When I was a kid I was a pretty frequent flyer, mostly New York – Los Angeles (and I became a frequent People Express customer out of Newark). I used to get to the airport super early hoping to get a bulkhead seat. This was before elite seating, the best way to get the seats was to be first. See, there’s a limited number of exit rows and bulkheads on any given seat. One way to ration them is first come first served, or a modified version of who shows up at the airport first. Then they go to whomever has the lowest value of time. Another way to ration them is to charge for them, whomever values them the most will pay. And that’s what the airlines are doing now (though in many cases…
Fascinating Chatter from the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Aviation Symposium
On Friday I spoke at the Phoenix Shy Harbor International Aviation Symposium, I’m not usually one for the aviation business-related events, but they wanted me to add comment on loyalty programs and also elite benefits and the intersection with ancillary revenue, so they had me out and the panels turned out to be fascinating. @CrankyFlier in particular did an outstanding job live-tweeting the event, so if you’re curious for the raw commentary you might check it out or hash tag #PHX2012. Some of the fascinating things I heard: Scott Kirby, on my panel, likes what John Pistole is doing at TSA to be more efficient. I wouldn’t give him that sort of credit, though in a sense compared to Kip Hawley — aside from protecting federal employee unons — that might well be true. Willie…
Why I’m Walking Away from the Marriott Platinum Challenge
I’ve never been a big fan of the Marriott Rewards program. It’s huge, and it’s popular, it’s been the biggest hotel program winner the past two years at the Frequent Traveler awards. They certainly have loyal members. But from the perspective of someone that values hotel elite benefits most in choice of program, it’s never especially appealed — largely because the terms and conditions of their program specifically excludes suites from the upgrade benefit, despite the program having the highest bar (75 nights) for earning top tier of any of the major hotel loyalty programs. Still, you can’t always control where you’re going to stay, and I was looking at a bunch of upcoming Marriott bookings. So I decided to go for an elite challenge with them. In fact, with a few incremental nights I…
Fewer Than 20 Seats Left for Frequent Traveler University
tommy777 posted on Milepoint yesterday that there are fewer than 20 tickets left for Frequent Traveler University. Here’s the Frequent Traveler University Saturday schedule. Here’s the current iteration on Sunday’s schedule: Sunday Program (subject to change) 9AM-1130AM Meet and Work with the programs. Up to 6 of the major hotel and airline loyalty programs has individual programs throughout the morning. You can pick ONE hotel and ONE We are working with United, American, Delta, US Airways and Southwest on the airline front and Hyatt, Starwood, Hilton, Priority Club and Marriott Rewards. Which ones who will attend, is TBD and will be decided by April 10th. On April 10th, everyone who is signed up for the FTU will receive an email where you can choose which groups you want to attend. Please note: You can choose…
Earn Starwood Points for Gambling in Vegas
I didn’t know you could do this: The Westin Casuarina is the only Starwood property in Las Vegas, and you earn Starpoints whenever you spend money there. But did you know that if you gamble in the casino, you’ll earn Casuarina player points that you can then convert to Starpoints? And then, through Starwood, you can convert Starpoints to miles at many airlines on a 1:1 basis. Last year after a few days of degenerate gambling at Westin, I built up $100 worth of points, but there isn’t much to purchase with those points – just an overpriced steakhouse, an overpriced Starbucks, and a gift shop. It used to be better when Planet Hollywood was a Starwood property, but they converted to Caesars last year. So I took Westin up on a little-advertised offer, and…
Watching the Gutting of a Frequent Flyer Program
Michael C. emailed me about changes to the CSA Czech Airlines OK Plus program, which I verified on Milepoint. I normally don’t cover minor European frequent flyer programs much, although there are occasionally areas of strong value in them, I’ve long written about bmi and even made occasionally mention of the Turkish program for easy Star Alliance Gold qualification and some sweet spots in their award chart. But most of my readers don’t have a keen interest, judging from the comments and the feedback by email that I’ve gotten. This is important, though, because it illustrates the draconian changes that can happen with little notice, and there’s more than a little schadenfreude. Each mile expires 24 months after being earned. All miles expire if you don’t take a Czech flight every 24 months. Business class…
Why Do Rich White Guys Get a Special Line for Airport Security?
Michael Lind has a silly screed in Salon about elite security lines, beginning with the claim that “[s]ecurity checks were one of America’s most democratic places — until rich passengers got their own speedy lines.” (HT: Arthur N.) Now, the argument isn’t quite as bad as David Post’s, since the author recognizes that the security lines he’s lambasting aren’t even run by the government. But I think among the histrionics and juxtaposing of rich versus poor, it’s worth remembering: “The Poor” on the whole aren’t buying airline tickets and suffering through airport security in large numbers. Airport security itself is largely the plight of middle and upper-middle classes. “The Rich” – at least the really rich that class warriors like to heap scorn on – don’t go through airport security either, they’re more likely to…
My Love of Coach and My Foiled Quest to Buy on Board
For the first time in a long time, I was excited to fly coach. Now, there are two times of the week that as a general proposition, across US domestic airlines and across routes, are especially difficult to upgrade: the first bank of flights Monday morning, and the evening bank of flights on Thursday. Hard core road warriors hop on a plane Monday first thing, off to their work assignment fo rhte week, and they head back home on Thursdays. These aren’t the only tough times to upgrade domestically, of course. Friday evening is hard too, not every road warrior gets to come home on Thursday. And generally speaking if you want to upgrade, avoid 6am – 9am on Mondays, Tuesdays even to be extra safe, and avoid 5pm – 7:30pm at the end of…
1000 Free Virgin America Points
Now that Virgin America points can be used to travel internationally on Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia, I guess I’m paying more attention. Via Miles to Go, Virgin America is offering 1000 Elevate points for liking the Elevate Rewards Yearbook. You then need to scroll down to “put a page in the yearbook earn 1,000 Elevate points,” fill out their form (be sure your email address matches the one on file with your Elevate account) and that should generate a confirmation page. The offer runs through April 6.
Priority Club 2nd Quarter “Stay X, Earn Y” Offers
On Monday I wrote up a ton of offers from Priority Club, which Priority Club Insider was all over as usual, it’s always worth signing up for all of those as you can often (though not always) double and triple dip on Priority Club bonuses. The quarterly bonuses which usually come around, though, you have to pick one and only one offer and stick with it. The more challenging offers that requiring more head in bed time are more lucrative, you need to think ahead about your stay patterns and decide which one you’ll safely hit — you want the most lucrative you’ll earn without getting so challenging that you’ll miss it. And as usual, Priority Club Insider has the rundown on earning opportunity from April 1 through June 30: Top Deals for Points –…
