Air Astana, the Kazakhstan airline, has published an offer to match existing British Midland Diamond Club status with elite status in their Nomad Club program. A large number of airlines offer status match programs, but they rarely publish them. They exist as unpublished procedures for how to respond when an elite (and presumably lucrative) customer of another airline offers to switch to a new carrier… but doesn’t want to lose their perks as a result of the switch. Status matches are very rare outside of the United States. The only program that’s part of a major alliance with a regular match program that I can think of is British Midland (and it’s a great little program, especially for premium class customers who earn boatloads of miles and then can redeem them with a generous cash…
Making New York Delays… Enjoyable.
Tyler Cowen’s advice for dealing with LaGuardia If you ever fly in or out of LaGuardia, you’ve probably grown to dread the experience; a delay of “only” 60-90 minutes is better than average. But I’ve discovered a new method for enjoying a LaGuardia visit. It’s simple: I leave Manhattan 90 minutes early and I stop in Flushing for a Chinese meal. Flushing has most of the best Chinese food in the city, especially adjusting for price. The trouble has always been getting there and back — but the simple solution is to fly more often. For great Chinese food, no price is too high and otherwise you’re simply not going to go. Read the whole thing, complete with ordering suggestions and how to continue on to the airport.
15,000 – 25,000 United Miles for 3 or 4 Roundtrips
United is running a targeted promotion. Some folks have to fly 3 roundtrips to get 15,000 miles. Some have to fly 4 for 20,000 miles. Others have a chance at 25,000 miles. Here’s the one that I received. Book and complete your qualifying travel by June 30, 2008 Enjoy earning more bonus miles the more you fly: 5,000 bonus miles if you fly 2 qualifying roundtrips 10,000 bonus miles if you fly 3 qualifying roundtrips 20,000 bonus miles if you fly 4 qualifying roundtrips Note that registration is required. All the offers, regardless of which one you’re eligible for, seem to have the promo code MPD048 so the same registration link should work for you regardless. (If you receive an offer with a different promotion code, please so note in the comments.) Worth checking your…
Alaska Members – Time to Prepare – Mileage Plan to Take a Week Off
Ok, their tech staff won’t exactly be taking the week off. No doubt they’ll be working some overtime, overhauling the back end of their systems. But the upshot is that effective April 14, 2008 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan will be completely unavailable and will come back online no later than April 22, 2008. During the outage it will not be possible to book or change award tickets, request a mileage upgrade, or any number of other things (fully detailed on this page). This won’t affect the ability to earn miles, they just won’t appear in your account until the system is back online. Here’s hoping it goes smoothly! And if you need to request upgrades or book an award ticket, better do it prior to April 14.
This Just Encapsulates How Bad U.S. Domestic Lounges Are
A Flyertalker visits the United Red Carpet Club in Los Angeles and finds these as snacks: Well, at least there were snacks. Last time I went through there neither self-service coffee machine worked.
Great Mistake Fare – But You Have to Start in Dubai
Aeroflot is pricing out at US$1045 for business class from Dubai to Toronto, with a connection in Moscow in each direction. Stopovers are permitted. Alas, it doesn’t worth the other way around. Not possible to book this from Toronto or I’d be all over it, even if it means I’d have to endure Aeroflot’s business class product. Flyertalk discussion is here.
Non-travel: My nickel’s worth of free advice on the economy
Martin Feldstein says we’re in a recession and it could be very, very bad – perhaps the worst since World War II. We have a liquidity crisis. No trading even in auction market preferred securities, which were previously thought to be as safe as cash (you get a slightly higher rate than a money market in exchange for tying up your cash for say a week). The securities are still asset-backed and AAA-rated, paying interest, but you can’t redeem them because no one is bidding at auction. This hasn’t ever happened before, and the securities have been around over twenty years. The Fed can’t do anything about it with monetary policy. The Fed lowers rates, they’re pumping money into banks but banks won’t lend. The spread between the cost of funds to the US government…
$50 off $250 on Northwest
Via NotiFlyer, and subsequent to my post on taking $50 off a $250 Southwest ticket using Paypal, it seems that Northwest is making a very similar offer. $50 off $250 with Northwest when you pay with paypal, like the Southwest offer tickets must be purchased by March 27, 2008. This offer limits you to travel between April 1 and June 14, 2008, and Northwest’s change policies include fees so you can’t circumvent the travel period in a worthwhile way. This one is more flexible with Southwest as I previously noted, but if you’re buying Northwest tickets anyway (and I wish I held had off on some myself, d’oh!) this is useful.
Will a New Delta Skymiles Third Redemption Tier Bring Back Last Seat Availability?
Mar
15
2008
One Mile at a Time points to a Wall Street Journal piece on the coming three-tiered structure of the Delta Skymiles redemption program. Earlier in the month I wrote that the coming three-tiered structure would be bringing back ‘last seat availability’ to the Skymiles program; that the highest third tier would mean more miles but at least true redemption for any seat, as offered by most other frequent flyer programs. Delta’s earlier removal of this option was a real affront, but the hope was that this was temporary. The Wall Street Journal piece, though, either misrepresents the coming change or suggests that Delta won’t be bringing back last seat availability. Delta also plans to increase the number of “tiers” in its SkyMiles plan this spring. Instead of offering domestic tickets for either 25,000 or 50,000…
Obligatory British Airways Terminal 5 Post (as nearly required by law for a travel blogger)
Cranky Flier and TravelTech Talk have been all over the coming launch on March 27 of London Heathrow’s new Terminal 5. Scott at TravelTech Talk writes It’s so impressive it makes me want to cry. Now, call me a little bit skeptical. It will be a vast improvement for sure. It will make connecting with BA at Heathrow better than connecting at Charles De Gaulle. It will be better than connecting in Frankfurt for those passengers (without Lufthansa HON Circle status) arriving out on the apron as so many flights there seem to. But it won’t match the experience offered to first class customers available to Lufthansa and Swiss passengers in Frankfurt or for that matter Munich or Zurich. Incidentally, Lufthansa has introduced personal assistant services at Heathrow for First Class and HON Circle members,…
