Traditionally US frequent flyer programs offered to let members book any seat on any flight for twice the miles. That way if there wasn’t any “saver” award inventory, it would still be possible to use your miles. Now it wasn’t always precisely twice the miles. Sometimes it was less than double! Up until October 2006 United Airlines Mileage Plus offered awards from North America to Australia in business class at 90,000 miles roundtrip at the saver level — or 150,000 miles for what they called “standard” or rule-buster style awards where you could have any empty seat instead of constraining yourself to award space. At the time that award struck me as one of the best in the world. Delta and Northwest at the time both charged 150,000 miles for their capacity controlled awards to…
ASIA
Search Results for "ASIA".
How Do United’s New Award Charts Stack Up Against American and Delta?
With all of the furor over United’s massive award chart changes, I thought it would be useful to put together some context and compare United’s new February 1-onward award charts against the offerings of their two major competitors in the U.S., American and Delta. (I exclude US Airways because it’s a smaller carrier and still may merge with American.) I’ve put travel between North America and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific side-by-side to have a look at United’s new award charts (for both United flights and flights on United’s partners) against the award charts of American AAdvantage and of Delta Skymiles as it applies to travel June 1 onward. Each airline has a slightly different definition of which countries are in which ‘zones’ but this is a pretty fair comparison of…
Play the Star Alliance Gold Game for a Chance to Win Elite Status
Star Alliance is running a game where you compete to test your knowledge of alliance elite benefits and answer questions quickly, with the prize being Star Alliance Gold-equivalent status in your preferred participating frequent flyer program. You have to answer questions like which frequent flyer card and program name corresponds to a given airline (e.g. “Sheba Miles” is Ethiopian Airlines) and also watch a video of someone going into a lounge and eating snacks, and identify which complimentary drink they had. The game runs through December 13, but you’re only supposed to enter once. The two people with the quickest times selecting each program will be awarded Gold status in that program. As such, it seems to me that there will be less competition to win status in more obscure programs. And that’s great because…
United Didn’t Just Change their Award Prices, They Changed Upgrades Too
Friday’s award chart changes at United were biggest for redemption of awards on their partners and especially for first class awards. Coach awards, and most awards in North and South America, saw modest changes. USA Today quoted me describing the crux of the changes: Frequent-flier expert Gary Leff described the changes as “really nasty,” adding in his View from the Wing blog that “the biggest bloodbath is to first class partner award pricing.” When the changes first came out they were myriad. I focused primarily on the way they added a new, separate award chart for redeeming miles (more expensively) on their airline partners as opposed to on United flights. While partner awards do cost MileagePlus more than awards on United flights, it still surprises me that they would charge more for award seats even…
United’s Frequent Flyer Award Prices are Going Up, Up, Up. Redeem Now (for Premium Cabin Partner Travel Outside the Americas).
United devaluation: I woke up this morning to an announcement of some really nasty changes to the United MileagePlus award chart. These changes don’t go into effect until February 1, so you will want to issue tickets you may be considering before then (and not make changes to tickets after that). What United has done is Announced an increase in the price of many of its awards Bifurcated its award chart so that partner awards will often cost a whole lot more than awards on United’s own flights There aren’t actually very many changes to awards in North and South America. There aren’t very many changes to awards in coach. The biggest bloodbath is to first class partner award pricing. Here are .pdfs of the current chart and the new chart. But to make it…
Is the American Express Centurion Lounge in Dallas the Best Airport Lounge in the United States?
American Express opened its second U.S. Centurion airport lounge this month. Dallas Fort Worth is the second location after Las Vegas. There are more lounges to come, including San Francisco. I visited the Dallas facility on a recent connection, and absolutely loved it. It’s the best U.S. airport lounge I have been to. I would make the claim that it’s the best U.S. airport lounge, period, but I haven’t been to the Amex lounge in Las Vegas and I haven’t been to the Virgin Clubhouses at New York JFK or San Francisco (I’ve been to the Virgin lounge at Washington Dulles). I can say that it’s a better facility than the United Global First lounge in San Francisco (generally regarded as United’s best) and the American Airlines Flagship lounges in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New…
How to Avoid Jetlag and Get the Most Out of Your Trip
When readers shared their own travel tips and several really stood out as worth highlighting. Kerry said, One of my travel rules is “always go into town the first night.” If you’ve been traveling all day, it is very tempting to just hang out at the hotel and go to bed early, but I made that rule after I found out the next morning that I had missed the annual summer fest at a little town on the coast of France. I have scored standing room at La Scala, the Munich Opera (Aida!) and a box seat at the Folk Opera in Madrid, by pushing on and checking out what was going on in town that first night. I see this as a jetlag tip more than anything else. My first international travel as a…
What’s in My Laptop Bag?
When readers shared their own travel tips and several really stood out as worth highlighting. Erndog said, Invest in a ‘power brick’, something to keep your phone and/or tablet charged,while traveling. For an iPad, be sure it has at least 2 amp output Fortunately most of the planes I’m on have seat power, and even standard outlet plugs — my Empower adapter died after many years and it’s an outdated enough technology I didn’t want to replace it. Flying American’s older planes without power isn’t the only time I need extra juice. I do get a solid four hours of battery even watching movies and while online with inflight internet. There will be plenty of MacBook Air fans in the comments probably singing that machine’s praises for battery life, but it’s not a viable solution…
Travel Tip: Why Paper Still Matters in an Electronic Age
When readers shared their own travel tips and several really stood out as worth highlighting. Harlan V. said, When traveling abroad, always PRINT OUT your ticket information. I got stuck in a place where I didn’t speak the local language and needed proof of an onward journey. While I couldn’t TELL them, I definitely could whip out my travel info and SHOW them that I would be leaving the airport soon. This has saved me a few times! There are many times it helps to have a printed e-ticket itinerary, and even a printed boarding pass. An itinerary can be helpful: Getting into the airport Many airports in Asia — such as Male and Manila — will have security checking for itineraries on the way into the terminal. Showing your onward travel plans at immigration.…
Bits ‘n Pieces for October 26, 2013
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: How to get more luxury out of your vacation without spending a lot: Part 6 of 6 Really good post about customer service China Southern’s newly-announced route between New York JFK and Guangzhou, China will be a useful options for redeeming Delta Skymiles in business class to Asia. Hopefully award availability will be as good as it is on their Los Angeles flight (which isn’t as good as it used to be, and the New York route will be operated by a smaller aircraft, but this is still a welcome addition). Air Canada Aeroplan’s online shopping portal isn’t usually the most rewarding, but through October 28 they’re offering 5 points per dollar. You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign…
