This is big news. Delta Air Lines has announced that it is introducing its Economy Comfort product to its entire domestic fleet, including two-class regional jets! While I haven’t had the opportunity to partake of the product, some colleagues of mine have and felt it was worth the price of gold. By next summer, Delta expects to have the new product installed, and will make it available to Diamond, Platinum, and Gold Medallion members at the time of booking for free. Full fare economy customers can select the seats free of charge as well. Silver Medallions can confirm Economy Comfort seats at a 50 percent discount at time of booking or select a seat for free at check-in. Fees will range from $19 to $99 dollars for non-Medallions.

Delta’s move in this direction with its international flights must have paid off for them to be doing this domestically. With the 2 largest US airlines now offering a superior economy product, can AA afford to ignore this? Is it time for a “More Room Throughout Some of Coach” effort? Time will tell. In the meantime, I say this is a good move!

Hat tip to Gary.

Last weekend, I was faced with a very early 6am flight and needed transportation to the airport. Normally, I’d just book an appointment with Red Top Cab, but they are on my temporary probation list for standing me up for my last early pick up. I checked on SuperShuttle, which was very affordable, but I had no real interest in their proposed 3:30am pickup time for my 6am flight from the airport that is 17 minutes from my front steps. I decided to give SuperShuttle’s “other option” a try…. ExecuCar.

I booked the car through the SuperShuttle website, used the iPhone app promo code I’ve been using for discounts for a while now, and even collected some US Airways miles for another “hit” in their Grand Slam promotion! The price, including gratuity, came to approximately $50 bucks. The only wrinkle is that like SuperShuttle, you pre-pay for ExecuCar. But since I was definitely going on the flight, I didn’t really care. I booked the pickup for 4:40am, which gave me a little cushion for driver tardiness.

On the morning of the flight, I got a little extra sleep, and got ready for my car’s arrival. At 4:40am, there was still no car, so I looked up it’s location using SuperShuttle’s iPhone app. I could see that the car was fairly close, so I didn’t bother calling, and within a couple minutes, I received a phone call alerting me that the car was 1 minute away. Go figure, in just about a minute, the car appeared and I was on my way to DCA. When I book for 4:40am, I mean 4:40am, but I’ll let 5 minutes slide, especially since I could easily track the position of the car. Other than that, no complaints.

I wouldn’t use this kind of service for every trip, but for special occasions, I’ve always used some kind of car service for transportation to the airport. Carey, whom I’ve used many times in the past for vacation departures charges in the neighborhood of $100 dollars for the same service. With ExecuCar, I found that the car was newish, clean, bottled water was provided, and the day’s Washington Post was waiting on the seat. The driver was well dressed, very courteous, thanked me for my business and even told me to please come back again. I’ll do that. If ExecuCar is available in your city, give them a try. And if you’ve had experiences with them you feel like sharing, please do so in the comments section.

This post has been a long time in the making.  I’ve been an MS Money and later Quicken user since the mid 1990s when I was fresh out of school and really didn’t have any money.  I’ve learned to really like Quicken, but as someone who travels a bit, often with different computers, keeping my Quicken data up to date has been challenging….and frankly, I’m losing the motivation to keep up with it.  Yes, I know there’s Quicken “Direct Connect” and I use it to automatically download my spending from credit cards and my bank account, but that doesn’t do me much good when I’m traveling for work for 2 weeks in a row, and my personal laptop (my Windows machine since Quicken for Mac doesn’t seem all that fab to me) is sitting at home.

In an ideal world, Quicken would offer some kind of web interface with my Quicken datafile, but I realize the world is NOT ideal, and I can’t imagine the challenges that would entail.  With that in mind, I’ve been looking around for some options and decided to try Mint.com, which is of course, now owned by Quicken’s maker, Intuit.  I’ve been testing Mint.com for about 2 months while maintaining the currency of my Quicken file.  I’m going to continue testing for another month or so, but I have to say that I think I’ve passed the 50/50 line of making the decision to ultimately switch to Mint.com.  The interface and budgeting tools are easy, and I love the fact that I can access all my Mint.com data through an iPhone app.  Not to mention, I can access it through any computer with internet access.  Given that I regularly use a work laptop, personal laptop, MacBook Air, an iPhone, and probably an iPad in the not so distant future, having easy access to my financial data from multiple venues is not a small issue.

On the other hand, I’ve found the investment performance tracking tools in Mint.com to be a little less robust than I’d like.  Not to mention, I’ve had a difficult time getting Mint.com to recognize different share lots in investments where I’ve made multiple purchases.  It’s taken some coaxing, but I think I’ve mostly gotten that fixed, but it wasn’t easy.  All in all, Mint.com is beginning to grow on me.  I’m still not completely comfortable that it can replace Quicken for me, but it’s sure starting to look like it could.  How do you deal with managing your finances from afar?

