Goodness knows I’m not a fan of British Airways Avios. I like my mileage redemptions long haul and in premium cabins. There used to be some fantastic values in the British Airways program for that — such as Cathay Pacific from the US to Asia in business class for 100,000 points with stopovers permitted. Sadly, since November 2011, no longer. But there are great strategic uses for the points and they generally center around shorter flights (since British Airways award tickets are priced based on distance), non-stop (since British Airways charges separately for each flight segment), and coach (since the program charges a full double miles for business class and triple miles for first — and US domestic front cabin is triple miles for “first”). You can still work the award chart to your advantage…
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Business Class Fare on Qatar Airways: 7300 Miles for $250
Last week when it erroneously appeared that American Airlines was going to start adding fuel surcharges onto all international award tickets, and that there might just be a short window to make bookings before the change was fully implemented, I hurriedly grabbed a first class award on Cathay Pacific with onward business class segments to Cambodia and Vietnam. It turned out the whole scare was a false alarm. but I did have an award ticket to play with an I started to ponder what I might do in Southeast Asia. I was looking at airfares between Cambodia and Vietnam and found that Qatar Airways had a ‘tag flight’ between Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I’ve never flown Qatar, so I was interested. And it’s a really short flight — just 132…
American Miles Can Now Be Used for TAM Flights, and Royal Jordanian Awards Can Be Booked Online
American Airlines miles can now be redeemed for travel on Brazilian airline TAM oneworld airline LAN merged with Brazil-based Star Alliance airline TAM, and there was initially speculation about which alliance the combined carrier would wind up with (or wondering whether the standalone entities, owned by the same holding company, could remain in separate alliances). It became fairly clear or at least likely early on that the winner would be oneworld, which is already the strongest alliance between North and South America for scoring award availability. And one more move in that direction, though TAM remains in Star, is that American AAdvantage introduced a relationship with TAM — first for accruing American miles by flying on TAM, and now the ability to redeem American miles for travel on TAM. TAM flies from New York JFK,…
Hyatt’s Stay Certificate Devaluation Really Wasn’t Personal
I’ve written in the past about getting significant savings on hotels by buying Hyatt stay certificates. For years Hyatt would let you reserve a hotel and then buy a certificate to cover that reservation at far less than the hotel’s published rate. Those stays would not earn points or elite credit, but Hyatt did honor elite benefits when using the certificates. This was one of the great loopholes in travel. I noted last week that several Hyatt hotels appeared to have been removed from participation in the stay certificate program. Many other hotels went up ion category, such that the certificates required for a given property were now more expensive. Changes were apparently rolled out on August 28th. I reached out to the person that runs Hyatt’s gift card program to get a better understanding…
All Mommy Miles and Points Bloggers Need to Start Flying Etihad, Stat!
Etihad has introduced onboard nanny services. We are delighted to announce the introduction of our Flying Nanny on all long-haul flights, a dedicated childcare assistance programme offered onboard and on the ground to provide families with an extra helping hand when travelling with children. All Etihad Flying Nannies are cabin crew members who have received additional training from Norland College, the world leader in training childcare professionals. Our Flying Nanny, dressed in a distinguishable bright orange apron, will: Begin assisting you right from the boarding gate, all the way until you and your family are comfortably seated on the plane Help onboard with the preparation of bassinets for babies Look after unaccompanied minors Keep children entertained while you’re enjoying a nap, in-flight meal or entertainment Now with our Flying Nanny onboard, you can rest assured…
Seat Assignments are Harder to Get Than First Class Awards on Cathay Pacific — But Here’s How to Solve That
Cathay Pacific Award Availability Can Be Fantastic – Far in Advance and Last Minute Cathay Pacific offers one of the world’s best inflight products. It probably has the very best business class (though with similar seats, pre-order meal options, and Dom Perignon champagne perhaps EVA Air gives them a run for the money — I have not personally flown EVA). And it has one of the very best first class products, too. But most of all it has one of the very best products that you can pretty easily redeem for, since award availability is generally quite good. Cathay Pacific flies from several North American gateways to Hong Kong: New York JFK, Newark, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Vancouver. Award availability on Cathay Pacific is generally fantastic far in advance — when schedules…
Singapore Airlines Long Haul First Class Offers Great Service, Great Meals, Poor Snacks and Uncomfortable Seats
Singapore Airlines first class is perhaps the most aspirational airline product in existence. It’s rarely available to Singapore’s mileage partners like United and Air Canada, but availability is quite good for Singapore’s own Krisflyer members. That’s lucky because Singapore Airlines Krisflyer is a transfer partner of both the US American Express Membership Rewards program and of Starwood Preferred Guest. As are result many people have access to Singapore miles and don’t even realize it. (At the beginning of July 2012 Singapore award availability was opened up briefly to all of their partners, and I made several bookings at that time.) Singapore’s award chart isn’t cheap, and they do add fuel surcharges on awards. But you get a 15% mileage discount when booking on their (only semi-functional) website, and you get.. Singapore Airlines first class. Sure,…
Is American AAdvantage Adding Fuel Surcharges to All International Awards?
Lucky wrote a disturbing post this morning suggesting that American was going to start collecting fuel surcharges on all international awards. If correct, this is a very big deal. What are fuel surcharges? First of all, understand what “fuel surcharges” are. They’re generally a fixed amount of money added to a fare. The amount will usually be the same across all fares for a given city pair. In other words, all “New York – London” fares that an airline publishes will add the same amount for fuel surcharge. There are some exceptions to this. An airline may file a different fuel surcharge amount for premium cabins (so a business class ticket might have a higher fuel surcharge than a coach one). And it is possible to file discounted fares that do not incur fuel surcharges…
Bits ‘n Pieces for August 26, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Don’t make a booking with PointsHound… until tomorrow. A little birdie tells me that Tuesday mid-day PointsHound will be launching a “double earning promotion” such that a reservation that would normally earn 3000 miles will instead earn 6000 miles. The promotion will run for bookings made through August 31. I mentioned on Friday that the list of IHG Rewards hotels participating in PointBreaks was out, so you could see which hotels would be bookable for just 5000 points per night. Booking is now available online for stays through October 31. Star Alliance member EVA Airways is bringing a Hello Kitty 777-300ER to its Taipei – Los Angeles route. With 3 daily Los Angeles roundtrips, we do not yet know which flight will get this aircraft. But the very…
Singapore Airlines First Class Passengers Can’t Use the Bathroom in Hong Kong
Singapore Airlines does an outstanding job in the air (though service is usually phenomenal long haul it does vary and can be quite mixed flying short haul). Their food is very good as well. But Singapore Airlines does not match the quality of its inflight product with its ground services. Even most of its lounges in Singapore are just ‘fine’. Lounges outside of Singapore? Not nearly so impressive. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Hong Kong. Singapore Airlines has a fairly large presence in Hong Kong with 7 daily roundtrips between Hong Kong and Singapore. One of their flights heads onward to San Francisco. San Francisco – Hong Kong – Singapore and return flights are dubbed SQ1 and SQ2. This flight has seasonally been served by an A380 with ‘Suites class’. And yet… the…
