KLM gives long haul business class customers a takeaway gift of collectible houses with liquor inside. Each flight, a Dutch house. Each year, a different style. I didn’t realize that there’s a KLM Houses App so you can look up the details of each house. (HT: baccarat_guy) I’m not sure I buy their slogan ‘Holland. The Original Cool’ (although it gets cold there for sure) but the house gifts are cool. Just not quite as cool as model airplanes.
American Updating Their Award Charts — Don’t Panic!
An American spokesperson emails, I just wanted to give you a heads up that around 11 a.m. CT this morning, we’re refreshing the look and feel of our award charts to make them easier to read and navigate. There are NO changes to the content or pricing, etc. I don’t think the new award charts are easier, I actually think they’re more cumbersome, since you now get a different separate chart for each region of the world instead of a single grid. Here’s the new partner award chart for travel between the US 48 states and the rest of the world. (Click to enlarge) Why are they doing this? We are in the process of updating all of our aa.com pages to match our new look and feel, so award charts were next on the…
Is This What Our Hobby Has Come To?
Yesterday the Hyatt Gold Passport system was showing award redemption prices in error for some hotels. Take the Park Hyatt Chicago, which normally runs 25,000 points per night as a category 6 hotel. It was showing up at 35,000 points: Now, 35,000 points isn’t even a thing in Gold Passport. The top price for a standard room is category 7, which is 30,000 points per night. The same thing was showing up for the New York hotels, by the way. When I clicked through to the property, the number of points required for the hotel didn’t even appear.
FARE WAR: American and Delta Offering $1550 Business Class Roundtrips to Rio and Sao Paulo
American and Delta appear to be in a fare war that will not last long. These are not mistake fares, but deep discount business class fares that each airline is aiming at the others’ hub markets. They’re 21 day advance purchase fares require departure Tuesday through Saturday and return Saturday through Wednesday. The American and US Airways fares allow travel through December 15, while Delta appears to allow travel through end of schedule.These fares require return no earlier than 7 days from departure. You can fly American from:
TONIGHT ONLY: Buy a $1 Gift Card, Make $20, Plus How to Scale It and Make Even More
New TopCashBack members (only) can buy any gift card priced at $1 or more and get $20 cash back. …purchase any gift card priced at $1 or more and within seven days $20 cashback will have posted in your TopCashback account. Shipping’s free. That’s effectively a $20 saving on anything you want at a retailer of your choice. If you’re super-savvy and buy a card for somewhere that costs more than $1 but less than $20, you could even be in profit. From apparel stores such as Macy’s, Gap, Kohl’s, Old Navy, (even) Gucci, Century 21 and TJ Maxx to home and garden retailers such as Lowe’s, Home Depot, Sears and Yankee Candle; there’s an enormous choice available to utilize the free $20 credit. Pet owners might opt to treat their pal at Petco or…
American Will Honor $450 Business Class Tickets to China!
American has publicly stated that they will honor the business class mistake fares between Washington DC and both Shanghai and Beijing that were posted on Tuesday. We already knew they’d honor some of the tickets. They hadn’t made a public statement, but internally seemed to be saying they would honor the tickets that were ~ $20 plus taxes and fuel surcharges, but not the tickets that were $0 plus taxes and fuel surcharges. No such distinctions here. All purchased mistake fare tickets on this deal will be honored. Congratulations to everyone that purchased these. They seem to still be taking the position, however, that tickets which had merely been ‘held’ and not purchased will not be honored. (That’s the reference to ‘fully purchased’.) Some people used American’s 24 hour hold feature, and had American cancel…
Taxi Scammer Was Charging Over $400 for Rides from New York JFK to Downtown. Here’s How You Can Avoid Getting Taken By Similar Scams Anywhere in the World.
A man has been arrested for running an airport taxi scam at New York JFK. He would approach passengers, tell them that the Airtran wasn’t running, but that he’d drive them into the City. He also claimed to be a Super Shuttle driver and had Super Shuttle logo items in his vehicle, and a professionally printed rate list. He charged over $400 for the trip and insisted that price didn’t include the tip. Road Warrior Voices offers tips on how to know whether a taxi or similar in New York is legit. Frankly I don’t like advice such as to wait in an official taxi queue. I really think the best approach is much simpler. Know approximately what a ride should cost. Get your luggage out of the vehicle before raising any question about the…
SkyTeam Award Improvements, a New Way to Bali, and What United Express Carriers Have to Agree To
News and notes from around the interweb: Crowdfunding an airline ticket so you can monitor your girlfriend. What could possibly go wrong? Skyteam’s alliance-wide online award booking tool should be rolled out globally by the end of the year American official arrested for bringing a firearm through the Islamabad airport. If he hadn’t done so, he’d likely have been the only one not armed there, right? Emirates launches a daily flight to Bali starting June 3 operated by a two-cabin 777. More American employees who don’t like the new uniforms This week’s non-story. RyanAir ‘refued to fly’ an organ transplant child — because the family arrived at the airport after the cutoff time to buy a ticket for the flight. They took the next flight 70 minutes later. United Express carriers’ contractual commitments. Do you…
Where Should You Credit United Flights to Now That They’re Awarding Fewer Miles?
With United’s new revenue-based frequent flyer program for earning miles from flying, you earn miles based on the price of your ticket and not based on the distance you fly when traveling on United. The ‘break-even’ price to earn the same miles in 2015 that you would have earned in 2014 is a ticket that costs about 20 cents per mile. But United’s average fare is significantly less than 15 cents per miles. So on average folks are positioned to earn fewer miles from their flying under the new program. As a result, it is worth asking whether — if you must fly United — to credit those miles to the MileagePlus program or to credit to a partner airline. If you are going to earn elite status, credit to United. You may earn fewer…
For the Best Airfare Deals (Including Mistakes), Follow The Flight Deal
Several readers asked how they could have found out about the American Airlines mistake business class airfares to China from earlier this week. That one was on FlyerTalk first, I believe, but it was also posted at TheFlightDeal.com. They had the $1700 3-cabin first class deal to Seoul and the $178+ fares to Abu Dhabi, India, and Africa. They also had this month’s $500+ Air France premium economy deal to Istanbul (a $2500 – $3000 ticket normally). Scanning their site just this morning I see: Chicago – Jakarta for $795 roundtrip Los Angeles – Copenhagen for $651 roundtrip New York – Bangkok for $756 roundtrip San Francisco – Stockholm for $654 roundtrip Seattle – Hong Kong for $536 roundtrip They have a daily email list and they tweet out deals as well as listing deals…
