FlightStats.com has some really interesting tools. I’ve written in the past how to use the site to look up award availability on a variety of airlines. You can also look up on-time statistics, taking a variety of slices. One of those is looking at a given airline’s stats for the previous, current, and next day. And looking at yesterday, American Airlines seems to have had to cancel about 5% of its flights. And already today they’ve cancelled a bit over 5% of their schedule. As part of its bankruptcy restructuring, American received court approval to make changes to its pilots contract. (Pilots were the only group that didn’t come to a new labor agreement with the airline, voting down a contract sent out by union leadership.) Last week the airline imposed new terms on its…
Hawaii Fare War: United Drops Dallas, Newark, and Miami – Honolulu to ~ $450.. American Matches
Flying United to Hawaii from American’s hubs in Dallas or Miami is running about $420 all-in. Flying from Newark is $465. You can start in Miami and route via Newark for less money and more miles. Looking at the fare rules for Miami – Honolulu, GE73FS, I see: Travel must begin by November 14, 7 day advance purchase required, 60 day maximum stay. If you depart Sunday through Wednesday, then return has to be at least 3 days after departure. If you depart Thursday or Friday, then you can come back as early as Saturday. For Saturday departures you can come back as early as Sunday. You can stopover at a United hub once in each direction for an extra $55.81 Availability is pretty good, too. For Miami departures in October, here’s a fare calendar…
500 Free Hilton Points for Watching a Hampton Inn Video on Facebook
Go to the ‘Hamptonality Moments’ tab on the Hampton Page on Facebook and watch the video posted under the title “Winning Team.” Then complete the entry form and submit, and you’ll receive 500 Hilton HHonors points in 6-8 weeks. You’ll need to ‘like’ the page on Facebook before being shown the video. You don’t actually have to share the video, and it doesn’t look like you have to have even watched it. Underneath the button to ‘Share & Enter’ you can unclick “Share on Your Wall.” You’re then taken to a page where you enter your name and Hilton HHonors number. The offer is available “until 11:59 p.m. PST on 09/25/12 or until promotion is closed” and is open to residents of the US and Canada.. although void in Quebec.
What Do Tanning Salons and Airport Security Have in Common (Or, On Second Thought…)
F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom has a chapter titled “Why the Worst Get on Top” .. and so it is with management of security at Cleveland’s airport. 45 year old John Dialinos has been charged with telecommunications harassment and public indecency. He is currently on unpaid administrative leave from a $64,000 a year city job, as the manager of airport security at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. North Ridgeville Police say they’ve received a number of complaints, since December of 2011, that a man was observed spending long periods of time in the parking lots of tanning salons in North Ridgeville. …When officers made contact with the suspect, he could not provide a legitimate reason why he was parked there, or why his pants were unzipped. He had three pre-paid cell phones, and the only contacts…
Milepoint Premium United Miles Posting
I’m a co-founder of frequent flyer community Milepoint.com, but I ponied up the $59 for premium membership. By paying for a year up front, I took advantage of the offer which came with 2000 United miles, Hyatt Platinum or 2000 points for existing Hyatt elites, and National Car Rental Executive status as well as a variety of other benefits like a free Gogo inflight wireless session. I didn’t get in on the first round, but I did the second time it was available (the offer is no longer available with United miles and Hyatt status, but $3.99 monthly premium membership does include ad-free viewing, National Car Rental status, and a host of travel-related discounts.) My 2000 United miles posted sometime over the past 24 hours: I’ve received several questions about when points would post and…
Figuring Out Whom to Blame for the Evaporation of Air France Award Space
In my last post I speculated on the reasons that Air France business class award space has become, for the most part, unbookable by Delta. My theory was that Delta had already ‘spent too much money’ buying award seats from Air France, compared to their budget or what they were comfortable with, so they had turned off the spigot. I was careful to call this speculation, but it seemed reasonable because they had done something similar in the past. I rejected the idea that it was Air France making a permanent policy change. It makes no sense that Air France would close off business class award space, across-the-board, on an ongoing basis — when there’s clearly seats that they expect to go unsold, and when they’re even in a joint business venture with Delta. And…
Has Delta Completely Stopped Offering Business Class Redemptions on Air France?
Delta has the most punitive international upgrade program of any major US frequent flyer program. United, American, and US Airways let you upgrade any fare with a cash co-pay in addition to miles. Delta requires you to buy nearly full (“M”) fare coach to upgrade to business class, anything less is ineligible. Period. Delta’s M fares are often as expensive or more expensive than discount advance purchase business class fares, when those are available. Delta doesn’t treat its elites any better, top tier elites get international upgrade certificates that can be used on… nearly full fare “M” tickets as well. United doesn’t let its elites upgrade all fares internationally, low-ish “W” fares are permitted though. American allows its 100,000 mile flyers to upgrade any fare. One neat workaround used to be that you could upgrade…
Bangkok Golden Thai Restaurant in Northern Virginia Isn’t a Thai Restaurant
I had lunch at Bangkok Golden Thai Restaurant on Tyler’s advice, and was totally blown away. It’s in the Seven Corners shopping center, next to the Tobacco Barn and a nail salon, and two doors over from a Jenny Craig. This place is maybe half a mile from the Eden Center — where most everything inside is Vietnamese, and very good, that was the originally-planned destination for the day (no place in particular, just the Eden Center and go from there). The photos in this post are just from my phone, since I really wasn’t expecting the lunch that I had and didn’t have my camera with me. The Yelp reviews of Bangkok Golden Thai are strange because in many ways it’s a strange place. There are tons of great reviews saying how wonderful it…
Free Virgin Atlantic Silver Status
Yesterday as I was organizing old posts on the blog, collecting trip reports, compiling previously-written advice, I stumbled upon this post from December 2007 where I said that Virgin Atlantic Silver status was a new benefit of American Express Platinum (and that Black card holders got Gold). At the time it was an outgrowth of Virgin’s new-sih American Express relationship, they had only recently been brought on as a points transfer partner I believe. I was curious if the benefit still existed. The link from that post no longer worked. So I googled “virgin atlantic silver american express platinum” and the second result was this link offering Virgin’s Silver status to American Express Platinum cardholders. It’s a page to sign up for a new account, no verification of Platinum cardholder status appears to take place.…
New Features at View from the Wing
Somehow I wound up in a nostalgic mood yesterday, the kind you feel when you go through old drawers or old boxes and look through each and every item, bringing back memories of childhood or high school. Only for me, it was reading through the old archives of this blog, which I’ve been writing for over 10 years. I was struck by the early posts, how I was trying to figure out what the blog was supposed to be, it was as much postings of weird news as it was travel deals, and the deals and offers I posted were really just the things I wanted to keep track of, this website was just a convenient bookmark or repository for links and my notes on them so I could find them more easily later. Writing…
