Last month I said that Wandering Aramean was going a bit far in suing British Airways over their failure to honor a mistake fare to India. Apparently the Department of Transportation disagrees with me. Wandering Aramean posts an update with a Department of Transportation ruling: “We believe that all airlines should accept some responsibility for even the erroneous fares they publish.” The DOT contends that British Airways should compensate consumers to make them whole. And British Airways is offering to reimburse customers for expenses incurred as a result of the mistake fare. British Airways is prepared to reimburse you for penalties imposed by an airline or ground service provider as a result of your cancellation of air or ground arrangements in reliance on your cancelled British Airways booking. British Airways will also reimburse those passengers…
US Airways Holiday “Big Bonus” – Up to 250% Bonus on Shopping Purchases
Through December 30, US Airways is offering their “Big Bonus” promotion. Participating stores are listed on the promotion website. Each purchase you make earns you a progressively larger bonus on all of your purchases. Stores shopped at: Bonus earned: 1 50% 2 100% 3 150% 4 200% 5 250% If you make 5 purchases from eligible merchants by December 30, then all of your purchases earn a 250% bonus. The bonus will apply to a maximum of your first 10 purchases (based on posting date of those purchases). No registration required. If you’re already going to make several purchases, which will qualify you for the maximum bonus, great. If not, just make a handful of small purchases to get up to the 250% bonus level. For instance, if you don’t already have one create a ThanksAgain…
Randy Petersen Calls Out US Airways For Egregious Changes to Their Award Chart
Randy Petersen‘s opening remarks in the December, 2009 Inside Flyer are on US Airways’ planned changes to their award chart going into effect in January. Bottom-line, Randy points out that US Airways is especially stingy in making awards available on their own flights to Dividend Miles members. They’ve gone from redeeming 9.1% of their miles flown as award tickets down to a meager 4% — less than half the rate of Continental, which has never been known as especially generous on awards. And already US Airways imposes transaction fees just for redeeming an award. Those fees are often as much as the cost to the Dividend Miles program of the award seat itself. Their change fees are uniquely high among their peers (think $250). Now that an award seat in business class to Europe can…
The Extremely Limited Use Rate for Inflight Internet
Runway Girl makes some assumptions about AirCell’s inflight internet usage and costs, thinks they’re doing very poorly — people just don’t want to pay for inflight internet — but projects they’ll break even in three years. She thinks they’re getting six users per flight on average, even with all of the giveaways going on. On short hops I suspect usage is quite limited. It’s a real step forward on mid-cons or longer, for sure. But it is interesting that paid adoption continues to be so low, whether Runway Girl’s numbers are plausible or not.
Flyertalk is Down Again, Hopefully Back Up Soon
Stay tuned. I pinged the Internet Brands folks this morning, their tech folks are working on the outage, “Hopefully fixed in minutes” though that was 15 minutes ago. Hyperventialting… Update: as of 10:20am Eastern, Flyertalk is back online for me.
How Many Mileage Millionaires Are There?
According to this CNN.com article (disclosure: yes, I’m the lead for the piece) 300,000 people have earned at least 1 million miles in a frequent flyer account. I’m surprised the figure is that low, actually.
Win “Up in the Air” Tickets In Exchange for Your Questions about Frequent Flyer Miles
No, I don’t actually have tickets to give away. (Although I did post an offer last week for free tickets…). Rather, Wendy Perrin is running a contest. Not only are we giving away ten pairs of tickets to the movie screening but, in keeping with the spirit of the film, we’re also going to solve your most frustrating frequent-flyer-mile problems. It’s actually the Flyertalk Challenge: you pose your questions on Wendy’s blog and ten questions will be picked as winners. The people posing the questions get free sneak preview tickets to Up in the Air in New York City and Flyertalk founder Randy Petersen will answer the questions. Now, Wendy says that the questions will be answered by Randy “his team of mileage magicians over at Boarding Area.” So, umm, perhaps you’ll get my answer…
United’s 2010 Elite Choice Rewards
United elites can read the good news over at Lucky‘s blog about the 2010 Elite Choice rewards being offered to folks who fly more next year than their current status level required. As a 1K, for example, I could get 25,000 redeemable miles for passing 125,000 elite qualifying miles and another 25,000 redeemable miles for passing 175,000 elite qualifying miles. That’s quite an incentive! Other options include nominating someone to Premier or Premier Executive (yes, you heard me right) status. The benefits get even better for those at lower status levels. There’s even the opportunity for really high mileage flyers to nominate gift 1K status. Update: The Global Traveller lays out just how lucrative this promo could be for an “extreme mileage runner.”
United’s Flight Attendants Speak Out About Complimentary Domestic Elite Upgrades
This Flyertalk thread points to United’s flight attendants union’s statement on the airline’s plan to offer complimentary domestic upgrades to elite passengers: Unlimited Elite Customer Upgrades – Say Goodbye to First Class …United had previously announced their intention to implement this program last month to United’s elite customers, and is just another kick in the teeth to Flight Attendants and other loyal employees. My thoughts. 1. It’s true, without upgrade certificates there will be more passengers upgrading, and fewer seats up front for employees. 2. That hardly seems like a kick in flight attendants’ teeth. 3. If United’s flight attendants provided more consistently high levels of service they mght attract more passengers. Whoops, I guess those passengers might achieve elite status and steal flight attendants’ first class seats. Better not do that, then. 4. Or,…
Should You Redeem Your Miles for Breast Implants?
Once upon a time there were mileage offers for donating blood. Last summer I earned 20,000 miles for a hair loss consultation. Plenty of folks went for Lasik eye surgery consultations this year for Delta miles as well. So mileage earning certainly has become intertwined with all parts of life. Now, mileage burning has as well. Finnair has introduced a new redemption option: Breast augmentation. Bloomberg has more. Breast implants, hair replacement surgery or a face-lift performed by the Nordstroem Hospital in Helsinki are among the newest offerings in the carrier’s Finnair Plus loyalty service, according to the program’s Web site. “Finnair contacted the hospital,” Mikko Tuomainen, the airline’s director of loyalty programs, said in a telephone interview. “The idea was to incorporate partners and services from all walks of life.” About 1.3 million flyers…
