I had an interesting check-in experience at the American Express Centurion Lounge in Dallas last week. I’ve come to expect meeting readers in airport lounges, it’s great fun and I’m fortunate it seems to happen in almost every lounge — whether it’s the Singapore Airlines Private Room or the American Airlines Admirals Club in Austin, Los Angeles, Chicago, or DC. (Although not in every lounge..) I also run into frequent flyer folks checking into hotels, at breakfast, or any number of other times and of course on planes. I’ve put enough photos of myself on the blog that I guess I’m pretty recognizable. It’s great, you recognize me, I love it when you come and say hello. I consider myself to have reached what amounts to the very lowest rung of fame. There’s ‘real famous’…
I Flew United Again.. and Liked It!
I flew American into Mobile, Alabama. But to stick with them for the return I’d have had to spend an extra 3 hours in the airport. That’s way too much time to spend in the MAA Executive Lounge. There were Delta options, but they were at least 50% more expensive. Now, I made a point not to fly United as the actual merger of operations with Continental approached at the beginning of 2012. I’ve flown mostly American, and that’s worked out great for me. American was providing the best value for a top tier elite in my view, especially during its bankruptcy. And once I started flying American, I wouldn’t go back to an airline without inflight wifi. I’ve flown other carriers, of course, but it just never happened to be United. So I was…
If You’re Flying on Awards and Cheap Tickets, You’re Not Bad for the Environment
Tyler Cowen once wrote that when you fly, you may be more expensive for airlines operating more flights, and concomitant emissions. A simple model of route expansion is that higher demand increases the number of total flights by some probability. For the system as a whole, the decisive flying unit has to come somewhere and there is no reason why, on average, it can’t be you. In other words, at least in stochastic terms you can’t escape the blame. In fact though we do know whether you have a high – or an exceptionally low – probability of affecting the number of flights, size of aircraft, and emissions. It simply isn’t true that every airline passenger and every ticket has the same contribution to emissions. If you’re pulling inventory out of a low fare bucket,…
You’ll Be Surprised Which Airlines are Actually the Biggest, an Award Booking Trick, and More Cathay Seats
News and notes from around the interweb: I’m giving away 5 prizes each of a $200 gift card and top tier elite status with National Car Rental. Leave a comment in the entry thread, that’s all you have to do to enter. There are surprisingly few entries so far, which makes chances of winning pretty good.. Cathay Pacific, which reduced seat capacity out of San Francisco when it downgauged 747 flights to Boeing 777s, is adding a third flight there three days a week. Emirates Skywards is reducing mileage-earning on the cheapest economy fares and increasing the cost of some upgrades. Redemption chart remains unchanged, so folks transferring from American Express Membership Rewards for awards are unaffected. Passenger traffic and airline seat capacity in 2014. Delta overtook United to grab the number two spot in…
$20 Hotel Credit for Flight Booking On Orbitz Through the End of the Month
I like booking airline reservations through online travel sites like Orbitz, rather than directly, because it allows me to quintuple dip: My usual frequent flyer miles My usual points from credit card spend on the purchase A rebate for going through a shopping portal The online booking site’s rewards. Right now booking airline reservations through Orbitz has a nice bonus: Orbitz Rewards will give you $20 in credit towards hotel stays for each flight you book through January 31. You’ll need to be logged in, as an Orbitz Rewards member, and see the $20 offer on your itinerary to receive it. It will only show up on flights that are $50 or more, so you aren’t going to buy flights just for the bonus. Orbitz lauched their current rewards program in October 2013 (see “The…
Hacking My Way into an Airport Lounge for Free
Leaving Mobile, Alabama I decided to visit the Mobile Airport Authority Executive Lounge. That’s one readers of my lounge reviews might not have been expecting. Of course, I didn’t even realize that the Mobile, Alabama airport had a lounge. Let alone that it’s free, if you know how to access it. This is an airport-run lounge with a membership program. Annual membership is $50, and immediate family get in free with the member. Active duty military are free, too. And they sell guest passes for $10, although I have no idea how they sell these since the lounge itself is unmanned. They also offer Complimentary one-day pass for first visit. I don’t know about you, but I’m likely to find myself in Mobile, Alabama only once. After clearing security the lounge is on the left,…
When Frequent Flyer Fraud Units Go Off the Rails
I’ve written before about how to deal with the ‘worst case scenario’ of having your frequent flyer account locked for suspected fraud. There are times, though, that even I’m vexed. Airlines and hotel programs see ‘loyalty program fraud’ as a bigger issue than ever before — whether it’s simply breaking the rules of a program by selling miles, or large scale account hacking (as has recently happened with some programs). There’s a balance that programs need to strike. They want to enforce their rules, and they need to limit unnecessary costs. But they don’t want to swing the pendulum too far in the direction of enforcement where they make legitimate members jump through too many hoops. That would undermine their business objectives. Members frustrated by their programs aren’t going to participate in the programs, at…
How the Obama Administration Is Pretending Cuba Travel Ban Doesn’t Exist and the $1.6m Southwest Tarmac Delay Fine is a Fake
News and notes from around the interweb: How much Hyatt Gold Passport reimburses hotels for award nights Etihad won’t make their Dallas – Abu Dhabi flight daily, after all. Lots of customers will need re-accommodation. Well, probably not lots..since this wasn’t supposed to happen until April anyway, and it it was lots they probably wouldn’t be doing this! While tourist travel to Cuba for US citizens remains illegal, starting today the federal government will presume that travelers meet one of the 12 allowable travel categories with no special license required. They can’t actually make tourist travel legal at this point because the ban is based in statute. Meanwhile, Cuba is looking to US tourism revenue to replace Venezuelan oil subsidies. Why inflight food tastes different. (HT: Neil C.) The strong dollar may be discouraging foreign…
Truth Told, My Travel Isn’t All Unicorns and Rainbows
Most of the travel I write about is pretty glamorous, at as far as flying goes. But that’s not what most of my travel is like. It’s just most of the travel that’s worth talking about. The truth is more like this: My so-called travel life. In fact, I’ve even been flying a lot of coach. Today is one of those days. Business travel took me to Mobile, Alabama. There’s no Starwood or Hyatt property. The folks I was visiting put me up at the Battle House Renaissance — they had a $99 rate and it was right by my morning meeting. I booked United home, because they had the best schedule and I didn’t want to spend an extra 3 hours at the airport. I have no status with United. Star Alliance Gold used…
New Leaks About Anthony Bourdain’s New York Hawker Center Set to Open Soon
We know now that it will be named Bourdain Market and is projected to open this year. I’m skeptical on the opening date, since they haven’t even confirmed the location though it’s believed to be 3 World Trade Center, a location that suggests to me opening might not come quickly. They skyscraper component of the project isn’t slated to be completed until 2017 and construction projects delay more often than they don’t. Unlike Singapore’s Hawker Centers where stalls tend to specialize in a single dish, it’s likely that Bourdain’s new place will have venues with multiple dishes each. I infer this from taking literally two reports: the claim that there will be 40 to 50 food stalls while Bourdain claims there will be “hundreds of options.” As for what those options will be, it’s been…
