For top-tier elites, those that fly 100,000 miles a year or more, the best benefits are with United and American. United’s 100,000 mile flyers get (6) international upgrades a year valid on most fares and confirmable at booking (subject to award space availability). In addition there are up to (8) confirmed domestic upgrades a year, and that’s on top of the upgrades earned by lower level elites (4 500-mile upgrades per 10,000 miles flown on United or United Express). American’s 100,000 mile flyers get (8) international upgrades a year valid on most fares and confirmable at booking (subject to award space availability, but most importantly these are exempt from American’s required ‘buy up’ requirement to pay cash in addition to miles for international upgrades). Unlike at United, domestic upgrades are ‘unlimited’ with no upgrade coupons…
General
Category Archives for General.
Dinner at The Source
Last night I had dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s new restaurant in DC, The Source. It’s attached to the Newseum in Penn Quarter, which hasn’t opened yet, and it’s across the street from Capital Grill. Brand new place, I don’t think it’s even been reviewed in the Washington Post yet. Verdict: outstanding. Not quite in the league of CityZen, either in terms of service or quite the same heights of cuisine. But really excellent nonetheless, especially with so many good trendy places having fallen recently (IndeBleu and Zengo are classic examples of the phenomenon).There really is something to the idea that the best places seem to burn out quickly, perhaps after six months or a year, so it’s best to go to good new places early. Don’t know whether the excellence here will last, but the…
New Look and Feel to the Site
View from the Wing has a new look and feel, and a new URL. Please update your RSS feeds, and check out the other blogs at BoardingArea.com.
Details of Alitalia’s “New” Program (And How You Lose All Your Already-Accumulated Miles)
Alitalia has come out with details of its ‘new’ frequent flyer program. Really, it’s just a tweak of the old one, but by ending that one and starting fresh they get to completely flush out their existing mileage liability and hose their customers. Welcome to Alitalia! As previously reported, the current program ‘ends’ December 31 — that’s the end date for accumulating miles to add to existing ones, which must be redeemed by June 30th or else they disappear into the ether. Alitalia will match your existing miles in the new program, however, if you take two Alitalia flight segments in the first six months of 2008. Partner flights don’t count, so if you earned Alitalia miles on an Italy trip and you’re in North America you pretty much have to go back to Italy…
Amex Plat Free Virgin Silver Status
American Express Platinum has a new benefit, Silver status with Virgin Atlantic. (Centurion gets Gold status, and Virgin is an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner, so this relationship isn’t suprising.) Since the signup offer is online, it’s unclear to me what kind of verification takes place that the person signing up is an actual cardholder. I imagine there’ll be a file sent by Virgin to Amex of those who have signed up, and some matching process will likely occur in the future, but all this remains to be seen. Silver status comes with 2 free upgrades each for the Heathrow and Gatwick Express, a mileage bonus on Virgin Atlantic flights, and Premium Economy checkin privileges when flying Virgin in coach. Not a ton, but better than a hole in the head.
On Lufthansa’s Newly Acquired Stake in JetBlue
Joe Sharkey suggests a motivation for Lufthansa’s purchase of a stake in JetBlue: slots at New York-JFK in advance of Open Skies. It’s not clear to me how partial ownership gives Lufthansa access to these slots, though. Lufthansa may well get a board seat or two, but they still have to act in the best interests of JetBlue shareholders writ large. And it’s non-obvious how that means Lufthansa will be able to transfer or buy slots that they couldn’t otherwise have come up with an arrangement for. But then I might just be naive in the ways of international airline finance. Me, I’d never put $300 million into an airline even if I was an airline. (The old joke rings true, “What’s the quickest way to become a millionaire? Start out with a billion dollars…
Slaying the StarNet Dragon
Last week I described United’s system for denying awards on its partners, StarNet. Airline partners offer award seats, United won’t book them, and its representatives say the award “isn’t available.” I didn’t manage to get United to book first class award seats between Bangkok and Europe. But Lufthansa seats were easier to secure. I knew the flights I wanted, the ANA award search tool showed them as available. And when the United outsourced customer service rep said she couldn’t “see” the flights I gave her the flight numbers and she entered the request — they came back confirmed. The best hint, it seems, that United is ‘filtering’ an award for a given flight is that the rep won’t just say “there aren’t any award seats on that flight” or “all I have is coach on…
The Chase Churn is Over
For years frequent flyers got mileage-rich signing up for the United Visa fee-free the first year, scoring the signup bonus, cancelling, and then signing up again. Chase, which issues the card, finally closed that opportunity. However, lesser known to the frequent flyer universe, other Chase cards could continue to be ‘churned’ — the Priority Club, Marriott, British Airways, and Southwest Visas, for instance. That appears to be no more. There are confirmed reports with the British Airways and Priority Club Visas that Chase is sending repeat cardmembers a letter saying that they won’t be getting the signup bonus miles. I assume this extends to all Chase products, or at least to all Chase mileage products. It’s a sad day, indeed. Chase joins American Express at (quite reasonably) refusing to give out signup bonuses more than…
Korean Air Skypass Introduces Expiring Miles
Miles earned on or after July 1, 2008 will expire after five years. Previously, miles never expired.The announcement claims that miles in the majority of international programs expire after 18 months or three years. What they don’t say is that any activity in an account with most of those programs will extend the validity of those miles another 18 months or three years.That doesn’t seem to be the case with this new change to Skypass. Instead, they’ve gone the route of programs like Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles — use ’em or lose ’em.
Hyatt Elite Status Double Credit Promo
Hyatt is offering double credits towards elite qualification on stays during the first three months of 2008. Registration required.
