New Girl in the Air highlights several ‘miles for car service’ offers. I was particularly interested to see 500 miles for your first use of Groundlink and then 1 mile per dollar thereafter with your choice of American, US Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Alaska, Frontier, Hawaiian, Icelandair, AviancaTaca LifeMiles, or Priority Club (or, apparently, Best Buy). With your first booking you need to use promo code POINTSGL. Within a couple of weeks after you earn miles you’ll receive a ‘claim code’ e-mail from Points.com to redeem your points. Becky also notes offers from ExecuCar (the SuperShuttle car service) and Carmel. I’ve been using GroundLink quite a bit, first when they ran a flash sale via Jetsetter and I was able to grab a San Francisco airport car transfer for $14. And then when I was able…
Milepoint Launches Premium Membership – Miles and Big Benefits
The frequent flyer community Milepoint, which I helped to found last year, today rolled out its new premium membership offerings. Join Milepoint and upgrade to one year of premium membership for $59, and receive: One year of ad-free viewing of Milepoint 2,000 United MileagePlus miles Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status through Feb. 2014 (existing elites get 2,000 Hyatt points) 1 Year Subscription to InsideFlyer.com One Free Gogo Inflight Internet 24-hour pass A free 3-month trial of Clear A free upgrade to AwardWallet Plus and a free AwardWallet OneCard A free upgrade to UsingMiles Premier Membership And a series of discounts available only to Milepoint Premium Members: 40% discount on “Decoding Air Travel” books 20% discount on “Decoding Air Travel” seminars/webinars 25% discount on “Frequent Flyer Master” e-book 20% discount on ExpertFlyer.com 20% discount on BookYourAward.com…
American AAdvantage Answers Tons of Milepoint Member Questions
As a followup to her live chat on Milepoint, American AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin went back to her office with all of the questions that didn’t make it in during the evening event and wrote out answers. There were a ton of questions, this was a ton of work, and it’s really appreciated. I went through the Q&A and found several items of interest: They do not anticipate any changes to their award chart. I’ve predicted no changes during bankruptcy at least, and I take them at their word that they don’t have plans to increase the price of award tickets any time soon. They continue to evaluate status matches on a case-by-case basis. Some months ago they began matching United top tier elites to their own top tier status, entirely apart from their usual…
Big American AAdvantage Bonus for Avis/Budget Car Rentals
Through August 31, you can earn 3000 American miles on a 1-day rental or 5000 miles on a 3-day rental with Avis. Use coupon code MUAA035 and provide your American Airlines frequent flyer number with the reservation. A 1-day rental with Budget earns 1000 miles and a 3-day Budget rental yields 3000 miles. Use coupon code MUAZ025 along with your American AAdvantage account when making the reservation. Based on my experience with past offers of this sort, you do not need to use the discount codes that go along with this offer, which may or may not provide a decent rental rate, in order to earn the miles. Rentals must be from participating airport locations in the U.S. or Canada, and begin by August 31 in order to be eligible. The offer details page does…
My New Mobile Phone (or “I Really Really Miss My Blackberry Keyboard”)
Regular readers know that I’ve been going through a frustrating back and forth decision on a new mobile phone for the better part of 8 months. I’ve long been a blackberry guy. I love my phone for two reasons: that it’s a phone, and that it did an amazing job handling email. I send paragraphs-long emails with my phone. The blackberry keyboard was terrific, always has been. But the world was passing me by, there’s so much that new devices can do and they’re simply not being offered for Blackberry. I kept holding out hope that what seemed like a dying platform would be brought back to life, but their new operating system was delayed until the fall and then until 2013, and it was finally announced that even Blackberry would be ditching the physical…
A Superior Suite and Inferior Service at the Intercontinental Boston
I walked into the hotel and straight up to the checkin desk. I was asked for my name and I handed over my credit card. They asked for my drivers license. I know that internationally I’m frequently asked for a passport but I wish hotels would not card their elite members, they should at least feign knowing who I am and welcoming me rather than asking me to prove that I am who I say I am. This is hardly an issue I have with the Intercontinental Boston as such, just an observation. When I first became a Royal Ambassador member, one of the benefits that was explained was that they keep my credit card on file, I would never have to do the usual check-in formalities. That never turned out to be the case,…
Are American and US Airways Really Just Haggling Over Timing and Price?
Scott Mayerowitz interviews American’s CEO Tom Horton and comes away with some interesting tidbits — such as that the first merger discussions with US Airways were initiated by American, before they filed for bankruptcy. The first conversation the two had about a possible merger took place in September, when Horton was still just American’s president. Horton wouldn’t say where they met but two people familiar with the situation said it was at the A Bar A Ranch, a 100,000-acre retreat in southern Wyoming during an exclusive gathering of top airline executives informally known as “conquistadores del cielo,” or the conquerors of the skies. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the executive meeting is supposed to be a secret. The discussion between Horton and Parker occurred during a barbeque lunch along the banks…
Redeeming Award Tickets on Virgin Atlantic Without Fuel Surcharges
Hawaiian Airlines offers a really frustrating frequent flyer program. Their airline partner redemptions can be really expensive (e.g. Korean Airlines business class between the U.S. and Korea runs 200,000 miles roundtrip — and doesn’t allow connections to other destinations in Asia). They are restrictive — you cannot combine partners on an award ticket, you cannot have a stopover on an award ticket, and you cannot even book an ‘open jaw’ flying into one city and back from another. Talking to Hawaiian Airlines agents can be a frustrating experience. They’re on par with Delta agents, they simply don’t know the ins and outs of their program. One must frequently hang up, call back to get what you’re after. And their call center hours are even quite limited, on the East Coast of the U.S. I have…
United Offers a 20% Discount on International Upgrades — And I’m Not the Least Bit Excited
Summer, especially for European travel, is all about the coach cabin. Planes fly full. But business travel dries up, which means paid business travel dries up. As coach tickets get more expensive, business class prices fall, the spread is much smaller than usual. United is looking to goose some extra revenue from their business class cabin during the lull in premium traffic by offering a 20% discount on both the mileage cost and the cash co-pay for upgrades requested online by July 28 for travel between July 24 and August 12. The discount applies to travel between the Continental U.S. plus Alaska as well as Canada and Europe, Japan, North Asia, Middle East, Central/Southern Africa or Southern South America. Interestingly the discount does not apply to South Asia. Take a discounted coach fare to Europe…
Asiana’s New First Class and Virgin America’s New Elite Levels
This isn’t quite ‘bits ‘n pieces’ with only two items that I’m sharing, they struck me as worth noting but also not things I was inspired to offer longer treatments on. Still, worth passing along. Asiana is introducing a new first class seat – true suites with doors and a 32″ television. This is apparently going into their 777 aircraft, and the Chicago – Seoul route is having first class re-introduced and award space appears possible. I really enjoy the food, service, and amenities on Asiana but the seat is a full generation behind so this is really good news. Lucky links to a video in Korean that shows off the new seat. Wandering Aramean reports on Virgin America’s new silver and gold elite levels. The co-branded credit card lets you get halfway to silver…
