Delta just dropped its fare to Houston from several cities (including Baltimore and Phoenix) to $123 with no overnight stay required. Fare basis code is TE14TN95. From Scott Carmichael’s Hot Deals Alert List.
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Why Loyalty Programs Should Reward Frequency not Revenue
A Joe Sharkey column in the New York Times last week points to changing trends in air travel pricing and passenger growth. A slightly buried item, but perhaps the most significant, is A permanent change in the way business travelers plan most trips, to take advantage of low fares originally tailored to lure leisure travelers. “The business traveler has taken a powder” from dependence on the top-level walk-up fares that once supported the finances of major airlines, Mr. Boyd said, and airline executives who think the old fare structures will come back are deluding themselves. This is precisely the argument used to justify recent changes in elite status at Delta and Continental — that the fares paid are changing and that they need to incentivize the truly lucrative traveler. That’s one bet. But if Michael…
Coverage of Elite Status Changes Gets Muddled
Kudos to news media that are trying to explain changes in airline elite qualification. But very few stories are able to cut through the rhetoric and explain the important changes clearly. A story in this morning’s USA Today is a perfect example. The article leads with Continental’s changes in elite qualification, counting only 50% of mileage flown at lower fare classes towards elite qualification (although leaving out Continental’s escape hatch for next year only – fares booked on the Continental website will still accrue 100% of mileage towards elite qualification). Then it notes changes at Delta and Alaska, and historical changes at Northwest and American. So far so good. But the article only alludes to problems of using fare class (as opposed to revenue) as a proxy for customer value: Continental’s new elite qualification rules…
Hitting Home in Atlanta
The USA Today Save Skymiles Ad that I mentioned yesterday was mentioned in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.I’m told, but have not received a copy firsthand, that Delta made the following statement in response to the ad: A very small group of SkyMiles members placed an ad in the Georgia edition of today’s USA today, stating that they were leaving Delta because of recent management decisions. (Those decisions include service and employee cutbacks and, most importantly in this group’s opinion, changes to the SkyMiles program.) This very small fraction of members – less than a quarter of one percent of the company’s 32 million SkyMiles members – are those who were accustomed to qualifying for Medallion status traveling on low-fare segments or earning limitless first class upgrades. The reshaped SkyMiles Medallion program ensures that DL’s highest revenue…
JetBlue to test CAPPS II
When details of new testing for Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II (CAPPS II) profiling were disclosed last week, the TSA refused to say which airline(s) would be participating. The new system, called Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II (CAPPS II), has sparked so much controversy among both liberal and conservative groups that the TSA has struggled to get it going. Delta Air Lines backed out of a testing program with the agency earlier this year, and now the TSA will not reveal which airlines will participate when it tests a prototype early next year. If all goes as planned, the TSA will begin the new computer screening of some passengers as early as next summer and eventually it will be used for all domestic travelers. Now, however, Wired reveals that JetBlue has agreed to…
Ticketing rule changes
Keith Alexander provides a roundup of major carrier changes to their “use it or lose it” ticketing rule. Upshot: on all the majors except USAirways you can now apply the value of an unused ticket towards future travel, and you have a year in which to book that future ticket.On USAirways — which was the major carrier that introduced the older restrictive rules in the first place — you’re still hosed.The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) provides the nitty gritty details. Most of the carriers, for instance, require their passengers to call and cancel their original reservations in order to retain the value of their tickets. But Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines don’t. The airlines also track time differently. Northwest says the clock starts ticking on its yearlong grace period on the date of…
Bob Crandall: disingenuously smearing codesharing
Bob Crandall blasts codesharing in this morning’s New York Times (link via Julian Sanchez). He thinks the government ought to crack down. The piece contains numerous half-truths. He identifies 1983 as the start of INTERNATIONAL codesharing. But the practice of codesharing dates back to the 1930s when Western Airlines flew from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, and United flew from Salt Lake City to the East Coast. Neither could fly coast to coast on their own because the government granted all route authorities back then. But Western, for its financial survival, was given permission to coordinate with United and they operated each others planes and shared crews. For 70 years codesharing has both been about the economics of leveraging large capital investments (planes) and about navigating regulatory waters. It still is! As Crandall observes,…
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…
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.
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…
