News and notes from around the interweb: New day room booking site and app Hotels By Day is giving away free day rooms. There are surprisingly few entries, so your chances of winning are good. So enter. The inside scoop on United’s ellusive Global Services status. In addition to everything mentioned there, Global Services members departing Frankfurt or Munich in United first class get access to Lufthansa first class lounges. The cities in the UK where you can originate your return from Europe without paying the premium cabin luxury tax on a BA Avios redemption. 4 Ways You’re Probably Using Your Airline Miles Incorrectly (from me over at USA Today Travel). Does Thailand’s military government want to ban orgies? Orbitz and Skiplagged — the website that helps you find throwaway tickets to save money on…
Book American’s Brand New 787 Starting This Saturday
American has released details of its plans for the Boeing 787. As hinted previously, The plane will be based at DFW. Its initial domestic revenue flights, before it begins international service, will be Dallas – Chicago starting May 7 It will fly Dallas – Beijing June 2 And Dallas – Buenos Aires June 4 The 787 should be loaded into the schedule this Saturday, February 14. American has 42 firm orders for the 787-8 and 787-9 and options on an additional 58 planes. American plans to load 28 lie-flat business class seats in a 1-2-1 configuration and then 198 main cabin seats in a 3-3-3 configuration. 48 of those main cabin seats will be used for Main Cabin Extra The business class product — or at least photos they’re releasing — appears similar to the…
Update: The MobileSuites App Big Hotel Point Giveaway!
The Mobile Suites app will let you order room service, request housekeeping, set up transportation, and reserve restaurant and spa services at your hotel, regardless of where you’re staying. They’re working with the major hotel chains and rolling out quickly across their portfolio of full service hotels. The first 2000 signups that enter an email address on their website will receive early access to the MobileSuites app (on March 1st). Anybody that signs up and refers a friend will be entered into a drawing for a free 3 night stay at any of the hotels on the app. They tell me that starting March 1st the app will be available at nearly every full-service Starwood, Hyatt, Hilton, and Marriott hotel across the country. They offered to give a View from the Wing reader a bunch…
Hilton HHonors Lifetime Diamond Status Revealed
Hilton has made details of their much-anticipated lifetime Diamond status available. The requirements are: 10 years of Diamond status (does not have to be consecutive) 1000 paid nights Diamond status is normally achieved for a single year through any one of: 30 stays in a calendar year 60 nights in a calendar year 120,000 HHonors Base Points in a calendar year $40,000 spend in a year on either the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Card or the American Express Hilton Surpass Card While you can meet the 10 years’ requirement with spend alone on the premium co-brand credit cards, doing so doesn’t help you meet the 1000 paid night requirement. Interestingly there’s no lifetime Gold offering. Starwood offers lifetime Gold with 250 nights and 5 years of status, and lifetime Platinum with 500 nights and 10…
$85 Business and First Class Sale Fare, Europe – US on Several Airlines
Hat tip to this Flyertalk thread, it’s possible to purchase tickets between several cities in the UK and several cities in the US — in business class — for under $100 roundtrip. You have to originate in Europe. This works from London, but not exclusively so. This was first discovered on United, but it appears to work for most carriers. Here’s some of the airlines that the ITA Matrix will price an itinerary like this in business class — in Danish Kroner (so you’ll want to use a credit card with no foreign currency fees when purchasing). And here’s ITA Matrix pricing first class, it even prices for Swiss and Lufthansa first class. The question is, where to book. It was initially suggested to use United.com, and indeed you can get the price to come…
Delta Just Quietly Made a Change to the SkyMiles Terms and Conditions That May Reveal Their Whole Game
Yesterday I asked if Delta was slipping a whole new mileage redemption system in the back door. They’ve made lots of changes lately, totally in the dark and without announcement. They’ve pulled award charts off of their website, and now say that awards cost whatever price members are presented with at the time they search an itinerary. It’s still strange that they’ve done this mere weeks after implementing a brand new award chart, but it looks like they’re gradually moving to a revenue-based redemption model — just not telling their members about it. Just like seeming to require more than 3 weeks’ advance purchase to get the lowest mileage prices for an award. Now they’ve quietly changed their program rules in a way that seem to prepare for a new redemption model to become official.…
US Airways Brings Back Access to AAnytime Awards on American Airlines
A week ago American and US Airways launched the ability to redeem miles for ‘extra award availability’ at an additional mileage cost on each others’ flights. The idea of spending extra miles to get the seat you want isn’t universal, you can’t do it with British Airways or Virgin Atlantic miles for instance. Most European and Asian carriers don’t offer this (although some like Singapore Airlines do). But it’s near-universal for US airlines, though they do it in different ways. United only lets elites and co-brand credit card holders spend extra miles for last seat availability, for instance. General members without a United credit card only get access to most seats at a much higher mileage price. But they have only two mileage levels. Alaska, American, US Airways, and Delta all have more levels. The…
RyanAir Ground Crew Behaved Totally Inappropriately. The Airline Had This Perfect Response.
The thirteen year old boy in me thinks that if I had to load and unload baggage in the snow I might do something like this, although I acknowledge I’d deserve to get fired if I did. RyanAir’s response, though, was perfect: ‘While our ground crew excel at industry leading 25 minute turnarounds, art isn’t their forte, as they’ve clearly forgotten to draw wings on their snow airplane’. You can join the 50,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Calling Out Delta on Live TV, the Uber Driver Who Makes $250k, and Buying $500 Gift Cards Online
News and notes from around the interweb: The Uber driver who brings in over $250,000 a year. Yesterday I went on Fox News ‘Happening Now’ talking about Delta pulling its award charts off the website. Expedia is claiming that the strong hotel discount deal that I wrote about this morning — despite having full and clear terms and conditions — was a mistake. Developing… The best places for buying $500 gift cards online with a credit card. The Air France – KLM internal rift spills out into Dutch newspapers. The CEO writes a letter to convince the Dutch people that Air France should get to use KLM’s profits. US Airlines are Whiners (HT: UnRoadWarrior) I believe the technical term is ‘punter’ The Malaysia Airlines Enrich program is devaluing. Some readers may care since they’re a…
Hotels By Day: Solves a Problem, Gives Readers Free Day Rooms!
A new app and website has publicly launched today which solves a real travel problem. Hotels By Day lets you book hotel day-use rooms online. The problem: Day rooms are really hard to book. You usually can’t book them online. I’ve booked them occasionally — the Sofitel Heathrow has day space on its website, but people often get confused and book those rates either for the wrong day or in place of overnight’s which are what they really want. Sometimes you call the chain to book them, sometimes you have to call the hotel directly. Hotels By Day — website, and both iPhone and Android app — brings the inventory online. The app uses geolocation to show the day rooms closest to you for booking same-day easily. But it also lets you book them in…
