General

May 27 2016

An American Airlines passenger successfully got the airline to waive a change fee when he offered the most human of pleas.

The New Zealand man wrote a letter with his “own hand” and mailed it in, rather than sending an email. He included a doctor’s note explaining he was advised not to fly to visit his niece in the US. And he included photos. I usually tell people that customer service letters should be short and to the point and stick only to relevant facts. This man took the opposite approach.

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May 26 2016

The American AAdvantage online shopping portal has increased its payout on Magazines.com purchases from 25 miles per dollar spent up to 50 miles per dollar spent. This is available through May 27 only.

50 miles per dollar means you’re effectively buying miles at 2 cents apiece — oh, and you get magazine subscriptions too. I value American miles at 1.6 cents apiece so another way of looking at this offer is as an 80% rebate on your magazine purchases in the form of miles.

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May 26 2016

American Airlines President Scott Kirby spoke yesterday at the Wolfe Research 9th Annual Global Transportation Conference offering mostly extemporaneous comments in response to investment analyst questions.

The theme that analysts are interested in is the revenue environment that airlines, and especially American, are facing — they’ve seen declines in passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) despite huge declines in fuel costs that have driven profitability. And they want to know when that will turn around, and what American is doing to accelerate that.

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May 26 2016

A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 is available for sale on eBay – no bids yet as of this writing and a starting bid of just $299,000! (The ‘Buy it Now’ price is $900,000.)

Unfortunately (or fortunately!) the plane’s engines have already been removed. Furthermore, the winner has plenty of options about which pieces of the aircraft they way, as “[i]t is also possible to section out the plane out if you only require the fuselage, cockpit or the wings.”

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May 26 2016

A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.

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May 26 2016

The Daily Show offers a nickel’s worth of free advice to the TSA as they staff up to reduce lines that are so bad “if you’re planning on flying anywhere for vacation this summer, you should probably get in line now.”

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May 26 2016

While the signup page doesn’t mention the bonus, Club Carlson is going to award 500 points to people who sign up for their free ‘Club Carlson for Travel Arrangers’ program by May 31. Points are supposed to post within 14 days of enrollment.

The idea of the program is you’re booking hotels for other people, they’ll reward you for booking Club Carlson hotels. I’ve often wondered why more programs don’t directly reward travel arrangers (as opposed to companies) in the mold of the 1970s-era Southwest Secretaries Program.

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May 26 2016

Star Alliance member Avianca has a business class fare between several US cities and Peru from $407 roundtrip.

You can fly from Chicago, Houston, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, or Washington Dulles. Travel is either to Lima or Cusco. It’s possible to fly into one and back from another as an open jaw. Cusco will be your base to visit Machu Picchu.

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May 25 2016

Regular readers of the blog know that I use Award Wallet to track my miles and points.

The free version of the service suffices for most. You enter your frequent flyer account numbers and passwords. Then you can update most of your account balances with a single click and see them on one page. You can log into your accounts with a single click.

When I first signed up I realized quickly I was happy to pay the minimum required for their premium membership that included expiration date tracking for many of my accounts.

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May 25 2016

A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.

Continue Reading »