Dec 31 2015

I find the Air France KLM Flying Blue program incredibly frustrating for booking awards. There are false positives for award space on their website, customer service representatives are often rude and incompetent, and most importantly they have a penchant for shutting down newly opened accounts that members transfer points into (such as from American Express Membership Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards) and immediately redeem awards from.

As a result I’ve limited the coverage I’ve given to the program. I don’t recommend using it for most purposes because I simply find the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

So I don’t get too worked up over changes that are coming to that program, although those changes are noteworthy because they represent a spread of changes.

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Dec 30 2015

I really like small business frequent flyer programs. In addition to travelers earning points in their own mileage account, a business earns points for their travel as well. The earning isn’t the same, or necessarily as generous, but it’s a double dip and across several travelers in a company the rewards can really add up.

Spending on just my own travel each year seems to earn enough points for me to give someone AAdvantage Gold status and also redeem for an Admirals Club membership.

The program lets you redeem points for upgrade awards, and It turns out that there are a few more fare types that have been excluded from being upgraded with these certificates.

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Dec 30 2015

Last week a Delta flight attendant was gettin’ sick and tired of cats on a plane. Now it rats and Air India. An Air India Boeing 787 headed from Mumbai to London turned around six hours into flight “after a cabin crew member spotted a rat on board.”

It’s not the first Air India rat incident this year. And last year an Air India Airbus A321 was grounded in Delhi after rats ran riot.

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Dec 30 2015

Denver security lines can be among the worst in the country on a normal day. Peak holiday travel days aren’t normal days.

The TSA didn’t forecast the volume of travel in Denver the Monday after Christmas. And weather delays meant that flight times bunched up. The TSA didn’t adjust staffing for either event. And that meant lines of 2 to 4 hours to clear the checkpoint.

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Dec 30 2015

After Hilton’s dramatic award chart gutting of nearly three years ago, there weren’t huge changes again this year.

Hilton decided to change the way they made changes to how they re-assign hotels to award categories. Instead of an annual change to tons of hotels (a schedule they really weren’t wedded to in the past anyway) they decided they would make rolling changes throughout the year. And instead of informing all members proactively of these changes, they would just post them on a web page in the name of ‘transparency’.

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Dec 30 2015

Priceonomics says that hated checked bag fees are actually too low because they take up valuable cargo space that could be sold at a higher price, and because the market price to ship stuff is higher than what they charge in checked bag fees.

It turns out Priceonomics gets the economics of checked bags exactly wrong.

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Dec 30 2015

Last month this blog and ExpertFlyer conducted a survey of frequent travelers for their habits, preferences, and predictions for air travel. Those results are in.

Engaged frequent travelers don’t think air travel is getting better, and are at least occasionally delayed. But club lounges are getting better, airport wifi is getting better, and net net the airport experiences is better than it used to be. But there were a few surprising finds.

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Dec 30 2015

The federal government has determined that some states are trying hard enough to comply with “REAL ID” drivers licenses. But it currently appears that 9 states and 3 territories will not have waivers from the law’s requirements as of January 10.

That does not mean residents of those states won’t be able to travel next year. It doesn’t even mean those drivers licenses won’t be valid at security checkpoints after that date — regardless of what happens politically, and it’s an election year.

But the federal government’s saber rattling on this issue is pathetic and a threat to freedom.

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Dec 29 2015

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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Dec 29 2015

Back in May when Etihad announced that their Airbus A380 would be serving New York JFK – Abu Dhabi, award space was wide open.

For awhile Etihad stopped making award seats available on the New York JFK – Abu Dhabi route. It was still possible to secure awards London – Abu Dhabi and occasionally from Abu Dhabi to Australia. Recently they started releasing seats very close to departure (e.g. within a day of travel).

Now Etihad is releasing award space in advance again in first class on the A380 for Abu Dhabi-New York JFK. And when they do there’s as many as 3 seats available.

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