Jun
22
2005
Air Canada successfully sold a stake in its frequent flyer program today, and based on the price paid for a 12.5% stake Aeroplan has a market value of CAD$2 billion.
Aeroplan Goes Public
frequent flyer
Tag Archives for frequent flyer.
Honeymooning on Miles and Points
May
10
2005
Here’s a story about a husband and wife who took a month for their honeymoon and traveled around the world in business class — all on frequent flyer miles, with most of the hotel nights paid for in Hilton HHonors points. We saw the famed sunset in Key West, sandy black shores around Tahiti, the Opera House and governor’s mansion in Sydney, Bangkok’s ornate Grand Palace, the Ancient Agora in Athens and Sorrento’s Mediterranean Cliffs. We even got a personal marriage blessing from Pope John Paul II at the Vatican five months before he died I’m not making as many stops on my own upcoming honeymoon, but will travel to more than one part of the world over three weeks – in first class, not business, and also all on points.
Continental Rumors from their Top Brass’ Meeting with Frequent Flyers
Apr
03
2005
Continental hosted a gathering in Houston for a large group of Flyertalkers over the past weekend. They gave tours, sprung for meals, and offered access to top brass. I’m not much of a Continental flyer, so I didn’t attend, but reports from the event (as posted on Flyertalk.com) are: Larry Kellner’s presentation offered: The number of first class seats in Continental’s fleet is dropping 3% next year. Continental’s 737-500’s are being reconfigured to have eight rather than the current ten first class seats, accounting for this difference. There were 4.4% more coach awards redeemed and 38% more BusinessFirst awards redeemed in 2004 compared to 2003. (This doesn’t speak to Standard versus EasyPass point levels, nor to availability – increased standard redemptions may come out of a stable pool meaning that redemption was in fact more…
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…
The importance of credit card miles to airline bottom-lines
Mar
20
2005
I’ve written here in the past about the importance of frequent flyer miles to airline bottom lines, and in particular the importance of co-branded credit cards which are the single largest source of non-flight miles. When United entered bankruptcy, BankOne (since acquired by JP Morgan Chase) provided $500 million in debtor-in-possession financing. The bank needed the airline to survive because their most profitable credit card product is the United Visa. Now the bank is talking about loosening restrictions on loan covenants in order to allow the airline room to operate. American Express pre-paid the purchase of $500 million worth of Skymiles in order to keep Delta out of bankruptcy. Again, an airline is kept afloat because it’s needed to sustain a credit card business. Credit card miles are big business, and not just for the…
Goldpoints Bonus for Online Checkin
Mar
04
2005
Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles, Radisson is offering 2,000 bonus Goldpoints for first-time use of their new online checkin feature at Radisson.com through June 30, 2005. Gary Steiger also reminds his readers something that I post every three months at Flyertalk.com — that you get 500 Goldpoints for updating your email address every 90 days. I set a reminder in my Outlook and every 90 days switch between my primary email address and my Yahoo account.
Free Frequent Flyer Miles
Feb
23
2005
Gary Steiger has returned from vacation and updated his comprehensive and indispensable Free Frequent Flyer Miles website. It contains links to a plethora of credit card, telephone, internet service, mortgage, and other bonus offers. I often use it as a reference myself — Gary Steiger catalogues the offers, so I don’t need to save them all when I want to refer someone to the best possible bonus.
Are Delta’s Frequent Flyer Changes Their Death Knell?
Dec
24
2004
Joel Widzer (whose book I reviewed over the summer) doesn’t like the changes to the Delta Skymiles program that I reported on last week. He sees Delta as [c]aving to the protests of its stingiest customers and believes that the changes will “accelerat[e] Delta’s path toward bankruptcy.” I usually start by giving an airline, or any company, the benefit of the doubt – concluding that they know a lot more about their business than I do as a simple armchair observer. Certainly they have more data at their disposal and knowledge of their specific circumstances. It’s hard to do that in the case of a company on the verge of bankruptcy with losses in the 10 figures. But I could have made that same negative assumption about Delta before the announced changes so the simple…
Not sure what this says about the culture
Nov
14
2004
Yo, bust this: Rapper Psalm One has an upcoming album titled “The Death of Frequent Flyer.”I may think on this one for awhile.
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