The AP’s Scott Mayerowitz was onboard the charter and filed this report. ABOARD AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 9454 — Eric Mueller’s vacation started when his plane filled with smoke. Soon, people slid down an emergency chute, inflated life vests and climbed into a raft. …The most recent journey had 160 people paying up to $1,699 for a seat and access to spots normally off limits: Boeing’s sprawling 737 factory, American’s mission control-like operations center and the cockpit of the world’s largest passenger jet. Tickets sold out in 17 minutes. …The camaraderie was part of the trip’s appeal. Sure, it was really cool to walk inside the first 747 ever built. But it was also fun to gulp down gin and tonics midair with other guys — three out of four passengers were male — who have…
Why I Don’t Trust Hotel Discounter Jetsetter.com
There are several hotel consolidators and discount sites that promise deals, Their offers are frequently limited, sometimes the deals are good and frequently they aren’t, but they all try to distinguish themselves in one way or another. Back in October, SniqueAway offered me a site credit if I would promote their product by giving away some credit to me readers. I asked them if I could give away the credit they were offering to readers and the credit they were offering to me, so that’s what I did. Also in October, TripAlertz was offering $10 for every person you got to sign up their email address using your link. I said at the time that was too generous, and it clearly was, they reduced the amount of their offer quickly and then twice in quick…
Sheraton Club Room Discount with Bonus Starpoints
Hotel ‘special offer’ rates can be frustrating, the best offers are usually corporate discounts that not everyone is eligible for and will sometimes though not always be verified by the hotel, you can often search for corporate codes online and in the U.S. at least they’ll generally be honored without pushback though in Asia hotels will often ask for corporate identification (such as a business card) to verify eligibility for company rates. A revenue manager for a major chain in a major U.S. city once told me that he specifically instructed his hotels to ID the IBM rate since that rate was so low, but other than that I’ve rarely seen U.S. hotels check eligibility. Still, there are plenty of rates out there that most people can use. Costco rates on rental cars are often…
New York Times on Credit Card Signup Bonuses and Rental Car Savings
Two from The Times: The New York Times runs a good piece on AutoSlash and why some rental companies won’t allow the site to display their rental car prices. There’s an easy workaround, though, if you want to book a car through Avis. Just make your booking at Avis.com, provide AutoSlash with your confirmation number, and they’ll track your reservation for you and keep checking for price drops, automatically rebooking you if the price improves (or checking with you if you’d like a better price with another agency if the price drops elsewhere). AutoSlash is the best place to get lowest price rental car deals, since prices change all the time and it takes the work out of continually checking for rate drops. The Times‘ Ethicist column endorses credit card signup bonuses in the retail…
Starwood Adjusts Award Category, More Hotels Go Up in Price than Go Down
Starwood has announced their annual hotel category changes (.pdf) and it’s pretty much as expected, maybe a little bit better tan expected. Starwood Preferred Guest determines the price of a hotel in points based on the hotel’s average daily room rate. The rate puts each hotel into a redemption category. And each year they adjust hotel categories based on room rates for the previous year. Over the past year room rates, overall, have seemed to be on the rise. And so I expected a bunch more hotels to go up in category than to go down in category. That’s what happened, but not to nearly the imbalance that I expected. On eyeballing the list it looks like about 185 go up in category and 144 go down in category. Some of the Thailand properties finally…
Reader Question: Miles for Credit Cards and Investment Accounts
Reader Addicted to Travel writes: Please advise on which cards we should ditch and which we should convert, etc. without hurting our credit rating by making too many moves too quickly. We’ve used Amex Gold Business Membership Rewards because in the past there have been excellent promos to convert points to Delta SkyPesos, sometimes 40% or even 50% bonuses. These accrued quickly enough to cover 2 r/t flights via AF to South Africa in business class this past summer. However, we’ve noticed that there haven’t been any promos lately, so we are edging away from Amex and wondering what else we should consider. BTW, we already have Chase Sapphire (and earned the 50K points last summer). Currently we also have a Mastercard with FIA CardServices.(zero balance, seldom used, members since ’76, credit limit 5K). We…
Milepoint iPad Giveaway
Each week during the Freddie Awards voting period (balloting opened today and runs through March 31), Milepoint.com will be giving away an iPad to a registered member. All you need to do to be entered to win is register at Milepoint. And since we don’t have that many members, odds of winning are pretty good.
Freddie Awards Voting Now Open!
Voting is now open! The Freddie Awards have been the airline, hotel, and credit card loyalty program awards since 1988. They’re voted on by the traveling public rather than chosen by a panel of experts, so they represent ‘what the members think’ about their frequent flyer and frequent guest programs. After 2009, Randy Petersen decided to close down the Freddies. But honoring the programs that deliver the most value to their members remained an important goal. And recognizing that at the margins the sunlight the awards place on the best (and by implication, the not-so-best) has influenced program decision-making in the past, it remained important for frequent flyers to have a collective voice. So I was proud for two years – 2010 and 2011 – to help Tommy Danielsen and a group of others keep…
Giving Yourself Plenty of Time to Make It To Your International Gateway City
A new blog with promise, Heels First Travel, describes using a Starwood award night for a day room by the Charlotte airport during a 6 hour layover. I’m a fan of this exact thing, back in August during some terrible storms my flight back home from Florida was cancelled and US Airways was offering me travel only two days later. I finally constructed a three-segment 12 hour travel day that included several hours in Raleigh, rather than killing time at the airport I grabbed a few hours at the Four Points and was far more comfortable. Heels First created the long layover to start an international award ticket. Sometimes you want to get to your international gateway city with plenty of space to cover for delays and cancellations, if you miss that international flight it…
In Which I Actually Defend Travel Coverage in the New York Times
I rail at media stories about travel all of the time. I get the most exorcised when stories get facts wrong and imply things about travel that are plain untrue. I try not to get too excited by stories that miss what I consider to be important nuance. The elements of a story that matter to me are likely different than those of a general reader, and most publications aren’t really writing with me as the audience. I get that. And I do try to offer a little slack to general interest publications. There are writers who should know better, but on the whole travel coverage approximates what consumers want it to be, and I can’t really complain too loudly if broad audience articles don’t suit my particular taste. And with that frame, I think…
