In the midst of a pretty standard piece on airline lounges, Bloomberg drops a photo that looks pretty significant — a new design I don’t think we’ve seen before. (They don’t seem to realize what it is that they have..!)
Qantas will be flying four koalas from Brisbane, Australia to Singapore where they will eventually join the Singapore Zoo. On loan from Australia as a symbol of friendship between the two countries, the 6-month gift could become permanent.
Transporting them requires custom-built shipping capsules that are climate-controlled and with a tree and eucalyptus leaves. Qantas, though, says they’ll be flying “koala class.” And they have photos…
Via Don’t Call the Airline, Air Canada’s Aeroplan frequent flyer program — a Star Alliance program and an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner — has a redemption pricing glitch. If you book a roundtrip award with premium economy one way and business class the other, the award will price as premium economy. Aeroplan’s reward chart for North America – Asia roundtrip is this: Premium economy is 125,000 miles roundtrip. Business Class is 150,000 miles roundtrip. Here’s an itinerary between Canada and Japan, business class one-way and premium economy the other. And it prices at 125,000 miles. The outbound is indeed over the water in Air Canada business class. This is how the award will price: So if you’re ever going to find yourself booking a premium economy award through Aeroplan, consider pricing it with…
The Google Flights team is hosting a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Thursday, April 16 at 12:00pm – 3:00pm Pacific. Google’s Most Useful Flight Search Technology The flight search piece of technology behind Google Flights is the ITA matrix, which they acquired four years ago. The nice thing about ITA’s consumer website – where you cannot actually buy tickets – is that it allows you powerful search tools. For instance, You can specify what city or cities to connect in. You can specify what airlines or even specific flights to fly (i.e. it will search all options between New York and Bangkok that include American’s Dallas – Hong Kong flight). You can do one-way, roundtrip, or multi-city search. You can search specific dates, a range of dates, or a month-long calendar search. You can…
Star Alliance airline ANA just changed to a new reservation system. That’s a big deal because their website has been the most reliable way to search award space on all of the Star Alliance airlines.
Right now the site seems to be hobbled in its features and the flights it is showing. Hopefully just teething pains, but here are your options in the meantime.
We now know when to expect the opening of American Express’ Seattle lounge, and where it will be. The Seattle lounge ‘studio’ will be coming in August or September, by gate B3, accessible to passengers of all airlines past security.
The lounge represents a departure from those that American Express has opened to date, smaller and with fewer amenities. Here’s what that departure means, and what comes next.
The EU adopted new rules limiting interchange fees, or the prices that payment networks can charge, for credit and debit cards.
I asked, are credit cards about to be killed off in Europe? The economics of credit cards as we know them are predicated on fees that go to the payment networks and banks in exchange for processing transactions.
Miles from Blighty pointed out today that Capital One has stopped issuing some rewards cards and is informing existing customers that their cards will receive less in the future….
News and notes from around the interweb: JohnnyJet visited Amanyara and Amangani. I’ve never taken a comped hotel stay, but I’ve never been offered one by an Aman resort, either. DOT, Commerce Department, and State Department will set up a website to hear US airlines’ hypocritical argument that the big Gulf carriers are too subsidized and shouldn’t be granted access to US markets. Because the US government should be taking steps to increase airfares, limit schedules, and depress service. The docket numbers, if you want to file anything at Regulation.gov, are: DOT-OST-2015-0082 (DOT) DOS-2015-0016 (State) DOC-2015-0001 (Commerce) Scoot, the low cost carrier owned by Singapore Airlines, is trolling Spirit Airlines for stealing their corporate branding. What it’s like to visit New York using a 1990s guide book. (HT: Marginal Revolution) If you haven’t already combined…
Hipmunk is mispricing tickets on Emirates. As reader David H and another reader who asked to be anonymous mentioned to me today, you can pull up all sorts of itineraries using Hipmunk – in business and first class, all over the world – that look like the best deal you’ve ever seen. Search for New York JFK – Nairobi (via Dubai) and you come up with $115 roundtrip itineraries. Change to business class and it promises prices of just $831. That’s cheaper than even a good deal in coach. Unfortunately when you click through from Hipmunk to the Emirates website to make the booking, you’re presented with the ‘real’ price. So when you ask for an itinerary like: And you’re presented with all options running just $3.68 roundtrip (!)… .. it turns out to be…
A look at the inflight service standards from airlines around the world gives us a sense of things that can be done during a flight — that do not cost an airline anything at all — to make passengers feel more comfortable, more valued, and even… welcome.
US airlines have the tools to do these things, with simple standards. They just need to make it a priority.
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 »
