While the trend among US airlines has been to cut costs, American has done as much to make investments in their premium products as any US carrier — and has done so throughout their bankruptcy. Now, many of the investments will take several years to come to fruition. But there’s little question that they are working to position themselves as a top end premium carrier worthy of the corporate contracts (where they already have an advantage) and paid high yield traffic (where there’s less competition among US airlines). It’s even tough to keep up with all of the product improvements that have been announced over the past year or so. They’re putting brand new international seats into their aircraft: a new first class seat (which will ultimately be offered only on their 777-300s) and a…
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American’s Problems Won’t Be Magically Solved By Merging With US Airways
Cranky Flier has a piece today where he answers a reader asking him whether he’s biased against American Airlines by basically saying no, he isn’t biased, American just does stupid things and needs a merger to save themselves. Go read the piece and decide whether a more correct, Straussian reading of his post is “Yes, I am biased against American.” He begins with a shout-out to American’s achievements in the 1980s: [T]hroughout the 1980s, American was a shining beacon of awesomeness. It had previously effectively invented the computerized reservation system. It was the first to really make a frequent flier program relevant. It perfected the hub and spoke system. And it successfully developed modern revenue management. He cites several big errors made at the same time — acquisitions and hubs that didn’t work out —…
Malaysia Airlines Joining Oneworld on February 1
I have an upcoming trip to Malaysia booked with American AAdvantage miles and have been holding off booking my domestic connecting flight, hoping that I could just add a segment on Malaysia Airlines at no cost (other than for incremental airport taxes). Sadly that isn’t to be. Malaysia Airlines was supposed to join in the second half of 2012. Now word is that their join date will be February 1, 2013. They will be a good addition. And as their oneworld admission approaches, there’s a good chance that their frequent flyer partnership with Delta could come to an end. I expect to much prefer the options provided by American for Malaysia redemption over those that featured in Delta’s Skymiles program — specifically Delta didn’t permit first class redemption and added fuel surcharges to awards on…
Up to 15,000 Bonus United Miles for Transferring Hotel Points
Through November 30 United is offering up to 15,000 bonus miles for transfers of hotel points into miles. The amount of the bonus varies by the number of miles transferred it, at exactly 50,000 miles the bonus is at its biggest — 30%. Transfers of hotel points into 5000 – 9999 miles will earn 1,000 bonus miles Transfers of 10,000 – 19,999 miles will earn 2500 bonus miles Transfers of 20,000 – 49,999 miles will earn 5000 bonus miles Transfers of 50,000 miles or more will earn 15,000 bonus miles Eligible hotel transfer partners are Starwood, Wyndham, Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, Hilton, and Club Carlson. They’ll total all of the hotel points transferred by November 30 to determine the number of bonus miles you’ll receive, the total doesn’t all need to come in one transfer…
7500 Bonus Club Carlson Points on 3-Day Avis Rentals through December 31, 2013
Avis has been running an offer of 9000 bonus Club Carlson points with a 3-day rental, most recently extended through October 31, 2012. That offer, at the same link as before has been reduced to 7500 bonus points but extended through December 31, 2012. Now through December 31, 2013, Club Carlson members can earn 7,500 total Gold Points on qualifying rentals of 3 days or more at participating locations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. You need to enter coupon code MUHA018 when making the reservation and provide your Club Carlson account number. There are some blackout dates for this offer when renting outside of North America, oddly enough the specific dates aren’t specified for Asia. And there’s no list of…
Alitalia Tickets to Be Honored: $315 Discount Will Stand For All Tickets that Cost at Least a Penny
Over the weekend I wrote about a discount of ~ $315 that could be applied to any Alitalia tickets as long as the bookings were made on Alitalia’s Japanese website. Plenty of folks booked cheap US-Europe (and Europe-Asia) tickets with this discount. Some booked tickets inside Europe that were literally free, because they would have cost $315 or less to begin with. I wrote at the time that I couldn’t imagine that US-Europe tickets issued under this deal wouldn’t be honored, but that I wasn’t so sure what would happen to the European tickets. Alitalia pushed back and initiated cancellation of all tickets, claiming that the discount was only meant for flights originating in Japan and that their anti-fraud measures prevented the bookings by folks accessing the website from our regions of the world. A…
The Best Awards Each US Frequent Flyer Program Has to Offer
I’ve written in the past that the frequent flyer program you should use depends on where you want to go. While I have opinions about ‘which program is best’ no single program is best for every destination. There are certainly some off the beaten path programs that are best for some travelers in some situations. But most of the time when people come to me looking for help booking their award tickets, they already have their miles saved up and want to make the most of those miles. Since I often say that the best strategy is to earn miles, use them up quickly rather than saving them for a far-off distant future, and then earn some more I think it’s a great idea to find the best uses of your miles now, travel, and…
Making the Most of Skypesos: Aeroflot Award Space is богатый (Plentiful)
Despite my many beefs with the Delta Skymiles program, I do my best to identify ways that those miles can be used as productively as possible. Some Skymiles Award Challenges You can’t use Skymiles for one-way awards without paying the roundtrip price (but if you must fly one-way at the ‘high’ level on Delta aircraft, don’t just book a one-way — book a one-way high, and return at the low level for whatever date that is available, it will bring down the price of your one way to the average of high and low, rather than the roundtrip high price). And you can’t use Skymiles for international first class awards. But with their airline partners especially, if you know where to look, you can get good international business class availability to get most anywhere. Great…
Delta Brings Back Air France Business Class Awards and Eliminates Some Fuel Surcharges
Quietly and against all conventional wisdom Delta has been making some positive changes to their frequent flyer program and to their website used to search for award space. Back in May they added searching for Virgin Australia award space to their website. Virgin Australia offers better award availability than anyone else between the US and Australia (without connecting in Asia), and exceptionally so on their Los Angeles – Brisbane flight. It’s a good business class seat, too, often available in prime holiday season as well. Delta also stopped billing fuel surcharges on these awards. Do not rely on Delta’s award calendar to find the space, search it day by day for the dates you are interested in. About a week ago Delta began allowing Korean Air awards to be searched at Delta.com. That’s huge because…
Are Delta, US Airways, and Alaska Airlines the Most Likely to Switch to a Revenue-Based Program? And What About Our Current Mileage Balances?
Yesterday I wrote about revenue-based programs and how I think it’s likely that Delta will change it’s frequent flyer program to align both earning miles and the cost of redemption with the price of airline tickets — and how I think that revenue-based programs are bad for both travelers and for the frequent flyer programs themselves. Joe Brancatelli also expects to see a revenue-based program next year — on one or more of Delta, US Airways, and Alaska Airlines. I had written about the speculation of US Airways in addition to that of Delta in the past. I hadn’t seen it written about Alaska Airlines previously, although now that I’ve seen that speculation it resonates as at least plausible (more so than if the speculation were about, say, American AAdvantage for sure). I’d have put…
