The initial schedule for American’s incoming Boeing 777-300 aircraft, featuring their new first class and new business class products, has been announced. Beginning December 13 they’ll run it Dallas – Sao Paulo, and in February it’ll start on Dallas and New York – London. Time to start looking at airfares and flights with confirmable upgrade space, I’d love to be among the first to fly in the new business class seats. According to Expertflyer there appears to be reasonably good confirmable upgrade space on the 777-300 for Dallas – Sao Paulo service. Executive Platinum eVIP upgrades are valid from any fare and book into C inventory. I just got back from Sao Paulo on Sunday but this is tempting… (HT: AAdvantageGeek)
New Online Shopping Portal with the Biggest Cash Rebates
Whenever I’m doing any sort of online shopping, I search EV Reward to find the best deal. Most online shopping sites offer some sort of rebates, for instance if I’m going to buy something at Target.com I search Target.com at EV Reward and find that I can get 3% cash back through Ebates (which offers a $5 bonus after your first purchase), 3 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, 3 American miles per dollar, or several other options. Given this information, I’d probably choose 3 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar at Target.com. EV Reward is a useful tool, but it isn’t updated in real time and offers from the various cash back and mileage sites change all the time. So what they list as currently-available offers may vary from the offer you see when…
United’s 787 Seat Map
Now that United has loaded its first 787 into the schedule, Denver-Tokyo beginning March 31, you can see the seatmap for the aircraft by walking through a dummy booking on the website: There are 36 business class seats, 63 economy plus seats (presumably rows 16-22, not highlighted on the seatmap), coach has been announced as 120 seats though the seatmap would appear to show 135 seats — presumably some of the blocked/unavailable seats aren’t. They clearly haven’t put the finishing touches on the seatmap since economy plus isn’t so-flagged. Nine across in coach seems tight to me, considering that All Nippon and Japan Airlines are doing eight across with their 787s. It’s notable that Denver – Tokyo is announced as the first 787 route for United, they had previously indicated they’d inaugurate the 787 on…
New Priority Club PointBreaks (Discounted 5000 Point Reward Nights) Hotels Available Through July 31
Priority Club’s new PointBreaks list is out. This is the deepest discount in award travel across any hotel brand, a handful of properties are offered at any given time for just 5000 Priority Club points per night, even properties that may cost 40,000 points per night normally. I usually look for Intercontinental properties, which offer the steepest discounts when they’re participating, but there are other interesting options as well such as the Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown and the Hotel Indigo Shanghai on the Bund. Intercontinentals participating this summer are Cleveland, Houston-Galleria, Cyprus, Bucharest, Mauritius, Cairo, Nairobi, Lusaka, Fiji, Wuxi, Kuala Lumpur, Puebla, Buenos Aires, Tegucigalpa. That’s a more extensive, richer list than I’ve seen in a long time. (HT: Milepoint)
Bits ‘n Pieces for May 22, 2012
Lots of Loose Ends and Little Things: Is Hilton playing games with the cash portion of their cash and points awards? Loyalty Lobby details AviancaTaca’s 100% bonus on purchased miles which is running through the end of the month. If you don’t already have a LifeMiles account you won’t be able to take advantage of it this time around, but may want to open for the next go-round of the offer which seems to come around with some frequency. The airline is expected to join Star Alliance this year, making the miles potentially more useful. Accor is selling Motel 6 to Blackstone. I’m guessing not, but it would be interesting to see whether that portfolio is added to the Hilton HHonors program. For a limited time last year, Accor’s A|Club (now Le Club Accorhotels) allowed…
Weekend at the Falls: American Business Class, Gol Domestic, and the Sheraton Iguazú Resort: Sheraton Iguazú Falls Resort & Spa
American to Miami in First, then Business Class to Sao Paulo Gol Smiles VIP Lounge and Domestic Service to Foz de Iguassu Sheraton Iguazú Falls Resort The Wonder of the Falls Gol Domestic Back to Sao Paulo and the Admiral’s Club Sao Paolo American’s Business Class to Miami and on to DC With just a weekend in South America, and a goal of visiting one of the places I’ve wanted to see for years, I decided on convenience and time savings — I picked the Sheraton because it’s actually in the National Park, on the Argentina side. The Sheraton is on the pricey side, rooms were over $250++ and suites around $575++ during my stay. It’s a Starwood category 5 — so delivers a bit over 2 cents a point without any high season points…
Registration for Park Inn 44,000 Club Carlson Point Bonus Now Live
Last week, Club Carlson’s giant promotion launched for two of its brands, where you effectively can buy a cheap hotel night and earn enough points for a stay at any of their hotels in the world. The most famous and historically lucrative hotel promotion has been Hyatt’s Faster Free Nights, every two stays is a free night, and you could do a couple of cheap airport stays and redeem for, say, the Park Hyatts in Paris or Tokyo. (We haven’t seen that offer in a couple of years and it is missed by many.) This takes things a step further, it’s effectively buy one get one free but since it’s points you don’t have a short timeframe within which you have to redeem your stay (as long as you keep your account active) and you…
Weekend at the Falls: American Business Class, Gol Domestic, and the Sheraton Iguazú Resort: Gol Smiles VIP Lounge and Domestic Service to Foz de Iguassu
American to Miami in First, then Business Class to Sao Paulo Gol Smiles VIP Lounge and Domestic Service to Foz de Iguassu Sheraton Iguazú Falls Resort & Spa The Wonder of the Falls Gol Domestic Back to Sao Paulo and the Admiral’s Club Sao Paolo American’s Business Class to Miami and on to DC I walked over to the transit check-in desk for Gol, it had a long line but I decided since I was there anyway I might as well grab my boarding pass rather than going upstairs, not knowing what the economy check-in line might look like there. I had booked an aisle and middle in row 5, the whole plane is coach. Seat assignments secured by emailing contactus@golnaweb.com.br. Brazilian domestic flights have a maximum weight for carryons of 5kg but the agent…
How to Save on Rental Cars
Michelle Higgins has a great piece in the New York Times on how to save money renting cars. Her list, my comments. Let go of name brands. Certainly Fox, Payless, and others will often have lower rates than Avis and Hertz. The question is whether the lower rate is worth the extra hassle, and that’s a personal tradeoffs question. The lesser known brands may be off-airport in several cities, so more of a hassle to get to the car. And they don’t all have the streamlined checkout and checkin processes that you can at least sign up for with Hertz, Avis, Thrifty, and National — I hate a long trek to the car, or taking more than one bus, and I don’t ever want to stand in line at a rental counter if I can…
Weekend at the Falls: American Business Class, Gol Domestic, and the Sheraton Iguazú Resort: American to Miami in first, then Business Class to Sao Paulo
American to Miami in First, then Business Class to Sao Paulo Gol Smiles VIP Lounge and Domestic Service to Foz de Iguassu Sheraton Iguazú Falls Resort & Spa The Wonder of the Falls Gol Domestic Back to Sao Paulo and the Admiral’s Club Sao Paolo American’s Business Class to Miami and on to DC Standing in line at TSA an inquisitive fellow (perhaps a wannabe Behavior Detection Officer) was asking me where I was headed. I told him Iguassu Falls. He asked where that was. I told him I was going for the weekend. “Gotta do something this weekend.” Coupled with top tier elite status on American and some extra systemwide upgrades, along with a bonus promotion meant to incentive additional flying by passengers from the oneworld Mega DO in January, I could fly business…
