This morning I wrote about United publishing new, highly restrictive rules for how you can put together awards on flights to several destinations. One of the most generous things about United has been its routing rules, taken from the old Continental system. You could pretty much get between any two cities any way you wished, combining most flights on most airlines and crossing most regions. It’s “whatever the computer would price” and the computer’s pricing algorithms have been very messy. Sometimes it wouldn’t let you do something you thought you should. But those instances were rare. More often you could get a whole lot more than was reasonable. The pricing system always seemed to be hacked together, with workarounds. It used to be that if you booked an international business class award with a domestic…
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United May Be Making Another Huge STEALTH Devaluation: What You Need to Know
United already massively increased the number of points required for awards, especially premium cabin awards and especially on partner airlines, back in February. But the usefulness of miles is a function of: The cost of an award (award chart pricing) Availability Routing rules (what available flights can you take advantage of to get where you’re going) And United appears to be in the midst of a major stealth devaluation without any notice in the form of significantly restricting its routing rules.
How Will Thailand’s Military Coup Affect Your Travel?
Thailand has again seen a military coup. What does it mean for travelers? Thaksin Shinawatra served as Thai Prime Minister from 2001 until 2006 when he was ousted by a military coup. The country has seen a period of intense political turmoil over the past decade. Shinawatra is a populist who draws his political power from the North of the country, from the country’s poor. His rule threatened Thailand’s traditional elites based in Bangkok. Those traditional power structures, in control of the military at the time of Shinawatra’s ouster, struck back. Shinawatra was convicted on corruption charges and fled the country. When the military handed control of the government back to civilian hands, Shinawatra’s allies were placed back into office. There was a period of relative stability during military rule, but with Shinawatra’s allies back…
Forget First Class, Business Class Is What You Want, and It’s Available and Even Better Than You Think
My partner in booking frequent flyer awards for clients is Steve Belkin, known online as beaubo. He’s the legendary frequent flyer that became a labor broker and hired disabled rice farmers to travel in and out of the Golden Triangle region of Thailand, and hired New Zealand college students to travel to Europe — flying, earning top tier elite status, and assigning the benefits of that status to their ’employers’. He’s earned countless tens of millions of miles and flown all over the world for business and taken his family around the world as well. And he’s a strong advocate for business class as the best class of travel, with the best availability. That you want multiple seats for a family, and the most convenient schedule, rather than chasing better champagne and caviar inflight. Since…
The 10 Airline Frequent Flyer Programs That You Should Know About Now
Airlines devalue their miles. Your points will never be worth more in the future than they are today. You should earn miles, and then redeem them, ideally within the same ‘period’ or under the same award chart. That way you don’t get hurt by increasing award charts. Earn miles, redeem them, and then earn some more is a much better strategy for most people than saving up miles now for some future point in your life when you’ll take advantage of them. That said, I don’t worry too much about devaluations although I do not like them. And the ‘game’ or hobby is far from over. You just need to diversity. If all of your points were with United, and you like partner airline awards, then you are not a happy mileage earner. But if…
How to Book 4 Premium Cabin Seats — And How to Avoid Fuel Surcharges
ck asks Hi can you list which airlines fly London/new York and the best way to access them using points, and minimising the fuel surcharges? Eg fly united metal but use krisflyer points, or never use BA points for a BA flight. Also, which airlines release 4 seats in premium cabins. Thanks for the question, I’ve covered these things over time so let me pull some of it together. Last fall I did a series on the airlines routes that make 4 premium cabin award seats available: How to Find Business Class Award Seats for the Whole Family Book Award Travel For Your Whole Family to the Middle East and Indian Subcontinental Using Delta Skymiles American’s Fantastic First Class Availability to Asia for the Whole Family Fuel surcharges are the bane of any frequent flyer’s…
Forget Everything You’ve Read, These Are the 9 Best Airline First Class Products
Business Insider runs a piece on “10 First-Class Airplane Seats That Are Nicer Than Your Apartment” and it’s probably better than many of these pieces since it actually lists products that are mostly actually good (United and American do not make the list). On the other hand, it includes products that don’t exist yet — Etihad’s 3-room Residence which will debut in late December on the airline’s new A380, and Air France’s new La Premier cabin which features curtains instead of doors and doesn’t much impress me. And it does include products like British Airways’ which simply doesn’t belong, classy a cabin as though it may be. My own view is that it’s really hard to put together a list like this if you haven’t flown a lot of the products involved. And that the…
Should You Take Advantage of This 50,000 Point Bonus? Can You Get Expedited Immigration? And Should You Jump on Amex Daily Getaways? (Bits ‘n Pieces for May 16, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Lots of buzz that the 50,000 point Southwest Visa signup offer is back. It’s a very good offer, worth over $700 in airfare when redeeming for ‘Wanna Get Away’ fares. But it never did go away, Chase just hadn’t been marketing it. I’ve been writing with it regularly and including it on lists of best offers. The Miles Professor talks about how she uses Paypal to generate spending and miles and offers her perspective on how not to raise Paypal’s ire while doing so. Tons of digital ink spilled over American Express/US Travel Association Daily Getaways deals that come around once a year. I haven’t covered them because I haven’t seen any that have especially appealed (today for instance you can speculatively pre-purchase one night at a Super8…
Why Are US Airports So Bad?
A Hong Kong-based journalist emails to ask, “Why are US airports so bad?” The thing about US airports is they aren’t all bad. The most frequent experiences that non-US residents have are bad, but that’s mostly a function of Miami, New York JFK, and Los Angeles (the international terminal – egads – even with recent improvements). The airports that such folks see represent the worst of American aviation. Now, I actually like JFK’s terminal 7. It’s small and easy in/out. And terminal 8 is rather attractive. Much has been made of the massive revamp of the Delta terminal. But the airport itself remains a mess: there terminals aren’t connected at all airside, and in many cases you even need to go outside and cross a road to reach the interterminal train. You can’t even get…
The Best Airline and Hotel Mistake Deals — and What to Do When You Find One
Frequent flyer award tickets are one thing, you can get amazing value. But when airlines and hotels give away their product nearly for free, you can do even better — and usually without having to constrain yourself to dates that are available on points. here are some of the best deals that have come along, and what to do when they appear.
