Sorry about the headline, but I couldn’t resist.  This is way off topic, but it’s a slow AAdvantage news day anyway, so I thought I’d share this video of the new American Airlines 737NGX 3D Model that was developed by McPhat Studios for release with Aerosoft’s new PMDG 737 NGX software add-on package for Microsoft Flight Simulator X. 

It’s shocking how good 3D flight simulation has become on the desktop. For a little perspective on the advancement in technology, here’s a screenshot of Microsoft Flight Simulater 98 (photo credit John Bell on Flickr):

If you’re interested, Aerosoft PMDG 737 NGX was released December 16, 2011 and retails for EUR 59.99. More info here.

A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about a mileage run just to try to get back into the ranks of AAdvantage Platinum (mostly because upgrade percentages for Gold are pretty low out of DFW).

I was considering a one day run to San Francisco on December 4th so that I could take advantage of the double elite qualifying miles promotion that American is offering on that route.  But I decided against it when I found out that my nephew was having his fifth birthday that weekend.

I put reservations on hold all the time when I’m planning travel, so while I as kicking around the idea of a mileage run, I priced out a ticket and put a reservation on hold.  After I changed my mind, I just let it expire.

But this time something different happened and the day after the reservation was cancelled I received this email:

American Airlines email

It looks like they’re testing some trigger marketing technologies, which I think is kind of exciting.   Trigger marketing tools allow a person to define an action or set of actions that are executed when a specific event occurs.

Why I was excited by the email is that some of the trigger marketing systems that would allow them to send a follow up email to an expired reservation could also be used to provide users with other kinds of notifications.

I know that I can already go to AA.com and sign up for fare alerts, but other than creating a notification profile for a city pair (like maybe DFW to LGA), I can’t do much else.

For a long time I’ve wished that American offered a fare tracking tool similar to Kayak’s.

It would be great if it was possible to create a fare alert on a particular route by specific dates and prices (an example would be creating an alert so that I’d receive an email if the Dallas to Montreal fare drops below $500 during August).

I also think it would be cool if you could receive a daily email of prices on a defined date and route (like a daily report of fares from DFW to YUL in August)

Something else I’d like to see: an alert so that a user is notified anytime the fare for a flight on a specific route drops below a defined price (such as letting me know anytime the fare from DFW to Hong Kong drops below $999).

No reason to think any of these things will come to pass, but the email got me thinking about the topic, so I’m probably just daydreAAming…

Have you received a similar email after a reservation expired?   Do you think that a more sophisticated fare alert system would be useful?  Add your comments.

Last year Google completed their purchase of ITA Software, the powerful pricing, searching and inventory technology behind several airline and online travel sites.  In September they introduced Google Flight Search to a few US cities.  Last week they reached another milestone with Google.com/flights  which will be helpful when you’re trying to plan a mileage run (from their Google ITA Software blog):

…we’ll begin showing flight information right in your Google search results on certain flight related searches. For example, if you search for [flights from San Francisco to Las Vegas] you’ll see a table that shows available flights, including duration and prices.

Over the next couple days, you’ll start to see the flight results appear for searches whose origins and destinations are currently supported by our Flight Search feature. In the short term, those results are limited to domestic US flights. The flight schedule feature will continue to provide information about nonstop routes around the world and across 11 languages.

You can filter results by airlines and number of stops, and do some other cool things like search for destinations by time and budget, see how prices change depending upon the days you travel, and view the calendar to see which days that offer the lowest fares.

Here’s a video tour from Google:

Google Flight Search

While we’re on the topic of Google, here’s something I first read about over at the American Way Magazine blog: Google Maps Goes Indoors at Airports.  

Here’s a look: 

Google Maps the Indoors

Google Maps for Android now offers indoor maps of several US airports, shopping malls, and big box retailers.  Fewer than 20 airports are mapped so far, and it’s only available on Android devices.   You can read more at the Official Google Blog – A new frontier for Google Maps: mapping the indoors.

If you’re like me, you have a Google Plus account that you seldom check. I think that the only time I ever even think about it is when I get a notification that someone has added me to a circle.

I’m pretty dependent to some of Google’s products: search, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Reader, Google Docs.  And while I like Google Plus and think it’s great that there’s an alternative to Facebook, I haven’t yet found a really good reason to use it much.

Maybe that will change now that AAdvantage has created a Google Plus branded page:

Hey Mileage Maniacs! We’re excited to join the Google Plus community! We’re evaluating how to best interact with this community and would appreciate your ideas and feedback.

Besides updates on all the great ways to earn and redeem AAdvantage miles, what would you like to see us discuss here?

And it’s not just AAdvantage that’s joined Google Plus – there’s even a spiffy looking American Airlines branded page:

For now both the AAdvantage and the American Airlines pages point to Facebook: AAdvantage points to the oneworld MegaDo contest page and American points to their Travel Tips section on Facebook.   So, much like Google Plus, it’s appears to be the early stage of a work in progress.

