News and notes from around the interweb: Etihad’s quest to build its own fourth global alliance buy buying stakes in money-losing airlines that will continue to lose money, but can be used to redirect traffic through Abu Dhabi, continues with Alitalia. Cranky Flier dissects the Alitalia turnaround plan and finds it strangely like all the past failed turnaround plans. Etihad is just the latest (and possibly last) deep pocket. If you have an award on Etihad, check your flight schedules. They’ve just re-timed a bunch of flights for March 29-onward. That’ll create better connectivity to some destinations, but may be highly inconvenient for folks who already have travel plans. Speaking of bailouts, Thai Airways will get one instead of being allowed to file bankruptcy. According to the Prime Minister who installed himself in last year’s…
Inside Flyer Ceases Publishing After 29 Years: Randy Petersen Retires
Inside Flyer magazine’s blog offers the story of Randy Petersen’s retirement from magazine publishing. The magazine launched a number of other activities that continue and thrive today. During our time, InsideFlyer accomplished something that no other publication of its kind has–we left a legacy. Among the things InsideFlyer created, funded and willed to be relevant to the frequent flyer included the Freddie Awards, FlyerTalk and BoardingArea, along with its grandchild Milepoint.com. On their consumer advocate legacy, InsideFlyer beat back the introduction of a Saturday night stayover requirement on flight awards from United Mileage Plus in 2000, we led the rollback of the US Airways Dividend Miles elite change to drop status bonus miles, we provided the major funding and support for SaveSkyMiles which beat back an effort by Delta to offer fewer miles flown on…
Finally, One Card to Replace Them All?
I was very excited about 15 months ago when Coin launched for pre-order. It looked so cool, one card that you load your other credit cards onto via an app. You could carry the one and swipe it, you flip between cards that it represents with a button. This would be convenient for cleaning up my wallet, and for managing gift cards I thought. There’s no EMV chip, it holds up to 8 cards, and the two-year battery isn’t rechargeable. Supposedly Coin was going to be shipping last summer but it’s going to be this summer before I get mine. I should probably cancel the order, though I’m curious to try it out, even though it appears to have been surpassed by other offerings that should be in the market at the same time. I…
Taking Advantage of a Legal Loophole: You Can Avoid Paying Fuel Surcharges on Award Tickets If You Know Where to Start and End the Trip
Fuel surcharges are the bane of many frequent flyers, junk fees adding hundreds or even a thousand dollars onto award tickets by many frequent flyer programs around the world. Airlines like fuel surcharges because: Changing the fuel surcharge in a market can raise or lower every ticket price in that market, no need to re-file every single fare. They allow an airline to raise price even with many fixed-fare agreements. And, of course, because they can be charged to frequent flyers trying to redeem a captive points currency. US frequent flyers — who don’t participate in mileage programs based outside the US — don’t have to deal with fuel surcharges very much. American adds them to awards on British Airways (and to a very modest extent on Iberia) Alaska adds them to awards on British…
Saying Goodbye to the Sheraton Yankee Clipper
I’m not sure what rock I’ve been under, that the Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort was sold and is now B Ocean Resort. The Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort has also been sold, but it hasn’t been reflagged. Starwood of course lost the iconic Diplomat hotel outside of Fort Lauderdale to Hilton. But seeing the Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort leave the fold struck me, in part because it flew the Sheraton flag since 1956. The Sheraton Beach Resort is the former Sheraton Yankee Clipper, and the Westin Beach Resort is the former Sheraton Yankee Trader. Both hotels received makeovers in recent years, in my view the Westin a nicer one than the Sheraton. But it’s the Sheraton that holds the most memories for me because it’s where I stayed as a high school debate…
Why I’m Not Traveling to Cuba… And You Should Consider This Before Going There, Too.
If you write a travel-related blog, you’re supposed to have a sense of adventure,. This post is how my sense of adventure is actually outweighed by risk, legal risk, that most will never face. Hear me out, and I’d love it if you just tell me I’m being paranoid. I’d love it if you’d help to change my mind on this. There’s virtually no legal risk for the average American in traveling to Cuba now, it would seem. While the categories of allowable travel haven’t changed, it’s no longer required to obtain a special permit from the US government to travel. Americans have a general license, and those who do go are presumed to fall into an eligible category. As for as those categories go, I arguably could go as a ‘journalist’ and blog the…
Journey to the Aircraft Graveyard, Kicked Out of Airplane Offices, and the 737 Cockpit Suite
News and notes from around the interweb: The ‘reborn’ PEOPLExpress, which had to cease operations, has now been evicted from its airport offices. Thailand is imposing new time of sale restrictions on liquor. Because apparently in addition to rolling out free wifi, this is the sort of thing that a military government does. I want to stay in this suite (HT: @mfkne) A Boeing 767’s journey to the aircraft graveyard. (HT: Scott R.) 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 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!
What Would a British Airways-Led Acquisition of Aer Lingus Mean for Fuel Surcharges and Airline Partnerships?
Since I wrote yesterday that Aer Lingus appears poised to accept a third takeover offer from British Airways (and Iberia) parent IAG, I’ve gotten several messages from readers quite concerned. You wouldn’t expect a mostly US audience to worry over consolidation in the European airline sector, especially when it’s a non-alliance member being acquired. But Aer Lingus is a British Airways partner already, and one of the few ways to redeem British Airways points across the Atlantic without paying big money in addition to miles in the form of high fuel surcharges. The first thing to know though is that nothing will change right away. The transaction has to be accepted. Then it has to close. The airlines will continue to operate fully independently at first. So I wouldn’t expect to see anything meaningful different…
Chase Airline Transfer Partner Back Online!
Korean Air is one of my favorite Chase points transfer partners. First class awards have been so darned easy to get. There are real sweet spots in their Skyteam award chart They offer cheap awards to Hawaii Although they are of course very Korean and their processes for redeeming awards are unique. Korean went offline as a Chase transfer partner in November, though I wrote that it was expected to come back based on what Chase was suggesting. Korean Air’s website said it would be back in January. Last week Chase began confirming it would be back very soon, and customer service reps were saying January 25. And transfers are now back online! As much as I love the ability to be able to transfer Chase points to United, British Airways, Singapore Airlines, and Hyatt……
I Just Saved Over $173 – 58% – On an Upcoming Car Rental. Here’s How You Can, Too..
Flying into a city during the week car rentals can be expensive, especially at the airport. I needed a four day rental, and the came out to about $300. Discount codes that I’m actually eligible for weren’t really bringing this down. Now, I find that I do quite well renting cars via Hotwire.com. You’re guaranteed an on-airport major rental company, they tell you the price just not which company until you’ve completed the purchase. The only downside is it’s prepaid, non-refundable. I’m fairly allergic to prepaid rates until very close to travel. Instead I booked the best rate I could find on a midsize car, which happened to be from Avis. And I fed the confirmation number into AutoSlash.com. About a week passed and I got an email from them: I clicked through to rebook…
