On Friday, Scott Mayerowitz reported on Marriott’s big settlement with the FCC over blocking guests use of their own wifi. The Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center wants its exhibitors to pay $250 to $1000 each to the hotel’s wifi. So they didn’t want folks to be able to bring their own, and they used equipment to jam the signal. It’s one thing to provide a service, a convenience, even at a high price. It’s another thing to have folks find themselves in the exhibit hall and prevent them from using a service they had prepared to bring themselves in order to extort money from them. If the hotel had a policy clearly on its website, or in its meetings and events contracts that stated only hotel wifi signals could be used (and requiring meeting…
Concrete Actionable Advice, American Puts Me Between a Rock and a Hard Place, and Vodka that Makes Popov Taste Good
News and notes from around the interweb: Mommy Points is launching a series of helpful e-books that show you how to use miles for cost-effective trips to attainable destinations. I’ve had the chance to preview the Hawaii e-book and it’s filled with concrete, actionable tips to help you travel well and inexpensively. Are US Airways clubs downgrading their vodka? Odysseus had to pass between Scylla and Charybdis in order to return home. Scylla was a horrible man-eating monster that struck from above on the cliffs and Charydbis was a treacherous whirlpool. This is the ‘rock’ and the ‘hard place’ that American presents for my upcoming lunch choice: Here’s hoping that American’s coming meal improvements nix the ‘mystery meat’ from the menu. As for the manicotti, as I’m given to say, thanks to American by body…
Loyalty Programs Should Be Loyal
I recently saw Delta Points sharing a Delta Skymiles ad, which I’ve seen around over the past couple of years and have a copy of. It’s especially ironic. They lay down a belief about what a frequent flyer should do. The ad came out around 2012, if memory serves. I’m not sure how well they lived up to the idea back then. The best argument they made, I think, was about reducing fees associated with award tickets. Sure, award space might have been tougher to get than with other programs. They didn’t have one-way awards at half the price of roundtrip. Routing rules and website pricing were sources of frustration. But they weren’t charging close-in booking fees. And unmentioned, they eliminated the expiration of miles (after leading the way in shortening expiration periods down to…
How to Be a Travel Hero: How to Handle Yourself When Flight Schedules Melt Down
After several tough travel weeks for the nation’s air transport system, Joe Brancatelli runs a column on tactics for dealing with air travel meltdowns. He suggests: Assume the worst will happen Don’t check your bags Avoid regional airlines Have access to airport lounges Get yourself an airport hotel He’s got more suggestions, so read the whole thing. Here’s my advice for when flight schedules melt down. If your flight is delayed or cancelled, don’t be a wallflower, don’t be at the airline’s mercy. There are things you can do to proactive solve problems that come your way, and ways to handle travel stress effectively.
The Very Best Travel Tricks and Tips
Here are the best travel tricks and tips, the highlights of View from the Wing posts from September. Last month I summarized the very best travel posts from August. And in July the most useful and interesting developments from June. I also wrote a post with the most useful advice I’ve given, overall. It turns out, surprisingly, that the feature was really popular, at least judging by the emails I got — people that don’t read the blog every day really appeciated the recap and not having to dig through all of the posts to find the most enduring ones. These are some that were my favorites from September. I hope you were happy with some of the posts and got something out of them as well. Earn Miles Should you jump on the US…
Converting Points to Miles, Serve’s Up, and Triskaidekaphobia
News and notes from around the interweb: This month you’ll receive a 20% bonus when converting Marriott points to both American miles and to US Airways miles. Marriott transfers to miles only make sense as part of a travel package. They make more sense when there’s a bonus. But you need to be able to use the reward nights. Online Serve reloads still appear to be posting as purchsaes and not cash advances despite earlier concerns about certain Chase products. Air India’s constipated 787Classic Saturday Night Live: You Might Be the Ebola Virus If… Why do some hotels choose not to have a 13th floor? And would you stay on the 13th floor if they did? You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive…
American Responds: Bringing Back Some Meals and Improving Snacks
On September 1 American aligned its domestic first class meal service with US Airways. Back in April US Airways got more meals. And then in September American got fewer meals. Effectively the two airlines met in the middle — US Airways had been serving meals on flights of 3.5 hours or longer, and American on flights of 2 hours or longer (more or less). Now they both serve meals on flights of roughly 2 hours 45 minutes. That’s left out some markets where meals made real sense – not just because of flight length, but also because of premium traffic and competition. Indeed, just before American puts its new meal standards in place United announced they were adding meals to flights. In general American customers have been unhappy with the changes. Rather than the changes…
New Link Found for 90,000 Mile Bonus Virgin Atlantic Card
A little over a month ago an offer came out promising up to 90,000 miles for the Virgin Atlantic co-brand credit card. Now, these are Virgin Atlantic miles which aren’t the most valuable. And the offer required a whole bunch of spend. So it’s wasn’t the greatest card offer out there. In fact, I view the card as 82,500 miles for $15,000 spend and wouldn’t take it all the way to capture the full offer on the table. But it was from an issuer without too many co-brand cards (my only current Bank of America card is an Alaska Visa), and it’s potentially a lot of miles. The link for the offer appeared to die, so it seemed like the chance for this was gone. But it turns out that another link still works. This…
Mileage-earning Opportunity Begins to Slam Shut, Plus Crabs on a Plane and Donating to US Customs
News and notes from around the interweb: US Customs and Border Patrol accepts donations. (I’d definitely rather tip housekeeping at Marriotts) A US Airways flight was delayed because a box of live crabs spilled out in the cargo hold during flight. Some Chase cards treating online Serve reloads as cash advances. They’re not wrong… The Forward Cabin likes the American Airlines buy-on-board Chicken Cobb sandwich. So do I. Scott Mayerowitz covers the fascinating case of Marriott’s big fine over blocking guests use of their own wifi. This was at the Gaylord Opryland, and convention exhibitors there pay hundreds of dollars for wifi so the hotel didn’t want them using their own. The actual FCC order is here. The ultimate teenage girl travel accessory (HT: Alan H.) Also from Alan, an excellent blow by blow account…
Are Airlines Becoming Less Dependent On — and Even Giving the Finger to – Their Bank Partners?
When economic times were tough for the airlines, really from 2001 through 2011-2012 or thereabouts, the airlines relied on the banks and the sale of miles to keep them going. There’s long been speculation about the spinoff of frequent flyer programs like United MileagePlus (which had long ago been formed as a separate entity, UAL Loyalty Services), since the program was deemed to be worth more than the airline itself at one point.. largely because of the ability to sell miles, and no one is a bigger buyer of miles than credit card issuers providing rewards to customers. But as the economy has gotten better for the airlines, as planes are flying full and yet they’ve managed to maintain capacity discipline so they’re enjoying higher fares, the airlines don’t seem willing to be so subservient…
