New America West Coast to Coast Service

America West is going to begin offering non-stop transcon flights from New York’s JFK to Los Angeles and San Francisco and from Boston to Los Angeles and San Francisco. I believe these will be the only flights that don’t originate or end at one of America West’s two hubs in Phoenix and Las Vegas.These are currently high revenue routes not served directly by discounters. JetBlue flights JFK to Oakland and Long Beach but not LA and San Francisco. America West will offer similar fares as JetBlue but into these primary (and higher operating cost) airports.This is bad news for the major carriers currently flying these routes, good news for consumers as the majors will likely be forced to match fares at least for flights at similar times, and an open question for America West’s bottom…

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Miles for Mortgages

I may be a bit behind the times, but there appears to me to be a new and more generous player in the miles for mortgages game. I saw an offer for Alaska Airlines miles this morning: 1300 miles (rather than 1000) for each $10000 in financing and 3000 miles per 10000 for buying/selling plus miles for moving, miles for using more than one service, and bonus miles for AS elites. Then I modified the URL to find the same offer with Delta, United, and Continental.

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Free Continental Silver extended

Get free trial Silver Elite on Continental from August 1st to October 15th. Sign up or call 1-800-346-6090 and use promotion code 54015.If you fly 3 qualifying round-trip flights: you get Silver Elite until February 2005. If you fly 6 qualifying round-trip flights: you get Gold Elite until February 2005. Only flights on Continental and Continental Express (not on partners like Northwest, Delta, Alaska, etc.) qualify, and then only on mid and high fares (not Q, S, T and L fares).They made this offer earlier this summer, and though it was targeted it seemed to work for everyone — at least anyone who called could get upgraded to silver instantly. Since I’m not signing up for this myself, I don’t yet know whether folks who didn’t receive the offer will be able to take advantage…

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Which is worse: the TSA or Air France?

An Air France co-pilot was arrested for making a bomb threat. What he actually said was `Well, what do you think, I have a bomb on me?’ This arrest was about as brilliant as detaining the teenager in Boston who put a note in his luggage saying he didn’t have a bomb.Annoying, but par for the course for the TSA. Except in this case it wasn’t just a single passenger delayed, or even a concourse evacuated — the Air France 747 flight had to be cancelled. And — blame both the TSA and Air France — the disserviced passengers weren’t even given a hotel room for the night. Most slept in the airport and made it out on the 10:30am flight the next morning.

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Where are you going while I’m here?

It’s August. While the rest of DC is vacationing, I’m stuck at work during my real busy season in the office — which lasts July 15 through November 15 — without even much business travel (well, much for me). So I’d love to hear about your vacations — or help you plan one. Drop me a line.

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