Flyertalkers are discussing an apparent glitch which allows you to book inexpensive transatlantic fares and avoid the usual fuel surcharges. For February and March is should be possible to fly from most cities in the U.S. to several parts of Europe for less than $300 all-in. Using Priceline (their regular airfare search, not their ‘name your own price’ bidding service), you need to pair a USAirways domestic segment with United transatlantic. For example, Charlotte to Washington-Dulles on USAirways, connecting to United to Frankfurt. This should also work with the domestic segment on a USAirways-coded United flight. Saturday stay required. The fare will seem initially higher, but when you click onto the final summary page the fare should drop.
General
Category Archives for General.
Silverjet Buy One Get One Free… If the sports book works out in your favor
Silverjet is running a promotion offering a free roundtrip ticket if the Giants win the Superbowl and if you purchase a roundtrip between Newark and London-Luton (including tickets which involve Silverjet’s connection to Dubai) between 6am Friday EST (1st February) and 12pm Sunday (3rd February). I don’t see anything on the Silverjet website about it, but they sent me a press release and there’s no mention of signups or promo codes. It appears that all bookings are eligible. There are some restrictions on the possible free ticket: the paid ticket must be flown before the free one…if you cancel the paid ticket the free one will go away also… and that free travel will have to be booked by the end of February for travel between March 1 and August 31 and once booked is…
Alaska Airlines Fast Track to Requalify for Last Year’s Status Level
Via Upgrade Travel Better, channeling MileMaven, Alaska Airlines is offering elites who didn’t requalify for their previous status last year a short-cut to regaining that status. Between January 15 and March 15, MVP status requires four paid flown segments and MVP Gold requires eight paid flown segments. Registration is required. Man, out on the West Coast a simple segment run like this is easy, Seattle to Portland runs are cheap, there’s a Los Angeles hub, and even flights connecting in places like Boise. It should be possible to requalify for MVP Gold on a single ticket in a single day (albeit that may not be the cheapest option) if you work at it hard enough.
The New York Times Picks Up the BoardingArea Story
The International Herald Tribune article I mentioned last night is now in the New York Times in substantially the same form, except for the mention of View from the Wing. Now I really do feel like David Hasselhoff.
New Round of Dining Bonuses
There’s a new set of iDine bonuses available for most programs which having miles for dining components. Ok, the company that offers these is called Rewards Network these days, but they’ll always be iDine to me. They can be thankful I don’t still call them Transmedia. United. 500 bonus miles for every $100 in spending through March 15, up to 10,000 bonus miles. Delta. 2000 bonus miles for spending $250 by March 31. Northwest. VIP Dining Status (which earns 5 miles per dollar instead of 3 for online-registered members) for spending $250 by March 31. Alaska. VIP Dining Status (which earns 5 miles per dollar instead of 3 for online-registered members) for spending $250 by March 31. American. 250 bonus miles for every dine of $25 or more through March 31. Priority Club. VIP Dining…
Getting Some Attention in Europe
(Which sorta makes me feel like David Hasselhoff.) BoardingArea and View from the Wing are mentioned in an International Herald Tribune piece on business travel blogs.
Hilton HHonors Lifts Blackout Dates and Capacity Controls on Hotel Night Award Redemptions
Hilton HHonors has announced a huge improvement to its award redemption program — no blackout dates, and from the way that I read it what they actually mean is also no capacity controls, just like Starwood if a standard room is available you can redeem for it with points. The fine print here presumably is that each hotel will likely have some flexibility in determining what constitutes a standard room, this is a problem at the occasional Starwood property as well. Hilton has long offered the ‘diamond force’ for award nights for its top tier elite members. Presumably now all members will be able to redeem award nights just about any time they wish. This is a huge move for Hilton, and I’m waiting to see how this plays out in practice. Hilton HHonors points…
1000 Miles for Joining American AAdvantage
American is now offering 1000 miles for new member signup. Become a member instantly online – then, simply visit www.aa.com/offers and enter promo code BNR08 to earn 1,000 AAdvantage miles!
I Don’t Trust TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Award Picks
Frequent readers of this blog likely know the general disdain in which I hold most hotel ranking lists. The various ‘best of’ compilations are usually written by people who haven’t been to the properties, and many of the lists seem influenced by advertising buys. TripAdvisor has issued its new 2008 Travelers’ Choice Awards, which represent a slightly different take… it amounts to an amalgamation of traveler opinions. And while I find TripAdvisor to be a useful site for picking up very specific comments on properties and looking for consistent themes across reviews, picking the best properties from the masses of opinions on the internet doesn’t work very well in practice. Here are just a few of the oddities which show up at a quick glance: The Signature at MGM Grand is supposedly the best luxury…
New United Visa Offer – Up to 40,000 Bonus Miles
There’s a new United Visa offer, here are the salient details: first year free, 20,000 bonus miles with first purchase (note, no requirement for minimum spending) 10,000 bonus miles for spending $10,000 on the card in six months (if you hit the $10,000 spending threshold, it amounts to earning double miles for your first $10k in spend) 10,000 bonus miles on your first anniversary with the card (which will imply paying a $60 fee) Chase, the card issuer, is clearly trying to incentivize two things: getting new cardholders to start putting their spending on this card rather than existing cards, and getting those cardholders to keep the card a full year rather than pocketing the initial bonus and cancelling befor ethe fee comes due. For those who just want the quick mileage fix, then the…
