Starwood is offering up to 9000 bonus Air Canada Aeroplan miles (Registration required). Stay five qualifying nights at Starwood hotels and resorts around the world from September 1 – December 15, 2013 and earn 5,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles. Stay a seventh night and enjoy 2,000 more Bonus Aeroplan Miles. Stay a ninth night and earn 2,000 more, up to a maximum of 9,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles during the promotion. Nights can accrue across multiple stays. Last month I called Aeroplan the most devalued airline frequent flyer program in North America. So if the promotion required giving up Starpoint accrual, I likely would not be highlighting it. But it doesn’t. And this promotion should even be stackable with the Starwood’s “Take Two” promotion offering double points plus 2500 bonus points for every 5 eligible nights (up…
Seat Assignments are Harder to Get Than First Class Awards on Cathay Pacific — But Here’s How to Solve That
Cathay Pacific Award Availability Can Be Fantastic – Far in Advance and Last Minute Cathay Pacific offers one of the world’s best inflight products. It probably has the very best business class (though with similar seats, pre-order meal options, and Dom Perignon champagne perhaps EVA Air gives them a run for the money — I have not personally flown EVA). And it has one of the very best first class products, too. But most of all it has one of the very best products that you can pretty easily redeem for, since award availability is generally quite good. Cathay Pacific flies from several North American gateways to Hong Kong: New York JFK, Newark, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Vancouver. Award availability on Cathay Pacific is generally fantastic far in advance — when schedules…
Miami’s “Secret” American Airlines Club With Premium Liquor and a Nice Buffet
Miami used to have an American Airlines “Flagship Lounge” — an international first class lounge also open to American’s 100,000 mile flyers traveling internationally and also their oneworld partner top tier elite members. That one closed for renovations, never to re-open. The nice thing about Flagship Lounges, other than tending to be quieter and less busy than Admiral’s Clubs, is that they offer self-serve liquor and usually a decent buffet. I’ve been very fortunate to be a British Airways Gold member, granting me access to the New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles Flagship lounges whenever I pass through on American even just flying domestically. I became a British Airways Gold when BA acquired british midland. I was a long time bmi Gold, even though I never flew that airline — they were an easy Star…
US Airlines Didn’t Always Charge for Lounge Access. Why the US Approach Has Diverged from Europe and Asia
US Airlines Offer Paid Lounge Access, Most of the World Does Not I’ve always found it interesting that US airlines charge for lounge access, while European and Asian airlines provide access primarily based on class of service flown (lounges for business and first class passengers) and for elites (for whom access is complimentary). US airlines do offer premium cabin international travelers complimentary lounge access. And do they provide lounge access to elite members who are traveling internationally. But for the most part, passengers flying domestically have to pay to access an airport lounge. Exceptions to this are Alaska Airlines offering (non-upgraded) first class passengers lounge access, and ‘premium transcon’ routes like New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco where lounge access for premium passengers is more common. But US airlines offer paid memberships, while…
How Airlines Advertise (Usually Badly, But Here’s Some of the Best)
You don’t see a whole lot of advertising from US airlines these days. Perhaps that’s because decisions about whom to fly are made on the basis of corporate contracts, frequent flyer programs, schedule or lowest price. American spent a bit of money on ads during bankruptcy and in conjunction with Disney’s Planes. But beyond that, it’s a rarity. It used to be much more common, you could hardly watch television without it. Even five years ago it was ubiquitous. Sometimes New York heats up with airline ads, ContinentalUnited needs to convince that Newark is really New York, Delta needs to convince you that they’re the biggest and baddest even though before acquiring a minority stake in Virgin Atlantic they had only three daily flights to Heathrow. If you aren’t in New York, though, do you…
Bits ‘n Pieces for August 30, 2013
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: United MileagePlus is auctioning a seat on the upcoming Star MegaDO frequent flyer adventure trip. The package includes airfare to Toronto and back from San Francisco, and lodging during the events. Current bid is just 51,000 miles. Frequent Miler reports that Marriott status challenges are no longer available. The Star MegaDO this year gives you Marriott Platinum status, United Premier Golds and above now get Marriott Gold as well. The Ritz-Carlton Rewards Visa is an easy (though not cheap) path to Gold as well. A few folks have commented on old posts that Hyatt appears to have removed a bunch of hotels from participation in their stay certificates program (a technique for saving big on hotels). Lucky provides coverage as well. I’ve pinged the person who runs the…
Breaking: American-US Airways Merger Gets a November Trial Date, Merger Not Killed Off By Attrition
American and US Airways wanted a November 12 trial date to adjudicate the Department of Justice’s anti-trust lawsuit. DOJ first wanted a February date, and then when that represented a conflict with the judge’s calendar they suggested March. My original guess about the DOJ suit when it was filed was that, regardless of the legal merits, the biggest risk to the merger was endless delays in the courts — companies can’t make long term plans or investments while they don’t know their futures. A March trial date would have meant the DOJ effectively would have won its anti-trust suit by default. Today the judge in the case ruled to set a November 25th trial date, which means that the anti-trust claims will ultimately either be settled or adjudicated on the merits. In other words, the…
National Car Rental’s Technology and Travel Discussion Highlights Online
I learned quite a bit hosting the National Car Rental-sponsored Google Hangout discussion of travel and technology earlier in the month. (I also hosted a @NationalPro twitter chat on travel and technology earlier that day.) National was promoting their new mobile app, of course, which I’ve found to be really functional (and was something on my personal wish list since I rent from National frequently and they hadn’t had an app before). But what came together was a really good discussion of travel and tech, and the reason I wanted to be involved in the first place was the other folks who were joining — people like JohnnyJet, Chris McGinnis, and Scott Mackenzie in addition to Rob Connors from National. First off, I was exposed to Google Hangout for the first time, which is a…
Managing Flight Delays and Cancellations
I thought I would share my thinking process for a delayed flight this morning, how I kept abreast of flight status, and how I made a decision to change flights. Some of y’all are going to find this to be a rather pedantic post. If you’re an expert, feel free to skip this post. There wasn’t any great jeopardy involved, it’s about a simple domestic trip. Hopefully some might find the thinking process I used useful. Flying today I had a planned 55 minute connection in Dallas. I got an email that my outbound flight was delayed 17 minutes, giving me a 38 minute connection. I looked up my flight on FlightAware. I used that site to “Track Inbound Flight” to see the status of the flight that was on its way to DC that…
Double Points on Amtrak Between September 9 and October 31
Amtrak Guest Rewards is going to be running double points earning for Amtrak travel between September 9 and October 31. Amtrak points-earning isn’t especially generous on a “dollars required to earn comparable free travel basis” — on non-Acela Express routes you earn 2 points per dollar spent normally, and a roundtrip coach ticket between Washington DC and New York runs 8000 points. That means you need to spend $4000, or perhaps make 25 roundtrips, before getting a free ticket. Double points helps, of course, but shouldn’t sway the majority of folks make plans to choose train rather than air (or other transport methods). The link for the offer is not yet live, but registration will become available no later than September 9 at AmtrakGuestRewards.com/DoubleDays. You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and…
