Per American’s website:

Enjoy 30 Minutes of Complimentary Wi-Fi On Internet-Enabled Flights
Enjoy a complimentary 30 minute Inflight Wi-Fi session from Citi® / AAdvantage® on Internet-enabled flights through February 16. Just enable Wi-Fi on your laptop or handheld device, launch your browser, and follow the instructions to get started.

If I didn’t already pay for a monthly pass I’d actually be excited about this. Hopefully this is useful to some of you.

I’ve received a lot of emails from readers lately about American, given that many of you are going for Executive Platinum status thanks to American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion (and in many cases triple elite qualifying miles promotion) through the end of the month.

I figured I’d cover one aspect of American that I find especially interesting, relating to their domestic upgrade inventory.

Most airlines have separate upgrade inventory for those looking to use miles to upgrade. While American has separate upgrade inventory for international flights, they don’t for domestic flights. If you want to upgrade domestically using miles or systemwide upgrades, they only require discounted first class (“A”) to be available in order to confirm the upgrade.

This is why in many (most?) cases, 80%+ of domestic first class seats have confirmable upgrade space through American, unlike at the other legacy carriers.

Again, this is only for those using miles or systemwide upgrades, and not those looking for complimentary upgrades or “sticker” upgrades. In a way, this means you can use systemwide upgrades for a domestic flight without it being a total waste, given that you can confirm an upgrade you might otherwise not have gotten. For example, say the day before a flight, there are two seats left for sale, and one of those is a discounted first class seat. Chances are slim that you’d clear the upgrade if you hoped for a complimentary upgrade as an Executive Platinum member, though you could use a systemwide upgrade to lock in one of those last two seats.

Funny enough I’ve also heard Executive Platinum members complain about this policy, because this is also the reason that many of American’s first class cabins are fairly full a few days out, when elite upgrades kick in.

I have to disagree there, because I think it’s in American’s best interest to get some miles off the books and make some revenue through co-pays as opposed to giving away complimentary upgrades or even upgrades using “stickers”, at least within reason (meaning don’t play Continental’s “tens of dollars” upgrade game). At the same time, the bigger issue I see is that it gives people no incentive to pay for first class, given that they can always use miles to upgrade. Part of the incentive to pay for first class is that your upgrade might not otherwise clear. By making upgrade inventory so readily available, there’s not much of a reason to spring for a first class fare when you can always just use miles to upgrade.

As you can see below, all the routes between Chicago and San Francisco (typically one of the tougher routes to upgrade) in a couple of weeks have at least seven confirmable upgrade seats. Keep in mind that “7″ is the highest amount of inventory American will display, so it could very well be more than that.

Anyway, just another one of those interesting things that makes the dAArkside interesting.

As of February 1, 2012, American will be adding free beer and wine in coach on their flights between the US and Europe, Asia, and select destinations in South America. Kudos to American. Over the past decade of cost cutting in the industry they’ve been (in my opinion) the US airline that has cut the least when it comes to in-flight service. So it’s nice to see them add something to stay competitive despite being in Chapter 11.

American is offering up to double redeemable miles for nonstop flights to China flown between January 23 and March 31, 2012. This applies to their three nonstop China routes, between Chicago and Beijing, Chicago and Shanghai, and Los Angeles and Shanghai.

Through this promotion you earn double AAdvantage miles for paid first and business class tickets, and 50% bonus miles for select economy fares (Y, B, H, K, M, L, V, S or N).

Registration is required using bonus code USCHN.

Unfortunately my trip to China next week is ineligible due to the fare class, though I’m sure this will work out for others. It’s probably not worth paying a higher fare just to take advantage of this offer, but if you’re headed to China in one of those fare classes anyway…

American announced earlier today that they’ll be cutting their daily service between Chicago and Delhi as of March 1, 2012. When I first heard this I checked my calendar to be sure it wasn’t April 1.

Given that they cut the route, I think it’s safe to assume American was losing money on it, not to mention they’re in bankruptcy which means that unprofitable routes need to be cut sooner rather than later. Nonetheless it’s surprising to me that the route wasn’t profitable, given that Chicago to Delhi is probably the toughest route in their network when it comes to upgrades. Of course that doesn’t in and of itself make the route profitable, though the fact that most of the premium seats are being paid for would generally suggest so (though I guess the yields weren’t good). Beyond that, the route apparently had a load factor of over 85%, which is extremely high. As always it comes to show you that a full flight doesn’t translate to a profitable flight. Lastly, given that it was their longest flight, they probably had to forgo quite a bit of cargo in favor of fuel, which doesn’t help in making a route profitable either.

Let’s talk for a second about American’s bankruptcy, and my two cents. I’m not trying to be an armchair CEO here, I swear. American isn’t just performing poorly due to high labor costs and inefficient aircraft, but I think more than anything it’s because of their truly crappy route network. Seriously, they should be a global airline, but they’re not. As of March 1 they won’t have any flights to the Middle East, India, Africa, or Australia. They fly only to three places in Asia (Tokyo, Shanghai, and Beijing). They have a lackluster route network to Europe compared to Delta and United — they don’t even fly to Munich and Amsterdam, for example, and only fly to Frankfurt out of Dallas, alienating everyone on the east coast. On the plus side, they do fly to just about every city in Central and South America.

