Via Online Travel Review, Hooters has opened at Frankfurt airport. They’re promoting it as “international, multicultural gastronomy” and you can find it “located in Terminal 1 on Level 0 (Area C) above the Regional Train Station.” Offerings are the typical Hooters American fare of burgers and wings, plus beer and Apfelwein. The restaurant features a “Biergarten for up to 70 guests.” I wonder, though, can this possibly be true? Hooters Frankfurt Airport will cater to passengers, the general public as well as the more than 70,000 staff working at Frankfurt Airport. (Emphasis mine.) Their Facebook page hasn’t been updated, it still says “coming soon.” And @HootersFRAir hasn’t even tweeted the opening. Nonetheless, the press release claims the restaurant opened on August 11. I won’t be verifying this personally, my next trip through Frankfurt I’ll be…
The Most Important Post on Flyertalk I Read This Week: Using Delta Miles for Business Class to Australia
I can’t seem to recall whether I’ve posted about this before on the blog or on Flyertalk, but award availability between the US and Australia in business class on V Australia is really quite good. In my experience the toughest two awards in all of frequent flyer-dom are North America-Australia and North America-Tahiti. In the latter case, the constraint is simply not a lot of flights and seats. Air Tahiti Nui, a Delta and American partner, offers decent availability but often only just a single business and first class seat per flight. They used to offer two first class seats on each flight, which is how I flew them as part of my honeymoon. But beyond Air Tahiti Nui you’re looking at non-daily Air France service from Los Angeles, and in the summer months it…
Southwest Double Credits To and From the Boston Area
Southwest has jumped on the destination-specific double elite qualifying promotion bandwagon, with double credits for flights to and from Boston, Manchester, or Providence. Book by September 15 for travel through October 31. Registration required. (Via @upgradetravel.)
The Best Piece of Advice in Travel: Hang Up, Call Back
Many of y’all know this, but it’s helpful to be reminded occasionally. Never argue with an agent. Never tell them how much more you know about ticketing than they do. Always thank them for being so helpful. Even when they’re not. Instead, when you discover you’re working with an agent who doesn’t know what they’re doing, just hang up politely and call back. And I do mean hang up politely, or at least as politely as you can. Perhaps you have another call, or someone is in your doorway, thnak them for their time but emphasize that you have to go and will need to call back. It’s always better to try again with the next agent than it is to try to educate an agent. Now, occasionally there are genuinely helpful agents who don’t…
Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic Offer Reciprocal Mileage Earning
Via Wandering Aramean, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America have announced a frequent flyer tie-in. You can now earn miles in Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club when flying Virgin America, or in Virgin America’s Elevate when flying Virgin Atlantic. But the earn rates are really bad. Virgin’s Flying Club earning is as follows: Main Cabin* – 50% of miles flown Main Cabin Refundable* – 100% of miles flown Main Cabin Select Instant Upgrade* – 100% of miles flown Main Cabin Select* – 100% of miles flown First Class* – 150% of miles flown Only main cabin refundable and main cabin select offer 100% mileage earning. Lower fares earn 50% of mileage flown. Not that you’d want to, but crediting Virgin Atlantic flights to Virgin America’s Elevate program offers pathetic earn rates. The cheapest fares only earn at…
Free Night Every 3 Stays at Aloft and Element
Registration is required. Every three stays through September 30 earns a free night valid December 19. On the one hand, Starwood’s limiting the offer to two brands annoys somewhat, but presumably there will be a separate offer coming chain-wide shortly. And the earning period for these is fairly short. But it’s nice to see Starwood giving away free nights, and not just free weekend nights. Maybe they’ll learn from Hyatt yet! (Hat tip TM Travel World.)
20% Bonus on American Express Points Transferred to Delta
Delta Skymiles is offering a 20% bonus on points transferred from American Express Membership Rewards through September 30. (Registration required.) The bonus, though, isn’t expected right away: Bonus miles will be posted 4 to 6 weeks following the end of the promotion. The offer is not a good reason to transfer American Express points into Delta Skymiles. But if you’re going to make such a transfer anyway (eg to top off towards an award you know is available) then you might as well get the bonus…
United “TWARE” Deal: 40% off to Sydney and Melbourne Between October 1 and November 30
United just announced a Twitter deal to Australia, 40% off (for real) to Australia in October and November. These deals usually don’t last long, just a couple of hours, although at times continuing to enter the promotion code will continue to work (at times even for a couple of days!) long after the deal ‘ends’ on the landing page for the offer. In this case, the promo code is TWRAU. These fares do earn miles, but are not ugpradable with United 1K Systemwide vouchers. Fares aren’t as low as a month ago when United made a similar 40% off offer, but that’s a function of the calendar — October and November are more expensive months to fly to Sydney than August/September.
All Nippon and Asiana Long Haul First Class Award Availability
I’m stuck flying nothing but domestically for the next couple of months, I have an India trip coming up (my first time in India!) but I’ve been still itching to at least book something internationally. So I did some research and put together a first class award to Asia, something I do at least once a year. It’s still about six months off, but I booked it anyway just to satisfy my wanderlust. Remember that planning a vacation is what brings the most happiness. And I’m pretty happy with what I came up with, flying All Nippon, Singapore, and Thai. I thought I’d share some of the comprehensive availability searching that I did yesterday, in case it’s useful to any of y’all in planning your own first class awards. In all cases I searched beginning…
Hyatt Credit Card Still Coming Soon
In February, Chase announced that they’d be bringing a new Hyatt co-branded card to market. And since then we’ve heard… nothing. Chase execs that I’ve pressed have clammed up, ‘we’re not allowed to talk about it.’ I surmised tha there might be trouble in paradise on the way to making the card a reality. But Hyatt now says that the card is on track to launch “in a month or two.” No word yet on benefits.
