For my most frequent readers there’s probably nothing new here, and I suppose I usually just assume everyone is familiar with all the tools for making travel better — from improving the booking process and earning cash back, to getting the best prices, to selecting the best seats — but after making suggestions on a nearly daily basis for how folks can reduce their travel costs or manage their miles I thought it might be useful to share a list of ten different websites (and more, since in some cases I’ll list a couple in tandem) that are public but surprisingly secret. Autoslash. About three weeks ago I introduced folks to this new website. It’s the best search tool out there for rental car pricing, because it searches not just regular rates but automatically searches…
$80 Off Lufthansa Bookings
TM Travel World explains how to take $80 off a Lufthansa flight purchased by August 11 for travel through December 30. First, download a voucher. Then make your booking on the Lufthansa website and enter the number during the final step of the booking process. On the payment page, enter the voucher number into the field “Enter your Voucher:”. Be sure to click the “Apply Voucher and reduce Fare” link. One voucher per reservation, so if multiple people are traveling you may want to book separately (to each get the $80 discount). A US credit card is required for the booking and travel must originate in the US (at a Lufthansa gateway, naturally).
Aegean Airlines Joins Star Alliance June 30th
It’s finally official. Now all those honeymoons to Greece on miles don’t have to terminate in Athens with separate paid tickets to Crete and Santorini. In addition to flying to the islands, they service major cities of Western Europe as well as Tel Aviv, Cairo, and Istanbul. Aegean is expected to merge with Greek carrier Olympic in the fall. Too bad Olympic no longer serves North America and Australia, that would’ve been an interesting (to some…) ‘surprise’ way to book awards Down Under.
Spirit Air Invites You to Fly Down to Check Out the Oil Spill, Or Something…
Spirit, the airline which used to charge more for online bookings (“web convenience fee”), came up with the idea of charging for carry-on bags and which is known for MILF sales (“Many Islands, Low Fares”) naturally developed a tasteless ad in the wake of the BP oil spill to get me and everyone else talking about their (abysmal) product. Ah, so the beaches they fly to have suntan oil. Ok… At least they didn’t advertise a “flood of low fares” to New Orleans after Katrina. In other somewhat-related news, Scott McCartney points to a new ad campaign by startup Russian low cost carrier AviaNova which has funding from the same private equity firm that holds a stake in Spirit. Now, maybe the Hooters Air model really can work, I suppose the flaw in their plan…
W Hotel Store 35% Discount is Back – Good on all items including mattresses
… and beds receive free shipping as per usual. Discount code is T4G6K. I have the W Hotel plush top (not pillow top) mattress, along with a feather bed. That best approximates the real W bed, and there are some reports of the pillow top mattress eventually having a memory after awhile, whereas I can always change out the feather bed. I’ve long been happy with my purchase (made early 2007). And it’s been awhile since the 35% discount has been around, much much longer since they’ve had a 40% discount which I used when I bought mine. Expiration date on the offer is unknown, the discounts which used to be around more often than not haven’t been lately. So if you’re interested you may want to make the purchase now. Back in May price…
Skyteam Throws Down the Gauntlet, Claims that at 10 Years Old They’re Better than the Other Alliances
Last week I received an email from a public relations person inviting me to come up to New York for a Skyteam press event tomorrow, celebrating the alliance’s 10th anniversary. Unfortunately I’m pretty heavily committed tomorrow so I’m not headed up there, though they were offering lots of senior-level interviews (Skyteam’s Managing Director and their Chairman) which could have been interesting. In person you sometimes get much better answers than in writing, where folks are much more careful and guarded. But I still shot back to them a couple of questions that are really the ones that interest me most. View fromg the Wing: the primary consumer benefit of alliances is earning and redeeming miles on alliance partners and access to partner lounges and SkyTeam obviously provides both. But in terms of mileage redemption, SkyTeam…
Really Stupid Arguments for Regulating the Airlines
Things in the Sky calls it an interesting argument, but really that’s way too generous. Congressman James Oberstar thinks checked bag fees justify the government re-regulating the airlines. Deregulation has been credited with making airline travel affordable for the average American. But Oberstar pointed to the $2.7 billion the airlines earned in baggage fees in 2009 as evidence that consumers are no longer benefiting from the system. He said he believes there’s support in the House for re-regulation. But consumer pricing is still consistently on the decline as a result of deregulation. (People forget that the whole point of the regulated era was to maintain high fares to boost airline profitability, that it wasn’t until 1976 that the Civil Aeronautics Board began ‘experimenting’ with allowing regulated airlines to offer discount pricing.) And as Dan points…
Deltalina Guests on the Crew Lounge Podcast
The new episode of The Crew Lounge hosted by Sarah and Bobby features Deltalina as a guest. She’s still a flight attendant, teaches courses for Delta (not to mention doing promotional events), and she’s single. She’s happy to have folks come up to her and take photos, doesn’t like when people point from afar, and has been approached in an airport bathroom and just wanted to finish what she was doing… Turns out the name originated on Flyertalk, a passenger called her that on a plane and she went with it, and it took off (it’s been used on CNN and elsewhere, and became semi-official, she adopted it for Twitter, here’s Deltalina’s Twitter feed.). Katherine’s father is from Puerto Rico, speaks Spanish, often often flies Delta’s Latin American routes. Here’s the Delta safety video, with…
Continental’s Award Pricing Computer Problems, and What it Means for the Continental-United Merger
Continental agents do what their computer tells them to do. They aren’t especially empowered. And in a dispute between common sense and the computer, the computer is always right. Continental doesn’t permit ‘holding’ an award except when there aren’t enough miles in the account, and you plan to transfer points in (e.g. from American Express). My understanding has been that Continental will only put an award on hold for 24 hours, which is plenty to make a transfer since Amex points transfer more or less instantly, sometimes the points won’t be available for 15 minutes or so but it’s more or less immediate. Although each time I put an award on hold with Continental, the agents tell me they’re putting the awards on a three-day hold. The reservation on the Continental website will say just…
Can Lessons from Successful Grants Salvage the Essential Air Service Program from the Dismal Waste that it is?
Cranky Flier wants to learn lessons from the handful of government grants to subsidize air service that haven’t been total failures (but hardly represent the best possible uses of funds in a world of tradeoffs, hunger and homelessness and whatnot). His post is titled, When Airports Should Subsidize Airlines. The short answer, though, is that they shouldn’t. And Cranky almost understands that: As a general rule, if you as an airport think there’s some insanely large untapped market that nobody knows about, you’re probably wrong. The airlines do this for a living, and if there’s a missed opportunity, they’re likely to find it. In nearly all cases, it’s best to just work on lowering your operating costs as much as possible to try to attract service for the long run. Otherwise, you’ll just end up…
