Good morning from the Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel in New York.  Event begins soon.  I’ll blog about what I can.  Some things I won’t share for “security” reasons.    But I will summarize my thoughts at the end of the day.  Just learned that Travel Channel is filming….sweet.

Program starting now.  Flyertalk founder Randy Petersen speaking now.  Randy talking about his start with miles and points.  Very interesting, and entertaining story.  Randy’s been doing this for 25 years.  Wow!  Has “the world’s best job.”  No doubt.

Lucky is up now….looking forward to his presentation on earning miles by flying.

Now Frugal Travel Guy, Rick Ingersoll is speaking.  Terrific presentation on earning miles from credit cards by Rick.  Now I just need to develop my own tracking system.  Now it’s break time.

Back from the break.  The group is now divided into breakout sessions by alliance.  I’m attending the Star Alliance session hosted by Lucky from Onemileatatime.

Now that lunch is over, the focus turns to burning miles.  Looking forward to presentations from several including Gary Leff.  Gary is speaking about tricks and tips to use your miles for international premium class travel.  One thing for sure, I’ve got to get myself into that Lufthansa first class lounge in Frankfurt! 

Had to bail for the airport as Gary was finishing his presentation, so I missed the charity raffle and final session.  All in all, a really great day.  Informative beyond belief.  I enjoyed all of the presenters and learned something new from each.  Rick Ingersoll’s presentation on credit cards really piqued my interest.  I don’t think you’ll ever see me running around with dozens of credit cards, but I’m now convinced I can turn things up a notch with mileage earning cards.  I’ve got great credit, and I aim to keep it that way, but it’s silly to let a deal like the 100,000 mile British Airways Visa pass by without at least trying for it.  Steve Belkin’s presentation on alternative programs worth considering was quite informative.  I have to admit, I have never given the first thought to transferring SPG points to LAN and using those for short haul flights, but now, I know that’s an option.  Gary Leff did a great job with tips on redeeming your miles.  Do your homework!  And I’ve never been so inspired to fly Lufthansa in First Class just to get a ride in a Mercedes to my plane!

Administratively, the venue was nice, and the meeting facility was great.  Everything from the evening social on Friday all the way to the end was well done.  My hat is off to the organizers.  Heck, even the wireless internet worked pretty well with all of us data nuts surfing the net during the meetings.  I’m looking forward to the next event, and hope I’ll be able to attend.  I know I wasn’t overly detailed in the information I’ve shared here, and that’s on purpose.  If you have any specific questions, shoot me an email or comment to the blog, and I’ll try my best to answer.

I know I don’t blog about it, but I’m an avid follower of airline earnings season.  It might not show, but I’ve been an airline nerd since my single digit years, and I’m not going to change now.  I don’t really blog about airline earnings for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that Dan Webb just does a so much better job than I would ever do!  That said, I am going to add a couple thoughts.

The big legacy airlines lost money in the first quarter.  No big surprise, I suppose.  It could have been worse for most.  I won’t speculate about the meaning of the losses at each airline, but I will say this.  Expect higher fares, more surcharges and fees, and airplanes that are at least as full as they’ve ever been.  I’m no expert, but I think most airlines have finally gotten religion on capacity, and they are going to start racketing it down in the face of $100 dollar plus oil prices for the foreseeable future.  Bet on it.  Most of the big airlines continue to fly fleets of near fully depreciated airplanes like the MD-80 and classic 737′s….. expect a lot of those to turn into a beer can near you real soon.

It’s going to be an interesting year.  I’ll watch from here, and blog about it every now and then.  :)

Just a quick note that I’ll be flying up to New York Friday afternoon to attend FT University on Saturday.  I’ll be at the reception Friday night, and looking forward to listening and learning from the great lineup of speakers.  Registration has been full for sometime now, and I’m sure it’s going to be a great event.  Hope to meet some of you there.

