tommy777 passes along two articles in Norwegian cover the details of SAS EuroBonus’ plans to devalue their program on January 1. Changes from January 1, 2015 in brief: Lower point earnings on the cheapest tickets in SAS Go and SAS Plus Europe will be 1 zone (not 3 as before) Higher point earnings in SAS Business to/from the US and Asia Lower point requirements for Gold status: 45 000 Basic points (previously 50 000) or 45 one-way trips* (previously 50) Lower point requirements for Diamond status: 90 000 Basic points (previously 100 000) or 90 one-way trips* (previously 100) *Valid on SAS flights and selected destinations on Widerøe. The new earning rates have fixed earn based on where you’re traveling. All of Europe has a single amount of miles earned based on the fare class…
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The Airport Lounge Is 75 Years Old
Airline lounges are 75 years old. The first one was an American Airlines lounge in New York. American has a great online history of its lounges. The original club opened in 1939. New York’s Mayor LaGuardia was criticized for having too big an office at New York LaGuardia airport so he rented out some of the space to American. They couldn’t name it “Admirals Club” because a judge determined people might think it was for Navy Admirals only, so it was named “Flagship Club” (American’s current lounges are Admirals Clubs while their first class lounges are Flagship Lounges). The second club was at Washington National airport. They weren’t allowed to serve alcohol, so they stored bottles for members. This practice continued until liquor laws were changed in 1970. American’s sales department gave out memberships, with…
Should I Book an Award Ticket, or Buy a Ticket and Upgrade With Miles?
Reader Megan asked, What’s the best way to travel first class to Asia? Buy a ticket and upgrade, or go with miles? Great question, because it gets at understanding several key issues about international airline travel, and about miles and points. First of all — although once upon a time American Airlines used to allow double upgrades — no airline is going to permit upgrading from coach to first class. Business class is a different story, although many people use the terms interchangeably. If you want first class you need to buy a business class ticket (say, $3000 to $8000) and upgrade. So for the rest of this post I’m going to read the question as, “should I book an award ticket, or buy a coach ticket and upgrade to business class?” If you’re an…
What You Can – and Can’t – Take from a Hotel Room. And a Naked Man Falls Through the Ceiling at Boston Airport…
News and notes from around the interweb: Woman dies after airport scanner interferes with her pacemaker Naked man falls through ceiling of Bostom airport’s terminal C and attacks 84 year old man AirAsia launching $148 all you can fly air pass Choice Hotels double points for booking through their mobile app. Promotion runs through December 17 and registration is required. Larry Ellison’s Island Air wants pilots to return their Christmas bonuses. Presumably they’ll get the bonuses paid out again next month. What you can and cannot take from hotel rooms (HT: Alan H.). 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…
Korean Air Gone As a Transfer Partner From the Chase Website!
Korean Air Skypass has disappeared off of the Chase website as a points transfer partner. Here are the airlines I currently see listed: Friday night is the worst time for this, for me, since I can’t reach anyone at Chase in real-time to confirm the meaning of the change. Korean Air has been one of my favorite uses of Chase points. First class awards have been so darned easy to get. There are real sweet spots in their Skyteam award chart They offer cheap awards to Hawaii Although they are of course very Korean and their processes for redeeming awards are unique. If Korean is indeed gone as a Chase transfer partner, I’m personally frustrated. I have 185,000 miles in my Skypass account, and likely need 190,000 for what I’d do with the points (2…
Delta Releases Full New Worldwide Award Charts for Travel After January 1
Back at the beginning of the year Delta announced half of how their frequent flyer program would work in 2015. They released changes to mileage earning but told us nothing about how miles would be spent. They explained that miles from flights would be based on spending. We learned that there would be a 5 tier award chart for each of economy and business class — 10 prices rather than the 4 that airlines historically had (and United continues to have) and the 6 that Delta introduced with Low, Medium, and High pricing. But we needed know what those prices would be, so we were missing a big piece of the puzzle about the value of the 2015 program. After continually calling Delta out for their ‘secret award chart’ — telling members the program would…
100% Bonus on Citibank Transfers to Hilton HHonors Through January 8
Over the summer Citibank drastically improved the value proposition of its Thank You Points program, making the points transferable to a variety of airline mileage programs. Two years ago they introduced the program’s first transfer partner — Hilton. But transfers to Hilton are normally a really poor value at 1:1. Doubly so because Hilton massively devalued their program a mere month later. Current transfer partners are: Air France-KLM Asia Miles Etihad Airways Guest EVA Air Infinity MileageLands Garuda Indonesia GarudaMiles Hilton HHonorsTM Malaysia Airlines Enrich Qatar Airways Privilege Club Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus The Air France KLM Flying Blue program is useful, and so is Asia Miles… their distance-based chart though gets expensive for long distance premium cabin flying. Singapore Airlines is my favorite option here — for cheap US domestic…
Five Good Reasons to Choose Delta
I give Delta a hard time frequently on this blog. I’m pretty transparent about my travel patterns and choices, and how I go about making those. Delta hasn’t been my choice and I think I’m justified in that. I’m not going to rehash all of the reasons here. Instead I thought I’d take a contrary position for this post, and offer up five good reasons why someone would want to choose Delta and/or Skymiles as their primary air carrier/loyalty program. See what you think, and whether any of these reasons apply to you. You’re a super frequent flyer. American and United both have top tiers at the 100,000 mile level. Delta, like United, requires minimum spend for elite status. If you’re flying more than 125,000 miles a year and spending more than $15,000 on airline…
Major US Airline Planning to Reduce First Class Legroom Plus an Easy Free $10
News and notes from around the interweb: Runway Girl Network thinks a major US airline is going to reduce seat pitch in domestic first class and introduce similar seats as an international premium economy. Much of the piece sounds like implausible speculation, but one or both of these basic ideas seem plausible. Passenger charged over $1000 for inflight internet. This was on one flight! Bank of America credit and debit card holders get $10 free when they enroll in Visa checkout. Asiana faces a 45 day suspension of their Seoul – San Francisco route over the crash of Asiana 214. $50 off Emirates flights from the US. Me, I’ll just redeem my Alaska Airlines miles for Emirates’ A380 first class suites. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day…
The Surprising Honesty Behind the US Airways Chef’s Philosophy of Food
Update: (November 12 7:15pm This post was based on an interview published in the Phoenix New Times with an individual identified as in charge of designing onboard premium cabin menus for US Airways. I’ve since learned that he is not currently an employee there. As a result, it’s not fair to assign weight to his comments as indicative of current thinking at the airline. In a surprisingly honest piece, we get “Nathan Brown, Menu Designer for US Airways, on What It Takes to Make Airplane Food” After culinary school, Nathan Brown worked at The Phoenician, at a golf course, and at Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak as their executive sous chef. He creates US Airways premium cabin inflight menus: The job entails crafting four lunch and four dinner menus for the airline; the different menus are…
