Tyler Cowen points to this Financial Times piece (subscription required, or visit BugMeNot, or google the article’s headline and click through from Google to read the text). Singapore is worried about obesity, with 11% of the population considered obese under world standards compared to a 17% world average (which includes countries suffering from famine) and 35% in the U.S. Singapore plans to restrict advertising for “unhealthy” food and drink aimed at children, as countries across Asia grow increasingly concerned about obesity rates. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said “obesity rates are going up . . . with more fast foods and sedentary occupations” even as more Singaporeans are exercising and fewer are smoking. It seems odd that they’re focusing on advertising to children when it’s adult behavior identified as a key area of concern: Singapore has seen a rise…
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30% Bonus Coming on Transfers from Membership Rewards to British Airways
Last week the American Express Membership Rewards website was briefly showing a 30% transfer bonus that wasn’t going to go live for a month. What’s odd is that the Membership Rewards website never shows future bonuses, at least I haven’t seen it, so I assumed it was a glitch. And indeed the information was pulled off the site quickly. If you go to the page for the US American Express Membership Rewards program’s partnership with British Airways, no bonus appears. I was curious, so I got in touch with American Express. At first they were as perplexed as I was, but after a little bit of digging got back to let me know that indeed there would be a 30% transfer bonus coming down the pike. Specifically, the 30% bonus will start on December 3…
Markets in Everything: European Passports
Wild About Travel asks, “Ever gazed with envy on the European citizen lines at European aiporst while waitimg in line with a non-EU passport?” (sic) You may soon be able to obtain one, in exchange for an investing in European government bonds. The ruling party in Hungary has proposed offering citizenship to anyone willing to invest 250,000 euros in their government’s bonds. It’s one strategy for rolling over massive government debt, and it’s expected to appeal mostly to wealthy Chinese who would gain the ability to travel freely and live anywhere within the European Union. While this is not outright sale of citizenship, it’s ‘preferential treatment’ for foreign investors seeking to become Hungarian citizens, it has predictably brought near-universal ire from the rest of Europe. This initiative was met with criticism. A number of members…
Fly More Places for Fewer Miles: American’s Little-Known Distance-Based Frequent Flyer Awards
Last week I wrote about the best value awards that each US frequent flyer program has to offer, and I noted American’s distance-based awards, frequent flyer tickets that are priced based on the number of miles flown rather than by where you start and where you’re flying to. That chart has some real values, such as the ability to fly business class between the US and Europe for 90,000 miles roundtrip instead of the usual 100,000, the ability to pop around Europe with several extra flights thrown in for 115,000 miles in business class instead of 100,000 miles roundtrip plus another 20,000 miles for each and every additional intra-European flight, and the ability to fly to Australia in business class via Asia (not normally allowed on a single award ticket) for an extra 25,000 miles…
American Relaunching Itself as a Premium Airline… and the Challenges of Frontline Service Delivery
While the trend among US airlines has been to cut costs, American has done as much to make investments in their premium products as any US carrier — and has done so throughout their bankruptcy. Now, many of the investments will take several years to come to fruition. But there’s little question that they are working to position themselves as a top end premium carrier worthy of the corporate contracts (where they already have an advantage) and paid high yield traffic (where there’s less competition among US airlines). It’s even tough to keep up with all of the product improvements that have been announced over the past year or so. They’re putting brand new international seats into their aircraft: a new first class seat (which will ultimately be offered only on their 777-300s) and a…
American’s Problems Won’t Be Magically Solved By Merging With US Airways
Cranky Flier has a piece today where he answers a reader asking him whether he’s biased against American Airlines by basically saying no, he isn’t biased, American just does stupid things and needs a merger to save themselves. Go read the piece and decide whether a more correct, Straussian reading of his post is “Yes, I am biased against American.” He begins with a shout-out to American’s achievements in the 1980s: [T]hroughout the 1980s, American was a shining beacon of awesomeness. It had previously effectively invented the computerized reservation system. It was the first to really make a frequent flier program relevant. It perfected the hub and spoke system. And it successfully developed modern revenue management. He cites several big errors made at the same time — acquisitions and hubs that didn’t work out —…
Malaysia Airlines Joining Oneworld on February 1
I have an upcoming trip to Malaysia booked with American AAdvantage miles and have been holding off booking my domestic connecting flight, hoping that I could just add a segment on Malaysia Airlines at no cost (other than for incremental airport taxes). Sadly that isn’t to be. Malaysia Airlines was supposed to join in the second half of 2012. Now word is that their join date will be February 1, 2013. They will be a good addition. And as their oneworld admission approaches, there’s a good chance that their frequent flyer partnership with Delta could come to an end. I expect to much prefer the options provided by American for Malaysia redemption over those that featured in Delta’s Skymiles program — specifically Delta didn’t permit first class redemption and added fuel surcharges to awards on…
Up to 15,000 Bonus United Miles for Transferring Hotel Points
Through November 30 United is offering up to 15,000 bonus miles for transfers of hotel points into miles. The amount of the bonus varies by the number of miles transferred it, at exactly 50,000 miles the bonus is at its biggest — 30%. Transfers of hotel points into 5000 – 9999 miles will earn 1,000 bonus miles Transfers of 10,000 – 19,999 miles will earn 2500 bonus miles Transfers of 20,000 – 49,999 miles will earn 5000 bonus miles Transfers of 50,000 miles or more will earn 15,000 bonus miles Eligible hotel transfer partners are Starwood, Wyndham, Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, Hilton, and Club Carlson. They’ll total all of the hotel points transferred by November 30 to determine the number of bonus miles you’ll receive, the total doesn’t all need to come in one transfer…
7500 Bonus Club Carlson Points on 3-Day Avis Rentals through December 31, 2013
Avis has been running an offer of 9000 bonus Club Carlson points with a 3-day rental, most recently extended through October 31, 2012. That offer, at the same link as before has been reduced to 7500 bonus points but extended through December 31, 2012. Now through December 31, 2013, Club Carlson members can earn 7,500 total Gold Points on qualifying rentals of 3 days or more at participating locations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. You need to enter coupon code MUHA018 when making the reservation and provide your Club Carlson account number. There are some blackout dates for this offer when renting outside of North America, oddly enough the specific dates aren’t specified for Asia. And there’s no list of…
Alitalia Tickets to Be Honored: $315 Discount Will Stand For All Tickets that Cost at Least a Penny
Over the weekend I wrote about a discount of ~ $315 that could be applied to any Alitalia tickets as long as the bookings were made on Alitalia’s Japanese website. Plenty of folks booked cheap US-Europe (and Europe-Asia) tickets with this discount. Some booked tickets inside Europe that were literally free, because they would have cost $315 or less to begin with. I wrote at the time that I couldn’t imagine that US-Europe tickets issued under this deal wouldn’t be honored, but that I wasn’t so sure what would happen to the European tickets. Alitalia pushed back and initiated cancellation of all tickets, claiming that the discount was only meant for flights originating in Japan and that their anti-fraud measures prevented the bookings by folks accessing the website from our regions of the world. A…
