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Continental Increases Pricing for Unrestricted Awards

by Gary Leff on January 16, 2006

Jan 16 2006

Continental posted several changes to their frequent flyer program today: You can now receive your BusinessFirst upgrade rewards until 24 hours prior to your scheduled departure. Previously, 72 hours were required. Effective February 1, 2006, you may redeem reward travel within the 48 contiguous U.S., Alaska and Canada on round-trip flights of 1,500 miles or less for only 20,000 miles. Effective April 1, 2006, some Easy Pass BusinessFirst reward mileage requirements will change: Routes between: Miles requiredbefore 4/1/06 Miles required4/1/06 and after N. America and Asia 240,000 250,000 N. America and Europe 200,000 250,000 N.Amer & India/Africa/Mideast 240,000 250,000 N. America and Tel Aviv 200,000 250,000 Hawaii and Europe 220,000 270,000 Hawaii and Tel Aviv 220,000 270,000 Asia or Europe & S. Amer. 240,000 280,000 The introduction of 20,000 miles for flights under 1500…

Travel & Leisure Readers on Crack

by Gary Leff on December 29, 2005

I love ‘best of the best’ hotel lists, and this year’s Travel & Leisure‘s 500 best hotels around the world — as voted on by readers of the magazine — is no exception. (Hat tip HotelChatter.) This one, I love to hate. While there are lots of wonderful properties on the list, the rankings are truly bizarre. If you believe this list, there are more top luxury hotels in the United States than in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Carribean, Australia, New Zealand (and the rest of the South Pacific) combined. This has to be a function of the limited travel experience of T&L readers. Some of the stranger U.S. listings: The St. Regis isn’t the best hotel in Manhattan. And the Pierre isn’t better than the Ritz-Carlton Central Park, the Peninsula, and the Mandarin…

Travel & Leisure Readers on Crack

by Gary Leff on December 29, 2005

Travel & Leisure Readers on Crack

by Gary Leff on December 29, 2005

Massive SAS Award Discount TODAY ONLY

by Gary Leff on December 24, 2005

Some 80,000 mile awards between Europe and Asia are on sale today for 25,000 miles. We wish you all dear members a Merry Christmas and to celebrate we’ve got a super offer for you today on bonus flights with SAS between Scandinavia and Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo. The deal is out there and are going quickly, valid only if you book today! … Rules and conditions for our Christmas offer • Only bookable today 00.00CET until 23.59CET, December 24, 2005. • Travel between January 1 – 31, 2006 • Children receive the same discount 25 000 points • Only available in Economy and the number of seats available is limited • Only SAS operated flights and on new reservations only • You can book this offer online and we will reward you with 500 Extra…

Wall Street Journal: Mouthpiece for Labor?

by Gary Leff on October 27, 2005

As part of Northwest’s bankruptcy, they’re trying to reduce labor costs. This creates strained relations with their unions. So far, so good. But to borrow Brad DeLong’s phrase, “why oh why can’t we have a better press corp?” This Susan Carey piece (originally in the Wall Street Journal offers a rather odd definition of outsourcing: Those intra-Asia flights are mostly staffed by nearly 700 Asian attendants from bases in Japan, China, South Korea, the Philippines and other countries. They operate under different pay and work rules but have language skills for Asian destinations as well as English. The current union contract allows this limited but longstanding outsourcing. (Emphasis mine.) According to Susan Carey (and the PR voice of the Northwest flight attendants union), staffing planes flying within Asia with flight attendants from Asia is outsourcing?…

Why not hire two caterers?

by Gary Leff on August 25, 2005

One area of aviation that I’m not too familiar with is the process of airline catering. In light of the catering strike at Heathrow that crippled British Airways, Lynne Kiesling asks why airlines don’t hire multiple caterers. If the pricing/reliability benefits outweigh the economies of scale, they should be willing to hire different caterers. They can have them specialize in different terminals, or hire one caterer to do meals for flights to Asia, one for Middle East, one for Europe and US, etc. Then, even if you are still facing a duopoly, at least you contract with both of them and you increase your probability of getting a Bertrand outcome. Either I’m missing something, or they’re not thinking very strategically. Which is it? Maybe someone who knows more about airline catering than I do can…

The End of eBay Anything Points

by Gary Leff on July 18, 2005

Jul 18 2005

eBay Anything Points is being phased out. eBay is discontinuing a 2-year-old incentive program for sellers and partners in the United States, the company announced on Monday. eBay Anything Points, which operates like a “frequent flyer” program to stimulate customer loyalty, will be phased out by Feb. 28, the company said. Points earned under the program will be honored through August 2006. …eBay will prevent sellers from offering the incentive points on new listings starting Aug. 15. eBay said it would, on Sept. 30, remove remaining points from listings still offering them. The Anything Points program on eBay Canada will continue. This is very disappointing news for me. Other than signing up for some free trial offers a year ago, I only used this on my Priceline bids. But the value proposition was compelling —…

Bonus Miles for Flying US-Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific

by Gary Leff on June 25, 2005

Jun 25 2005

You can earn triple Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles (August 1 – September 30) when flying from LA or San Francisco to Hong Kong on first, business, or qualifying (Y, B, H, K, L, M, V) coach fares. You could also choose to earn double American AAdvantage miles through August 31 on these flights, but only when flying first or business class (“I” business fares are not eligible for the AA offer). Personally I’d opt for the AsiaMiles, both because coach fares are eligible and because AsiaMiles are hugely valuable — they allow upgrade redemption on Cathay, American, and British Airways and 60,000 AsiaMiles gets you a business class award on BA from the US East Coast to most destinations in Europe (it would take 100,000 BA miles).

In Sydney

by Gary Leff on June 21, 2005

Jun 21 2005

In Sydney We stopped by the Sydney Fish Market on the way to my family’s place from the airport to pick up dinner, then Thursday went to the Taronga Zoo (let me know if anyone wants pictures, for the moment I’ll just share this sign which particularly amused me). Then lunch on the water and back to change for the evening. My family had arranged a private tour of the Opera House, and then we had prime seats for a new play, Two Brothers. (Which was fine, some of the humor a bit too locally Australian for us really to get, but for a political play it was way too unsubtle for my tastes – in the very first scene we learn that conservatives are characterized by their heartlessness and desire to see immigrants die…

ASIA

Continental Increases Pricing for Unrestricted Awards

Travel & Leisure Readers on Crack

Travel & Leisure Readers on Crack

Travel & Leisure Readers on Crack

Massive SAS Award Discount TODAY ONLY

Wall Street Journal: Mouthpiece for Labor?

Why not hire two caterers?

The End of eBay Anything Points

Bonus Miles for Flying US-Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific

In Sydney

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About Gary Leff

	Bilt Mastercard® Earn Points Paying Rent (up to 100,000 each year) plus earn 3x at restaurants; 2x on travel; as long as you make at least 5 purchases per month. No annual fee.
	Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months (See rates and fees)
	Citi® / AAdvantage Business^TM World Elite Mastercard® Earn 65,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $4,000 in purchases within the first 4 months of account opening. AAdvantage miles are the currency I've redeemed most.[See rates and fees]