An ex-airline guy blogs about airlines and travel.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on July 30, 2009 under Southwest Airlines | 
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One never knows what the next day will bring in the crazy airline business. But even still, I did not see this one coming.
[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]
Posted by Marshall Jackson on July 28, 2009 under Delta Air Lines | Read the First Comment
Having had the better part of the day to review the changes to Delta’s Medallion program announced today, I thought I’d take a moment to share some thoughts. I feel like I should preface this with a statement you’ve heard from me before. I like Delta Air Lines. While American and AAdvantage are my preferred airline and program, I’ve always found Delta’s service and people to be, with few exceptions, better than most. SkyMiles on the other hand, has not been among my favorite mileage programs. While the program is not without some good points, including complimentary domestic upgrades, I’ve found SkyMiles to be lacking in terms of the ability to use your miles in a few key areas that are important to me.
In any event, I was pleased to read Delta’s announcement this morning regarding updates to the Medallion program. The changes include:
While I generally don’t condone complicating things with a fourth elite tier, overall, I like what I see. Club memberships seem like the least an airline could do for a Customer that spends 125,000 miles or even more so, 140 segments flying with Delta, but I like the gesture. The most positive change is making the systemwide upgrades usable on the day of departure. Previously, the upgrade had to be confirmed in advance, and if it did not clear 24 hours out, you had no chance of sitting in a premium cabin, but non-revs standing by at the airport could get the premium seat if one was available at departure. Diamonds will receive 6 systemwides and Platinums, only 4. This is a reduction 2 upgrades for Platinum fliers, but hopefully the ability to use them on the day of departure will help ease the pain. And I really like the ability to rollover excess MQMs to the next qualifying year. That’s a real incentive to keep flying Delta once you hit your elite tier. There are a lot more details about the 2010 Medallion program on Delta.com and on Delta’s blog, so I won’t review them all here.
I will offer that Delta could make the Medallion program even better if the systemwide upgrades (or at least a portion of them) could be used on any fare instead of the YBM fares required now. SkyMiles remains uncompetitive with AAdvantage in this regard. Another suggestion for improvement would be to allow elite members the ability to upgrade with miles from most paid domestic or international fares. I don’t think this is too much to ask given that Delta’s 2 biggest competitors, American and United, allow this for all members, not just elites. I’d speculate that part of the reason (at least domestically) behind Delta’s refusal to allow mileage upgrades from a broader array of fares may be related to the domestic complimentary upgrade program for elites. However, I think a nice compromise would be to allow elites to use miles to upgrade from any airfare, including LUT fares.
In summary, there isn’t a lot to get uber-excited about in today’s announcement, but there are more positives than negatives. And nowadays, that’s a better deal than most.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on under Delta Air Lines | Be the First to Comment
Delta also announced some other changes to the Medallion program. The basics:
There are other changes, and you can read the details here at Delta.com. I will post more detailed thoughts on the new program later this week.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on July 27, 2009 under Ancillary Revenue, United Airlines | Be the First to Comment
Just read over at View From the Wing that United is dropping late booking fees for Mileage Plus award travel. This is a huge deal and eliminates one of the more egregious money-grabs ever dreamed up by the airlines. We can hope that other airlines follow suit in short order, but I’m not certain that they will.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on July 26, 2009 under Commentary / General Info | Be the First to Comment
Early in the life of the blog, I did not categorize my posts. It wasn’t a big deal in the beginning, but now that I’m at 400 posts and headed towards 500, having nearly 2 years worth of information sitting out there with no categorization made historical information hard to find.
I’ve been picking at it for a few weeks now, but tonight, I successfully completed categorization of all posts here at MJ on Travel. You’ll note the category “uncategorized” has disappeared! I also took out a few posts that were specific to my last hosting site, and are no longer valid here at Boardingarea.com.
Thanks so much for reading!
Posted by Marshall Jackson on under Inflight Wi-Fi, Travel Products, Travel Tips | Be the First to Comment
American Airlines is offering the opportunity to try out GoGo Inflight Wifi for free this summer. Enter promo code AAWiFi80208A2. This offer is valid from July 27 through September 6, 2009.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on under American Airlines, Ancillary Revenue, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Travel Tips, US Airways, United Airlines | Be the First to Comment
Most of the rest of the big “legacy” airlines joined USAirways this week in raising their fees to check baggage. American, Continental, Delta, and United all plan to raise the fee for checking your first bag to $20 dollars, up from $15 dollars. Notably, all but American will knock $5 dollars of the price if you prepay your fee online. Fees for the second bag will rise from $25 to $30 dollars, with all the airlines offering a $5 dollar discount for prepaying online with the exception of American.
In the case of American, I believe their refusal to offer a discount for prepaying the fee may have more to do with their inability to actually collect the fee online than with any desire to take you for the extra $5 dollars when their competitors are offering a discount. I would think this puts them at a small competitive disadvantage versus the competition, and will anxiously wait to see if they eventually offer the discount, or if the competition drops theirs. I would think there would be an incentive to offer the option for paying online if for no other reason than you don’t have to staff the airport with an agent to collect the fee.
In any event, I remain unopposed to the “a la carte” pricing model as long as the additional services being charged for can legitimately be considered as optional. I think that baggage is one of those legitimate options starting with the second checked bag. One piece of baggage is inherently part of the travel experience, and I recognize that you can still carry that one bag on for free. Nevertheless, I think JetBlue’s policy of the first checked bag for free and charging for the second is the right policy for checked baggage.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on July 24, 2009 under Credit Cards, Delta Air Lines | Be the First to Comment
Found this thread on FlyerTalk. 40,000 miles and 15,000 Delta Medallion Qualifying Miles for the SkyMiles Platinum Amex. The thread lists an offer for the Reserve card ($450 annual fee), but if you scroll down to post # 3, you’ll find a link to an offer for the Platinum card ($150 annual fee).
That Platinum card offer is one of the best I’ve seen, and at the lower fee, is pretty compelling. Based on the number of search hits I get on the blog looking for MQM opportunities, I thought I should post this for your consideration. Take a look. As always, I make no promises about the viability of the offer or whether or not it is targeted.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on under American Airlines, Hilton HHonors, Travel Products, Travel Tips | Be the First to Comment
If you’re like me, you play in more than one frequency scheme. While my primary programs are American AAdvantage and Hilton HHonors, I hold a stash of miles in several programs, and sometimes it’s a challenge to easily keep up with all of them. I recently re-upped my membership with MileageManager to help me with monitoring my mileage and points accounts. With MileageManager, you can track all of your accounts on a single screen, monitor your progress towards elite status, and monitor the expiration date on your miles or points. You can also establish email alerts for any bonus opportunities your programs may offer from time to time.
MileageManager has been around for a while, and I’ve used it in the past. But the site was recently relaunched with a fresh new look, and a compelling new beta feature called AwardPlanner. AwardPlanner will search for award seats in all of your programs based on dates you select, and if no seats are found, the system will continue searching for them on a daily basis. When seats are found, you get an email alert. No need to continually surf around to different websites. Other sites, notably ExpertFlyer (which I also use), offer a similar ability to search for awards on multiple carriers, but I’m not aware of any other site that can perform searches of all of your frequency programs (that you list with MileageManager) and alert you to award availability just by setting up a single query. Feel free to comment to the blog if you know of one.
At $14.95 per year, MileageManager offers a decent package of benefits for the price.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on July 23, 2009 under Credit Cards, Southwest Airlines | Be the First to Comment
Rapid Rewards Visa Card members register here to earn up to 10 credits for Hyatt stays.
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