North Korea Economy Watch has a photo of the new Air Koryo Tupolov parking in Pyongyang. It apparently goes into scheduled service May 1. Elsewhere, the blog points out that Air Koryo acquired the plane in order to continue being permitted to fly to Beijing — China is playing safety regulator, taking on the role of ensuring that planes landing at its airports are airworthy (contra this recent this recent AP piece which suggests that Air Koryo’s acquisition of a new plane points to its success as an airline).
USAirways Business Mastercard with 20,000 Mile Signup Bonus
Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles, Juniper Bank’s co-branded USAirways credit card options now include a business card offering 20,000 bonus miles with first purchase along with a $79 annual fee. The card comes with a free day pass to the USAirways club and the ability to earn elite qualifying miles based on spending. Small business cards are generally open to pretty much anyone (“Your Name & Associates” – everyone has a business).
Air Traffic Delays Are Awful, Everything Else is Worse
Economic growth in general and deregulation in particular have brought about lower real airline ticket prices and substantial increases in passenger traffic. Infrastructure hasn’t kept pace and air traffic control hasn’t kept pace. And so we face congested airports and airspace. This frustrates travelers, who live in a world of tradeoffs but take what they have as given and long for what they’ve given up. Richard Posner is one such business traveler. And the usually sober, sometimes brilliant, and certainly prolific judge and scholar offers up an unusually misguided rant on why he believes “airline service is so bad” over at the Becker-Posner Blog, Becker rebuts. Posner lays out a myriad of unsupported gripes and mixes in blatantly incorrect facts, leading him to circle around some rather silly notions about re-regulating the aviation industry. Becker…
Double Elite Qualifying Miles on United
United is offering double elite qualifying miles for travel through June 15. Registration is required and only flights taken after registration earn the double EQMs. You don’t get double redeemable miles, your flown miles just count double towards elite qualification.
Return to Le Meridien Barcelona
The morning after dinner at El Bulli we took a cab to the Figueres train station, had our return ticket stamped for the Catalunya Express to Barcelona, and boarded the train. Uneventful ride back, grabbed a cab to the Meridien, and checked in. This time they had us assigned to a junior suite on the 7th floor corner, facing a side street. I asked if we could do any better, and they offered a similar room overlooking Las Ramblas with a fairly panoramic view. I asked whether any renovated suites were open, and they told me this was it… they also mentioned that they hadn’t yet decided to renovate some of the remaining suites on the upper floors, “some customers prefer the older style.” I don’t know whether this was guesswork on the checkin agent’s…
20,000 Mile Signup Bonus, Fee Waived for Northwest Visa Products
Northwest and US Bank are offering 20,000 mile enrollment bonuses with no fee the first year for the Visa Signature and Business card products. US Bank cards have had mixed results with churning at best, most customers will only be able to earn the bonus once for each card type (at least based on my rather dated understanding of the issue). But it’s a good deal for folks who haven’t had either card before. It’s worth noting that if the Northwest-Delta merger closes, there’s a pretty good likelihood that the US Bank relationship with the airline will eventually end. That’s quite a ways off, and doesn’t really effect the decision to take this card now, but worth noting. The American Express relationship with Delta is a stronger one, and represents a better card in any…
5000 Bonus Continental Miles for New Accounts with First Flight
Ripped from Free Frequent Flyer Miles: Many of Continental’s non-U.S. websites offer 5,000 miles for signing up for the program and taking your first flight. Language change can be made in the upper right corner. These sites say nothing about where you must live to get the bonus, and links to a signup website that permits registration by people living most anywhere in the world. I wonder what happens if a U.S. resident signs up via a non U.S. website. Worth a shot. (Thanks to Frequent Flyer Bonuses for these links.) United Kingdom Ireland France Spain and Canary Islands Japan Hong Kong Israel
15% Off Southwest Purchases
Southwest is offer a 15% discount on tickets purchased by April 21 for travel through October 30 using promo code DING15. The terms and conditions aren’t onerous. Discount applies to roundtrip tickets booked at Southwest.com. August 29, 2008 through September 1, 2008 are blacked out for travel with this discount. The discount doesn’t apply to Business Select, Business, or Senior Fares, and doesn’t take money off of taxes.
United Increases Change Fees to $150
Sometime last night United began loading new fare rules with $150 change fees for domestic tickets, up from in most cases $100 (some specific markets had and still have lower fees, but this applies to better than 90% of fares). I don’t see any announcements or news stories on this yet, but here’s the thread on Flyertalk. A dozen years ago the change fee was $25, ten years ago it was $50, eight years ago $75… Now most airlines charge $100, although as with baggage fees etc. the low-cost ‘no frills’ carriers frequently charge lower change fees. JetBlue charges $50 (or $40 if the change is made online). Southwest has no change fee, they apply the full value of a ticket towards new ticket purchases, but a same-day change involves buying up to full fare.…
Off to Roses, and Dinner at El Bulli
I had considered renting a car, and in the end that would have been the easiest. It’s just not that difficult a drive from Barcelona to Roses. Instead, though, we took the Catalunya Express train to Figueres. Cost was ~ 10 euros apiece each way. A car wouldn’t have been more expensive overall, though, because of the cost of cabs – a good 40 euros each way to and from the train station into Roses. (I’d still take a cab to and from the restaurant, though, for reasons I’ll explain). At the train station you stick your ticket in the machine to enter the area of the station with the tracks, but presumably any train ticket would work, no tickets were ever checked onboard in either direction, so why not buy the cheapest ticket and…
