Live and Let’s Fly says you can’t buy them at this price online, but if you walk into a United club they’ll sell you a day pass for $19. The Man of a Thousand Places put together a spreadsheet on how much it’s worth to spend in exchange for a marginal ‘hit’ in the US Airways Grand Slam promotion. Mommy Points updates on her plans to earn hits 25 – 32 in the US Airways Grand Slam. I’ve done 28 hits so far, know how I’m getting to 33 for sure, and have a list I’m considering for getting to 36 in order to earn 100,000 miles. The Travel Insider points out that it isn’t just the TSA — Security Theatre on the Northern Border. There are too many agents, with nothing to do. But…
Mark Your Calendar for November 9: Live Online Chat with Hyatt Gold Passport
Jeff Zidell, Vice President of Hyatt for the Gold Passport program, will hold a live chat on Milepoint on November 9. You can sign up for an email reminder, and you can also submit questions in advance if you’d like. You’ll also be able to see the questions that others are asking. American Airlines kicked off the first chat, and Maya Leibman (President of AAdvantage) went back and answered questions that didn’t make it into the live chat. At the end of last night’s live chat with Jonathan Clarkson of Southwest Rapid Rewards there was a similar commitment to do the same. So getting your questions in usually means getting them answered. I can guess that there will be plenty of questions in the Hyatt chat about promotions — Faster Free Nights (stay twice, get…
Delta Introducing Economy Plus Fleet-wide
Delta has been offering ‘economy comfort’ seating on its international aircraft, with additional legroom at the front of coach. It’s available for a premium but free for elites. Wandering Aramean notes that Delta is now planning to roll out the extra legroom seating to all of their domestic aircraft, including two-cabin regional jets, by summer. Pricing will run $19 – $99 per segment. However, they’re only going to be putting 3-5 rows of extra legroom seating in. So this is nowhere near as extensive as United’s offering, which will be extending to the Continental fleet over the coming year as well. United’s new configuration 777 — which has 9 seats across in coach — offers 12 rows with extra legroom. Delta’s economy plus seating will be available for free at booking to their Gold elites…
Excellent Award Availability and Excellent First Class: Etihad is Now an American AAdvantage Redemption Partner
Yesterday afternoon I got a tip from reader Abdou that Etihad flights were now bookable as awards with American AAdvantage miles. I meant to blog it right away, but looks like both Online Travel Review and One Mile at a Time beat me to the punch. While first and business class upgrade space (R and X inventory, respectively) are published through Sabre, and thus also searchable using the KVS tool and Expertflyer, the only way to search for award seats that I’m aware of is signing up for an Etihad Guest account and then using their website to search space. All reports so far are that American AAdvantage has access to the same award inventory that Etihad Guest members do. And that award availability is, so far, quite excellent. Like four first class award seats…
Reminder: Live Chat Tomorrow Night with the Head of Southwest Rapid Rewards
As noted last month, Jonathan Clarkson, Director of the Rapid Rewards program, will talk live online with frequent flyers at 9pm Eastern. Here’s the event page. You can also pre-submit a question if you’d like. Here’s an idea of some of the questions that folks are asking. Here’s the question I blogged last week. I have to give Clarkson a lot of credit coming out and speaking with members online. There’s been much handwringing about the program, and certainly most engaged frequent flyers think that recent changes are anything but positive. It’s not just the fact that drink coupon expirations are now enforced. Instead, it’s all about their new fare-based rather than segment-based frequent flyer program. Me, I think it all goes back to their change in 2007 deciding that they could change the terms…
American AAdvantage Complimentary Upgrade Promotion on Selected Regional Routes
AAdvantage Geek reports that American is now offering complimentary upgrades to all elites on certain regional carrier flights. American remains the only US carrier which charges its bottom and mid-tier elite members for upgrades. American’s 100,000-mile flyers get unlimited complimentary upgrades. Other elites earn 500 mile upgrade certificates based on their flying, receiving 2000 miles worth of upgrades for each 10,000 miles flown. That used to be the standard in the industry, all other carriers have switched to offering all elites upgrades without burning these certificates. American, though, continues to sell these upgrade certificates to its Gold and Platinum members who want to upgrade beyond the complimentary certificates that they earn. So it’s interesting news that they’re running a complimentary upgrade promotion on select routes. [F]rom October 18 through December 15, 2011, AAdvantage Platinum and…
American Airlines Promos on Japan Airlines: Double Mileage Earning and Reduced Award Redemption Prices
Via DestinationDavid and JALPak on Milepoint come several mileage offers related to American Airlines’ joint venture with Japan Airlines. 50% off mileage redemption, San Francisco – Tokyo Haneda, for travel between November 1, 2011 and February 29, 2012. That makes makes business class roundtrip 50,000 miles and coach roundtrip 30,000. The same offer on Vancouver – Tokyo Narita Double miles on American codeshare flights operated by Japan Airlines and booked into a high fare class (K fare or higher) for travel between November 1, 2011 and February 29, 2012. Registration required. All of these are of limited usefulness, yet still interesting for what they signify. Winter is very much off-season for travel between the US and Japan. And the reduced mileage offers, while great for folks in or near San Francisco or Vancouver are appealing,…
Changes to British Airways Elite Levels and Qualification
Next month British Airways is expected to announce some pretty brutal changes to its Executive Club program. They won’t tell us all yet what those changes will look like, but they’ve been dribbling out pieces of information. (They’ve told some people, for instance I’m told that the moderators of the British Airways forum on Flyertalk have been given the information but have signed non-disclosure agreements so they’re not telling publicly.) The latest bit of detail coming out is detailed by Miles from Blighty, related to elite levels. BA is introducing a new bottom-tier to the program, Bronze, which gets you seat assignments seven days in advance of travel, business class check-in, and a 25% mileage bonus on flights. They’re also no longer resetting tier points when you hit a new level, but European members residing…
Why The Tax Code Encourages American Airlines to Award Bonus Miles for Checking Bags in Boston
AAdvantage Geek points out that through November 22, American is offering its elite members 500 bonus miles for checking a bag in Boston. Of course, elites get free checked bags, so they’re encouraging customers to do something that’s free. So Wandering Aramean suggests, [T]here doesn’t really seem to be a need to care about what you’re checking. I figure just grab a FedEx box, put a bag tag on it and collect your 500 miles. No need to even collect the box at the other end I find this move by American interesting, though not at all surprising. They’re testing whether they can incentivize folks to check bags, not because it generates revenue but because it’ll simplify the boarding process. Airlines have been charging for checked bags, so no one wants to check bags. Not…
TripAlertz Got Slammed, Learned Their Lesson, and is Changing Their Rules
On Thursday I wrote about TripAlertz, a hotel package deal site that was paying way too much for e-mail addresses. Most referral deals require that the person being referred actually buy something before the website will reward the referrer. Not TripAlertz. They were paying for every email address that signed up, and the signup process was really easy, all it took was an email address and a password — not even a name. And they were paying the referrer $10 per email address. Surely that couldn’t last. And it didn’t. Already they’ve dropped their referral fee down to $1. What’s more they’ve changed the terms and conditions of the program and are applying the change retroactively — instead of having two years to redeem the referral cash, you now only have one year to redeem…