Back from the quick trip to Dayton.  Flew Southwest into Columbus, and drove down to DAY.  Like every trip I’ve taken on Southwest, I get home and think about how I can understand why some people are fanatical fans of them…..and why others aren’t.  Frankly, if all I ever had to do was fly short flights to/from Columbus and similar spots, they might be my number one airline too.  Great inflight crews this trip.  I’ll write up a little trip report later in the week, or perhaps this weekend.  Unfortunately, the outbound flight wound up not having wi-fi as suggested might happen by an email from Southwest the night before our trip.  More to come.  It’s good to be home.

Departed BWI this afternoon on Southwest.  Transited a fairly quiet checkpoint at approximately 1:15pm.  I am traveling with my boat-anchor work Dell laptop, and my 11.1″ MacBook Air.  I dutifully removed the laptop from my bag, but left the MacBook Air inside as I’ve done on every trip since buying it.  Make it through the metal detector and wait for my belongings.  Everything cleared, but the agent asked if I had a laptop in my bag.  I replied that I had an 11 inch MacBook Air in the bag.  ”All laptops must come out of the bag.”  You can’t fight city hall, so fine.  What I didn’t much care for was being directed to go back outside security, remove the MB Air from my bag, and reclear the metal detector while being separated from my other belongings, including my other laptop!  Of course, the agent took me all the way to the back of the now 4 or 5 person deep line to do all this.  Thankfully, my laptop was still there when I cleared the metal detector again, but leaving it alone was a dumb move on my part.  So BWI TSA, what’s the answer for the 11.1″ MacBook Air.  Your website says “IN” the bag.  I absolutely accept that TSA can ask me to remove anything at anytime they need to in order to get a clear image for x-ray.  But this wasn’t like that.  This was me being spoken to like I’m a 5 year old for trying to do something TSA clearly says is OK.  Off soapbox.

I know it’s only April, but time flies, and I think it’s very wise to take stock of where you stand on obtaining elite status for the next year every so often.  Today, I want to focus on hotel elite status for next year.  I hold status with 2 chains, Starwood, where I am Platinum, and Hilton, where I hold Diamond status.  As of today, I’m at 6 stays and 15 nights with Starwood, and 1 stay and 2 nights with Hilton.  It’s not unusual for the first quarter of each year to be light on travel for me, and this year is no different.  Things are about to pick up and I will fall into my more typical travel patterns again.

As of now, it is not likely that I will be able to attain top tier status in both SPG and HHonors in 2012.  However, it is a virtual certainty that I can attain top tier in one program if I concentrate my stays with a single loyalty program going forward.  Time to take stock of things.  Both programs provide complimentary high speed internet to their top tiers (and HHonors does for Gold members as well).  That’s a big deal for me.  Each program will also provide room upgrades.  But Starwood really comes out on top here, because they will upgrade Platinum members to a suite at check in if available.  HHonors, on the other hand, specifically excludes suites.  I’ve had some great suite upgrades at W and Westin hotels….I mean rockin’ suites.  :)  Heck, I’ve even lucked out a few times with Hilton, but Starwood wins on suite upgrades.

On the topic of elite bonuses, HHonors “sounds” better with 10 points per dollar spent, and a 50 percent bonus on base points for Diamonds.  Platinum Starwood members earn 3 points per dollar spent, but most of us know that Starwood points are FAR more valuable than HHonors points.  On the topic of service, I’d say that Starwood’s Platinum Concierge is great, but I’ve had good service from the Hilton Diamond desk too.

There are other things to consider as well.  For example, I love the transferability of Starwood points: 1 for 1 to many airline programs (notably American and Delta, but not United who will only give you 1 mile for every 2 points) with a 5,000 point bonus for 20,000 points transferred.  Couple this with the excellent Starwood credit card from American Express, and you’ve got a real value proposition there.  Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from using the Starwood credit card for all your spend, but using a different hotel brand.  Hilton has a couple of attractive card options if you decide to concentrate your stays and card points earning with them as well.

Other than credit cards, there’s the not so small issue that there are something north of 3,600 HHonors properties around the world compared to over 1,000 for Starwood.  Not a huge issue when I’m visiting a major city, but it’s not unheard of for business to take me to places like Fayetteville, NC or Huntington, WV.  Try finding a W Hotel in either of those spots.  Of course, if I’m in a spot like that, I’m more than likely to be bunking at a Hampton Inn where the internet is free, and there’s not much in the way of elite benefit to be had anyway.

