Lufthansa is considering a new low cost long haul subsidiary that may fly Airbus A330s. The yet-to-be-named subsidiary, which is part of the Wings concept, would operate up to seven Airbus A330-300s. It will begin operations in fall 2015 with three aircraft in Munich, Düsseldorf or Cologne to take advantage of above-average growth in the leisure travel segment and round out the Lufthansa Group of airlines’ current route networks. ..Lufthansa is building on a new strategy to expand its LCC platform, Wings, which could include Germanwings, Eurowings and the new long-haul LCC returning to A320 operations to focus on direct point-to-point flights within Europe. I’ve never seen a wholly owned low cost carrier subsidiary that has actually worked, outside of Asia Pacific. (Think TED, MetroJet, Continental Lite.) In fairness, Jetstar (Qantas), FlyDubai (Government of Dubai…
ASIA
Search Results for "ASIA".
The Full PointBreaks List of Discounted IHG Award Hotels Leaked Early
Yesterday IHG Rewards Club reached out to let me know that the next round of PointBreaks — discounted hotel redemptions that cost just 5000 points per night — would be posted on Monday for stays between September 29 and November 30. They shared a sample of the ~ 150 properties that will be featured: Crowne Plaza® Hotel Huizhou – Huizhou, GD Crowne Plaza® Kumamoto – New Sky, Kumamoto, Japan Crowne Plaza® Dublin- Northwood, Ireland Holiday Inn® Sydney – Waterfront, Sydney, NS, Canada Holiday Inn Express® – Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico Staybridge Suites® – San Diego Rancho Bernardo Area, California, USA Candlewood Suites® – Washington- Dulles Herndon, Virginia, USA
This Really is the Last Time You’ll Be Able to Buy US Airways Miles on the Cheap
US Airways is running a 100% bonus on purchased miles through September 30. For the past several years US Airways has been the industry leader in selling miles cheap. Offering a 100% bonus just meant, more or less, meant that it was a day of the week that ended in “day”. With this offer they sell 20,000 or more miles at 1.88 cents apiece. Of course US Airways miles aren’t as cheap as they used to be or even as cheap as they used to be. And you can’t get 90,000 mile Hong Kong awards in business class anymore. But now that those are 110,000 miles, you might as well go for first class which is just 120,000 miles roundtrip. Hard to argue first isn’t worth it, for just 5000 miles more each way. I’m…
Emirates A380 First Class Award Space Wide Open This Winter – Act Fast!
The easiest way to search for award space is with the Alaska Airlines website, since Alaska is a partner of Emirates and allows searching their space online. They also show an award calendar. Historically they have only shown a subset of the space that Emirates makes available. Expertflyer shows space, at least as offered to Emirates’ own Skywards members (and Emirates Skywards is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards — but does add fuel surcharges where applicable). What’s interesting is that the Alaska Airlines website seems to be showing availability hat matches Expertflyer. Right now, even to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan members there appears to be very very good award space this winter in first class for two passengers on several routes between the US and Dubai — routes served by Emirates Airbus…
Here are the Top 10 Ways to Earn Miles — Several Are Quick and Easy
Yesterday I wrote about the 11 greatest miles and points deals ever. Some folks had their own, and there were plenty of amazing opportunities I didn’t add to the list — like how I used to earn 80,000+ miles at a time opening and funding Citibank checking accounts with a credit card (you couldn’t use Citibank credit cards to do this, and after enough accounts they’d say you could not do it anymore!). What some folks asked me for was, what are the best ways to earn miles today? You can’t get 20,000 Delta miles for a Bosley hair restoration consultation anymore. And the United-Safeway partnership no longer gives you miles. You can’t get a free Airtran flight for 64 Coke cups from Wendys. And yet I’ve never earned as many miles as I do…
Swiss Outlines its Fleet Plans: Keeping First Class, Adding More Flying to the U.S.
Business Travel News carried a piece on Swiss’ U.S. and fleet plans based on an interview with the airline’s senior director for the Americas, suggesting that the airline wants to be high-end. Swiss aims to “be closer to our customer and have a higher product point” with new aircraft. “When you have a fleet of 90 aircraft, its easier to get there,” They plan to deploy six new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft to the Western U.S. and East Asia. They do not plan to add premium economy, but do currently plan to keep offering first class. Sadly, Swiss first class redemptions are available only to Miles & More elite frequent flyer members and not at all to partner airline frequent flyer members. Swiss currently flies to Boston, Chicago, New York JFK, Newark, Los Angeles, Miami and…
A Delta Award Sale With So Many Caveats and Gotchas the Savings Just Might Not Be Worth It…
Delta is offering its elites and co-brand credit card holders a discount on award redemptions booked through September 23. Naturally, the more you dig in though the tougher this gets. Here are the discounts: So it’s 4000 miles off domestic roundtrip awards, though you get 8000 miles off if you’re booking at the more expensive medium “standard” (cough) price. Still, that means you can get decent availability for only a modest premium off of the ‘usual’ Delta domestic award pricing. And 10,000 miles off a roundtrip to Southern South America, Europe and Asia. Of course, this is for: Delta flights only, no partners, not even 49%-owned Virgin Atlantic Economy only No discounts are available to “Hawaii; Alaska; Canada; Africa; the Middle East; Caracas, Venezuela; Cancun, Mexico; Rio De Janeiro, Brazil; and Sydney, Australia.” International tickets…
Travel Tips to Save Money, Earn Miles, And Fly for Free
In early July I wrote a post about the most useful and interesting developments in miles and points over the previous month> It turns out, surprisingly, that the feature was really popular, at least judging by the emails I got — people that don’t read the blog every day really appeciated the recap and not having to dig through all of the posts to find the most enduring ones. I didn’t do a similar feature in August, but I thought I’d revisit the 170 posts I wrote in August. I hope you were happy with some of the posts and got something out of them. These are some that were my favorites from August. Saving money Always enter car rental confirmation numbers into AutoSlash for free and easy savings. Get instant free status from Avis…
How’s the American Airlines Merger Doing?
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker gave good marks for merger progress so far with plenty of work to do. He cited progress implementing “the world’s largest code-sharing arrangement” between American and US Airways; US Airways joining oneworld and the transatlantic joint venture ith British Airways, Iberia, and Finnair; and re-banking the Miami hub to make for more attractive flight connections. They’ve co-located facilities for the two airlines at 80 airports are “are negotiating for new contracts covering workers from both carriers.” (I’m not sure how it’s an accomplishment already to be negotiating as opposed to, say, ‘have negotiated’). The airlines are profitable, though there are certainly some gaps in the operation like weakness in South America that American has bet heavily on. I’d paint a slightly different picture.
Free $600 Cell Phone Protection and 25,000 Bonus Miles: Today’s News You Need to Know
News and notes from around the interweb: Up to 25,000 bonus Cathay Pacific miles (HT: Frequent Flyer Bonuses) Wells Fargo will insure your phone up to $600 against damage or theft if you pay your monthly bill with one of their credit cards. Austin MegaDO schedule released I once wrote time management tips for part-time bloggers but these simple tips seem indispensable. Citibank launches two new Expedia co-brand cards. Unfortunately Expedia Rewards has become awful. Which is sad, because it didn’t used to be. But with multiple revamps in just its first two years, I don’t have a high level of confidence in the program going forward either. 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)…