Go here to check on the AAdvantage Google Plus page and here to see the American Airlines Google Plus page.

Whether you’re out shopping, planted in front of a television, or finishing pie and working your way through leftovers, I hope that you’re enjoying the holiday.

Have a great weekend!

Yesterday I wrote about the 50% reduced mileage awards from San Francisco and Vancouver to Tokyo.  This is a really great offer.   Especially the Business class redemptions: It’s just 50,000 AAdvantage Miles  round-trip to Tokyo!

You can fly round-trip from San Francisco or Vancouver to Tokyo in Japan Airlines Business class for 50,000 miles instead of the usual 100,00 miles.   To explain what a great value this is for your miles,  50,000 miles normally gets you a round-trip ticket in coach.  

Speaking of  coach, you can fly round-trip in Economy class for just 30,000 miles (that’s only 5,000 more miles than you’d usually spend on a one-way ticket to Tokyo).

Here’s the link to the San Francisco to Tokyo Haneda reduced mileage promotion.
Here’s the link to the Vancouver to Tokyo Narita reduced mileage promotion.

If you’r trying to find availability on Japan Airlines, besides calling American to book the award, here are a few other ways to find award inventory on Japan Airlines:

KVS Tool

For a price, you can purchase and download KVS which will allow you search timetables, fares and award inventory for just about any airline. It’s an amazing piece of software, unfortunately, it only works on Windows. If you have a Mac, you’ll need to to either have a version of Windows running on your computer, or you’ll need to use something like Crossover (a paid app) to get it to work (you can also try Wine, the free opensource alternative to Crossover, but the last time I tried using it with KVS it was really buggy).

Use the British Airways site

It’s free but it does require a little more effort. If you’re not already a member of the British Airways frequent flyer program, Executive Club, you’ll need to join.

After you join, sign in go to the Executive Club tab and select “Spending your BA Miles”.

From there you’ll see a “Make a booking” link. You’ll have to first try a search from this page. You’ll get a message that British Airways doesn’t fly that route, but you’ll also get a link that will allow you to search partner airlines. Select this link.

After you’re directed to this new page, you’ll have to enter your search again, and once more you’ll get an error telling you that British Airways doesn’t fly between these two cities (they must really want their frequent flyers to try BA first), but at this point you’ll see a red “Include Partner Results” button that you can (finally) select to perform your search.

It’s a hacked way of looking for inventory, but it works and it’s free.

Award Nexus

If you’re a member of FlyerTalk, you can use their Award Nexus tool to search for award seats. The basic service will give you enough points that you’lll be able perform several searches, if you run out of points, you can make a donation and receive more points. You have to be a member of FlyerTalk to use this.

Another option is to pay someone else to do it.  If you’re trying to book an $8,000 Business class award for just 50,000 miles, despite the small cost, it’s still a great value.

Points Pros
Lucky over at One Mile at Time is an expert and he has a service that will take care of it for you:

Can’t find any award space?
Do you have to be flexible by a month?
Having trouble booking the award seats you might find with the airline?

Let us use our expertise to assist you throughout the booking process. We’ll find you seats when the airlines say nothing is available while making sure you get the most value out of your miles and points.

The Cranky Concierge
Brett Snyder is the man behind The Cranky Flier. He too has a service that will take care of it for you:

Cranky Concierge is the unique air travel assistance service started by the founder of The Cranky Flier (winner of 10+ travel blog awards since 2007).

Sign up and our staff of airline dorks will personally monitor your flights, watching for problems like delayed airplanes and weather at your destination. Cancellation or missed connection? Your concierge is already researching alternatives and can help you get rebooked.

We also have a full range of services to help you plan trips and we can even book flights, hotels and car rentals.

What doesn’t work

Expert Flyer

I’m a subscriber and a fan of Expert Flyer, but unfortunately their online tool doesn’t search Japan Airlines awards and upgrades.

Qantas website

You can often use the Qantas award booking tool to find award seats on oneworld member airlines. I’ve tried, but I can’t get it to display Japan Airlines awards.

If you know of any other way to look up award inventory on Japan Airlines, please share you tips in the comments section.

Unless scientists capture the Loch Ness Monster or discover an asteroid headed towards earth, the big story this week is going to be the Apple’s Tuesday press conference to unveil the iPhone 5.  Way over on the other end of the news coverage spectrum is a small upgrade of the American Airlines website that happened over the weekend.

American has been rolling out updates of AA.com all year.  Some of them have been cosmetic improvements to the look and design of the website, while others have been backend upgrades to allow them to add new service products such as Preferred Seats and paid PriorityAAccess.  I guess the AA.com web team must have spent part of Friday night working, because Saturday when I went to the site to purchase a ticket for a reservation I had made on Friday, I noticed the reservation page had been redesigned.

