One Mile at a Time wonders whether Mileage Plus is ‘worth it’ anymore, with their much more expensive award charts (post-December 31) and extensive Starnet blocking of partner awards (just go try to book anything on Lufthansa most days). And he’s right to a certain extent, United has massively devalued their mileage. And most Star Alliance carriers offer more valuable currency. United’s award chart used to be favorable, but now is average at best. Air Canada’s is better, US Airways’ is better. And United frequently prevents you from booking awards with their partners, whereas the rest of Star Alliance carriers offer currencies without such restrictions. But that doesn’t mean there’s no more value there. It makes sense to credit flight miles to United to requalify for 1K (or until one requalifies). Because United 1K and…
General
Category Archives for General.
AA.com 10% Discount for Bookings by Tomorrow
American is celebrating 10,000 Facebook fans by offering 10% off flights booked by May 17. In celebration of reaching 10,000 fans, we want to give you 10%* off your next flight. Just go to AA.com and type the code FCB10K in the box titled “promotion code” when you book a flight. The code is good for travel between May 15 and August 31, 2009, and you can even use it to take an extra 10% off the great sale fares we announced yesterday. But hurry – this offer is only good until May 17, 2009 Blackout dates are June 27-28, 2009 and July 2-6, 2009.
Register for a Free Mystery Bonus from United
So United says they’re going to give away a small bonus to everyone following them when they hit 10,000 followers on Twitter. My guess is it’s a 10% discount electronic certificate, or 100 or 250 miles. But who knows? You can sign up to follow them.. or not. Apparently all that is required to get the bonus is to register for it, which should work even if you don’t follow them on (or even are a member of) Twitter. But since they’ve still as of this writing got over 5000 followers to go, you might as well follow them so that I can get my bonus faster…
Podcast Discussing the Minutest Details of First Class Award Travel
I’m a guest on the new Upgrd.com Podcast, give it a listen.
American Express Membership Rewards Raises Points Transfer Fee
This Flyertalk thread points to an American Express Membership Rewards change that I had somehow missed — beginning September 1, the fee to transfer points from Membership Rewards to US airline frequent flyer programs will be going up. Amex currently charges $0.0005 per point to transfer to US carriers, and caps the fee at $75. This will go up to $0.0006 or $99 beginning September 1. For a 100,000 mile transfer the fee is $50, going up to $60, a 20% increase. They describe the fee as an ‘offset’ for the federal excise tax they pay when buying miles from US airlines. However, the fee isn’t a direct reimbursement of their actual costs, and it certainly isn’t mandated. It’s a charge they pass along to their customers. And similar programs, such as Starwood which allows…
Spanish Trains: More Expensive in English?
Upgrade: Travel Better discovers that the Spanish trains will sell you cheaper advance purchase tickets if you’re searching in Spanish, but not in English. That’s a great trip for the next time I’m in Spain, in the past I’ve seen online pricing and just went ahead and purchased at the station. I hadn’t realized better significantly advanced purchase fares were available. And with six years of Spanish under my belt, I ought to be able to muddle through an online shopping cart.
Adding a Free Domestic Roundtrip to an American International Award
In the discussion of American’s new one-way awards with stopovers permitted in international gateway cities, a Flyertalk member pointed out that members living in gateway cities can book themselves a free domestic roundtrip when booking an international roundtrip. If you live in New York and are booking a roundtrip to Tokyo, why not also book yourself a trip to Miami as well? From the Flyertalk post: Here’s what I was thinking of doing: Newark – Jackson Hole ($219 in Y / Purchased Ticket) [Stop] Jackson Hole – Newark (F Award Ticket #1) [Stop] New York – Hong Kong (F Award Ticket #1) [Stop] Hong Kong – New York (F Award Ticket #2) [Stop] New York (LaGuardia) – Eagle, CO (F Award Ticket #2) [Stop] Eagle, CO – New York ($219 in Y / Purchased Ticket)
Fitting (5) International First Class Products into a Single United Star Alliance Award
I’m just back off of a two week trip, our annual Asia first class redemption. Prior to the gutting of the United award chart I booked two first class awards that combined five different Star Alliance international first class products, and managed to work around Starnet blocking for my transpac segments. After much time with agents who insisted that All Nippon Airways doesn’t serve Washington-Dulles (funny, I attended their party celebrating 20 years of service, and they only refer to the flight as NH 1) I did secure ANA three-class first, which I hadn’t flown since 2006. One sad note however is that I believe in July three-cabin service will leave DC, meaning I’ll have to hop over to Chicago if I want ANA F. On the return I fought agents who didn’t believe it…
American Introduces One-Way Awards and the End of Most Stopovers
As discussed at Traveling Better, One Mile at a Time, and Flyertalk, American has introduced a significant change to their award redemption rules. American AAdvantage now offers one-way awards for half the price of a roundtrip. So far, so good. But they no longer allow stopovers on awards, except international awards originating in North America and only then at the international gateway city. In other words, if you were flying DC – New York – Tokyo you could have a stopover in New York only. (No word yet whether stopovers will be allowed at, say, the international gateway city on itineraries originating in Europe.) This means that you cannot book New York – Tokyo (stopover) – Hong Kong (destination) – New York as a single award. Instead, you’d have to book three one-ways. This change…
Alaska Double Redeemable and Elite Qualifying Miles through June 30
Alaska’s Mileage Plan is offering Double Miles (and double Elite Qualifying Miles) from May 6, 2009, through June 30, 2009. Registration required.
