There really are consolidators who can save you money on international business and first class tickets. Some are a scam. Here’s how to know the difference, and find the ones who will save you big money.
Seats have been the biggest premium cabin innovation, with a huge leap forward in business class that limits the quality difference with first class. For instance, Singapore Airlines first class is four seats across in the cabin — and so is business class. That leaves only so many places to go as airlines compete for lucrative high yield passengers. So what’s next? From The Onion: …the airline’s most valued customers should ignore the escape path lighting along the aisle and instead follow the green lighting on the first-class seatbacks to a secret hatch just behind the forward lavatory. “For your convenience, in the event of an emergency, a bulkhead will automatically close and seal off the first-class cabin from the economy cabin, giving you ample legroom while deplaning. In addition, should we experience a sudden…
News and notes from around the interweb: 2250 Bonus American Miles from the AAdvantage Shopping Portal Well, that’s one way to protest. Turkish Tourism Minitry Fires Julianne Moore for Bad Acting The government of Sri Lanka is accusing their oneworld member and national airline of corruption. The airline is state-owned, and the accusations stem from aircraft purchases while the government was controlled by a different party which means the airline is a political football in partisan political politics. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that a state owned airline isn’t a politically corrupt plaything, just that the complaints are that the airline used to be someone else’s corrupt plaything. Passenger mutiny: police had to be called twice during a 5 hour Qatar Airways tarmac delay in Birmingham. The US Airways credit card was supposed to disappear…
A Kuwait Airways cabin crew member was arrested on Saturday in Dhaka, Bangladesh for smuggling gold in his body: Eighty two grams of gold jewellery and four gold bars weighing 10 Tola each were recovered from him. (HT: Reid F.) That’s worth about $32,300 at 1.00 BDT to 0.0129175 USD. Perhaps this is money that could have funded the down payment for a new business class seat onboard one of the airline’s Boeing 777s. What’s strange is that there’s a trend of trying to smuggle gold into Bangladesh. And people keep getting caught trying to do it. Just a month ago Bangladesh seized $1.4 million worth of gold from a North Korean diplomat. Moinul told Reuters that the diplomat was passing through the green channel from Dhaka’s international airport – Hazrat Shahjalal International airport –…
Mainstream articles on “how to upgrade to first class” are almost uniformly: Dead wrong Laughable At their best they usually offer some variant of: Dress nicely Be a member of the airline’s loyalty program They never explain, of everyone ‘dressed nicely’ (as though this will matter for folks who aren’t airline empoloyees) and who are members of the program, who will get the upgrade if there are seats available and how to increase your chances it’s you. No, just ask isn’t sufficient (although up until last weekend it was necessary to submit a request for a complimentary upgrade on American — so I guess asking was sort of part of it there). Via Miles Remaining comes an article pushing a totally different trick. Naturally it begins with all of the usual claptrap about dressing nicely,…
I wrote earlier in the week about the shocking change American AAdvantage made to its terms and conditions: the program specifically said they have no “duty of good faith and fair dealing” with members. The scary fact is that no U.S. airline frequent flyer program does.
Here I review the Male airport’s domestic lounge and Maldivian’s Male – Kooddoo flight to get to the Park Hyatt Hadahaa Maldives. Previous installments: Introduction, overview, and costs Star Alliance first class and business class lounges, LAX Etihad First Class, Los Angles – Abu Dhabi.. the 3rd Longest Flight in the World! Premier Inn, Abu Dhabi International Airport Etihad’s new business class lounge, Abu Dhabi Etihad Business Class, Abu Dhabi – Male When you get off of your flight to Male, you walk out on the tarmac over to the arrivals building, which is more a shack than anything else. You walk inside and queue for immigration. There’s a premium line on the far left, though it may not be especially fast. On this visit there were two lines working, although one was far faster…
Barclaycard lost the US Airways co-brand as a result of the airline’s merger with American, with Citibank retaining the right to issue new American AAdvantage cards.. American Express lost the JetBlue co-brand (to Barclaycard) and the Costco product (to Citi) In an unofficial statement, Amtrak Guest Rewards says that their relationship with Chase is ending. I’ve heard this from two sources, but it hasn’t been stated publicly and could well wind up being premature (that the ink isn’t dry). For their part, Chase spokesman Rob Tacey simply replies, We are not accepting new applications at this time for the Amtrak Rewards card. (Amtrak promises an ‘official’ statement next week.) Until very recently I would have thought that we had reached something of a steady state with airline, hotel, and credit card co-brand partnerships.
News and notes from around the interweb: Club Carlson will no longer give the last night free on an award to co-brand credit card holders. However, they’re offering a bit of a make-good: 30,000 bonus points on your next stay paid with the card by August 31. Should you use the $20 trick when checking into a hotel?> (HT: Alan H.) Here’s my primer on tipping at check-in for upgrades and video on how to score the best hotel upgrades. Priceline refunds a rental car booking that a woman claims was made by her infant. Interview with Hector Adler, American’s VP of Inflight. Delta: behind the scenes with your checked bag. (HT: World Airline News)
The Points Guy blog runs advice on American and US Airways upgrades in a piece written by Nick Ewen. Since that blog is widely read I thought it would be important to highlight some mistakes in the piece that – understanding them – double as tricks to better understand how to maximize your chances of an upgrade when flying American and US Airways. (I left my caveats and concerns in the comments there but a day later they remain unapproved.)
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 »
