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…
ASIA
Search Results for "ASIA".
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)…
Being Bad By Doing Good: How An Airline Can Be TOO On-Time
I’ve heard American Airlines CEO Doug Parker say that the most important thing, and almost the only thing, that matters for an airline is to run a safe on-time operation. US Airways has a tendency to start boarding early, and over the past six weeks or so I’ve noticed that American has started to do the same thing. I’ll show up at the gate 30 minutes out and they will already have started the boarding process. My flight this morning boarded a few minutes early. Boarding was complete more than 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure. And we pushed back early. That’s awesome, right? Not really, at least to me. I want an airline to run on its schedule, to do what it says it is going to do, to be predictable — not to…
Buying Your Airline Tickets Outside the U.S. to Save Money
Reader Andy G. passes along this article that talks about how you can ‘buy airline tickets international’ — getting the best deal on airfare based on the country in which tickets are purchased. I think it overstates the case a bit (“once I was in Bangkok, that same flight that was once $300 would fall to $30 almost inexplicably”), but it’s worth understanding what ‘point of sale’ means for airfare purchases. It’s often cheaper to buy tickets “in-country” in South America and in Asia than it is to buy those same tickets abroad. The same phenomenon is true for buying train tickets in Europe versus online in English.
SPG Pro: Starwood’s New Points and Status Earning for Meetings, Agents, and Company Travel Assistants
I spoke with Chris Holdren and with Krystal Zell from Starwood Preferred Guest yesterday about a new initiative they’re rolling out: SPG Pro. This program continues the high level activity we’ve seen from Starwood over the past two and a half years since they: Introduced a new slate of elite benefits like Suite Night Awards, 24 hour check-in, breakfast, more bonus points, and free internet for Golds — plus lifetime elite status. Joined forces with Delta to offer each others’ elites more points and upgrades Partnered with Caesars in Las Vegas to offer reciprocal points-earning (plus limited elite qualifying night earning) Chris opened by saying he wanted to prove me to I was wrong about a blog post I wrote five weeks ago.
