After clearing customs and immigration in Mumbai we walked outside the terminal to teeming masses of people waiting for passengers. The airport was sure bustling at almost 2 am! The Grand Hyatt Mumbai comes with complimentary airport transfers for club guests, and I had used a confirmed suite upgrade for the property so we were certainly upgraded in advance. (I believe that the benefit is consistently offered to Diamonds regardless, but with the upgrade offered in advance I was certain of the transfers, and had emailed the hotel my arrival information ahead of time.) I didn’t see a Grand Hyatt rep right away, but did see someone holding a Hyatt Regency sign. I asked them, “Grand Hyatt?” and they pointed to the right and a gentleman immediately appeared with his passenger manifest, asked my name,…
ASIA
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US Airways Begins to Crack Down on Extreme Award Redemption
The US Airways gravy train has been incredible for the past few years. First, they’ve printed miles like mad, whether through last December’s holiday shopping promo that allowed the purchase of miles at about 7/10ths of a penny apiece through the purchase of stickers (donating those stickers to charity could get your effective cost down half a penny) or perpetually selling miles with a 100% bonus (125% for elite members!). With cheap miles abundant, US Airways was said to be the ‘official consolidator of Star Alliance premium cabin seats’ — you could buy your business and first class travel dirt cheap on flights where awards were available. Second, because they were incredibly flexible and easy on the redemption side. With no ‘Starnet blocking’ (United’s practice of programming their computers to say that award seats aren’t…
Lotus of Siam’s Upscale New York Location
I tried the new Lotus of Siam in NYC this past weekend, it’s the outpost of the Vegas well-known and quite excellent staple. Opened just a month or so back and I’ve been very curious. In their original Vegas form, housed off the strip in a strip mall, they are an outstanding Thai restaurant. The New York version strives to be a more fine dining experience, and also it seems to adjust the food to the New York palette. While there are certainly Thai places in New York, they’re not known to be particularly outstanding by world standards. And having grown up in New York, I can say that New Yorkers don’t really do spice. At least not Thai spicey. So how would it translate? Not exceptionally well. The bottom line is that if the…
A Passenger’s Right to Recline Their Seat in Coach?
Picking up the meme from Road Warriorette and additional comments by Lucky I’ve given some thought to whether reclining your seat (in coach) is a right or a privilege? In other words, is it something you’re entitled to do independent of the wishes of the passenger behind you, or something you do only to the extent it doesn’t inconvenience them? What if you want to sleep and they want to eat or work on their laptop? Lucky says it’s his right but he doesn’t exercise it in coach on day flights, but does in first class, and that the problem is worse in first due to greater recline and only marginal better pitch (distance between seats, or technically from seat back to seat back). I understand where he’s coming from, I’m especially frustrated being scrunched…
US Airways and ‘Starnet Blocking’ — Is US Airways Preventing Members from Booking Award Seats That Lufthansa Is Offering?
I mentioned on Sunday that redeeming US Airways miles for Lufthansa transatlantic flights has been a challenge over the past couple of weeks. Flights that Lufthansa is offering to partner airlines are showing up to US Airways reservations agents as unavailable. I’ve tested this on a number of routes and dates and found this to be the case — bookable with Continental or Aeroplan miles, but US Airways says not available. At first I assumed it was an IT glitch of sorts, something I’ve seen and experienced with US Airways in the past. Or just agents who didn’t know how to search for what I was asking about or who didn’t know what they were doing. I’ve frequently asked about first class awards and the agent will say nothing is available — when the agent…
An Amazing Night at the Frequent Traveler Awards
The first annual Frequent Traveler Award ceremony was held yesterday in Houston, and I had the great honor to be a part of it — as Chair of the Nominations Committee and as presenter of the Hotel Program of the Year award in each of three regions (Americas, Europe and Africa, Middle East & Asia-Pacific). Throughout the evening the ballroom was packed We had about 250 people in all, equally divided between representatives of the industry and the traveling public. The trophies were all lined up, ready to distribute And here I am doing just that: While each of the presenters waited to come up, we sat at the corner of the stage in Continental’s new business class seat Full results from the evening are available on the awards’ website, and the full Powerpoint presentation…
50,000 Mile Signup Bonus for British Airways Visa, and No Foreign Currency Transaction Fees
For those who missed out on last year’s amazing, incredible, 100,000-mile signup bonus for the British Airways Visa (the first true megabonus offer, pre-dating the 100k bonus from Citibank and American), they’ve come out with a new 50,000-mile signup bonus for the card. Well worth doing in its own right. 50,000 miles for a $75 annual fee is a pretty good deal. And what’s more, they’ve actually improved the card. Chase introduced the elimination of foreign currency transaction fees with their Priority Club Visa. That was a really interesting innovation, but earning 1 Priority Club point per dollar is just not an attractive reward proposition. Then they rolled out the benefit with the new Hyatt Visa, and that became a really worthwhile card as a result — a valuable reward currency in Hyatt Gold Passport…
American AAdvantage Fuel Surcharges on British Airways Redemptions … More Expensive Than I First Realized
On October 1 I wrote about American Airlines beginning to add fuel surcharges to awards redeemed on British Airways. Previously, AAdvantage members couldn’t earn or redeem miles on British Airways between the US and the UK at all. So members would fly from Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean. And there was no restrictions on flights beyond London, such as to Africa. But there were no fuel surcharges. Now, there are more available routes for redemption but all of those routes (including those which were previously available) are significantly more expensive. How much more? I find a US – Europe roundtrip in a premium cabin will often total nearly $600. Now the regular taxes are a bit over $200 anyway, that darned U.K. premium cabin departure luxury tax. But the fuel surcharges are a killer. And…
Delta Execs Share their Views of and Plans for the Skymiles Programs
Yesterday I posted links to notes on presentations by Delta Executives to members of Flyertalk. Since I’m not really much of a Delta flyer, the specifics weren’t hugely engaging for me, but I passed them along for those of you out there hub-captive to Delta for whom the nitty gritty of the Delta experience matters a great deal. Flyertalk member ND76 has posted notes of a couple more presentations, and these are much more up my alley. Bob Kupbens is Vice President of e-commerce and offered significant feedback on the airline’s IT priorities. I was most interested in the following comment: 16. When award calendar showed up on the screen, the house almost came down. There will be a new look to the award calendar by end of first quarter 2011, with emphasis on accuracy…
US Airways Award Chart Giveth… and US Airways Award Chart Taketh Away
In the neverending saga of US Airways award zone adjustments, after just last week definitively moving Thailand to their North Asia region (thus reducing the cost of US-Thailand awards in business class by 30,000 miles and in first class by 40,000 miles!), they’ve once again updated their partner award chart (.pdf) and it’s now back in South Asia. In the first iteration they moved Russia from North Asia to Europe. Ok, no more Moscow – Frankfurt – Seoul first class roundtrips for 40,000 miles. Fair enough. And they listed Thailand and the Philippines under both North Asia and South Asia, instead of just South Asia where they had previously resided. Then US Airways corrected the double listing mistake, moving Thailand and the Philippines to North Asia only. And now they’ve moved both countries back to…
