You’ll often get lower prices and better quality having flowers delivered by a local florist rather than shipped by a national floral company. And you’ll certainly get better prices shopping around rather than ordering from a big name floral brand that gives you miles. The number of miles offered is a clue to the huge margins earned on flower sales. I once earned 100 Delta miles per dollar at 1-800-Flowers. Even the standard ‘better’ offers represent a less expensive way to buy miles than making a mileage purchase from an airline website much of the time. And if you’re looking for cheaper mileage purchases, buy teddy bears or similar items through the flower sites and donate them to hospitals, homeless shelters, etc. You’ll feel good and get a tax deduction that reduces your cost basis…
How Many Miles Would It Take For You To Be Happy About a Flight Delay?
I had an American Eagle (regional) flight delayed about three and a half hours this past week, and within minutes of landing I had an apology email sitting in my inbox — proactively offering 5000 miles. I thought, “Oh, cool, I didn’t even complain!” And then I thought, “gee I wonder which flight this was related to?” since I’ve had several long delays and missed connections over the past five weeks or so. I think the text could be better written to begin with the apology and to not bury the compensation piece at the end of the second paragraph. But I appreciated it nonetheless, realize that it is related to the flight that I had just gotten off of, and think the timeliness of it is especially well-done. Since receiving this I’ve seen several…
Delta Takes Away Elite Access to Many International Lounges
Yesterday Delta sent out an email announcing a big price increase for lounge membership and instituting a policy that everyone accessing their lounges via premium credit card would have to pay a fee to bring in guests. Will Run for Miles flags another change to Delta’s lounge policy, this time one that wasn’t announced just slipped into their ‘Skyteam Benefits’ page. Effective May 1, 2014, all Delta third-party operated international lounges will become Business lounges. What this modest statement means is that a ton of lounges will no longer be available to elite members. Here’s the change: And here are the lounges that elites flying international economy lose access to: THIRD PARTY BUSINESS LOUNGE LOCATIONS: Latin America and the Caribbean Bogota, CO (BOG) Caracas, VE (CCS) Lima, PE (LIM) Quito, EC (UIO) Rio De…
United’s Computers are Bad, Virgin America’s Flights are Discounted, and Your Travel Now Earns Bitcoin (Bits ‘n Pieces for January 11, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Julie Johnsson summarizes just how bad United’s computer systems have been. Poor performance, combined with extreme arrogance, help explain why the airline has been losing a couple hundred thousand customers a month. (HT: @mattyglesias) PointsHound now offers Bitcoin as an alternative to earning miles for your your hotel bookings. 10% off Virgin America flights if you book today for travel through February 13. John F. Kennedy phone call discussing retribution against Pan Am for its order of Concorde aircraft. He talks about the Boeing SST program (“our program”) — meanwhile the history of the Concorde program and the Tupolev TU-144 shows how bad an investment that would have been to push forward with. (HT: @HackMyTrip) You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every…
One Benefit of the US Airways-American Merger: My Gogo Wireless Goes Farther
I had a short 45 minute flight on US Airways yesterday. I had been offline most of the day, so I figured I could at least download some email via inflight wireless and begin to get a handle on how much I had missed. So I fired up Gogo inflight wireless internet, to at least see what it was going to cost me. I have a monthly subscription for American Airlines, but I assumed I would have to pay on US Airways. I logged in and it didn’t make me pay for the session (the screen before logging in said 30 minutes would be $3, I figured I would do that). Worried for a moment that I had somehow been charged, I checked my account and saw that my monthly plan was now being billed…
Fun Fact: Airplanes Are Non-Smoking But They’re Required By the FAA to Have Ashtrays in the Lavatory
Someone on a closed Facebook group that I subscribe to noticed that the lavatory of a new plane they were on had ash trays. That made no sense, all US aircraft are non-smoking! And they asked what was up. This was a domestic flight, and the US banned smoking on domestic flights in the 90s. You don’t even see no smoking signs lighting up on aircraft anymore (in which case it’s printed), there isn’t a smoking time and a no smoking time, there are announcements about no smoking — including in the lavatory. Very few airlines around the world permit onboard smoking any longer. And yet ashtrays are mandated in the lavatory — part of the minimum equipment list, that a plane is not permitted to fly more than a few days without. I never…
What Smart Parents Can Do When Their Children Misbehave Inflight
I lamented earlier in the week about a short flight where a child behind me wouldn’t stop kicking my seat, he and his sibling were shrieking most of the flight, and the parents were arguably even less well-behaved. There’s no question that the comments were polarized over how to handle this. Lots of suggestions, some more practical than others, but ultimately it was a tough spot because it’s awkward to confront other peoples’ children, the parents were already fighting with each other, and you don’t want to make combustible situations even worse (I could imagine a flight attendant confrontation that led to a diversion — which would have left me far worse off, farther from hom). What I found most interesting — and ultimately most constructive — were the suggestions for parents, by parents. The…
I Gave Some Bad Advice Yesterday, and I’d Like a Chance to Fix It!
Registration has opened for Hyatt’s new promotion. You pick whether you want to earn free nights or points. Staying fewer nights during the promotion period, free nights are the better deal (even though they expire). Staying more nights, I consider pints the better deal. I recommended thinking through how many nights you’re likely to stay during the promotion period, and making your selection accordingly. In general, I think the advice to register for promotions right away is sound: Basic principle: sign up for promotions whenever you know about them, even if you do not think you’re going to take advantage of them. Plans change. You get rebooked or have to book a room elsewhere. A trip comes up. Odds of remembering that there’s a promotion to take advantage of at the time you’re changing your…
Fuel Dumps on an Aeroplan Award, Bonus Miles in the Tropics, and Great Delta Award Availability (Bits ‘n Pieces for January 10, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Lucky points out that you can avoid fuel surcharges on award tickets issued by Air Canada’s Aeroplan by issuing the award for travel on an airline like United, for which they don’t add those fees, and then changing the ticket after departure to an airline like Lufthansa. Lufthansa travel would have incurred fuel surcharges, but changing to Lufthansa flights after travel has commenced will incur only change fees — not the surcharges. American is offering up to a 30% bonus on purchased miles, which is still nearly 2.3 cents per mile and more than I’m willing to pay. Rocketmiles is offering a 50% bonus on miles earned from hotels “between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn” that are booked by February 12. The Hustle Blog…
How to Transfer American Express Points to American AAdvantage – Or Book Star Alliance Awards Without Fuel Surcharges
A trick we used to use sometimes with our award booking service to help a client top off a US Airways frequent flyer account if hey had American Express Memnbership Rewards points was to transfer the Amex points to Air Canada’s Aeroplan and from Aeroplan to US Airways via Points.com. Those transfers were offered at 1 Aeroplan point to 0.84 US Airways points. Sometimes the client would have enough Aeroplan points for their ticket, but didn’t want to pay the fuel surcharges that Aeroplan imposes on about half of their partners. This worked out best for awards where US Airways charged fewer points than Aeroplan did, but sometimes even the loss in points with the transfer was worth it for the cash savings. The option went away from the Points.com website several months ago, but…