I’m happy to hear the US Airways is making some meaningful improvements in its onboard product offerings.  First, the airline is adding a First Class cabin to its 70 seat and up Express fleet of 110 aircraft.  This is good news for elite customers, and good news for the airline.  I expect this improved product will result in improved revenues for the airline, and since US Airways is making the move, their accountants must agree!

Second, US Airways is investing in its meal offerings  most mainline flights.  In addition to real honest to goodness glassware, better snacks  are on the way too.  And on flights greater than 3.5 hours departing between 5 a.m. and 8 p.m., First Class customers will now enjoy upgraded breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals that include include appetizers, upgraded desserts and a choice of breads. According to US Airways, menus will vary slightly on Embraer 190 and Boeing 737 aircraft.  Finally, US Airways will be making updates to its international business class with better meals, and improved china.

I think all of this is great news for US fliers.  I have a natural connection to US Airways.  The Piedmont frequent flier program was the first mileage scheme I ever joined….at the ripe old age of 17.  I was a big fan of Piedmont, and have really been a little sad about how things have shaken out in the industry madness since then US Air’s takeover.  It’s nice to see the new US Airways investing in its onboard product.  Past due, but appreciated nonetheless.  Hopefully I will be able to experience these new enhancements on a US Airways flight in the near future.

You can read the presser from US Airways here.

In the latest salvo between American Airlines and online travel agencies/global distribution systems, Sabre Holdings announced today that it will immediately de-preference American Airlines fares and drop the carrier all together in August when its contract expires.  I remain passionately indifferent as to which side is the right one in this.  I don’t think anyone should be surprised that American desires to lower its distribution costs, nor do I think any airline should be surprised that the online agencies and global distribution systems are a little antsy about changing the status quo.  In any event, the implications of this little tiff could be widespread depending on how it turns out.

I don’t know the first thing about American’s “Direct Connect” option that is at the center of this controversy.  That said, I’ve never been a big online agency proponent in the first place.  Personally, I think meta search engines like Farecompare.com, Kayak, or Bing are the way to go.  And if you’re brand loyal in the least little bit, just book direct with the airline and be done with it.  Otherwise, use a real honest to goodness “bricks and mortar” travel agent and pay them for their services.

One of the smarter things I did in 2010 was open a Fidelity mySmart Cash Account (R).  MySmart Cash (now known as the Fidelity Cash Management Account) is Fidelity’s basic cash management account, and offers a lot of benefits that travelers should find useful.  High on the list of my favorite benefits of this account is ATM fee rebates when using any ATM.  I’ve already taken advantage of this several times since opening the account when I needed quick cash access on the road.  I didn’t have to waste any time hunting for my regular bank’s own ATM, I just used the closest one I could find with no worries about pesky fees.

Another benefit of this account is the lack of a foreign transaction fee on purchases made with the Visa debit card provided with the account is only 1 percent.  I’m not a huge fan of making purchases with debit cards, but for those that don’t mind doing so can save a few bucks when making purchases outside the USA.

There’s also the great Fidelity Rewards American Express Card (issued by FIA Card Services, and subject to normal credit approval).  You earn 2 percent cash back on all your purchases made with the card.  Since the card is issued by FIA Card Services, you earn 2 WorldPoints for every dollar you spend.  You can convert a minimum of 5,000 WorldPoints into a $50 dollar cash deposit into your Fidelity account, which equates to 2 percent cash.  The FIA Card Services website offers you the option of doing this automatically, or you can hoard as many points as you want and convert them at your leisure.  There’s also nothing stopping you from using the points for merchandise, travel, and whatever else FIA and BofA offer through their WorldPoints program.   Finally, there’s a little noticed benefit of using this card on your overseas trips.  The foreign transaction fee is only 1 percent as opposed to the standard 3 percent from other cards.  Of course, there are an increasing number of card options out there that do not charge this fee at all.

All in all, the Fidelity mySmart Cash Account gets an A+.  I don’t use it as my primary checking account, but I certainly think it would work fine if I did.  Mrs. MJ on Travel and I consider it our travel fund depository for now.  But in the future, who knows?  If you decide to apply for the account, why not earn miles in your favorite mileage program?  Links below.

American AAdvantage

Delta Sky Miles

United Mileage Plus

The promos from the various brokerage houses have going on for a long time…years, in fact.  Thing is, I recently took advantage of one of the promos for the first time, so I thought I’d share the details with you.  MrsMJonTravel and I had been discussing our options regarding where to place vast holdings of stocks and bonds (OK, I’m kidding about “vast”) for a while.  A few months ago, I just happened to stumble across this post on TM Travel World.  It seemed Fidelity’s mySmart Cash account might be a great option for us, so I did a little research on this and other options, and finally narrowed things down to Fidelity.  Just a few things that attracted me to the Fidelity mySmart Cash option.

