Scott McCartney offers a lot of bad advice in the Wall Street Journal about the value of miles and what to expect from them. Seth does a good job pointing out the flaws. McCartney looks only at the websites of the airlines whose miles he’s trying to use (the Delta website is broken, the US Airways website doesn’t offer partner award options at all), the routes he’s searching with the miles he’s using aren’t really generalizable to mileage programs as a whole, and the conclusions he draws about the value of miles are erroneous (you shouldn’t just expect a penny a point in value from them). However, through my award booking service I have come across a large number of folks who approach things just the way that Scott does and that’s why they come…
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American Will Start Adding Fuel Surcharges to Iberia Awards Beginning March 1
JonNYC at TravelingBetter.com posted that effective March 1, American AAdvantage will begin adding (modest) fuel surcharges to awards booked on their oneworld partner Iberia. The YQ fuel surcharge amount is based on the market and varies from 7.50 Euros up to 30 Euros. Fuel surcharges are often $400+ so the amounts here aren’t bad, but it is a worry to see a US airline mileage program extending the practice of hitting members with fuel surcharges on ‘free’ frequent flyer award tickets. Two weeks ago I wrote an extensive explanation of fuel surcharges added to award tickets. Basically, programs outside of North America have charged them for awhile (though SAS EuroBonus actually stopped the practice a couple of years ago). Aeroplan was charging them only on Air Canada flights until a few months back, and now…
Why I Don’t Trust Hotel Discounter Jetsetter.com
There are several hotel consolidators and discount sites that promise deals, Their offers are frequently limited, sometimes the deals are good and frequently they aren’t, but they all try to distinguish themselves in one way or another. Back in October, SniqueAway offered me a site credit if I would promote their product by giving away some credit to me readers. I asked them if I could give away the credit they were offering to readers and the credit they were offering to me, so that’s what I did. Also in October, TripAlertz was offering $10 for every person you got to sign up their email address using your link. I said at the time that was too generous, and it clearly was, they reduced the amount of their offer quickly and then twice in quick…
Sheraton Club Room Discount with Bonus Starpoints
Hotel ‘special offer’ rates can be frustrating, the best offers are usually corporate discounts that not everyone is eligible for and will sometimes though not always be verified by the hotel, you can often search for corporate codes online and in the U.S. at least they’ll generally be honored without pushback though in Asia hotels will often ask for corporate identification (such as a business card) to verify eligibility for company rates. A revenue manager for a major chain in a major U.S. city once told me that he specifically instructed his hotels to ID the IBM rate since that rate was so low, but other than that I’ve rarely seen U.S. hotels check eligibility. Still, there are plenty of rates out there that most people can use. Costco rates on rental cars are often…
Giving Yourself Plenty of Time to Make It To Your International Gateway City
A new blog with promise, Heels First Travel, describes using a Starwood award night for a day room by the Charlotte airport during a 6 hour layover. I’m a fan of this exact thing, back in August during some terrible storms my flight back home from Florida was cancelled and US Airways was offering me travel only two days later. I finally constructed a three-segment 12 hour travel day that included several hours in Raleigh, rather than killing time at the airport I grabbed a few hours at the Four Points and was far more comfortable. Heels First created the long layover to start an international award ticket. Sometimes you want to get to your international gateway city with plenty of space to cover for delays and cancellations, if you miss that international flight it…
Reader Question: Fuel Surcharges
Caraline writes: BRITISH Air charged me just this week over 400.00 in fuel charges for an American Air flight from Boston to Paris. My friend who booked the same flight on American did not have a fuel surcharge. We both used our frequent flier miles. Something is wrong. What can be done. I wanted to be on same flight as friend so I booked it. BA said no fuel charges on domestic flights or flights to far east. I used 45000 miles and still had to pay 601.00 in total. My friend only had to pay 87.00 On domestic awards inside the U.S., frequent flyer programs like American’s and United’s will only charge you the $2.50 per segment (not to exceed $10 roundtrip) “September 11th Security Fee.” Until 10 years ago domestic awards really were…
Best Deals Around the Blogs for January 24, 2012
One Mile at a Time tells you how to get a 20% off coupon code for Virgin America. Mommy Points has a roundtip of the best mileage offers for flower purchases, it’s almost Valentine’s Day fellas! And there’s 40 Delta miles per dollar from 1-800-Flowers and 30 United miles per dollar with FTD. At 40 miles per dollar you’re basically buying miles and getting flowers for free (though delivery charges don’t earn miles, so the deal isn’t ever quite as good on a straight mileage purchase as it initially seems, but it’s still a good deal since you do also get flowers…). Yesterday Frugal Travel Guy pointed out that JetSetter is offering some deep discounts on the Peninsula New York. I actually emailed Lucky from the One Mile at a Time blog on Sunday saying…
Priority Club to Improve Points Earning at Intercontinental Hotel Properties in North America
New Girl in the Air reports that starting February 15, Priority Club is changing its points earning structure for Intercontinental Hotel properties in North America — offering 10 points per dollar (like at Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels) rather than the current fixed 2000 points per stay. Folks currently spending less than $200 on a stay at an Intercontinental (which is certainly possible for a night in Cleveland or Tampa for instance!) will earn a bit fewer points. But the pricier Intercontinental properties, and those with longer stays, will certainly earn more points. The change doesn’t apply in Europe or Asia Pacific, just North America. And it doesn’t apply to Affiliate Resorts (Venetian). While this is a positive change — it’s always been strange that Priority Club has been so tight-fisted with points at…
American Miles Becoming Increasing Valuable for Aspirational First Class Award Redemptions, While Star Alliance Programs Become Harder to Use
If you want business class all over the world, it’s hard to beat Star Alliance (although American miles, and oneworld, have Star beat for North America to South America by a wide margin – great availability on both American and on LAN). But if you want first class awards, departing from North America, Star (e.g. United/Continental and US Airways) has really fallen down several notches while American Airlines miles have gotten more useful. Star Alliance used to be my go to, all over the world, but recently it’s been much much more difficult to get first class awards departing the U.S.: Singapore Airlines used to be hard, but possible, usually just for a single seat at a time. Now that they no longer serve any U.S. routes with the old first class on the 747,…
How to Use Hidden City and Throwaway Ticketing to Save Money on Airfare
Airlines often price tickets from one city to another through a hub cheaper than flights that terminate at the hub. That’s because there may be more competition between the two cities that are cheaper. And this presents an opportunity called “hidden city ticketing” — you buy the flight to the cheaper destination, connecting where you really want to go, and just get off the plane at your ‘true’ arrival point. (Throwing away the final segment, throwaway ticketing.) For those who think I’m somehow breaking secret ground here, the post was actually inspired by a recent useful thread on Milepoint and even further I’d note that Nate Silver wrote this up in some detail in the New York Times back in May. Here’s Silver’s explanation: Passengers flying to or from airports that are dominated by a…
