Turkish Airlines has some really interesting ‘fifth freedom’ routes — flights between two countries other than their home country. Last I checked they were fourth in the world for number of destinations served, and they served the most countries at 110.
Here’s a fifth freedom route I didn’t know about: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The flight operates 3 times a week in each direction.
Last year American Express announced that Platinum (and Centurion) cardholders would get unlimited Boingo internet hot spot access. This year the benefit was expanded to Starwood co-brand credit card holders. The retail price of this benefit would exceed $700 per year.
The benefit is going to be really useful for me, because Boingo will be providing true high speed internet to members at 7 major US airports.
When American announced Sydney service starting in December, they did so as part of an enhanced joint venture with Qantas.
Although American’s new Sydney flight launched a week ago and Qantas has touched down in San Francisco, the Department of Transportation has yet to approve the tighter cooperation between the two airlines. Instead, after several months, the DOT requested more information.
American and Qantas have responded, and the filing makes for interesting reading.
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.
A key takeaway for me from Delta’s investor day was that they expect to sell buy ups for 70% of their first class cabins, for all intents and purposes eliminating elite upgrades. Whether the policy changes, or the supply or unmonetized first class seats simply approaches zero, if they’re successful that will transform US airline elite programs.
But there was a lot more in the presentation — like Delta’s plan to expand basic economy fares to long haul markets, a continuation of a strategy they’ve been working on for the past year. More markets with stripped down fares offering few services, and more opportunity for upselling.
As predicted there, you can now use Delta SkyMiles to pay for premium booze in the airline’s club. At a very poor valuation. And it’s more or less what the airline was planning to do across the board when they went revenue-based.
We know that the TSA doesn’t actually catch contraband through the checkpoint the vast majority of the time. So their procedures aren’t actually meaningful for security, leaving aside that they’ve never caught a terrorist.
But now with news that the TSA will make the imaging devices mandatory for some passengers, it’s likely that use of these machines violate the fourth amendment since a Federal Appeals Court ruled in EPIC v. DHS that the scanners were constitutionally permissible because they’re optional.
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.
US Airways Dividend Miles as merged into American AAdvantage back in March. But did you know that your US Airways Dividend Miles number still works?
In fact you can even still enter it for American Airlines flights and receive credit. If you’ve included it on existing bookings into the future that apparently is fine. However you’ll only be able to enter it on bookings for the next week.
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.
It’s understandable that on a premium route with their best aircraft they’ll want to be a bit conservative releasing award space. At this time there is not a single day during the entire 11 months of the schedule that there’s even one business or first class saver award Los Angeles – Sydney. That’s absurd. But it’s worse than that.
They aren’t just protecting seats hoping to sell them, not knowing yet what seats are going to go unsold. Even when it is 100% obvious that seats are going out empty, they’re still extorting members for more than 200,000 miles for a one way flight. That’s some dirty pool.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
