If you didn’t have a hair loss procedure done just for the miles you might be in luck — if you find yourself in New Zealand, the national airline has another lucrative offer: they’ll pay to advertise on bald heads. Air New Zealand said it wants 70 recruits to stand in lines in three airports — while wearing temporary tattoos on the back of their heads so the displays can be seen by people lining up behind them. The airline would pay 1,000 New Zealand dollars ($660) for each walking billboard, a company official said. The tattoos will promote a new system that is meant to reduce check-in waiting times.
General
Category Archives for General.
10% Off American
American Airlines is offering 10% off within the 48 continental United States and Mexico for travel through October 31. Thanks to reader Patrick for the tip.
Airtran introduces new elite benefits
Via High Anxiety, Airtran is actually improving elite benefits — granted, they’re introducing some pretty basic benefits that should have been there in the first place, but it’s improvement nonetheless. And I’m personally fortunate that I took advantage of a temporary status match program they offered about 5 years ago — since at least up to this point elite status, once gained, is permanent…. Specifically, the new benefits are: Complimentary space available upgrades for elite members and a companion, at the gate 40 minutes prior to departure. Priority standby Reciprocal elite benefits on Frontier A dedicated elite phone number, we’ll see if it’s staffed with dedicated agents or if calls just get priority in the queue.
Two Frugal Travel Guy Posts Worth Reading
Frugal Travel Guy walks through in some detail the process of buying grocery store money orders with credit cards for the points, depositing the money orders in your checking account, and using the funds to pay off the credit card. Rinse, repeat. A definite must-read! Meanwhile, I haven’t played around with this myself, but he also writes about $250 all-in fares to London (using Priceline and clicking through various flight options) and 250 free Delta miles for signing up for their online mall. Note that I haven’t seen anything myself about the 250 bonus miles, no email in my inbox and nothing on the website, so that one may well be ‘your mileage may vary’.
New Route Alert (These Are Frequently Award Redemption Opportunities): Los Angeles – Melbourne on United
United is starting seasonal service from Los Angeles to Melbourne (December 17 – February 1). Since it’s a brand new flight, just loaded into the system a few days ago, it’s also a great opportunity for award seats and upgrades. Australia is notoriously difficult to secure premium class awards, so this is as good an opportunity as any, and during the heaviest travel season.
Can Lufthansa Make the Frankfurt First Class Experience Even Better?
According to this Flyertalk thread, Lufthansa is adding a spa to their B Concourse First Class Lounge in Frankfurt. Which begs the question, will visiting that lounge be better than heading over to the First Class Terminal? I’m one of the few who actually prefers the Thai Airways Bangkok ground experience over the First Class Terminal precisely because of their proper spa and wonderful hour-long treatments. If Lufthansa offered a quality spa they could retake the top spot in ground experience in my estimation…
Westin Fails to Renew United’s Sorry Domestic Lounges
One Mile at a Time has pictures of the new Westin Renewal Lounge inside United’s San Francisco Red Carpet Club. The bottom line? It was worse than what I expected, and I went in with low expectations.
250 Free Northwest Miles
Frugal Travel Guy points out that creating a Northwest Airlines Gift Registry is enough to earn 500 miles in Northwest’s Mountains of Miles promo. (You’ll need to register for the promo before creating the registry in order to earn the miles.) As Frugal Travel Guy’s post points out, and as I can confirm, once you have created a gift registry you’ll receive a short survey by email asking you how you heard about the gift registry and why you created it. The survey will earn 250 points. Update: A reader actually reads the terms and conditions of the gift registry part of the Mountains of Miles offer and points out in the comments that $25 needs to be deposited into the gift registry in order to earn the 500 miles, and money deposited by the reigstrant…
Continental Dumps News of Their Frequent Flyer Program Changes on a Friday Afternoon
I guess they’ve learned some things from politics. The timestamp in my e-mail box is 3:29pm Eastern. First, Continental will charge $15 for a first checked bag within the US and Canada effective October 7th for tickets purchased from today forward. Elites (including Skyteam elites), first class passengers, and full fare passengers are exempt. Then come the changes to the frequent flyer program. Here’s the bad news. Continental is ending 500 mile minimums for short hops effective January 1. They follow US Airways and United on this change. Best strategy is to credit those short flights to another program which still offers minimum mileage. Very few flyers will find that the 200 or 350 miles will make a difference in award redemption or elite requalification. But it does require vigilance, as accruing more mileage in…
United Will Keep Handing Out Free Delicious Meals in Transatlantic Coach.. I’ll take it, but why?
Cranky Flier thinks United’s decision to reverse course on eliminating complimentary coach meal service to and from Dulles across the Atlantic was driven by Lufthansa… Remember, Lufthansa and United have a revenue sharing agreement that makes them very tight partners on North Atlantic flying. Anything United does has the distinct possibility of significantly impacting Lufthansa’s revenue. Something tells me that charging for meals crossed the line here. Is it really possible that United didn’t bother to discuss this with Lufthansa beforehand? If so, I’d think some heads might roll over this. They’re trying to spin this change in a positive light, but it really points to a management team that pulled the trigger on something major before properly vetting it. Seems plausible. Likely, even…