That’s a lot of pontificating about a decision I am going to need to make in the very near future.  Will I go for top tier with Starwood or Hilton?  Or do I chunk them both and roll with Marriott?  Do you take stock of your elite qualification progress throughout the year?  What would you do?  Stay tuned for my decision, and another post about airline elite status too.

Tomorrow, I’m flying Southwest Airlines for the first time in about a year.  MrsMJonTravel and I are headed to Dayton, but flying into Columbus and driving down.  The airfares out of DCA straight into Dayton were stratospheric, and I’ve never been an AirTran fan.  I suppose that won’t matter much longer with Southwest’s acquisition of AirTran.

I was excited to get an email from Southwest today announcing that our flight was scheduled to have Wi-Fi.  I hope there’s no equipment change because I’m looking forward to trying Southwest’s service provided by Row 44.  According to the email, the service will be available for an introductory price of $5 dollars.  I’ll be sure to blog about the experience.

For this trip, I elected to purchase Early Bird Check In for the roundtrip.  I checked in this afternoon, and received A17 and A18 boarding passes.  Good thing I did EBCI, because it didn’t cross my mind to check in for our 2:30pm flight until well after 5:00pm this afternoon!  I’ll let you know how the trip goes.

This is old news by now, but I did not want to let the opportunity to blog about it pass me by. United Mileage Plus has announced a return of certain award fees which aligns the program with Continental OnePass effective June 15th. United is reinstating a fee for booking award travel within 21 days of departure. However, the fee is being reintroduced with a tiered structure starting at $75 dollars for general members and then dropping by $25 dollars for each level of Mileage Plus elite status. The fee is $50 dollars for Premiers, $25 dollars for Premier Executives, and is waived for 1K and Global Services customers. While this particular fee is among the most annoying to me, I suppose it could have been worse. Although American AAdvantage notably now waives the close-in award fee for all elite customers.

Some fees are actually going down. For example, the fee for changing your origin or destination on award tickets will be dropping immediately to $75 dollars for all Mileage Plus members below 1K and Global Services status who are exempt. For tickets issued on or after June 15, 2011, the fee evolves into a tiered pricing structure with General Members continuing to pay $75 dollars while Premiers and Premier executives will be out $50 and $75 dollars respectively. There are other changes which United details here.

All in all, these changes aren’t that bad, and for elite members, they’re mostly beneficial. That said, I am not a fan of paying any extra surcharge for booking your trip less than 21 days before departure. That fee is, and always has been, a pure money grab and I do not care for it. Frankly, I don’t even think non-elites should be charged this fee. Let’s face it, if you’re down to booking a trip less than 3 weeks in advance, you’re more likely to have to use “double miles” awards anyway. Isn’t that indignity enough?

Why is United doing this now? I think they really are just aligning with Continental. But with oil prices headed north, I think the fee structure that they thought might be slightly more revenue positive is the one they went with. I’m betting a lot more non-elites than we think actually use their miles for simpleton trips, and wind up booking closer to departure than they might like, especially with fares are high as they are in many markets. Just a thought…that I can’t back up with hard data. In any event, I can’t help but think that some other airlines may be looking at tweaking the fee structure on their award programs to boost revenue. Personally, I hope American’s fee waiver for elites on close-in bookings is the model that wins the day. Will I get my wish? Doubt it. Though it is gratifying to see that all award fees for United’s top elite 1K and Global Services customers continue to be waived. Perhaps I need a 1K card?

I’ve been flying Delta more in the last year or so than I have in the past, enough to earn Silver Medallion status with them. I was blessed with the gift of Gold Medallion late last year as well. I don’t think it’s any secret that among the domestic legacy airlines, I prefer to fly Delta above the others. Their people are almost always just a touch more pleasant, their planes cleaner, and the onboard experience a little better than anyone else. I haven’t missed a pre-departure beverage on Delta in First Class in…well….I don’t remember. Not the biggest deal on earth, but a tangible symbol that an airline has it just a bit more together than others.

