptions on other airlines as well. Except in the cases of British Airways and Iberia (where American currently collects these surcharges), no carrier-imposed surcharges will be applied when redeeming AAdvantage miles for award travel on other carriers. Any customers who encountered this fee in error will be fully refunded. This morning I posted that American was beginning to collect fuel surcharges on award tickets on more of their airline partners. I priced out…
Is American AAdvantage Adding Fuel Surcharges to All International Awards?
Lucky wrote a disturbing post this morning suggesting that American was going to start collecting fuel surcharges on all international awards. If correct, this is a very big deal. What are fuel surcharges? First of all, understand what “fuel surcharges” are. They’re generally a fixed amount of money added to a fare. The amount will usually be the same across all fares for a given city pair. In other words, all “New York – London” fares that an airline publishes will add the same amount for fuel surcharge. There are some exceptions to this. An airline may file a different fuel surcharge amount for premium cabins (so a business class ticket might have a higher fuel surcharge than a coach one). And it is possible to file discounted fares that do not incur fuel surcharges…
Claiming My Second American Airlines Elite Reward – And Why I Chose 20,000 Miles After Flying 75,000
Back in April American AAdvantage announced an exceptionally generous 2013 ‘elite rewards’ program offering choices of additional rewards for reaching milestones between the various elite qualifying levels. Unlike in past years, the offerings are based on miles flown and not just the more revenue-based ‘points’ system and in addition all members are eligible to earn rewards at each milestone rather than just earning rewards for exceeding re-qualification for their current status level. Put another way, an Executive Platinum (100,000 mile flyer) like me can earn rewards after 40,000 and 75,000 miles — not just after 125,000 and 150,000 miles flown. Back at the end of May I explained why I was choosing the miles as my first ‘elite rewards’ choice for flying more than 40,000 miles on American. This afternoon I received an email prompting…
PointsHound Double Miles Promotion for Bookings Made By August 31
I mentioned yesterday that hotel booking website PointsHound would be offering a double points promotion starting today. The promotion is now live on their website. With PointsHound you can choose to earn points in the following programs when you book hotels through their site: I reviewed PointsHound extensively back in May. Key things to know: It pays to compare rates — in the past I have noticed occasional outliers where the site winds up more expensive than booking directly, but that hasn’t been frequent in the searches I’ve done. Always check prices against other sources. They offer some prepaid rates, usually giving you more miles, but those likely will not earn elite stay credit or points in the hotel program of the property you’re staying at. They also offer “Double Up” rates which do earn…
