Regular readers know that throwaway and hidden city ticketing is a technique that can be used to save thousands of dollars on airfare. It’s not illegal (and the New York Times “Ethicist” endorses it), but it’s generally against airline rules, and there are some basic practices you need to follow to make sure you or your bags don’t wind up in the wrong city! You’re buying a ticket from A to B to C, where A to C is cheaper than buying A to B, but getting off in B. You can’t check bags or else they will go to C. In the event of weather or cancellations, an airline may want to reroute you to C via a different connecting city (“D”). Airlines see themselves as selling you a ticket from A to C,…
Delta Releases Full New Worldwide Award Charts for Travel After January 1
Back at the beginning of the year Delta announced half of how their frequent flyer program would work in 2015. They released changes to mileage earning but told us nothing about how miles would be spent. They explained that miles from flights would be based on spending. We learned that there would be a 5 tier award chart for each of economy and business class — 10 prices rather than the 4 that airlines historically had (and United continues to have) and the 6 that Delta introduced with Low, Medium, and High pricing. But we needed know what those prices would be, so we were missing a big piece of the puzzle about the value of the 2015 program. After continually calling Delta out for their ‘secret award chart’ — telling members the program would…
Is This How Your Aircraft Was Repaired?
Undoubtedly duct tape is a miracle of modern science. The Discovery Channel series MythBusters has featured duct tape in a number of myths that involve non-traditional uses. Confirmed myths include suspending a car for a period of time, building a functional cannon, a two-person sailboat, a two-person canoe (with duct tape paddles), wearable shoes, a leak proof water canister, rope, and a hammock which can support the weight of an adult male, and constructing a bridge that spanned the width of a dry dock. In the episode “Duct Tape Plane,” the MythBusters repaired (and eventually replaced) the skin of a lightweight airplane with duct tape and flew it a few meters above a runway. Reader Dick sends along this photo of a United Express regional jet at O”Hare. Seeing a plane repaired with what appears…
Propeller Slices Through Window and Hits Woman in the Head, and American’s Project to Track You
News and notes from around the interweb: The abandoned 5-star resort of North Cyprus Propeller slices through plane window, hits woman in the head. A woman, nervous about flying Malaysia Airlines, claims to have been sexually assaulted instead of comforted. (HT: Alan H.) Something is fishy about this story. Not sure how I didn’t know this, but American Airlines is pursuing a beacon technology project at Dallas that will tell you if you’re lost and where you need to be via their mobile app LAX wants 4 new fire trucks. Apparently that costs $3.8 million. Which is a bargain compared to what Boston Logan pays — $1.3 million per truck. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail…
Emirates: the Clear Winner to and from Australia
Qantas, a member of the oneworld alliance, has an odd set of partnerships. Its closest partner is Emirates, which isn’t a member of oneworld. One of Emirates’ main rivals is Qatar, which is in oneworld. Qantas dumped British Airways, also a member of the oneworld alliance, in favor of its Emirates deal. Here’s the thing: while the Qantas-British Airways deal didn’t make a lot of sense… flying passengers between Europe and Australia via London isn’t attractive for most Europeans outside the U.K. or for most Aussies heading places other than the U.K. because of the extra flying on what’s already a tortuously long route… but also because of Heathrow. An interchange in the Middle East does make sense, or even Eastern or potentially Southern Europe. But Emirates would seem to get the far better end…
What Happens to Existing Reservations When Your Status Goes Up or Down?
One of the classic data challenges with frequent flyer programs is: what happens when your elite status changes? Historically you would make a reservation, and your status would attach to it. When I dropped from Starwood Platinum status down to Gold at the beginning of 2010, my Platinum status still stayed in my reservations I had already booked. When I first went from United Premier to Premier Executive about 13 years ago, United didn’t see that I had a higher status with those initial reservations that I had made prior to my status increasing. But as IT systems have become better, this has begun to catch up. Still, not all programs have improved here, and it’s worth knowing about yours specifically. If your status is going up, do you need to proactively have something done…
100% Bonus on Citibank Transfers to Hilton HHonors Through January 8
Over the summer Citibank drastically improved the value proposition of its Thank You Points program, making the points transferable to a variety of airline mileage programs. Two years ago they introduced the program’s first transfer partner — Hilton. But transfers to Hilton are normally a really poor value at 1:1. Doubly so because Hilton massively devalued their program a mere month later. Current transfer partners are: Air France-KLM Asia Miles Etihad Airways Guest EVA Air Infinity MileageLands Garuda Indonesia GarudaMiles Hilton HHonorsTM Malaysia Airlines Enrich Qatar Airways Privilege Club Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus The Air France KLM Flying Blue program is useful, and so is Asia Miles… their distance-based chart though gets expensive for long distance premium cabin flying. Singapore Airlines is my favorite option here — for cheap US domestic…
Real World Travel Tip: Take Care of Your Airline Club Agents, and They Will Really Take Care Of You
When I was young my family had a big gathering each year at the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden. I remember being quite young, maybe 5 or 6, and spilling something on my shirt at brunch beforehand, so had to make a stop at a department store on the way to the event for a replacement. And… I spilled food on that shirt later in the day, too. My great uncle bought me a t-shirt at a concession stand to wear. It was a young boy sharing his ice cream cone with his horse. The horse was licking the ice cream. And the caption read, “treat your pony as you would like to be treated yourself.” I still have that shirt, although it doesn’t fit anymore. But it was my lesson very young…
An Update to Cookie-Gate: Another Change to the Beloved Cookie!
A couple of weeks ago I shared my rant about the American Airlines cookie. First world problems, right? If a cookie is going to be what they serve as dessert even on dinner flights, then I’d hope they would make it the cookie that actually used to be gooey, moist, and delicious … There even used to be a choice of cookies. But they replaced my American Airlines cookie with an inedible piece of cake shaped like a (msaller) cookie. At first I accepted the cookie, took a bite, and stopped. After a few times realizing it wasn’t the vagaries of a particular flight, batch, or flight attendant I simply started declining the cookie. Last night flying American I finished my meal and the flight attendant brought out what I assumed would be cookies. Instead…
Delta Massively Improves Award Search Calendar: Shows Partner Availability and Mileage Cost By Day!
Just after writing that there are five good reasons to fly Delta over other US airlines, along comes the elimination of one reason not to focus on Delta’s Skymiles program. Their award search calendar has been very, very broken — it showed only availability on Delta flights, and only whether there were seats at the high, medium, and low level… often not corresponding at all with actual availability even on Delta’s aircraft. (It might well show a ‘high’ availability only day, even though there was low saver award space on a partner that was bookable on the website.. but you had to click through to see it.) Delta took one step towards transparency last week telling you that you’d have to call up reservations if you wanted to book a stopover on an international award…
