Six months ago the story went ’round about the Chinese man who ate free for a year. He bought a fully flexible ticket, changed his travel date each day, used the airport lounge for food and drink and then refunded his ticket at the end of a year. Lots of folks thought this was a brilliant hack. Although it certainly wasn’t new. Ever since September 11th and the requirement that you actually be flying same-day to go past security, there are people that have found it convenient to buy a refundable ticket, meet friends at their gate, and then refund the ticket rather than get a gate pass. And if doing that, you might as well buy an international first class ticket, to take advantage of any available first class lounge while waiting. Back when…
Your Next Flight May Land in a Totally Different Way
The thing I miss the most in my flying is listening to Channel 9 air traffic control on United. There’s a certain familiarity to the discussions that’s just soothing. The usual patter on approach of “descend maintain one two thousand” is going to change though — and at some airports is already changing. (HT: Alan H.) That’s because more airports are moving to bringing planes in on a steady path to the ground instead of descending, leveling off, and descending again. Leveling off involves cranking up the engines, which burns fuel. A steady glide to the ground burns less. And it allows descent to begin later, where the new approach pattern has been implemented descents begin a couple miles closer to the airport. Usually, planes approaching an airport drop altitude in steps, cranking up the…
PointsHound Introducing Increased Mileage-Earning
I already really like PointsHound for the ability to earn miles when booking hotels for yourself (and especially for others). In that way they’re similar to Rocketmiles (which sometimes offers more miles, but has fewer properties to choose from). What I especially like though – and what differentiates PointsHound – is the ability to earn miles while in the case of their ‘Doup We’ve supercharged our website and the deals have never been better. This is no promo – we’ve increased our everyday earning rates and expanded our selection of hotels! Check out the new PointsHound and see how many more points you can earn on your next hotel stay. Here are their examples: A couple of months ago PointsHound was acquired by Points.com. That’s the company that many frequent flyers know lets you transfer…
The Decline of – and Remaining Value in – Promo Awards
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program should be interesting to U.S. frequent flyers for several reasons. They offer one-way awards, which Delta won’t have until next year. They are an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner (points transfer instantly). They have access to award space that Delta won’t let you have. They have most of their partners available for online booking Unfortunately their call centers are frustrating, their website can be too (and has been known to show ‘phantom’ award availability, seats that look available but aren’t really here to book). And they add fuel surcharges onto award tickets. One of the great values, historically, has been their ‘promo awards’. Award tickets at half the cost of their regular award chart can be a great value, for a relatively short booking window and for travel…
British Airways 50% Off Redemption Sale Now Live
As expected, British Airways has launched a 50% off long haul economy redemption sale. For 2 weeks the mileage cost of economy redemptions originating in London to 20 cities has been cut in half. Travel is permitted October 1 through February 28, excluding December 10 through January 10. Here are the destinations:
KLM’s Offensive World Cup Tweet (and What the REAL Outrage Is)
It’s not been a good quarter for airline twitter teams. But ever since US Airways gave us the greatest online gift of the past five years and no one from the twitter team got fired, it seems like their jobs are safe at least. After all, if US Airways didn’t fire the guy who used a Boeing 777 outside of normal operating parameters, then Delta couldn’t really fire anyone for sending out an arguably racist tweet about a giraffe (or at least one ignorant of its subject matter). And if the World Cup ensnared Delta’s twitter team in controversy, others haven’t been spared either. Buzzfeed highlighted KLM’s celebratory missive over the Netherlands’ victory over Mexico to advance to the quarter finals. The tweet even featured a guy wearing a sombrero. Mexico fans did not take…
United Announces the Elimination of Garlic Bread and Ketchup
While United makes excuses for losing $600 million in the first quarter, and is out of ideas so just copies Delta, they get more and more desperate. Strategy plans are said to look like what’s “found in a typical operating department’s annual budget presentation than in a corporate presentation..” So where do they turn for salvation? Elimination of ketchup from Europe flights and garlic bread from Asia flight premium cabins. The airline that spent 2013 losing 250,000 customers a month is eliminating complimentary meals on their Honolulu – Guam flights. They’re also shrinking the lavatories on 737-800 and 737-900 aircraft. They call them ‘space saving lavatories” which sounds almost futuristic… like Magic Flush. Why you may ask are they doing this? To squeeze in more rows of coach, of course! In a move @FakeUnitedJeff would…
How Internet Gets Installed on a Plane
I visited gogo inflight internet a couple of weeks ago and saw the technology behind internet in the sky as well as how support gets handled. One of the presentations included a time lapse video of the actual installation on a plane. That’s not done at gogo’s headquarters so we couldn’t see it being performed live (they do it onsite during maintenance in a matter of hours per plane). tnooz points to one such video, and it’s a great quick watch. Here’s a Virgin America aircraft getting equipped with gogo’s latest ‘ATG4’ air-to-ground internet service. 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…
Why Do Some Credit Card Companies Give Signup Bonuses Over and Over for the Same Card?
It’s an interesting thought exercise and window into the business models of the big banks, that some companies at different times in their evolution have given signup bonuses to customers that have had their cards in the past. It seems especially strange and impossible to people that are signing up for cards just to get the bonuses. I mean, after all, why would banks do that?
Up to 40% Off a Hotel Booking Today Only
Magic of Miles highlights a $40 off $100 hotel booking code you can use in conjunction with the Travelocity mobile app. Book today for travel through the end of the year with promotion code MOBILE40. The trick? Most national hotel brands are excluded from the promotion. Here’s the list of excluded hotel chains: Accor Hotels, Amari Hotels, Anantara Hotels, Aston, Banyan Tree, Barcelo, Carlson Hotels and Resorts, Choice, Drury Inn & Suites, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, Fortune Hotels, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Furama, Hilton Hotels, Holiday Express Suite, Holiday Inn, IHG, Intercontinental Resorts, La Quinta Inns, Langham, Loews, Louvre, Mandarin Oriental Hotels, Marriott Hotels, Melia Resorts, Movenpick, NH Hotels, Oberoi, Peninsula Hotels, RIU Hotels and Resorts, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, Scandic Hotels, Shangri-La Hotels, Six Senses, Starwood, Taj Hotels, Vincci, Woodside Hotels No Marriott,…
