News and notes from around the interweb: American’s pilots union is making kissy faces at management: “While there are some very difficult issues yet to be resolved, we feel management is clearly listening to our issues and acknowledges that they need to be addressed..Enough progress has been made to justify the continuation of negotiations next week.” Through November 30, Hertz is offering 250 elite qualifying miles on Delta for each rental of 3 days or longer. You also earn 250 Skymiles, which isn’t a lot, you’re giving up greater redeemable miles offers elsewhere. But your rentals can help your elite status so if you’re in a position where that matters it’s likely worthwhile. Use CDP #165385 and PC #175512 when making the booking. (HT: MJOnTravel) Mile Nerd rounds up various mileage offers for switching utility…
United: the More People Who Get Snookered into a Bad Buy Miles Deal, the Less Bad it Gets
This is, I suppose, United’s attempt to raise money by being ‘social’. But the Groupon phenomenon of getting your customers to make your offers go viral in order to be eligible for an exciting offer (“The Deal is On!”) seems so two years ago. Through October 19 you earn a minimum of 30% bonus when purchasing miles from United, but the more people who buy the higher your bonus will get – up to 60%. Here’s the chart showing how many people buying into the offer it takes to yield each level of higher bpnus: As of this writing, 27 people have made purchases. But they dropped an email to a large member file, they do have about 90 million members, I imagine they can find 4000 people to buy most anything. At a 30%…
Donate to Charity, Earn United Elite Status
Milepoint, United, and KULA Causes are working together on an innovative charity auction. There are four different auctions for elite status, you can choose to bid for your choice of which status you want from United — 1K, Platinum, Gold, or Silver. The available statuses, which will last through January 2014, are: 1x Premier 1K status 2x Premier Platinum status 2x Premier Gold status 2x Premier Silver status Here’s a piece that I think is really innovative. Instead of supporting a pre-designated charity, like Susan G. Komen or Livestrong, the funds will be directed by your fellow frequent flyers. Each person on next month’s Star MegaDO will receive a coupon for their pro-rated share of pooled charitable donations, and with the help of KULA Causes they will get to direct the organization that will receive…
American Introduces Domestic Premium Cabin Pre-Order Meals
When I first ran across this over on a Dallas Morning News blog I was shaking my head, ‘seriously, we’ll get to pick our meals in domestic first class?’ I even shot an email off to folks at American to confirm my understanding, wondering if it would be a benefit limited to paid first class passengers and not just folks upgrading (which is how most of us get there). If you are a premium class customer on American Airlines (read first or business class) and you can predict what you’ll be hungry for by the time your flight takes off, you can pre-order your entrée under a program announced Monday. Images of Singapore Airlines’ Book the Cook began popping into mind. No, I didn’t imagine I’d be able to pre-order lobster thermidor for a Washington…
Air France KLM Flying Blue 50% Off Awards Now Available Through March
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue is an American Express and Starwood Preferred Guest transfer partner. And while Delta isn’t able to access their business class award seats through at least early June, they’re even discounting those seats at half off on certain routes. (Although transatlantic flights do incur fuel surcharges via Flying Blue.) The new dates are rolling out across the different language and country sites, they’re not fully up yet on the US-English page, but the new awards are valid for travel through March 26th rather than just for a couple of months out. Intra-Europe awards are available in coach only. Europe 1 – Europe 1 for 7500 points each way Europe 1 – Europe 2 for 9375 points each way Europe 1 – Europe 3 for 11,250 points each way Here’s the definition…
Korean Air Awards Now Bookable at Delta.com
Delta has added Korean Air award space to its website. This is huge because Korean Air has outstanding award availability in business class, and because previously there was no way to search Korean Air business inventory online. Korean Air’s website doesn’t even let you search unless you have enough miles in your account for the award. Expertflyer has displayed it on some intra-Asia routes only. So someone with Delta miles had to call Delta to hunt and peck for space — dealing with agents who might not be willing to make more than three searches in a call, agents who don’t know where Seoul is let alone cities beyond Korean’s hub, and agents who don’t know that Korean is even a partner let alone how to search for their award space. Here’s Korean Air business…
Best. Airport. Hotel. Ever…?
Most airport hotels are the ‘best’ because they’re halfway decent and incredibly convenient. Examples I have in mind are the airport Sheratons in Frankfurt, Paris, and Toronto — all attached to the terminal. None is a great hotel, the Frankfurt property has a pretty good club lounge but the furnishings remind me of a college dorm. (The Kempinski Gravenbruch is a very nice hotel but too far from the Frankfurt airport, I would hate to be heading in during morning rush hour.) There are a few airport hotels that are actually nice, the Novotel Suvarnabhumi in Bangkok is certainly a nice hotel but way too expensive for what it is, where it is. The Skycity Marriott is a very nice Hong Kong airport hotel, and one of the most convenient to the airport but not…
Up to 5000 United Miles for Purchasing Marriott Gift Cards
You can earn up to 5000 United miles for buying Marriott gift cards through November 26. Two $400 gift cards and a $250 gift card will earn the maximum allowable 5000 United miles per member account during the promotion period. As I explained in “Quadruple and Quintuple Dipping with Marriott” you can choose to earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points for Marriott gift card purchases instead. Then make your Marriott reservations through your favorite shopping portal, like the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall. Earn points for the stay and the credit card spend. And also earn a credit in Marriott’s free night MegaBonus promotion. MegaBonus and the gift card components of all of this offer-stacking are the limited-time components.
Why Credit Card ‘Zombie Links’ Continue to Work Long Past Their Sell By Date
There are some folks out there who warn readers off of ‘zombie applications’ — suggesting you shouldn’t use links that are ostensibly expired or don’t have landing pages describing an offer. Those folks are wrong. Some folks promote links that provide them with referral credits even when those links aren’t for the best available offers. For instance, there’s been an American Airlines credit card link offering 30,000 points as a signup bonus. A few folks want you to use that link, when there have been several 50,000 point offers out there. The 50,000 point offers haven’t had a ‘landing page’ showing the offer, they just go to an application. That makes people nervous, but the links have simply continued to deliver the bonuses. I’ll explain why in a moment. I give folks the benefit of…
Hyatt’s Jeff Zidell Talks About their Diamond Guests and Improving Hotel Rooms
Randy Petersen has posted a new video interviewing Hyatt Gold Passport’s Jeff Zidell over at Milepoint TV. He talks about working with the MegaDO frequent flyer trips, their attitude towards building the value proposition of their Diamond top tier, how charity fits into priorities, and how they’re working with customers to improve their rooms.
