Wendy Perrin writes about her lunch with Randy Petersen in the Conde Nast cafeteria. Having enjoyed lunch with Wendy there myself, I’m curious to hear how the pad thai was (I picked sushi), but I’m not sure I agree with all of the advice and predictions that Randy offered. Wendy points out that Continental miles haven’t in practice been expiring (despite a policy that would allow the program to deactivate dormant accounts), whereas United expires miles after 18 months of account inactivity. Radny sees this as a huge issue: Randy’s #1 piece of advice to the heads of the new combined program is: Do NOT impose an expiration date on Continental miles! To me it’s a no-brainer for the combined entity to adopt United’s approach. United recently reported that they recorded a $64 million gain…
United Improves Online Award Booking .. a Little Bit
The United website’s award search capability has added a new tab, in addition to saver and standard awards there’s now a tab you can click for Star Alliance awards. So far they’re only loading Continental and US Airways inventory, not the rest of their Star partners, but it’s a start. Star Alliance Awards Star Alliance® Awards give you the flexibility to fly on any of our Star Alliance airline partners for the price of a Saver Award. Currently, only Continental and US Airways flights be booked on united.com. If you are looking to fly on any other Star Alliance airline partner, please call 800-United-1 to book your award. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights. This is hugely significant on several levels. First, one-way awards. The challenge booking one-way awards on…
25% – 35% Bonus for Transferring Hotel Points to American Miles
American is offering a 25% bonus on converting hotel points into up to 20,000 miles and a 35% bonus for transactions converting hotel points into more than 20,000 miles. 40,000 Starwood points, for instance, become 67,500 American miles under this promotion. (Just don’t covert more than 60,000 Starwood points per day in order to maximize your bonus. You can’t get more than 99,999 American miles posted by Starwood in a day, and converting 80,000 Starpoints would generate 100,000.) American’s promotion email calls this an “Unprecedented Offer” .. I’d hardly call it unprecedented when US Airways is offering a 50% bonus on hotel point transfers, and Delta once offered a 150% bonus. So it’s definitely precedented. But still it seems worthwhile if you have a strong need for American miles. Offer expires June 30, 2010, and…
My Laviator Experience
Heather Poole pioneered the laviator idea, taking photos of yourself in airplane lavatories. About a week ago, Flying with Fish posted laviator photos of himself. I thought I’d continue the meme, from onboard Cathay Pacific First Class: What could be trashier than taking a picture of yourself in the lavatory? Except here I am, in a first class lavatory. Oh, sweet irony!
Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus 50% Off Multi-Passenger Award Redemption
Thai Airways is offering a 50% discount when redeeming awards on Thai international flights for 2 or 3 passengers for bookings made between July 29 and August 12 and travel through October 31. Award travel is valid for member self and an Award Nominee, or 2 Award Nominees, and both must travel together on the same departing flight and in the same class of service. Return travel can be separate. (Via TM Travel World.)
US Airways 90 Days of Silver Status for Ticket Purchase
US Airways is offering free silver status for 90 days. Registration required by August 15. Must purchase a non-refundable ticket at usairways.com for travel only on US Airways/US Airways Express and only for travel in the United States. Ticket purchase required by August 15 for travel beginning by September 15. Status will take up to 7 days to be reflected in your account after purchasing a ticket. Members who were elite members in 2009 or who have had complimentary or trial US Airways elite status within the past two years aren’t eligible. US Airways Silver status is of course also Star Alliance Silver, which gets you a free checked baggage allowance. (Via One Mile at a Time)
Vietnam Airlines Award Availability a Boon for Skyteam
Vietnam Airlines has joined Skyteam, and Wandering Aramean (sbm12 on Flyertalk) notes that they publish their award inventory publicly in global distribution systems like Worldspan and Apollo. And most importantly that partners are booking business class awards into what’s traditionally thought of as a discounte dbusiness class inventory. If indeed Skyteam partners like Delta are booking business class awards on Vietnam Airlines from the J bucket as it appears, and they allow members to book whatever seats that “VN” releases into J inventory, Vietnam Airliens’ addition to Skyteam is huge. Vietnam Airlines flies to Frankfurt and Paris, providing a great redemption opportunity from Europe to South Asia and beyond. They have decent North-South routes as well. If you can find a seat to Asia, most of the time you get then get where you’re going…
Mileage Accounts Frozen, Under Audit: How to Avoid It, What to Do When it Happens
TMTravelWorld notes that there have been some recent discussions about US Airways Dividend Miles investigating fraudulent account activity and freezing accounts that are under investigation. This is something that both United and American have been known to do aggressively, but not something that US Airways was much known for until several months ago. And whenever something ‘new’ like this pops up, there’s much consternation, not to mention folks posting on Flyertalk with (what I’d speculate to be) less than all of the facts disclosed. It seems like a good time to review the kinds of activity that most frequently draw the scrutiny of fraud departments of mileage programs. While not an exhaustive list, these are some of the biggest factors: premium class international award redemptions for other people, especially several in a short period of…
Swiss CEO Takes a Swipe at United
United’s single-class TED operation is no more, but its lesson shouldn’t be forgotten — and don’t underestimate the ability to forget, as it wasn’t United’s first foray into the low cost carrier subsidiary market (though Ted was a worse idea – Shuttle by United at least offered a first class cabin and with complimentary upgrades for 1Ks years before United introduced that feature for elites program-wide). CrankFlier interviews Swiss CEO Harry Hohmeister, and Hohmeister makes the point that you cannot have a successful international premium class operation without premium connecting flight offerings. Cranky: And what about the premium cabin? Harry: It’s very much under pressure, so we have to rethink it. But, business class has an important value with hub connecting itineraries. You can’t fly someone in business class from San Francisco to Zurich in…
Upgrd.com Podcast: The United-Continental Merger, Upgrades on Award Tickets, and Fortress Hubs
The Upgrd Podcast is back after a several weeks’ hiatus and there’s a full cohort of panelists (including yours truly). We discuss the Continental – United merger, Continental’s new initiative of upgrades on award tickets for co-branded credit card holders, we debate the merits of the various New York airports and I advance the notion that US Airways is the Star Alliance’s designated consolidator for premium class inventory. (The fact that this got the biggest chorus of laughs in the half hour show suggests just what sort of a group this is…!)