Overall, if I could take Delta and merge it with American’s mileage program, and United’s Economy Plus seating, I’d have just about the ideal U.S. based airline. You can’t have everything though, so life goes on, although Economy Comfort is coming soon to a Delta international flight near you! I’ve posted on this blog, and there’s plenty of other evidence out there that I won’t be discussing today that SkyMiles, Delta’s mileage program, has its challenges with award availability, especially for international premium cabin flights. I don’t want this post to be about that, however. I’m going to write a series of posts about things I like about flying Delta, starting with Sky Priority.

Rolled out on April 15, 2010, Sky Priority, unifies a smattering of travel services that were already provided to elite Medallion and high fare customers under one easy to remember name. If you are traveling in First or Business Elite, or have attained Gold, Platinum, or Diamond Medallion, as well as SkyTeam Elite Plus, you receive Sky Priority service automatically. Alaska Airlines MVP Gold customers receive Sky Priority service as well. Sky Priority includes access to a priority reservations line, dedicated check-in areas, priority security lines, Zone 1 boarding, and priority baggage delivery. I’m a big fan of priority boarding, and the few times I’ve checked luggage, my bag has always been among the first delivered. One other nice thing…. check in online, and your printed boarding pass will include a coupon for a cocktail, headset, or snack item. Perfect for those days when the upgrade doesn’t clear.

Thanks to Delta’s super-fab social media team, I was able to touch base with a Delta spokesperson involved with the rollout of Sky Priority. I had a few questions I wanted to ask just to get some more inside perspective from Delta on how it views Sky Priority.

MJonTravel: I’d like to know a little more about the history of Sky Priority.

Delta Spokesperson: Sky Priority was developed to enhance the service our most frequent and high-value customers receive through their travel experience with Delta. The 5 percent of our customers that are eligible for Sky Priority make up just over 25 percent of our revenue. We looked at all of the benefits that these customers were receiving for new opportunities to present an experience that was well branded and consistent throughout each customers travel with us.

MJ: Is Sky Priority just renaming a bunch of different benefits that already existed, or is there something extra in those benefits that weren’t there before?

Delta: While most of the benefits were available to customers prior to Sky Priority, the roll-out presented some opportunities to improve upon those benefits. For example, Priority Bags were one of the benefits that customers noticed significant improvement in with the roll-out of Sky Priority as a result of both improved tracking and additional focus on this as a benefit of the program. Our Diamond Medallion customers also gained access to a VIP Line (March 1, 2010) that was previously announced when we introduced the new top tier. (So that is a new benefit.) Airport signage was updated and clarified for customers, both at the ticket counter and in the boarding areas to provide a better and consistent, branded experience as well.

MJ: Has Sky Priority been modified in any way since roll-out in response to customer feedback or Delta’s own experiences with the product?

Delta: Perhaps one of the best examples of modifications to the program came within the first 30-60 days after we launched. As part of the changes, we re-ordered the boarding zones in a way that our research showed would be the most efficient. Customer feedback indicated confusion and frustration with the change, so we quickly worked to update the boarding process. The description of the boarding process change can be found in our initial post to FlyerTalk (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/13740896-post4.html) and updated them with our changes to the process was posted here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/14027405-post1195.html) in direct response to customer feedback. (MJ adds: this is something I noticed as an issue early on, and I’m glad Delta acted fairly quickly to fix it.)

MJ: Any future enhancements in the pipeline?

Delta: No changes in the near-term, however we are constantly evaluating the program of opportunities to make it better in the future.

Some other information I found interesting. According to Tim Mapes, SVP Marketing, speaking at Delta’s annual investors’ day last December, “…we actually did ethnographic research, where you monitor people’s heart rates at different elements of the customer experience, and you saw their heart rate go up at security, up at boarding, up when they went to the baggage carousel to get their baggage. And we call those moments of truth.” “Customers might call them a point of pain. Nonetheless we devoted ourselves to trying to figure out what it was we could do to make that experience not only better, but the best available in this industry on behalf of these customers, because it is back to speed and recognition of who these customers are, and our ability to demonstrate that through the experience.”

