Via Inside Flyer (subscription required), Virgin Atlantic awards departing the US are being discounted for booking through July 31. Virgin Atlantic Airways flying club members can take advantage of an award sale through July 31, 2008. You can spend up to 50 percent fewer miles when flying in coach and up to 20 percent fewer miles when flying in Premium Economy. You could fly roundtrip coach between New York (JFK and Newark) and London for 22,500 miles if you complete your travel by July 31. You can get 25 percent off if you book by July 31 for later travel — that’s 33,750 miles for a roundtrip flight between New York and London. For the same flight in Premium Economy during this promotion, the mileage cost would be 54,000 miles (normally 67,500).
Singapore’s New First Class “Private Room”
Singapore may be a great airline, but on the whole their lounges don’t meet tip top standards. At Heathrow their premium class customers get access to the Virgin Clubhouse, certainly one of the world’s better offerings, and a better option than Singapore’s lounge at that airport. Their home base lounges don’t compare to similar offerings by Thai, Asiana, or Lufthansa. The new first class lounge at Singapore’s new Terminal 3 was generally disappointing. But this past Tuesday they introduced a new product for paid first class passengers (apparently not those traveling in award first, not their top tier elites, and not the first class passengers of other Star Alliance carriers). It’s called The Private Room and over at sqtalk.com there are photos of the lounge here and here. Nice and exclusive to be sure, but…
United Makes Star Alliance Awards a *Little* More Flexible
United’s Star Alliance award rules have been revised slightly, in a positive way. It used to be that awards involving United’s Star Alliance partners could not be changed at all, in any way (at least officially, though sometimes it could be done at the airport by other carriers). Now United will allow you make changes to an award as though it were an all-United itinerary if the only remaining flights in the itinerary are United’s. (The rule actually appears to say any United segment could be changed even after travel commences, but I’ll want to see this work in practice before stating definitively that it’s accurate.) For example, if you wanted to fly United from Chicago to London and back, but those flights weren’t available and you had to fly United to Frankfurt, connecting on…
Gaming Fidelity’s Mileage Offers
Fidelity offers miles for opening and funding brokerage accounts, up to 25,000 United, Delta, or American miles for $50,000 deposited. That’s a pretty good tax free return in a market where making a decent taxable return is iffy at best. (And via Free Frequent Flyer Miles, Delta is offering a 25% bonus on miles earned through their financial partners until July 15.) But the real trick is this: a Flyertalk thread suggests that you don’t really need to deposit $50,000 to earn the 25,000 miles … you can deposit, withdraw, and re-deposit the same money to reach $50,000 in total deposits (eg the same $10,000 deposited 5 times).
Why Delta Award Redemption Fuel Surcharges Mean You Generally Shouldn’t Redeem for Coach Travel
Just as fuel surcharges are really marketing-speak for price increases (and see also this discussion), coupled with an end-run around corporate contracts and paying commissions (er, “overrides”), they are a price increase on award travel. Delta is saying that miles no longer pay for free travel. Delta now only offers “cash + points” awards for tickets. You can no longer hold awards when booking by phone, plus Delta charges a telephone booking fee. They charge a partner award redemption fee. They charge a close-in ticketing fee. And non-elites flying domestic coach pay for checking baggage. With all of these fixed fees, it makes less and less sense to redeem miles for coach travel. A frequent flyer can spend over $100 redeeming miles for a coach ticket that might cost only $300 – $400. But they’ll…
United’s New “Incomparable” Red Carpet Club
One Mile at a Time has photos of United’s new Red Carpet Club at O’Hare by gate B18. Bottom-line appears to be an improvement, but unsurprisingly something that doesn’t quite live up to the expectations set up by United’s marketing gurus.
Thai Airways Confirms Cancellation of New York-Bangkok Service
A month ago I reported that Thai Airways would discontinue its New York-JFK – Bangkok non-stop flight. That Airways has only just made the announcement. They’ll work to get affected passengers out to Los Angeles for their LA-Bangkok service (5 days a week) or issue refunds. Update: Joe Brancatelli writes in: Just a quick correx on your blog post concerning Thai’s dumping of the JFK-BKK route. In fairness to Thai (no easy task, I admit), the airline DID officially announce it on 13 June. The news was buried in a handout about higher fuel surcharges, but it was there…. As for when they actually decided to dump the route (this time, I mean), they started zeroing out the flights in early May.The real trick will be to see what Thai is gonna do with those…
Travel Photos – Boca Raton Public Library
Boca Raton Public Library: The new Spanish River Public Library has a cafe, more flat panel screens than I’ve ever seen in one place, and what appeared to be Herman Miller office chairs in the childrens computer room. Oh, and it’s on the water. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
$141 First Class Ticket Karma — Landing in Coach One Way
I’ve written about the wonders of the Alaska Airlines $50 companion ticket that comes with their Bank of America co-branded credit card. The small business version of the card comes with a $99 companion certificate which is paper and requires airport ticketing. You can’t even mail in the certificate like you can US Airways’ Bank of American or Juniper Bank $99 companion tickets. On the other hand, like its $50 cousin, the certificate is pretty much unrestricted and represents the best way to get into first class on Alaska Airlines. And for me that airport ticketing annoyance turned into a boon, as the outsourced agents at Reagan National ticketed both sides of the companion fare at $99 plus tax for first class tickets to Reno (via Seattle). Alas, the day of travel came and the…
Travel Photos – Westin Diplomat Pool and Sunrise
The Westin Diplomat offers the best Platinum elite recognition in all of Starwood. With the exception of the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and perhaps Presidents Weekend and Memorial Weekend, a suite upgrade is almost guaranteed (they have over 80 of them). In addition, the club lounge is just lovely — a 33rd floor affair with both indoor and outdoor seating and an extensive breakfast, evening canapes, and after dinner treats. I’ve written about my stays at the Diplomat several times, for example here, here, and here. Here’s the pool at the Diplomat, during the day and at night: And sunrise off the balcony of my corner suite:
