Via Today in the Sky, airfares have continued to decline in real terms – prices had already fallen by more than a third between 1977 and 1992 and new Bureau of Transportation statistics data shows that prices are now lower still. Now, fares are up 10% in a year. And fees are up too. But it’s hard to get too excised about that given the long run trends. (Fuel) costs are up markedly as well. According to this report, Cincinnati is the most expensive airport to fly in and out of. Nate Silver would think that means the pricing is unfair, but if it were somehow uber-profitable to be flying Cincinnati routes then Delta wouldn’t be pulling back from the airport, and certainly other profit-hungry airlines would jump in and ramp up service to take…
New Book Profiles My Award Booking Service and Shows You How to Become Independent as Well
Link: The $100 Startup on Amazon for $15.64 and eligible for free Amazon Prime 2-day shipping. Chris Guillebreau is one of the people I admire most. Oh, sure, there are Nobel Peace Prize winners (not all of them), successful major corporate CEOs, and celebrities (very few of them). But Chris has managed to find a niche for himself that I truly admire. He has figured out what he has good at, taking his understanding of specific things, breaking it down, and communicating it clearly enough that non-experts will pay him for the translation he provides. He evangelizes his ability to do this, and helps others to do it to, and those folks will pay him for the expertise. He gives away much of his content free, builds his personal brand, and that serves as the…
Today Only 50% Off Priority Club Reward Nights at Venetian and Palazzo Las Vegas
Priority Club has recently seemed into these ‘flash sales’, there’s even a countdown clock showing as of this writing less than 18 hours and 40 minutes left to book. Here’s the offer, 25,000 points per night which is 50% off: To celebrate the first anniversary of the first-ever InterContinental® Alliance Resort, book Reward Nights in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip at The Venetian and The Palazzo for only 25,000 points per night. Don’t delay. With 50% off Reward Nights in this dazzling and extraordinary destination, Las Vegas is more than ever yours for the taking. The offer is available June 10-28 with the exception of Fridays and Saturday nights, and every night from July 1 through August 16. Off-season for sure, but also useful to some. (HT: Don)
Membership Rewards Losing Priority Club as a Transfer Partner on July 1
American Express Membership Rewards will be losing Priority Club as a transfer partner after June 30th. While this wasn’t much of a value to begin with, you can buy all the points you want at six tenths of a cent apiece, it’s still a blow to Amex — having recently lost Southwest and Continental as partners, having lost US Airways before that, not partnering with Marriott. The additions to the program have been fairly weak. Priority Club is a Chase partner, one imagines that Chase managed to push Amex out here, certainly Chase’s corporate strategy has been to go after American Express and they’re generally opposed to allowing their partners to work with more than one financial institution. Even American Express’ remaining partners have been losing value — Aeroplan gutted their award chart and then…
British Airways No Longer Adding Fuel Surcharges to Awards Originating in Brazil
Last month I wrote that one of the many ways to avoid fuel surcharges when redeeming British Airways Avios points is to start your trip in Brazil, because fuel surcharges are contrary to Brazilian law. Shortly thereafter British Airways started adding fuel surcharges to awards starting in Brazil and there was much handwringing, including speculation that blogging about this ‘loophole’ killed it. Perhaps British Airways had figured out that award travel was exempt from Brazilian law? Certainly I am not expert on the subject. Turns out, though, that it really must have been a glitch. Because fuel surcharges are no longer being added to British Airways Avios awards originating in Brazil. It was a short-lived phenomenon to say the least! Taxes on a first class award are showing up at only $36, which is what…
Avis Extends 3000 US Airways Miles for 3-Day Rentals
Searching my own archives for an earlier post I realized I never wrote up that the Avis offer of 3000 US Airways miles on a 3-day (or longer) rental was still valid. It was supposed to expire March 31, 2011 and then March 31, 2012 — and it’s been extended again, this time through February 28, 2013. Use coupon code MUAA044 and provide your Dividend Miles number with the reservation. It’s my favor rental car promotion out there and has been for a couple of years.
Which Frequent Flyer Program to Double Dip With on Hilton Stays?
Hilton has long been known for “double dipping” — earning both points and miles for a single stay. It used to be you had to make a choice when staying at a hotel, I remember not even being a member of hotel programs back in 1997 and being pretty excited that I could give my United Mileage Plus number at the checkin counter and earn a few United miles for my stay. Hotel programs have so many airline transfer partnerships because historically they were the ugly stepchild of loyalty offerings, it was all about airline miles and it was difficult for them to make headway. They moved from just offering airline miles to offering their own programs, but the legacy mileage-earning options remained, and airline transfer options were a weigh station between the two programs…
New Android Phone Bleg
I recently wrote a detailed post on what’s in my laptop bag and the focus is predominantly on travel technology. Thanks to reader input, I updated my camera (to Canon S95) and my laptop (to a Lenovo u300s), and months later I’m thrilled with both decisions. But at the time I punted on the phone. And so now I’m coming back to y’all again for help. I’m still working off a Blackberry Bold 9700, it’s long been out of contract. I’ve been a Blackberry guy for years because my primary use is e-mail. Ever since 2006 I’ve found it to be a workable enough phone, so I condensed that way, I haven’t had a land line in about 10 years either. I know that Blackberry has been supposedly working on their next generation operating system,…
Has Hilton HHonors Quietly Gotten Better Than We Think?
One of the programs that was shut out at the Freddie Awards was Hilton HHonors. I don’t think they should have won Program of the Year, but I do feel that HHonors has been getting a bit of a bad wrap in the frequent flyer community. For a long time they deserved it. The features of their program were limited — On the redemption side, no ability to use points for a better room than standard, no ability to stretch your points through cash and points awards like Starwood and then Priority Club offered. On the elite benefits side, no suite upgrades. To me, that’s the kiss of death for a program. And a couple of years ago they went through a big devaluation of their points. But Hilton has made major changes in these…
More Free Accor Platinum Status
Le club Accorhotels frequently offers their top tier elite status just for signing up with the program, they’ll market it to a specific group of potential customers but anyone using the offer winds up able to sign up and get the status. The same Platinum offer that I’ve been posting about since February still works. I wrote that it was scheduled to last through end of May, but that I assumed it would be pulled early. It’s still going. Via Loyalty Lobby here’s another link offering the same thing. Even if you don’t frequently stay at Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, and oter related properties frequently, you never know when you might find yourself in one and having top tier status can’t hurt. Platinum status usually requires 60 nights or 25,000 points earned. It offers double…
