Search Results for "ASIA".
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
I’ve gotten value from ‘Thanks Again’ earning miles at brick and mortar retailers when I didn’t expect it. They’ve given me signup bonuses, and mileage-earning with them has counted towards larger partner bonus promotions. But I realized I didn’t actually understand their business model as they’ve moved from local dry cleaners and spas a decade ago to near total penetration across large US airports.
So I spoke with their CEO Marc Ellis, who explained a lot about the business that surprised me, and also shared that people are earning a lot more miles than I thought.
You can book roundtrip travel between Chicago and Perth, Australia for just $463.
More expensive than $385 to Australia but still one of the best Australia fares we’ve ever seen.
A passenger once left something in a British Airways lavatory so horrible the plane had to turn around and go back to Heathrow.
On the other end of the spectrum, a different passenger once left 24 gold bars in the lavatory of a Jet Airways flight. They were found when the aircraft was being cleaned in Kolkata. And it proved to the world that Jet Airways does, in fact, clean their lavatories.
American Express is running a 30% bonus on transfers to Etihad Guest through June 15. This is more valuable than you may realize. Etihad’s points aren’t just useful for booking premium cabin award tickets on Etihad itself.
There are some unique features of Etihad Guest. I’ve had success with award holds, there are strong value partner awards some of which are absurdly cheap, and you can even get infant fares for just 10% of the miles (not of the ticket price).
The Times of India is reporting that American Airlines is planning to re-start service to India — as early as this year.
American Airlines has a new sales agent in India as well.
Each year, for 7 years now, IdeaWorks has published a study (.pdf) on which airlines offer the best award availability. And each year it is so fatally flawed as to give consumers almost the worst advice possible.
Roughly speaking this year’s piece — just like last year’s — finds that overall airline award availability is getting better and low cost carriers are better for flyers looking for award seats than legacy airlines.
Alaska Airlines partners with many of the airlines both in oneworld (like American, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, LAN) and Skyteam (like Delta, Air France, Korean) and also non-alliance airlines like Emirates. You cannot book first class awards on either Air France or Korean (business is the highest cabin offered).
I really like Alaska Airlines miles because they offer one-way awards on nearly all of their partners and most booking functionality is available on their website. One way awards allow an enroute stopover. So booking roundtrip allows two stopovers in addition to your destination.
The next Star MegaDO has launched for sale. Everyone who goes on the trip gets Star Alliance Gold status for a year from Aegean Airlines.
It’s a European adventure with a charter flight from Zurich to Hamburg to Mykonos and then Athens. The “program covers a close and personal encounter with the brand new Bombardier C series, landing at Airbus private airport in Hamburg, Finkenwerder, home of the A320 NEO, all interior installations for the A380 and the A350, a sundowner at the Santa Marina hotel in Mykonos and much more”
This morning I wrote that Alaska Airlines award charts were showing higher prices for Cathay Pacific awards intra-Asia — with business class up over 120% and first class up over 150%.
Intra-Asia awards appeared to be the same price as US-Asia awards. As I wrote, when readers first reported this several days ago I assumed it “was a mistake related to Alaska updating the way they displayed award charts.” Indeed, one-way premium economy awards at 15,000 one way and 70,000 roundtrip made no sense. However Alaska was confirming the new pricing as correct.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