Obviously, Delta put a little thought into Sky Priority, and my personal experience has been that it shows. I’m looking forward to Sky Priority on my next Delta flight.

I recently checked in for my first stay at the Atlanta Marriott Buckhead.  I’m always a little apprehensive staying at a property where I hold no elite status, but I need not have worried because my stay could not have been better.  I arrived at the hotel via taxi.  Shocking as it may seem, I’m not high maintenance, and I don’t need the bell staff to retrieve my 21″ Samsonite carry on from the trunk.  That said, I do appreciate a warm greeting and the offer of assistance as soon as I arrive at any hotel via vehicle.  No luck on this visit as the bell staff was a little too busy chatting with themselves and ignoring my arrival.  Oh well, life goes on…..time to head to check in.  That would be the only negative observation of the stay….and even so, it wasn’t a big deal.  Just an observation.

I was the second customer in line, and greeted soon enough by the very polite front desk rep.  He was very professional, and even thanked me for being a Marriott Rewards member, surprising since I hold no status in the program.  We went through the usual formalities in a minute or two.  The desk rep apologized profusely for being unable to provide the high floor king room that is listed in my Marriott Rewards profile.  In fact, the only room available was a double bed room on the first floor of the hotel.  I didn’t mind, and was even provided lounge access for my one night stay for accepting the room.  He explained that the hotel was very full, and he appreciated my being flexible.  I appreciated the lounge access….more on that later.

The room itself was pretty standard cookie-cutter Marriott, although I admit, I’m not accustomed to staying in a large city hotel on the ground floor!  Nice beds, good bath, adequate closet, nice TV, and most importantly, a great and well-lit desk with plenty of power outlets, a pet-peeve of mine.  In a side note, I overslept Tuesday morning and ran out of the house without my new camera, so I was unable to snap any crip pictures of the room.  I did take a short video with my iPhone though.

This was just a one-night stay, and I arrived at the hotel around 7pm.  I basically had time for dinner, some emails, and bed.  I’d been jonesing for a good steak for several days, and as luck would have it, there’s a Shula’s 347 Grill right on the property.  I dined at the bar, enjoyed the free wi-fi in the lobby of the hotel, and really loved the 16 oz Cowboy Steak….that’s a bone-in ribeye to the rest of us.  The steak was cooked perfectly, and accompanied by grilled asparagus and a baked potato, loaded of course.    I’ll restart my diet this weekend.  The Lenox Mall is directly across the street from the hotel, and Houston’s Restaurant is just down the street, so there are plenty of dining options within walking distance.

After dinner, I decided to take advantage of the comped access to the Concierge Lounge.  Made me long for my days as a Marriott Rewards Gold member.    The lounge is on the 8th floor, just off the elevators.  The Concierge, Joyce, could not have been more personable.  It was obvious that a lot of guests were regulars, because Joyce greeted them like extended family….and she was just as nice to me.  Made a point to stop by my table and see how I was doing.  The lounge itself was equipped with the typical comfy chairs, tables, and sofas.  There was a decent dessert spread and honor bar setup.  I decided to pay Marriott back for my access by imbibing for a nightcap, and actually started this blog post while I was there.  Unfortunately, I did not get to check out the dinner spread and did not make it back up for breakfast the next morning.  Just didn’t have time.

The hotel is an easy walk from the Lenox Marta station (Gold Line), so public transit is a good option to get to the hotel.  I liked the Atlanta Marriott Buckhead a lot, and especially the staff I came into contact with.  All in all, a great option for Atlanta bound travelers.  Check it out on your next visit to Buckhead and Atlanta.

As corny as this probably sounds, I can’t imagine traveling without my new 11.1″ MacBook Air.  It is the perfect combination of weight, size, and functionality for travel.  So far, I’ve passed through 5 TSA checkpoints with it, and not once have I had to remove it from my bag.  Add a rapid startup, and superior construction to its many other attributes, and I just can’t think of any reason to part with it…..ever.  Frankly, I’m beginning to think that I may not purchase an iPad afterall.  I’ll stop gushing now.