Delta just brought back 25,000 bonus miles for 25 partners as well as lower threshold bonuses for members who find that many partner activities a stretch. (Registration required.) Unique Partner Activity Bonus Miles Awarded 3 3,000 6 6,000 12 12,000 20 20,000 25 25,000 Partner credits need to be earned between January 15 and March 15. Only one activity per partner is allowed (and for hotels, that means one activity per chain not per individual hotel, you can’t go from Hilton to Hilton or Hilton to Doubletree to earn more than one partner), only one Buy Miles activity is allowed, only one SkyRewards partner (e.g., SkyMall, LATHER, Organic Bouquet, Vinesse, Great American Days, Samsonite and Java City) activity is allowed, and only one SkyMiles Credit Card activity is allowed. Partner airlines don’t count…
Delta Double Miles to Europe
Delta is offering double miles on the transatlantic flight portion of itineraries to several cities in Europe, for travel through March 15. (Triple miles for paid business class.) Registration required. From Atlanta (ATL), the following routes earn bonus miles: Dublin, Ireland (DUB) Munich, Germany (MUC) Prague, Czech Republic (PRG) Vienna, Austria (VIE) Zurich, Switzerland (ZRH) From New York-JFK, the following routes earn bonus miles: Accra, Ghana (ACC) Berlin, Germany (TXL) Bucharest, Romania (OTP) Budapest, Hungary (BUD) Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) London/Gatwick, England (LGW) Manchester, England (MAN) Pisa, Italy (PSA) Just to underscore, though, flights to Delta’s New York and Atlanta gateways don’t earn the bonus, and neither do any onward flights beyond the cities mentioned above. Still, worth mentioning nonetheless.
Airport Security Drinking Games
Via Online Travel Review, an example of how the loss of civil liberties through airport security led one writer to drink. It was pretty good port. At least, for 11 a.m. on a Saturday in an airport baggage claim. Dark, fruity, sticky and chocolatey and thick like murky dreams. After about the fifth sip, I had the profound insight that I was sharing this surreal moment with roughly one million other travelers worldwide who had equally (or rather, likely far more) obnoxious, annoying, unusual airport security tales to tell, from the profound to the silly to the stupid. Don’t try this yourself, kids. Because not only can’t you take that bottle of port through security, drinking it in public is also frequently illegal … a TSA Officer’s advice notwithstanding.
Up to 52,500 bonus points for Hilton American Express
Here’s a very nice offer for the free Hilton American Express: 10,000 points for getting the card 30,000 bonus points after spending only $1,500 within 3 months 2,500 points per stay for first four stays 2,500 addl points for getting an additional card for a spouse. Interestingly, cardmembers who receive instant approval also get an account number right away, but until you receive the card itself the account can only be used on Hilton websites. A very strange innovation.
Mix and Match Partners on USAirways Awards
I’m not a huge fan of USAirways as an airline to fly. And I have my frustrations with their frequent flyer program as well. They really irked me when they changed their award chart without any notice and raised the price of my favorite award. But they don’t seem to filter out otherwise-available award seats their partners are offering, the way that fellow Star Alliance member United does. That means that it can be easier to use USAirways miles to redeem awards on Star Alliance carriers than it is to use United miles for the same flights. (My own hunch is that USAirways is more generous here purely out of their own technological limitations, but still.) Now USAirways has come up with something new that’s actually a real additional benefit — you can mix Star…
Something is wrong when your promotions alienate your best customers
Delta recently offered both redeemable and qualifying miles for activity with Rewards Network (which I usually still insist on calling iDine). The promo was offered towards the end of the year, the miles took awhile to post (although not more time than specified in the original offer), and it was never clear in which year the qualifying miles would be applied. A Delta Gold Medallion member, on the cusp of making Platinum, writes: As the year was ending I was about 2500 miles short of [Platinum Medallion] status and was thinking about doing a mileage run. The 1000 MQMs [elite qualifying miles] from the dining program would’ve made it only 1500, a pretty manageable trip at the end of the year. But as the year wound down, it didn’t look like they were going to…
Small Steps Towards a Better International Experience on United
United, having started the rollout of its new first and business class seats, has a long way to go before becoming a true preimum class airline. Over the next year the ‘soft product’ will be enhanced to follow on improvements in the hard product (seat). New meals, better amenity kits, and even pajamas are supposed to come to international first class in August. Plenty will be invested, things will be better than ever, however every indication is that service will be drawn from the same pool of flight attendants, thus will remain hit or miss at best. And like the introduction of p.s. service on the New York-JFK to Los Angeles and San Francisco routes, my guess is that after an initial boosted investment little cuts will begin to accumulate. My fundamental belief is that…
Alfred E. Neuman for President!
Performancing‘s Best Travel Blogs poll didn’t include me in the voting. Perhaps that’s appropriate. But then, if you’re reading this, there’s some chance that you value my posts greater than the time it takes to read them. So if that’s the case, consider voting for ‘Other’ and writing in ‘View from the Wing’. Thanks!
More on Why Fuel Surcharges Matter, and Why Your Free Tickets Will Soon Cost More Money
It occurred to me after writing my post on fuel surcharges yesterday that another factor driving the move towards ‘fees’ apart of ‘prices’ is <I>commissions</i>. It’s highly unlikely that a new fuel surcharge will actually result in a higher total price paid by consumers (otherwise airlines would have already raised their prices). Rather, fuel surcharges are a shift in the components of the price paid for airfare. Commissions (or ‘overrides’) generally aren’t paid on surcharges, just base fares. So take this simple illustration. An airline with 100 million passenger enplanements annually charging a $5 fuel surcharge each way won’t really make an extra $500 million dollars. But it will exclude that $500 million from commissions. Assume that the surcharge applies to only 80% of those passengers, and is paying commission on only a quarter of…
Fuel Surcharges and an a la carte future for air travel pricing?
Upgrade: Travel Better has an extensive post on fuel surcharges and the idea that airlines might start ‘unbundling’ fares such that you buy fuel separately from your entrance onto the aircraft… and speculates that this could lead to unbundling of oither services as well — like food, baggage, early boarding, and legroom. Fuel surcharges are really just ‘disguised’ price increases. They aren’t some magic formula for airline profits. Fares are presumably at a market price indicative of what a seat might sell for. So how are fuel surcharges even beneficial, if the market won’t bear a meaningfully higher price for airfare? And why not just attempt a price increase? Fuel surcharges set a price floor. The airline precommits not to lower prices beneath that level. So even if a fare goes to zero the airline…
