Search Results for "ASIA".
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Through July 8 Singapore Airlines is discounting US departures when booking through their mobile app only. Travel January 10 through and May 31 Monday through Thursday.
These are great fares, good enough to warrant the extra step of downloading the airline’s app. And they’re good for economy and for premium economy.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Star Alliance member Asiana is suffering widespread delays for catering and many flights are leaving without meals at all, even on trips as long as twelve hours.
Reportedly on Sunday “51 flights departed behind schedule and 38 left the airport without meals to feed passengers.” Then on Monday “18 out of 75 international flights operated by the carrier were delayed more than an hour and 16 short-haul flights to Japan and China even departed from the Incheon International Airport without in-flight meals.”
American Airlines announced last month that they’re ending their Chicago – Beijing flight in October.
American’s Vice President – Planning Vasu Raja told employees in Chicago last week at a question and answer session that Chicago flights to Asia are mostly connecting traffic, that they rely on connections from cities with low fares and often their own non-stop flights to the same destinations, and that higher fuel costs make it even harder to sustain flights than before.
I frequently highlight awards bookable with American AAdvantge miles in premium cabins because they tend to make fewer seats available than many other airlines on their own planes and because they have fewer partners through the oneworld alliance than United does through Star.
As a result it’s worth jumping when there are plenty of award seats available on long haul routes. That’s doubly true when you’re looking for more than two seats, because finding availability for four is exponentially harder much of the time and to many destinations.
If you have Singapore Airlines miles first class awards turn out to be easy to book — on their old 777 product from Los Angeles, and flying Airbus A380s all over the world. Provided of course that the A380 doesn’t touch the U.S. (New York JFK – Frankfurt) and isn’t their newest product.
And Singapore Airlines business class awards are frequently very available too and that’s true even on U.S. routes, especially from Houston and Los Angeles.
I’m just back from flying ANA roundtrip first class Houston – Tokyo which I booked for 120,000 Virgin Atlantic miles per person.
Since I’m writing now about my ANA first class experience and overall trip to Tokyo and Shanghai it seemed to make sense to write about just how easy it is to book the seats currently.
Effective June 22 they’re making changes to mileage earning and redemption. This matters to folks in the U.S. because Asia Miles is a oneworld frequent flyer program (earn and redeem on American, British Airways, Japan Airlines, etc.) and because it’s a points transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards.
To me the most important takeaway is that roundtrip premium cabin long haul awards are getting more expensive.
One of the big mistakes people make booking awards is to assume that when you want to travel you go to your frequent flyer program’s website and enter where you’re flying from, where you’re going to, and you’ll be presented with your options.
If you go to the American Airlines website and say you want to go to Bangkok there will be no availability, ever. And that’s not because there’s no availability, although that’s what most people assume it means.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
