Jun
08
2019
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.
The Decline of Flyertalk
flyertalk
Tag Archives for flyertalk.
AuctionSniper
Apr
22
2007
I’m hardly an eBay veteran, though I won by first item there at least 6 years ago. For some reason, every so often I’d find something I wanted and I’d bid on it and… usually lose. What little I know about auctions suggests to me that people ought to bid their highest amount for an item, since eBay will only make you pay the amount that’s a single increment higher than the next highest bidder. But that isn’t how people bid. So I finally signed up with a sniping service, AuctionSniper.com, based on some recommendations from Flyertalk. I’m testing it out this evening, but like it quite a bit so far. If you want to sign up for a free account (with 3 free snipes), you can use my referral link at no cost to…
Delta Skymiles Head Posts to Flyertalk
Feb
09
2007
Jeff Robertson, who runs the Delta Skymiles program, is now participating regularly on Flyertalk. He’s only made six posts so far, but they’re excellent. By excellent I mean that he avoids the usual marketing speak. Explaining the change to Delta’s mileage expiration policy, he actually says [R]egardless of how “loyal” someone may be to us, anyone who hasn’t had activity with Delta in anyway in the last two years, is not all that valuable to us. Of course, I disagree harshly with Jeff’s assessment (not about the value proposition of customers hurt by mileage expiration, he has better access to the numbers than I do). Making the change essentially retroactive is inherently dishonest. This is a company that years ago advertised during the superbowl that their miles would never expire. Perhaps they now find they…
Northwest Ups the Offers to Elites
Jan
30
2007
Northwest has finally improved the offerings of its elite program. It doesn’t bring them up to par with American and United, which both offer a substantial international upgrade benefit to their top tier flyers, but it’s a move in the right direction. The Flyertalk discussion is here. After flying 60, 90, 120 and 160,000 miles Northwest is offering elites the choice of new benefits (much as United has been doing the past couple of years). Choices include bonus miles, the ability to give away lower tiered elite status, lounge memberships, and most importantly — starting at 120,000 miles flown — international upgrade certificates. Now, Northwest only offers 2 at 120,000 miles and 2 more at 160,000 miles flown (compared to 6 for United and 8 for American at 100,000 miles) but Northwest’s certificates appear to…
$219+ tax each way for FULL FARE tickets Minneapolis to London-Gatwick
Oct
21
2006
This is available on Continental.com, Expedia, etc. The fare basis is Y3E and is a mileage-based fare rather than routing-based. You’re permitted 4813 miles each way without surcharges. Full fare tickets are refundable, upgradable, and earn 150% of flown miles. This has been out for at least 10 hours but still appears to be going strong. Update 11:15am Eastern: Still available. Here’s the Flyertalk discussion. Really great fare. Update 7:05pm Eastern: This fare is still available. Turns out it was filed on October 17th. Didn’t get posted on Flyertalk till the weekend and no one seems to be minding the store. Sure, it prices out around $600 with taxes — but it’s a full fare refundable ticket that’s upgradable and earns bonus miles and bonus qualifying miles. This could give someone Platinum status on a…
Alaska Airlines Updates
May
05
2006
A Flyertalk member posted a summary of Wednesday’s Alaska Airlines MVP Gold lunch in Anchorage. (Alaska regularly hosts gatherings for their top tier elites.) Key points:A new Platinum top tier will be introduced in 2008, requiring 70,000 to 80,000 miles. MVP Gold “Guest Upgrade” certificates will be going electronic in 2007 (bye bye, eBay). Alaska’s website can now book partner awards on Delta. Alaska will be introducing a new destination that members “will really like.” Rumors have been flying for a long time about Hawaii, but this is hardly confirmation of that. (Alaska’s 737s can make the jaunt…)
RSS Feeds
Jul
03
2005
Don’t forget that you can receive this blog’s content via RSS feed: http://blogs.flyertalk.com/viewwing/index.xml (RSS 2.0) or http://blogs.flyertalk.com/viewwing/index.rdf (RSS 1.0) or read it via your WAP-enabled mobile phone at http://www.winksite.com/gleff/blog
Flyertalkers meet with Northwest Management
Jun
30
2005
A couple of Flyertalk members met with management from Northwest Airlines and the Worldperks program and filed this report. An interesting read, though I’ll nitpick at a couple of explanations Northwest offers for decisions. In keeping with its commitment to customer loyalty, WorldPerks currently has no plans to participate in the American Express Membership Rewards program. Northwest see this as simply: “Why should someone who has no loyalty to Northwest Airlines receive miles for the points they have in another loyalty program, and redeem them for awards, thus reducing the number of awards for loyal WorldPerks members? If that’s the case, how come I can transfer points to Northwest from Diners Club, Starwood, Goldpoints, etc. etc.? And if the issue is sharing a fixed pie of award seats with folks other than Worldperks members, how…
Star Alliance Status Matches Available to U.K. Residents
Apr
15
2005
Residents of the U.K. are invited to receive elite status on the Star Alliance carrier of their choice (excluding Singapore) by filling out a form and faxing a copy of a frequent flyer statement that shows elite status with a competing airline. For general discussion of elite status matching and instructions for receiving matches with several airline programs, see “The Status Match Master Thread” — a Flyertalk discussion I started in October 2003.
Squeezing the Profit Margins of Frequent Flyer Programs
Mar
22
2005
Randy Petersen points out that airlines are booking balance sheet adjustments to increase their expected liability for their frequent flyer programs. When an award is redeemed, frequent flyer programs recognize revenue from mileage they’ve sold and they have to pay for the awards that are claimed. A domestic saver award might entail a frequent flyer program ‘buying’ a seat from the airline for $25. A partner award is more expense, and an ‘anytime’ award (that generally requires about twice the number of miles to redeems) is more expensive still. Frequent flyer programs are apparently seeing greater redemption of anytime and partner awards than past experience would predict, so they have to acknowledge an increased future liability. Randy believes this phenomenon is good for members of frequent flyer programs, because it illustrates the value of partner…