• It’s with Fidelity

• Your cash is FDIC insured and held at a bank

• You can use the account like a checking account, complete with ATM and billpay

• Fidelity reimburses your ATM fees for using any ATM

• The ATM card only charges a 1 percent foreign transaction fee

• And I got miles for the deal

What’s not to like?  A little judicious googling revealed few (in my opinion) complaints on the part of other Fidelity users, so I was sold.  After discussing with MrsMJonTravel, I registered us for the mileage promotion at http://www.united.com/fidelity, and set things up.  I funded the account with the necessary cash, and transferred our stocks from our old broker to Fidelity.  All of this was done with inspiring ease.  I assumed I would need to wait weeks for the miles.  But after opening the account on Monday afternoon online, I was pleased to see that the bonus miles had posted to my Mileage Plus account this morning!  It only took 5 days.

There may be better deals out there, and Lord knows, don’t consider this investment advice please!  But if you are looking around for a brokerage account, don’t forget to check your favorite airline’s promotions page for possible bonus miles with certain brokerage houses.

If you travel internationally, two big hotel loyalty programs have introduced credit card products that you might want to consider.  The Priority Club Rewards Visa and the Hyatt Rewards Visa, both from Chase, offer a benefit that’s worth a lot if you take many trips overseas.  Neither card charges you the annoying 3 percent foreign transaction fee that most cards (products from Capital One being a notable exception) charge for purchases made outside the USA.  That is one benefit that could literally be worth hundreds for an extensive international traveler.

Each of these cards have a host of other benefits that you can check out on their respective websites.  Hilton and Starwood are my hotel programs of choice, and of course, the Starwood Card from American Express is my all time favorite credit card.  That said, I am pondering with the idea of picking up one of these cards, likely the Hyatt card, for the lack of a foreign transaction fee alone.  The Hyatt card comes with Platinum status in Hyatt’s Gold Passport loyalty program, and you also receive 2 free nights at a Hyatt property after your first purchase.  Depending on where you stay, that could be worth several hundred dollars.

Introducing 2 new traveler-focused credit cards without a foreign transaction fee is an interesting development.  Let’s hope it’s a trend that continues.  Could an airline card without foreign transaction fees be in the offing?  Time will tell.  Chase also issues the United Mileage Plus credit cards.  I’m not getting my hopes up, but maybe, just maybe one of the premium United cards can ditch the foreign transaction fee too?!

Hat tip to Gary, from whom I first learned of the Hyatt Card rollout.

Completed my first flight with TripTracker today, a short hop from DCA to ATL aboard Delta Air Lines.  I flew down this morning, and am staying at the Hilton Atlanta Downtown.  I played around with TripTracker this morning, specifically looking at its flight status tracking.  Here are a few screen shots of the app for my trip down.

Home Screen with Trip Details

As I noted, this is the home screen with details of the trip.  Selecting the outbound flight will yield the following screen.

Departure Information

While tapping arrival, will show your estimated arrival, and gate information.

Arrival Information

In the interest of full disclosure, I snapped these screen shots while inflight and using GoGo Inflight Internet.  I identified one minor issue, and I think it’s specific to Delta.  After departure, Delta appears to delete your current segment from visibility on Delta.com. This means it isn’t visible to TripTracker.  Shortly after I snapped this screen shot, I lost access to current flight information.  Again, I think this is specific to Delta, but I can’t be 100 percent certain.  Not the biggest deal, but something to be aware of.

TripTracker has a map feature that gets its data from Flightview.  I snapped a screen shot just before Delta deleted my segment from visibility on Delta.com.  Take a look.

Enroute to Atlanta

All in all, TripTracker works quite well.  I really like it, and appreciate the real time access it has to my current itineraries.  Give TripTracker a try.  I think you’ll like it too.  Be sure to report back any issues you experience via the comments section.

As I posted yesterday, American Airlines has added a new option to its “Your Choice” line of travel options.  With the introduction of Express Seats, travelers who do not fly enough to earn elite status can access better seats at the front of the cabin for a price ranging from $19 to $39 dollars.

Bottom line, I’m fine with it.  I don’t have to pay the fee since I hold elite status on American.  But I can tell you, if I didn’t have that status, and found myself flying American, I’d certainly consider springing for this depending on the situation.  Not only do you get a better seat, but you also receive Group 1 boarding, and that may be one of the best things about elite status.  Assuring space for my carry on bag is a big deal, and it’s one I would at least consider paying a few bucks for (along with a better seat) from time to time.

All that said, it’s hard not to wonder when the airlines are going to run out of things to charge for.  I do believe that there is a limit to what most of the traveling public will tolerate.  Apparently, we haven’t arrived there yet.  One thing for sure, when we get there, the airlines won’t figure it out until well after the rest of us.