Scott McCartney’s latest column is on the various flight status websites you can use to track a flight, monitor position, gate changes, etc. Frequent travelers know that airline websites, and those from the major booking services, are often lacking. The conclusion of the piece? That my own favorite and most used, FlightStats.com, comes out as most useful and reliable. (This is also the one which the KVS Availability Tool integrates with.) Not mentioned in the piece, one of my favotire tricks for United Airlines flight status is to check United Cargo, when a flight is delayed this site will give you the real reason why — useful when the airline doesn’t want to give you compensation, claiming that a delay is due to ‘weather’. Update: Upgrade: Travel Better reports that American’s cargo website offers useful…
General
Category Archives for General.
Request Your Records
Unsecure Flight has sample forms online to request copies of records kept on you and your flying by the Department of Homeland Security.
New Starwood Amex Small Business Card Offer
As a companion to the best offer for the Starwood American Express (10,000 points with first purchase, 15,000 points for spending $15,000 in six months, and first year free), there’s a new best offer for the Starwood American Express small business card: free the first year, 10,000 points with first purchase and an additional 5000 points for adding free employee cards (1000 per additional card).That’s a potential 40,000 combined bonus Starpoints.
The Internet Porn Defense
The internet porn defense, or “I was just safeguarding my AdultCheck account.” Prior to starting Hawaiian intra-island low fare carrier Go, Mesa Airlines considered acquiring either Aloha or Hawaiian Airlines. Now that Hawaiian is back in front of a bankruptcy judge, they’re claiming their failures are a result of ‘unfair’ competition from Go, that Mesa pretended to be interested in an acquisition in order to learn their business strategies and use the data against them. (Of course, Hawaiian’s track record underscores the value of their strategies, ahem.) But Mesa had to answer the charges, and apparently Mesa’s CFO destroyed some computer files relevant to the case. Mesa had to answer in court for this, explaining that the deleted files were an accident, their CFO was just trying to erase all the porn off his computer.…
The Coming Spinoff of Airline Frequent Flyer Programs
Last week the largest shareholder of American Airlines publicly released a letter calling for the airline to spin off its frequent flyer program. Air Canada’s Aeroplan was spun off and is valud at about US$2.5 billion. The American program is ten times larger, but Aeroplan has a stronger relative position in its home market. Certainly, though, the AAdvantage program has to be worth nearly the $5 billion total market capitalization of the airline itself. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) covered the issue yesterday. United is also considering spinning off its program, as is Qantas. The Journal claims, though, that United in 2002 moved its 48 million-member Mileage Plus plan into a UAL subsidiary called United Loyalty Services LLC. Last year, the plan produced $600 million in revenue, though it isn’t a stand-alone company and…
Scare An Annoying Seatmate
Via Joe SharkeyIf you are sitting next to someone who irritates you on a plane or train. Follow these instructions: Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case. Remove your laptop. Start up. Make sure the guy who is annoying you, can see the screen. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky. Then hit this link: Click here: http://boortz.com/mp3/archive/countdown.swf
The Lufthansa First Class Terminal
No photos are allowed in Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal. Still – naturally – there’s a video tour on YouTube. For the uninitiated, if you’re flying Lufthansa international first from Frankfurt, you don’t mix with the unwashed masses in business. You have a separate facility, top service, and a Mercedes or Porsche transfer across the tarmac to the plane.
Best Western Signup Bonus Extended
The Best Western signup bonus I blogged about in May has been extended — signup by October 6th and receive 1000 bonus points with your first stay. Based on the card graphic on the signup page it looks like you may also receive Gold Elite status at signup.
Diners Club Transfer Bonuses
Diners Club is offering a 50% bonus on transfers to Midwest Miles between October 1 and November 30. They’re also promoting a less exciting Delta transfer bonus between October 1 and December 31 — 10% on transfers from 20,000 to 39,000 points and 25% on transfers of 40,000 or more. Meanwhile, the 50% Frontier transfer bonus still runs through October 31 and discounted Hawaiian Airlines redemption runs through December 1.
Bought an iPhone? Get the recent price drop refunded to you!
Tyler wants early adopters of the iPhone to stop complaining that the price dropped after they purchased.. I agree, stop complaining and get your credit card to refund the difference. There are all kinds of benefits hidden in premium credit cards, most of which consumers never take advantage of. Does your card come with concierge service (lower end ones are often outsourced to VIPdesk, mid-tier services to Circles, etc.)? Price drop protection? Extended warranties? Plenty of reasons to buy with a credit card rather than a debit card, especially when you know the benefits. Oh, and after getting the price difference back you are still eligible for your $100 certificate from Apple…
