This is the first in a series of posts on managing your accumulation of miles. You can generally earn miles with whomever you wish. This post will explain how to earn United miles if that’s your preferred currency. If you’re a United frequent flyer, and you really just want to accumulate United miles, but you’re forced to fly another airline odds are you can still earn the miles you want. In fact, you can fly Delta, Continental, Northwest, USAirways, or Alaska and earn United Mileage Plus points instead of receiving points from Skymiles, Onepass, Worldperks, Dividend Miles, or Mileage Plan. How? If you’re flying USAirways, you can credit the miles directly to your United account. Just give USAirways your United frequent flyer number. The same holds true for Delta. You can earn Continental miles for…
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Your REAL patriotic duty — savings bonds mean free miles
Gary Steiger has done a good job of outlining how to earn miles more or less for free by purchasing savings bonds online with a points earning credit card. You can transfer the balance to a no interest special offer card, too — thereby earning the miles and the interest at no cost.You can buy up to $60,000 worth of bonds this way. If you use a double miles earning credit card (such as the Delta Amex which offers double miles through July 15) you can earn 120,000 miles for free. That’s enough for a first class ticket to Australia or two coach tickets to Australia or 5000 miles short of five domestic coach tickets. Click on the link above and choose finance from his menu on the left hand column of the page.Update: Gary…
Low Cost Carriers — Better Amenities Than Their Full Service Rivals?
Amenities on low cost airlines are improving, even as mainline “full service” carriers cut back. For the average traveler, that will make JetBlue more attractive than Delta. This change has already entered the public’s consciousness. My boss’s assistant was excited that she was able to book him on JetBlue for an upcoming trip to the West Coast because “it’s supposed to be better.” Only my boss wasn’t excited. And this is why the full service airlines, while becoming less attractive to the infrequent flyer, are still more attractive to the road warrior. Two words: elite upgrades. While JetBlue’s coach product is probably superior to Delta’s, it’s frequent flyer program isn’t as generous and won’t take you nearly as far. Most importantly, though, frequent flyers get upgrades. Among the low cost carriers Airtran is unique in…
More Airlines Participate: Free Flights for 3 Roundtrips
As previously mentioned, United, American, and Northwest are offering a free roundtrip ticket after three roundtrips. Now Alaska Airlines, USAirways, Continental, and Delta have all made similar offers. (Each requires registration via the aforementioned links.)
Earn up to 3,000 Miles Using SkyMiles Partners
Register to earn 1000 bonus miles every time you use three Delta partners between July 1 and August 31. You can use up to nine partners for 3000 total bonus miles.
Hidden Cities, Hidden Headlines
News of the Supreme Court’s decision to permit a class action lawsuit to go forward against Delta and Northwest is being overblown. Headlines like “Delta, Northwest lose appeal” make it sound as though the court was inclined to agree with the plaintiffs on the merits. The Supreme Court has simply refused to intervene — and the Supreme Court rarely intervenes — to stop the suit which alleges that barriers to “hidden city ticketing” are illegal. (Hidden City Ticketing refers to when a passenger books an itinerary that takes them farther than their final destination but doesn’t take the last leg of their journey in order to receive a lower fare.) If the case reaches a jury, public anger against the airlines will be on the side of the plaintiffs. But the most likely outcome is…
Lower Cost, More Legroom Than the Competition
Midwest Express, known for it’s quality food and all-business class configuration, has been cutting back on it’s service and is now set to launch a low fare carrier devoid of it’s traditional 2 by 2 seating. While they’ll be trying to pack in more passengers, they are at least going to offer 33″ seat pitch (two inches more legroom than the industry standard). Delta’s low cost carrier, Song, also advertises a similar seat pitch — which is more than Delta’s mainline coach product offers. These new offerings, whie in many ways inferior to their predecessor products, are at least offering passengers some benefit. Contrast that to American’s decision to add some seats back into coach sections on A300 and 757 aircraft, and the troubled world’s largest carrier doesn’t appear too competitive.
You’re welcome, taxpayers
UBS Warburg sees several airlines doing well financially on the backs of their federal welfare payments. Turns out this ’emergency aid’ came at a time when business was picking up anyway. “As carriers cash their welfare . . . er, security refund checks, it’s safe to do a little Monday morning quarterbacking on the economics of the more recent federal airline bailout,” Buttrick said. “Essentially, a $2 billion war investment netted the industry $2.5 billion. As wars go, this was a good one for airline economics. Now if airlines could only run their core business as well,” Buttrick said. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines got the biggest security reimbursement, $390 million, and has received about $1 billion from the two aid packages combined. Buttrick is cutting his 2003 loss estimate for the industry to $7 billion…
Ouch. I can feel my knees aching already
American Airlines has announced that it will be adding seats to about 174 aircraft. This is a major retreat from their strategy to differentiate themselves from their competitors by offering a better coach product. (The aforementioned link is to the American website, so it may change with this new news.) Before you book your next flight, check the schedule, check the price, and make sure you check the legroom. Only American Airlines offers more room throughout the entire Coach cabin. Some airlines have more room in the first few rows of Coach. But ONLY American Airlines has removed seats from every plane to give you more room throughout the entire Coach cabin. Wherever you travel, choose American, and treat yourself to More Room and more comfort. (Emphasis added.) They are likely to deplot the new,…
Whither the shuttle?
With falling traffic and schedule cutbacks by USAirways and Delta, the New York/Boston/DC shuttle operations are a different experience than they used to be. American has introduced regional jet service on these routes, while Delta and USAirways are cancelling flights and downsizing planes. Both Delta and USAirways are also scaling back their shuttle guarantees, and USAirways is swapping in aircraft with less legroom. Less convenient and less comfortable than in the psat, it might be time to rethink the shuttle. Only rethinking doesn’t happen often or easily in this industry.
