Apr 13 2015

IHG Rewards Club – the loyalty program for Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and related brands – will be introducing new elite benefits this summer. We know some of those now, and I’ll explain those.

They’re also introducing expiring points. Their points haven’t expired, now they’ll expire after 12 months of inactivity. Elite members get a longer expiration, though.

I go over the holes in the program, what they could do to fill those, and what we know they’re planning so far.

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Apr 13 2015

I’m looking at a flight later today that has only two first class seats for sale: (There’s one confirmable upgrade [A] seat and no discounted first class [P] seats that American will sell.) 11 out of 16 first class seats are open on the seat map: To be sure, the seat map is not a perfect approximation of availability. There can be people in a cabin without seat assignment. That’s more often true for international flights than domestic, and domestically in coach than first class, but it’s true. Today there was bad weather going through Dallas, including a ground stop. That doesn’t come close to explaining this, however. The flight showed up the same way prior to day. I frequently see American Airlines flights where they will not sell any first class seats (“F0”) but…

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Apr 13 2015

There’s a persistent myth that Delta’s new mileage program rewards its highest value customers, or at least those who spend the most on tickets. But that’s sloppy thinking. They’re actually rewarding most customers, including those with above average spend, far less than before. And that doesn’t even factor in the value of the miles which are being earned, which are among the least valuable.

While there are uses for SkyMiles (the value of their points is not zero), there are many reasons that a high spending customer might want to choose Delta — the mileage program is just not one of them.

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Apr 13 2015

Back in February the Puddle of Mud lead singer was arrested for riding the baggage carousel at the Denver airport. It always seemed like it would be fun to do that, but given the legal risk (especially riding it back into the ‘secure area’) I’ve never tried — the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. I do not know, however, how this happened — it seems like you wouldn’t even get the thrill of the ride this way: The man is at Moscow’s Domodedovoa airport and it’s sort of awesome that he’s just sandwiched in between others’ bags on the belt as the carousel moves in circles and delivers luggage to waiting passengers. Hat tip to Road Warrior Voices who notes that “Rod Stewart’s son Sean did the exact same thing at Miami International Airport…

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Apr 13 2015

Today’s roundup of posts from other blogs and news from the various sources I cull together each day includes a source for gift cards (that earns 5x this quarter for many!), a great shot of Kim Jong Un, an airline that still offers free hotels on forced overnights, and a sneak photo of the contruction of the Centurion lounge offering in Seattle.

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Apr 13 2015

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..!)

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Apr 12 2015

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…

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Apr 12 2015

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…

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Apr 12 2015

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…

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Apr 12 2015

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.

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