Some tidbits of interest to me from this morning’s merger announcement conference call. The merger is expected to close in the third quarter. In the meantime the airlines remain separate entities. Single operating certificate expected within 18 months of closing the merger although operational integration will happen earlier on. They claim they’ll adopt American service-levels. I’m skeptical and predict some sort of splitting the difference, at least over time. But as I said earlier, US Airways elites are hungry given no meals on 3 hour flights. They don’t know yet which co-branded credit card partner with remain with the merged carrier. Sounds like they’ll be playing Barclays and Citibank off of each other. Combined loyalty program will have over 100 million members. Doug Parker says he learned a lesson from the integration of reservation systems…
Basic Principles for Earning Free Travel Through Credit Cards
Scott Mayerowitz has a good, basic piece out of the AP on earning travel rewards from credit cards. Lessons boil down to what should be familiar to most readers of this blog: Many credit cards offer big bonuses for signing up that can be used for free or inexpensive trips. I blogged last week the Best Current Credit Card Signup Bonuses. Flexible points which transfer into the currencies of several airlines — like Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest points — can be the most valuable. Then you don’t have to know what award you want up from (for choosing the right program for you) and can move the points where you’ll be most likely to secure the award space when it comes time to redeem. Not included in the…
A (Very Brief) Moment of Recognition and Thanks: American and US Airways
As we all start to figure out what a merger of American and US Airways will mean — for travelers generally, for frequent flyers, for investors, for employees — it’s worth noting just how far we’ve come. Of course, in the immediate term I think we have little to worry about, as I told USA Today. “In the short-term, frequent flyers will benefit from more routes and more choices, and a management that will likely want to reassure them that the benefits they’re used to won’t change,” says Gary Leff, co-founder of the frequent flyer community Milepoint.com and author of the ViewFromTheWing.com blog. The actual work to integrate the airlines — culture and IT — will be hard and likely painful. And over time some of the value we’ve come to enjoy in each program…
Whether or Not You Like the US Airways-American Merger Depends on Who You Are…
Lots of folks are going to be complaining about this merger — consumer activities who will say that fares are going to go up, frequent flyers worried about losing their benefits. Most of the scare stories won’t come true. Fares probably won’t materially change as a result of the merger although once the merged airline shrinks relative to the size the two airlines would have been on their own the reduction in supply may have an effect on price. But it’s important to realize that mergers are both good and bad, and which arguments you find persuasive probably depend on who you are and how you will interact with the changes. American frequent flyers. Nervous because US Airways has fewer first class seats on their narrowbody aircraft and doesn’t provide meals on 3 hour flights.…
American-US Airways Merger Reportedly a Done Deal. Good or Bad?
The Dallas Morning News aviation blog sums up the deal, pretty much as expected: [I]t looks like this is the way it’ll go down: – 72 percent for AMR creditors and other interests, 28 percent for US Airways shareholders. – Doug Parker will be the chief executive officer. – Tom Horton will be the non-executive chairman, for only a limited period before he departs post-merger. – The plan is to announce the deal in the pre-dawn hours Thursday, followed by a 7:30 a.m. CST call with the analyst community, a Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport press conference in mid-morning, a 1 p.m. Dallas/Fort Worth Airport presentation to AA employees, with the video and audio broadcast to other locations. – After that Parker and his entourage will return to Phoenix to meet with US Airways employees. The…
Alaska Airlines-Icelandair Partnership Ending June 1
Via Wandering Aramean, the partnership between Icelandair and Alaska Airlines will terminate June 1. Which is surprising, since Icelandair just re-instated the ability to use their miles for Alaska Airlines travel last month. Back in August lots of folks were hitting Icelandair pretty hard with their partner redemptions on Alaska Airlines. Over the summer you could straight up buy miles and redeem them on Alaska for first class to Hawaii for about $350. So this was certainly a useful partnership. And it continued to be worthwhile, albeit not as lucrative, once Icelandair increased the mileage cost of award travel on Alaska… both because Icelandair still sells miles at a little over a penny apiece and because it was a good use for miles earned from actually flying Icelandair (redemption options in their program are otherwise fairly limited) Sad to…
United Guts Ability of Top Tier Elites to Upgrade on Lufthansa
United is changing the way its systemwide upgrades — the upgrade instruments that are given to 100,000 mile flyers which can be used internationally — (“Global Premier Upgrades” but I can’t quite get myself to call them that with the ‘new’ United) — can be redeemed for a higher class of service on Lufthasna. Instead of just requesting a paper certificate that can be used by the holder on day of departure, United top elites will now have to request their electronic certificates be issued as paper for a specific flight with name of passenger, city pair, flight number and date of travel, and even confirmation number of the booked tickets. If the upgrade doesn’t clear, members can either return the paper certificates to United (and once re-deposited, request new ones for other flights) or…
Flying Blue 50% Off Awards Through Mid-April
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program has posted details of its 50% off promo awards for travel through mid-April. You can book discounted awards for travel between specific cities in North America and all of Europe. (Promo awards also include travel between Europe and other regions of the world, but here I focus just on North America where most of my readers are — sorry folks reading in South America and Asia!) The only cities offering discounted business class are New York JFK and Toronto, Air France business class can be booked to any destination in Europe for 25,000 miles each way. That is, you can fly from New York or Toronto to anywhere in “Europe 1/2/3” (via Paris) which are: Europe 1: Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom Europe 2: Austria,…
Elite Upgrades (Almost) Explained in a Video
A video is making the rounds, Free Business Class Upgrades, everytime. It’s basically an explanation of elite status, and tells you that you need to fly a lot on one airline in order to get upgraded. Here’s the thing though. It makes broad, sweeping claims — many of which are wrong. The example in the video is American Airlines. The narrator proclaims, “If you don’t fly a lot you’ll always be stuck in the back” Not quite true, there are companion upgrades (you know someone who flies a lot), there are mileage upgrades (just spend money on your credit card, plus a cash co-pay). There are ways up front that don’t involve being a 100,000 mile flyer. “Status is earned by one metric and one metric only, elite qualifying miles” Umm… no.. American has both…
How to Get Attention in a Crowded Aviation Marketplace
Low cost carriers often eschew global distribution systems – to save money you buy tickets from them in person or online. And in some parts of world many tickets are indeed still purchased in person. Brand identity matters — if you’re going to get consumers to buy from you, they need to know who you are. And certainly the Thai domestic market is crowded. In addition to national flag carrier Thai Airways, there’s competition between Thai AirAsia, Bangkok Airways (not to be confused with a low cost carrier), and Nok Air. So NokAir is running a promotion with Maxim models dressed as flight attendants posing with their planes. I’m not sure why this is supposed to make people want to fly Nok Air. Hooters Air didn’t survive, and the Hooters Girls were actually on the…