The most prominent new feature of the reservation page is the larger typeface.

Here’s a look at the the details section of the reservation page:

Here’s a screen capture of the notification profile section:

Here’s a screen capture of the upgrade request section:

The thing that you don’t notice immediately though, is the flexibility of the new design.  I took a look at the source code behind the new page and the AA.com web team designed it so that it looks good on multiple screen sizes and devices. It scales nicely on the desktop as well as iPads and tablets sized screens.  Here’s how it looks on the iPad.

It’s funny how deeply attached people can be to a design once they become familiar with it, and I’m no different.   At first I wasn’t sure if I liked the larger text.   But after viewing the change a few times, I came to realize that it’s much easier for my aging eyes me to see.   Now I don’t need my glasses to read it anymore; it’s like 1999 all over again!

Speaking of 1999, just to show you how far the site has come, here’s a look at the home page via the Wayback Machine:

So what do you think? Do you like the new look?

Update: As of Sunday night, it’s finally working.  

I’ve been using a Mac since the mid-80s, so I’m excited to see that American has finally released a version of their DealFinder software that works with a Mac. Haven’t tried it yet, but here’s how it’s described in the FAQ on their site:

DealFinder is a downloadable desktop tool offered by American Airlines which allows you to receive automatic, personalized fare alerts and other information via your computer desktop. Once you download the tool and set your travel preferences, DealFinder will alert you about deals to your favorite destinations. By creating searches for your upcoming trips, DealFinder will also show you the current lowest prices and alert you when the price is at or belowyour target price. The application can also help you stay up to date with news, information and promotions from American Airlines.

Go here to download and test it yourself. Feel free to share your thoughts, review or experience in the comments section.

Have a great weekend!

(Editor’s Note:  I forgot to mention it, but American also released an update to their AA.com iPhone app and added this cool, new feature: “If an upgrade was requested and not yet confirmed at check-in, you now have the ability to put yourself on the upgrade standby list”. Go here for details.)

Earlier this year American Airlines announced that they and Gogo Inflight Internet would test streaming video to passengers’ wireless devices on some of their 767-200 transcontinental flights.  I guess they must have been pleased with the results, because today they announced that this service, Gogo Vision, is available on all their 767-200 flights:

American Airlines is the first North American airline to offer an innovative new feature – Entertainment On Demand. Now you can purchase wirelessly streamed movies and TV shows, from an inflight library to your Wi-Fi-enabled laptop during flight.

Entertainment On Demand is now available onboard American Airlines flights operated by 767-200 aircraft – primarily transcontinental flights. Choose from a wide variety of feature films and TV programs selected for everyone.

Prices start as low as $.99 for TV shows and $3.99 for movies.

Later this month, they’ll offer free wifi with a rental:

Beginning August 15 and running for 30 days, rent a movie or TV show through American Airlines Entertainment On Demand and get a free Wi-Fi session for your next flight. You will be emailed the free Wi-Fi code in your Entertainment On Demand receipt.

For now, it’s only supported on wifi enabled laptop, but they’ve announced plans to expand availability to iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices soon. Go here for complete details.

I haven’t been lucky enough to be on one of the test flights, so I can’t claim to know how well it works. If you’ve been able to try it, please feel free to share your experience. I’m curious to know how well it works and what kind of movie and TV show selection was available.

Back in January, I came across AA CPM Extension.  It’s this really useful Google Chrome extension that calculates your Cents per Mile (CPM)  when you’re searching through flights on AA.com so that you’ll earn the most AAdvantage Miles for your dollar.

It’s not from American Airlines.  It’s free and was developed by travel enthusiast Kyle Duarte and since releasing the Chrome extension, he’s also released free versions for Safari and Firefox.

Cents per mile (CPM) is a common indicator of good value for the frequent flier community when purchasing airline tickets. This extension will compute the CPM for the cheapest economy fares listed on American Airlines’ Price & Schedule matrix at aa.com.

To install it or to find out more information just visit his Flyer Tool site.  From there you’ll also find his oneworld Lounge Access Wizard, which is a helpful online tool that will help you determine if you qualify for access to the Admirals Club or a oneworld partner lounge when traveling on American or one of the other oneworld carriers.  

Photo credit: Jose Antonio Gelado on Flickr

American Airlines just released versions of their mobile app for Blackberry and Windows mobile devices in addition to the five other versions they’ve already released.

APPS AVAILABLE, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANY DEVICE.
We are excited to announce our app is now available for BlackBerry smartphones and Windows Phone. Now no matter whether you’re using an iPhone, iPad, Android, Barnes & Noble Nook Color or want to download via Amazon App Store for Android, you’re covered.

So unless you’re one of the few people left not using one of these platforms, you can go here to download a version for your phone.

(Hope we’ll see another Mobile Million sweepstakes!)