Although airlines are regulated exclusively by federal law under the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, they aren’t exempt from all state laws — US Airways has been fined for state liquor law violations in the past, and occasionally there are state weights and measures investigations that find airline luggage scales to measure improperly, exposing carriers to state fines. Arizona found several inaccurate luggage scales in Phoenix and Tucson. (HT: mapsmith on Milepoint) These scales get a ton of abuse. No doubt they aren’t all consistently well-maintained and adjusted. I’m quite sure the phenomenon isn’t limited to Arizona. I’m actually rather surprised there hasn’t been an airline whistleblower working with a plaintiff’s attorney, as given the money involved in checked baggage fees and overweight baggage fees to the extent that scales are systematically off due to…
Starwood is Selling Points at 25% Off — Here’s When You Would Want to Buy
Starwood is offering up to a 25% discount on purchased Starpoints… should you buy any? Save Up to 25% on Starpoints now through December 13, 2013 Buy Starpoints® now through December 13, 2013, and receive up to 25% off the regular price when you buy 5,000 Starpoints or more. The more you buy, the more you save. • Buy 500–4,500 Starpoints: N/A • Buy 5,000–12,500 Starpoints: SAVE 20% • Buy 13,000–20,000 Starpoints: SAVE 25% The ‘normal’ price on Starpoints is 3.5 cents per point. Ouch. Fortunately, unlike airline miles, you don’t pay an additional tax on top. And there’s not also a ‘processing fee’ like many of the airlines charge. If you max out on the discount, and buy 20,000 points (which is what you are permitted to buy each year), it would cost you…
More Credit Card Issuers Likely to Offer Free Access to FICO Credit Scores
Yesterday I wrote that the Barclaycard Arrival PlusTM World Elite MasterCard® and other Barclays cards now provide free access to real FICO credit scores through their online account. The nice thing is that these are real scores, and free, whereas many free services are effectively simulations rather than the data that lenders would see. It turns out that eventually many more card issuers may be providing free FICO scores as well. FICO plans to let card issuers who use its scores make those scores available to consumers for free. Barclaycard and First Bankcard (First National Bank of Omaha) are the first two banks offering this but FICO is working with other banks on potentially doing the same. (Note that cards in this post offer credit to me if you’re approved using my links. The opinions,…
Today Only: 5000 Bonus Miles for a Rocketmiles Hotel Booking
Rocketmiles is running a one-day anniversary promotion, offering 5000 bonus miles on top of the usual miles earned for your reservation when you book a hotel stay between 8:00am and 9pm Central time on November 5 for a hotel stay completed by December 31 (check-out date). You have to book through their anniversary promotion page and the offer isn’t stackable with any other bonuses such as a first-time booking referral bonus. This bonus is good no matter which mileage-earning partner you choose: It is, however, open to anyone to take advantage of. Unlike other recent offers this is not a first-time customer bonus. There’s a limit of one bonus per customer under this offer, however. And they even have terms and conditions that say you can’t cancel an existing Rocketmiles booking and re-make that same…
United MileagePlus Has Devalued its “Standard” Award Chart, Too
Traditionally US frequent flyer programs offered to let members book any seat on any flight for twice the miles. That way if there wasn’t any “saver” award inventory, it would still be possible to use your miles. Now it wasn’t always precisely twice the miles. Sometimes it was less than double! Up until October 2006 United Airlines Mileage Plus offered awards from North America to Australia in business class at 90,000 miles roundtrip at the saver level — or 150,000 miles for what they called “standard” or rule-buster style awards where you could have any empty seat instead of constraining yourself to award space. At the time that award struck me as one of the best in the world. Delta and Northwest at the time both charged 150,000 miles for their capacity controlled awards to…
Signs a Settlement May Be Near in the American/US Airways Anti-Trust Lawsuit
Via Milepoint, Attorney General Eric Holder directly addressed the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the US Airways-American Airlines merger and indicated their openness to a settlement. American Airlines shares jumped on the news. A merger is great for American Airlines shareholders because they actually get a payout rather than being completely wiped out by the airline’s bankruptcy. Shares of companies in bankruptcy can fluctuate wildly even on the slimmest of news, but a big reaction is indicative that the market believes the Attorney General’s comments were meaningful. The Justice Department wants US Airways and American Airlines to divest landing and take-off slots at Reagan National and other “key” U.S. airports as a condition to drop its effort to block a proposed merger, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Monday. …Holder said that talks with the…
Hilton Eliminating a Mileage-Earning Option Effective January 6
Hilton HHonors is probably the most complicated, cumbersome hotel programs out there. One of the most complex aspects of the program is points-earning. Currently you have three options to choose from: Points and Fixed miles. Earn 10 Hilton HHonors points per dollar and a set number of miles per stay or per night that varies based on the airline you choose to earn miles with (e.g. “500 miles per night”). This is a classic ‘double dip’ element in the Hilton program, you can earn both points and miles. Points and Variable miles. Earn 10 Hilton HHonors points per dollar and a number of miles based on the amount of (eligible) spending at the hotel (1 mile per dollar). Points and Points. A newer edition to the program, you earn 10 Hilton points per dollar and…
How Do United’s New Award Charts Stack Up Against American and Delta?
With all of the furor over United’s massive award chart changes, I thought it would be useful to put together some context and compare United’s new February 1-onward award charts against the offerings of their two major competitors in the U.S., American and Delta. (I exclude US Airways because it’s a smaller carrier and still may merge with American.) I’ve put travel between North America and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific side-by-side to have a look at United’s new award charts (for both United flights and flights on United’s partners) against the award charts of American AAdvantage and of Delta Skymiles as it applies to travel June 1 onward. Each airline has a slightly different definition of which countries are in which ‘zones’ but this is a pretty fair comparison of…
3000 Bonus Miles on Your Choice of Airline for First Rocketmiles Hotel Booking
Yesterday I noted an offer of 3000 bonus United miles for your first Rocketmiles reservation. This is on top of the usual miles earned for hotel reservations through that site. But United miles aren’t exactly the most popular right now. So fortunately it turns out there’s actually a bonus available of 3000 miles on whichever Rocketmiles partner you choose. Here are the partners to choose from: To qualify for this offer you need to open a new Rocketmiles account and make your first booking by November 8, 2013 and complete your stay by December 31, 2013. (HT: Mommy Points) You can join the 30,000+ 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…
Play the Star Alliance Gold Game for a Chance to Win Elite Status
Star Alliance is running a game where you compete to test your knowledge of alliance elite benefits and answer questions quickly, with the prize being Star Alliance Gold-equivalent status in your preferred participating frequent flyer program. You have to answer questions like which frequent flyer card and program name corresponds to a given airline (e.g. “Sheba Miles” is Ethiopian Airlines) and also watch a video of someone going into a lounge and eating snacks, and identify which complimentary drink they had. The game runs through December 13, but you’re only supposed to enter once. The two people with the quickest times selecting each program will be awarded Gold status in that program. As such, it seems to me that there will be less competition to win status in more obscure programs. And that’s great because…
