I don’t check such things often, but @LoyaltyTraveler tweets that Ben and I are currently tied for the number one most influential travel blog on Technocrati. I really don’t know what this means, my sense is it has to do with other blogs measured as influential linking to this blog. And certainly these rankings change all the time. But it’s still sort of fun to see, so thanks to Loyalty Traveler for the heads up (and congratulations for being listed at #8!). Congratulations as well to Gadling at number 4, the Points Guy at number 5, and Online Travel Review at number 6! Ironically by linking to these good folks via this blog post, I bet I’m pushing them up in the rankings and will cause myself to drop out of the #1 spot…
General
Category Archives for General.
American Shuts Down Award Wallet from Accessing AAdvantage Accounts, Workaround On the Way?
In October, I wrote about American Airlines going to war with mileage tracking services. At the time I said I’d be extremely angry at American if Award Wallet, the site I use to track my miles, was forced to stop working with American AAdvantage accounts. This morning I am extremely angry at American, as I’ve just received the following email from Award Wallet: American Airlines has contacted us and stated that we may not access its website on your behalf and that we may not store any of your American Airlines account data on our servers. As a result, in the coming weeks we will release a browser extension which will enable you to check your balance and still display that balance along with the rest of your loyalty account balances; however, the data, such…
25,000 Delta Miles for $500 Skymall Spend
Update: This deal lasted only a few hours, they’ve already reached their cap of miles being offered. As mentioned Wednesday, Skymall has brought back their offer of 25,000 Delta miles for $500 in spend. The website for the offer is now live. They offered this for 1 day in 2010 (and extended it for two weeks). They brought it back this past September 15-18. This time the offer is limited to the first 1000 orders. Once they’ve hit that number, the website will say just 3 miles per dollar. The required $500 in spend excludes tax and shipping. And while they do offer price matches, the order total after price match must still be $500. Gift cards and Bose products are specifically excluded, and coupon codes void the miles. Delta Points plans to buy Samsung…
Attend the 2012 Emmy Awards and other “Travel Deal a Day” Specials
Wendy Perrin shared today that Conde Nast is sharing a travel deal a day each weekday in December on their Facebook page. Each weekday in December we’ll be bringing you an exclusive travel deal on Condé Nast Traveler’s Facebook page. My team and I have hand-picked and vetted these travel experiences for you, so they’re of the highest caliber, guaranteed to leave you and your loved ones with priceless memories. If there’s any better holiday gift than that, I don’t know what it is. Especially when you can get those priceless memories for up to 50 percent off. The trips have been crafted by the world’s top travel planners—the destination specialists, cruise agents, and villa rental experts most trusted and raved about by Conde Nast Traveler editors and readers (and I dare you to find…
Aeroplan Adjusts Fuel Surcharges… AGAIN
@JeffreyAlter tweets to me that there have been some changes to Aeroplan’s fuel surcharges… again. On November 14 they said that we would have fuel surcharges coming for Asiana Airlines, Thai Airways International, All Nippon Airways, Austrian Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, British Midland Airways, in addition to surcharges they were already imposing on Air Canada and Lufthansa reward flights (the Lufthansa change went into effect with no notice, and we were given 16 days’ notice on the others). At the time they also say to expect fuel surcharges on December 14 for: Aegean Airlines, Japan Airlines, TAM Airlines, South African Airways, TAP Portugal airlines Well, they’ve apparently changed their minds about the December 14 implementation. The list no longer includes Aegean, TAM, and TAP Air Portugal. And it no longer includes Japan Airlines which of…
100% Bonus on Purchased US Airways Miles is Back for December
I noted back on November 22 that US Airways had announced they were bringing back the 100% bonus on purchased miles in December. At the time I said I thought it was odd that they would post on the purchase miles website that a big bonus would be forthcoming, since it seemed like that would discourage miles sales at full price through the end of November and I tried to come up with a rationalization for it. Turns out it probably didn’t make sense to announce it, because shortly afterward they pulled the announcement! But the plan was indeed in the works, as I just received an email from US Airways announcing the 100% bonus. through December 31, 2011. Of course, last month US Airways raised the price of purchased miles for the second time…
1500 Bonus Gold Passport Points at Avia, Hotel Sierra, and Summerfield Suites
Via Loyalty Traveler, Hyatt is offering 1500 bonus points per stay at AVIA, Hotel Sierra and Summerfield Suites through January 8 with offer code 1500GP. The code doesn’t generate a higher rate and Ric reports that it works with AAA and AARP rates as well. Avia Napa is on my list, now that Hyatt has acquired the chain, I’m just not sure I’ll make it out there by January 8 (though I do need to do a few American mileage runs in the coming weeks).
30,000 Point Signup Bonus for Starwood American Express
There’s a new short-term offer for the Starwood American Express card, 10,000 points after first purchase and 20,000 more points after spending $5000 on the card within six months, no fee the first year. The offer is expected to be available through December 12, both for the personal card and for the small business card. (These links do not provide any referral credit to me.) 30,000 point offers have been around a couple of times in the past, these are better than the otherwise-best offer of 25,000 points. I don’t view this as your one shot at a 30,000 point bonus, and I’m not excited about the card for the bonus alone, but these are very good solid cards and if you’re going to apply for them best to do so when there’s a strong…
A US Airways Takeover of American Would Make No Sense
CrankyFlier reviews the American Airlines bankruptcy and says that the dream result would be US Airways taking over the airline. That makes no sense. Now, the only argument in favor I can imagine is that it would mean a new management team, and the theory that they can’t make worse decisions than American has over the past decade — beginning with acquiring TWA out of a prepackaged bankruptcy. TWA failed because (1) they paid lower than average wages but still had higher than average labor costs due to crazy onerous work rules, like maintaining a 747 maintenance base when they no longer operated 747s, and (2) being hubbed in St. Louis they had virtually no high revenue origination/destination traffic. American has had above average costs, in part because they didn’t go through bankruptcy while other…
25,000 Delta Miles for $500 Skymall Spend Offer Expected First Week of December
DeltaPoints describes how he used the last Skymall offer of 25,000 Delta miles for a purchase of $500 or more in order to generate 250,000 miles for a net cost of $700 by buying items and then reselling them on eBay. I found that they sold SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 10.1′s for $499.99. I also got a 9v battery for 99 cents. I then resold all 10 of the TAB’s on eBay in one day. My cost to sell them including my eBay, Paypal and s&h fee’s to get them out the door was a loss of $70 per order. Thus, for $700 I earned 250,000 skymiles plus 10,000 Capital One points for the $5000 purchase cost (10×500). Now, the price of tablets is coming down and I don’t see recapturing $430+shipping per Samsung tablet in…
