You can read my reviews of the B>British Airways Concorde Room at London’s Heathrow airport here, here, and here. The lounge is supposed to be super-premium, oneworld top tier elite status alone doesn’t get you in. British Airways has a first class lounge, elites are relegated there. This lounge is reserved for BA’s first class passengers and super-premium customers. So it should be nice, in BA’s home airport no less. And yet… the internet connectivity is poor, the service is poor, the food is bad, and the furnishings are becoming threadbare in the cabana shower rooms. Well-kept bathroom facilities Inedible burger It turns out, though, via Lucky, that the Concorde Room has more in common with a United Club at Washington Dulles than I even realized — a poor hygiene rating. Out of Date Ingredients…
A Loyalty Program Offer I Would Never Accept: FREE SPIRIT DINING
Spirit Air’s Free Spirit program now partners with Rewards Network (formerly iDine) and has introduced Free Spirit Dining. You earn 5 FREE SPIRIT miles per dollar spent at participating restaurants. So now you can choose to earn miles for your dining with United, American, US Airways, Delta, Alaska, Southwest, or… Spirit. Spirit’s miles expire after 90 days of inactivity unless you have their co-branded credit card and charge to it every month (although presumably charging somewhat less frequently can meet the 90 day requirement). Some airlines have close-in redemption fees. Spirit’s fees start within 180 days of travel. After Greyhound started a loyalty program in 2006, I coined the conundrum of having nothing good to offer “the Greyhound Road Rewards problem.” Spirit has this in spades. They do not have redemption partners. The reward for…
Hilton’s 4th Quarter Promotion — From a Lump of Coal Up to Quadruple Points
Hilton is now sending out ‘advance notice’ of their 4th quarter promotion, “More Nights, More Points” which is one they’ve run before. We’re giving you an exclusive first look at our Hilton HHonors™ More Nights, More Points promotion. Beginning October 10, 2013, stay two nights and earn double HHonors Points for your entire stay. Stay three nights to triple your points, and four nights or more to quadruple your points. Simply book and stay at any of the 4,000 hotels in 90 countries before January 31, 2014. It’s a quick ticket to unforgettable experiences. Folks on single night stays get nothing, but longer term stays get a generous bonus. The website URL in the email I received was unique to me and didn’t require entering my account number in order to register. The website —…
Did You Know You Could Check Your Wine for Free With Alaska Airlines?
Alaska Airlines offers to check a case of wine for free (even for general members) on flights departing Sonoma County airport in California, Pasco/Tri-Cities, Walla Walla and Yakima in Washington state, and any airport in Oregon. Apparently wineries found that checked baggage fees were a stopper for out of state passengers who didn’t want to make wine purchases and then have to add a cost to transport the wine home. Some wines of course are much more accessible at a winery, others can be obtained at home or by mail, and the checked bag fees can flip the calculation of whether it’s worth schlepping as well and emotionally grate on the customer. As a result of the program, Alasks has gone from checking 2 cases of wine per week per participating airport to 30 —…
US Airways Running Targeted TRIPLE Elite Qualifying Miles
Heels First Travel has the scoop on the US Airways triple elite qualifying miles offer. Airlines offer general, non-targeted elite qualifying bonuses generally when travel is down and their models predict they’ll have fewer elites. It’s a way to re-engage their most frequent customers. In a new world where Delta and United have adopted minimum revenue requirements for status starting next year, I fully expect programs to run the same sorts of predictive models. And especially if fares drop in the future I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become somewhat common to have double elite qualifying dollars offers. There are three kinds of targeted elite qualifying mileage offers, more or less: Incentivize travel on a new, underperforming, or newly competitive route. If a discount carrier starts throwing flights at an airline’s bread and butter…
2500 Free Miles for Joining Saudia’s Frequent Flyer Program
Saudia is offering 2500 bonus miles if you join by September 30. Saudia’s award availability is amazing, flying Saudia from New York and DC it’s one of the easiest uses of Delta Skymiles. Many won’t see value in joining Saudia’s own frequent flyer program and that’s cool, but for those who do free miles are free miles. As part of this offer – in celebration of Saudi National Day – they’re offering 25% off of Guest, Business, and First Class international flights booked by September 30 for travel between November 1 and December 10. I’m confident that three of you will find this useful. (HT: MileNerd) 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…
Great Fare: $686 from Washington DC to Kuala Lumpur
Via jaunders1 on Milepoint, there’s a Turkish Airlines fare from Washington Dulles to Kuala Lumpur that prices out for less than $700 all-in roundtrip. Here’s a sample itinerary: The fare is $124.50 each way plus taxes and fuel surcharges. Fare basis is WV33XPC. So ‘W’ inventory needs to be available on all of the flight segments. And W fares do not earn miles in United’s MileagePlus program or in the US Airways Dividend Miles program. So a cheap fare but not a mileage run for most. Outbound travel must be during November, or between January 10 and March 10. Earliest return is the first Sunday after outbound travel, in other words a Saturday night stay is required. Interestingly (and irrelevantly) the fare contains a restriction that it cannot be sold in Sudan. I find Kuala…
Delta Renames its Award Price Levels
Delta went from two to three tiers of award pricing in 2008. The three tiers were called Low, Medium, and High. And that’s how they stand as I write this: Delta announced, however, that the names of its award redemption tiers will be changing to “Saver, Standard, and Peak.” To clarify our Award Travel chart, we’ve updated the Award level names to Saver, Standard and Peak from Low, Medium and High, respectively. Please note that the change of names for the Award levels does not indicate changes with the program rules or mileage redemption at this time. Visit our Award Travel page to learn more about using miles for an Award Ticket.” While some may speculate that this change is more than a wording change, we’d like to be very clear that this is only…
How to Find Business Class Awards to Asia for the Whole Family
Yesterday I wrote about how to find business class award seats for a family — not just one or two seats, but four seats on a single flight. Basic principles, More seats are harder than fewer seats. If you can split up (a family of four might fly 2+2) that makes things much easier. Roughly six months out is a good sweet spot for searching award space. Shorter flights are in less demand. East Coast – Europe is far easier than West Coast – Europe. West Coast – Asia is far easier than East Coast – Asia. If you’re on the opposite coast, be willing to connect domestically or even buy domestic connecting flights if needed. Multiple flights a day mean more award space. More total seats between a city will usually make it easier…
PointsHound 1000 Mile First Booking Bonus Through October 4
PointsHound Lets You Earn Miles for Hotel Bookings PointsHound and Rocketmiles are the two major websites that award you frequent flyer miles when booking hotel rooms. In general Rocketmiles has the biggest mileage offers, but they also have the fewest hotels and are in a limited – but growing – number of cities. Booking through Rocketmiles will not entitle you to earn points and elite stay credit through a hotel loyalty program. (Some hotel chains like Marriott and Hyatt will honor elite benefits on third party bookings, while Starwood and Hilton’s policy is not to do so.) PointsHound has more hotels in more locations, a subset of which are referred to as ‘DoubleUp’ hotels where you earn miles and can still earn hotel points and elite stay credit. Earn 1000 Miles For Your First Booking…
