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,…
Why Do Credit Card Companies Waive Foreign Transaction Fees?
At some level this may seem obvious, but it was still interesting to me. It turns out that credit card companies waive foreign transaction fees on select products for the same reason they offer mileage bonuses even when those bonus offers come at a loss. It’s all about influencing consumer behavior beyond the individual transaction that benefit from the bonus or the elimination of a fee. American Express isn’t making money when it gives out 3 points per dollar on airfare with its Premier Rewards Gold product. Citi never made money offering 5% back on drugstore purchases. The idea with those is to engage their cardholder so that they become accustomed to using the card, and keep pulling it out. Because that’s how behavior apparently actually works, we don’t all maximize cards for each transaction.…
50% Off British Airways Redemptions, No Fly List Unconstitutional, and Forced Luxury Vacations
News and notes from around the interweb: Literally being forced to take an all expenses paid vacation. Court rules no fly list procedures are unconstitutional Analyst says United should shutter its Washington Dulles hub. They seriously looked at this a decade ago during bankruptcy. British Airways will apparently launch a 50% off redemption sale starting Monday for most economy flights originating in the U.K. ticketed by July 13 and travel between October 1 and February 28 (December 18 – January 10 excluded). Which foreign airlines receive the biggest loan subsidies from the U.S. Export-Import Bank to buy aircraft? Ryanair has received more than $6 billion in guaranteed financing. Air India, Korean Air and Latam Airlines, a Latin American carrier, have also received more than the $3.9 billion in guarantees that Emirates has obtained for buying…
Union Representing Employees of American’s Pilots Union Considers Striking
American’s pilots union has been negotiating with its own employees for a year and their employees haven’t seen a raise since 2011. Now they’ve rejected a proposed contract and are even talking about the possibility of a strike. “While our preference is to reach a negotiated agreement that addresses APA’s and APSEA’s respective priorities, it is possible the APSEA-represented employees will choose to exercise their right to withdraw their services. APA likewise reserves the right to engage in legal self-help,” APA added. American’s pilots union says they can’t concede to worker demands because they have to “be responsible stewards of our members’ dues dollars.” Of course, the union’s unionized workers do not work for the airline and do not provide service to customers. So if they strike then it’s the union itself that stops doing…
Hey United and Delta: The 90s Called. They Want Their Proprietary Data Back
I often call out the negative and probably do not do enough to acknowledge the positive things that travel providers do. Award Wallet is the tool I use to track my frequent flyer account balances and mileage expiration. A couple of years ago they ran into intransigence with some of the airlines whose accounts they track on behalf of members. American shut off their access. So did Delta and United. Southwest has long had a history of hating on third party website access to their systems (dating back to sites that would automatically check in customers in order to obtain better boarding group priority). Award Wallet tried workarounds where there systems do not even ever access the program websites — they used a plugin so it’s only the member’s computer doing the accessing, and the…
Know Which Websites Will Find Award Space For You (And Which Won’t)
It’s important to do your own award availability research, rather than relying on your mileage program’s website or telephone agents. I’ve always thought it was an entirely reasonable expectation that a frequent flyer program member would go online, type in their starting city and arrival city, and get presented with a list of available options for using their miles. But it doesn’t really work that way.
Which Hotel Chain Rewards Frequent Guests the Most for their Nights?
I’ve looked at which hotel programs are the most rewarding with points for your nights at their properties. In doing that, I used the ‘base’ earning rates for each program (how many points a general member earns). But that’s not the situation faced by many readers who have elite status with their favorite program. Programs generally give their elite members more points than general members. And elite bonuses vary widely across programs. Here’s the top-tier elite earning for the six programs I’m looking at. While Starwood is the least generous overall in terms of rewarding in-hotel spend, they have good elite bonuses that partially make up for it. Gold and Platinum members earn a 50% bonus (3 points per dollar instead of 2) and Starwood’s Platinum members who spend 75 nights a year or more…
Managing British Airways Award Bookings to Get All of Your Benefits
As a flyer based in Washington DC, about 15 minutes at most from National airport (really, most of the time 20 minutes door-to-gate with PreCheck) I’m actually benefiting from the US Airways-American Airlines merger quite a bit. First, I’m an American Executive Platinum. But second now that US Airways has entered oneworld I can use British Airways Avios to redeem for all of the short haul flights on US Airways and it’s really cheap. Flights under 650 miles are just 4500 British Airways points each way. And I find availability on these flights is really quite good. Plus US Airways is by far the largest airline at Washington National. So lots of options. That’s why I’m flying so much econoimy recently. It’s too cheap not to. One quirk about US Airways, though — it’s almost…