But the losses for cutting a route like Chicago to Delhi go beyond the direct operating loss of the flight. Customers don’t choose airlines just based on availability for a specific flight, but rather based on the overall route network of an airline. If a business traveler needs to fly several times a year to Delhi and Tokyo, for example, you think they’ll still choose American for their Tokyo travel when they could fly a different airline that meets all of their needs? Doubtful, I’d say.

I think American would be very wise to add a Europe tag flight to India, like London to Delhi, for example, which would perform better for a couple of reasons. First, it would translate to better aircraft utilization, since that India “tag” flight isn’t taking nearly two 777s to operate. Second, and more importantly, they could carry more cargo since they wouldn’t need to sacrifice it in favor of fuel given how much is needed for a 15 hour flight.

Either way, this cut is sad news, given that it makes American’s route network even more unappealing (and I thought that wasn’t possible before today).

As I posted about a couple of weeks back, American is running a double elite qualifying miles promotion through January 31. I posted a strategy at the time by which residents of California and Illinois could earn top tier (Executive Platinum) status for under $2,000 in just a few days.

Now, I’m neither a resident of California or Illinois, nor am I in desperate need of elite qualifying miles, given that I already have a bunch of international travel planned for 2012 on American, confirmed in first and business class thanks to the eight systemwide upgrades I get annually for being an Executive Platinum member.

Still, just to boost my beginning of the year balance, I decided to plan a fairly quick trip to Shanghai. Since flying American I haven’t really done all that many pure mileage runs, but rather just mini-vacations. In this case I’ll be going to Shanghai for four days.

The fare wasn’t spectacular — I paid $1,129 all-in, though I did manage to route the ticket from Tampa to Shanghai via Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in both directions. That’s a total of 22,322 base elite qualifying miles, or 44,644 elite qualifying miles through this promotion (not to mention I’ll also earn 44,644 redeemable miles for the trip). Best of all, the long segments are all confirmed in business class.

And that’s exactly what I love about top tier status with American. Even as a leisure traveler I never have to mileage run, but rather can just take a few fun international trips a year upgraded to business class.

I now have two trips planned to Spain (in business class), one to Shanghai (in business class), and one to Japan (in first class), all on American.

And I hate to say this, but let me make my big, baseless airline prediction for 2012, given that American is in Chapter 11 — I suspect they’ll add fare restrictions to their systemwide upgrades, so that they can no longer be used on all fares. I’m certainly hoping I’m wrong…

Hardly earth shattering, though through January 31, 2012, American is offering the following bonuses on the purchase of miles:

That means 40,000 purchased miles would earn you a total of 55,000 miles. Given that 40,000 miles costs $1,100, through this promotion you’re getting 55,000 miles for that amount, for a total cost of two cents per mile.

As far as American’s mileage purchase promotions go, that’s actually about as good as I’ve seen. While it’s not necessarily a cost at which I’d speculatively buy miles, this is a great deal for topping off an account. If you currently have just 12,500 miles, for example, purchasing $1,100 worth of miles would earn you enough miles for a one-way Cathay Pacific first class award space. Not a bad deal!

(Tip of the hat to Gary)

Application Links:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
• American Express Premier Rewards Gold card
• American Express Gold Business card
• Delta Reserve American Express
• Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card
• Starwood Preferred Guest Business American Express card
• Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard

Reader Tiffani asks the following question on the Ask Lucky page of the blog:

Hi to my fellow Tampa Bay area person. I’m interested in the Sapphire Preferred card and I can’t find anywhere if I can transfer miles to either American or Delta.

If I can’t do it with that card, which card is the best one for me for each airline?

I have Delta status, someone else in my family has American status so we are looking at two different cards.

For a long time now the Chase Sapphire Preferred card has been my go to credit card for everyday spend, as I outlined here. Unfortunately in the process I somewhat neglected other credit cards, like the ones that would suit Tiffani’s travel patterns and elite status better. Admittedly the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is pretty Star Alliance centric on the airline front, since the best transfer partners are Continental and United. While they’re also transfer partners with British Airways (One World) and Korean Air (SkyTeam), their award charts aren’t as lucrative as their US alliance counterparts for the most part, so I wouldn’t suggest using the Chase Sapphire Preferred card as a means for earning One World or SkyTeam miles.

With that in mind, here are my picks for the best cards to earn American and Delta miles:

Best card for earning Delta SkyMiles:

There’s no doubt in my mind that the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card is by far the best card for accruing Delta SkyMiles. The card accrues Membership Rewards points at the rate of three points per dollar spent on airfare, two points per dollar spent on gas and groceries, and one point per dollar spent on everything else. Furthermore, if you spend $30,000 on the card per year, you earn an additional 15,000 Membership Rewards points. Also keep in mind that Membership Rewards points are much more valuable than Delta SkyMiles, since they can typically be transferred to Delta at a premium. For example, Membership Rewards is presently offering a 30% refund (equivalent to a 43% bonus) for points transfers from Membership Rewards to Delta in increments of 50,000 points.

