Pakistani Correspondent continues her guest post describing the experience flying Saudia business class, which she redeemed using American Express Membership Rewards points transferred to Delta. Here’s her previous installment: New York JFK – Jeddah And now P.C. continues with the Saudia lounge in Jeddah and arriving in Lahore, Pakistan. Welcome to King AbdulAziz International Airport, Jeddah. The airport is fairly small but the signs for the Saudia lounge were misleading. Also, as an unacompanied female, I was not allowed to remain in transit for more than 18 hours but this wouldn’t be a problem because my onward flight was supposed to leave long before that. Eventually, I found the lounge on my own because no one wanted to talk to me and kept redirecting me to talk to someone else, or asked if I was…
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Using Elite Security Lines When You Aren’t Entitled to Do So
When readers shared their own travel tips and several really stood out as worth highlighting. This one simply amused me, I’ll explain why in a minute. Jacob said, If you don’t have status flash expired airline status cards at security to go through elite lane It brought back memories of perhaps the most controversial travel-related blog post I’ve ever seen, when Million Mile Secrets wrote about how to fake an entitlement to priority security lines. In the US, I’ve been able to go through the airport elite status line just by showing a card – sometimes a regular frequent flyer card which I got for free just by signing up for a program – to the agent manning the shorter elite lines!… Sometimes it is just a regular frequent flyer card for an obscure foreign…
Saudia Business Class Trip Report: Award Availability (Delta Miles!) is Amazing, But Should You Fly It?
I’ve written about how easy it is to find award availability on Saudia using Delta miles. I’ve even walked through making a booking on Saudia live, in front of hundreds of people. There’s a reasonable question that comes up, objection even, Saudia? What is that like to fly? A co-worker flew Saudia on miles — the fruits of her signup bonus for an American Express Platinum card and a small amount of additional spending — and I asked her to share her experience. The trip was to Lahore, Pakistan to visit her family — departing from New York, and returning to Washington DC. She prefers to remain anonymous, but she provided a great trip report that I think is a fascinating window into an airline that isn’t frequently written about. We’ll call her my Pakistani…
American Launching Dallas-Hong Kong and Shanghai, Nixing JFK-Tokyo, and Updating Old Planes with New Seats
American has come out with a bunch of announcements today, exciting news under the rubric of new routes and a timeline for new seats. I had the chance to talk to American’s Vice Presdent of Network Planning Chuck Schubert about the moves. American is launching two new routes from Dallas to Asia: Hong Kong and Shanghai. They’re applying for authority for daily flights to each, and flight times may ultimately change. Dallas – Shanghai, operated by a Boeing 777-200 10:55am Depart Dallas Fort Worth – Arrive Shanghai 2:55pm +1 4:55pm Depart Shanghai – Arrive Dallas Fort Worth 6:15pm Dallas – Hong Kong, operated by a Boeing 777-300ER 12:40pm Depart Dallas Fort Worth – -Arrive Hong Kong 6:00pm +1 1:30pm Depart Hong Kong – Arrive Dallas Fort Worth 4:30pm The launch date for both services is…
Bits ‘n Pieces for October 15, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Which Hotel Loyalty Program is Best and Why? My piece over at Conde’ Nast Traveler. Younger business travelers are more likely to splurge with their company’s money than they would with their own. Older workers are much less likely to do so. (HT: uggboy on Milepoint) Several months ago I put together a primer on American Express financial reviews. Dan’s Deals what sorts of activities he sees as flags for banks generally to cause them to take a closer look at your accounts. Wandering Aramean says that United is now allowing only three connections (four flights) on one-way awards between the US and Australia/New Zealand and no longer just between the US and Asia via Europe. A United website glitch was letting people book award tickets without miles…
JetBlue Introduces Family Pooling of Miles – A Great Option, But They’re Not First
Some frequent flyer programs allow ‘ppoling’ of points within a family, everyone flies and then a family member uses everyone’s points for a reward. Others offer family accounts on the theory that the points belong to the head of household. Family pooling is not uncommon with Middle East programs. Still others want to reward the decision-maker in travel, Southwest Airlines was one of the first ones with this idea with their ‘Secretaries Program’ in the 1970s where administrative assistants could earn free travel by steering their bosses to fly Southwest. (Another tactic in the 70s was rebating take-home alcohol to passengers buying pricier tickets, when the Civil Aeronautics Board began ‘experimenting’ with price competition and national carriers were permitted to undercut Southwest fares.) JetBlue has taken a step that’s a first for any North American…
Getting Started in Miles and Points With the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
I gave just a few people in my office one-on-one consultations about getting started in miles and points. I’ve also helped several of those people book award tickets with their points. Usually the first actionable thing my co-workers take away from those conversations is to sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. I tell folks that they want to start with understanding their reward goals — that both motivates them and helps them pick the right program to earn points in. For most goals, though, Chase Ultimate Rewards points are the best place to start. And to track their points, using a site like Award Wallet. What’s interesting is that once people get this advice, get the card, and use the points the advice seems to spread like wildfire. How did you do that?…
When to Take Advantage of United’s 25% Discount on Purchased Miles
United is offering a 25% discount on purchased miles through December 31. The miles do not post instantly, they warn posting can take up to 48 hours though they usually post a bit faster than that. The minimum purchase is 2000 miles and an account can purchase up to 100,000 miles per year. The only time this makes any sense is when you have almost enough United miles in an account for an award and need to top off that account (and do not have other, more cost effective ways of doing it). The deal in effect offers miles for purchase ~ 2.8 cents apiece. That’s still expensive. United miles are about the most valuable single airline currency out there because of the amazing award availability offered through Star Alliance (best from North American to…
Why We Must Shout About Delta’s Miles Problems From the Rooftops!
In response to a post I wrote about devaluing elite benefits in the BalticMiles program of Latvian-based airline Air Baltic, Gene wrote, Maybe you can spend your time bashing them instead of Delta now. My criticisms of Delta are, I think, fair. Delta is a well-run airline, and has a frequent flyer program that offers much less value than those of American, United, and US Airways (and offers a worse redemption program in my opinion than Avianca Lifemiles, Singapore Airlines Krisflyer, Air Canada Aeroplan, and many many more around the world but that’s not important right now). I coined the term ‘Skypesos’ for their currency because Delta miles don’t go as far as many other major currencies. They’re harder to use. They don’t permit one-way awards for half the cost of roundtrip (neither does US…
Qatar Waits Weeks, Won’t Honor Mistake Fare, Fibs About its Cause
I’ve always said I have no moral qualms taking advantage of ‘mistake fares’. If an airline publishes a far of, say, $28 to Paris and decides to honor it — if some people are going to get to go to Europe at a very very low price — then I would like to be one of those people. I don’t generally complain when such deals aren’t honored, and to me that’s a relevant moral difference. I don’t want to miss out, but I also don’t feel like there’s a moral claim against the travel provider either. “I’m going to sue” doesn’t really enter my thoughts. However, I do think that travel providers owe a certain clarity and expediency in communicating about the deal and how they intend to handle it. If it’s a mistake and…