I’m not a huge fan of Delta miles, though if your goal is to earn them, this is the card to use to earn an insane number of Delta miles per dollar spent. When you factor in the category points bonuses, the annual bonus for spending $30,000, and the transfer bonuses, you can earn an average of close to 3-5 Delta SkyMiles per dollar spent.

As an example, I put roughly $30,000 on the card this year, and for that earned about 60,000 base points (I had a lot of airfare, gas, and groceries on the card), plus the 15,000 point annual bonus, for a total of 75,000 base points. If I had transferred those to Delta while they were running the 50% transfer bonus recently, I would have earned around 112,000 Delta SkyMiles, which is nearly four SkyMiles per dollar spent.

If you’re looking for a business credit card to earn Delta miles, I recommend the American Express Gold Business card, which offers three points per dollar spent on airfare, two points per dollar on gas, and one point per dollar on everything else. Since the card also earns Membership Rewards points, you can earn huge bonuses when transferring those points to Delta. This card also comes with a sign-up bonus of 50,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $10,000 on the card within five months. While that’s high minimum spend, that’s a fairly good sign-up bonus by American Express standards, given that they’ve hugely reduced the amount of their non-targeted sign-up bonuses as of late.

The only other card worth considering is the Delta Reserve American Express. The key benefits are that the card comes with SkyClub access and earns you 15,000 bonus Medallion Qualifying Miles if you spend $30,000 on the card annually, and 30,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles when you spend $60,000 on the card annually. That being said, the card comes with a $450 annual fee, and if it’s redeemable miles you’re after, the card is less than stellar since they don’t have many category bonuses.

Best card for earning American AAdvantage miles:

I hate to say it, but American’s credit cards are downright boring, especially now that miles earned through them no longer count towards million miler status.

The only one of their co-branded credit cards that you should even be considering is the Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard. The card comes with an Admirals Club membership, 10,000 elite qualifying miles when you make $40,000 worth of purchases in a calendar year, priority check-in/security/boarding, and a free checked bag. That being said, the card comes with a $450 annual fee, so is only worth considering if you value each of the above benefits.

For the rest of us, the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card is the way to go. The card offers one Starwood point per dollar spent, and those points can be converted 1:1 to American. Best of all, when you transfer in increments of 20,000 points, you earn a 5,000 point bonus, meaning you’re essentially earning 1.25 American miles per dollar spent. Beyond that, there are occasionally transfer bonuses from Starwood to American. In the past couple of years they have offered 25%-35% bonuses on top of the 1.25 miles per dollar, meaning you can earn close to 1.7 American miles per dollar spent if transferring while they’re running one of those promotions.

Starwood also offers the Starwood Preferred Guest Business American Express card, for those with a small business, which has the same benefits. Of course you also have added flexibility by using the Starwood card, since you can instead use those points on hotels, or if you prefer, transfer them to other airlines. Both of the Starwood cards come with a 25,000 point sign-up bonus after spending $5,000 on the card within six months.

Given that none of American’s co-branded credit cards offer bonus miles on spend categories other than American Airlines purchases, using the Starwood American Express is a no brainer.

Any questions? Anyone have different opinions on which cards are best for an American or Delta flyer?

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through some of the above links. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best publicly available sign-up bonus.

I need to fly in January. Not because American is offering double elite qualifying miles, but because I’ve gotta get the heck out of here. Change of scenery, please! Well, the double EQM promo American is running certainly doesn’t hurt in justifying it either. Fortunately I am almost booked for Executive Platinum requalification for next year, including two trips to Spain (confirmed in business class) and one trip to Japan (confirmed in first class).

Unfortunately other than that, airfare is awful. I just pulled up the fares out of Tampa for January using FareCompare’s new map tool, and with the exception of flights to Las Vegas, there’s not a single flight to the west coast for under $300.

This is all pretty ironic, given that the one route that seemed to be cheap was also the one on which they were offering triple elite qualifying miles, out of both Chicago and Dallas. So on one hand you have those that locked in Executive Platinum status for under $2,000, and on the other end of the spectrum you have those of us overpaying to fly.

I have to book something, though I haven’t decided whether to just take the bad fares or sweat it out a bit and wait for them to drop. After all, January is a slow month for travel…

I do intend to visit the InterContinental San Francisco and Andaz West Hollywood sometime during the month, though.

Thanks for listening to me gripe. I’m happy to reciprocate.

Yesterday I outlined a method by which California and Illinois residents can earn Executive Platinum status with American for under $2,000 in four days, which gets you benefits like unlimited domestic upgrades, eight international upgrades per year, international first class lounge access when traveling internationally, etc.

Unfortunately they pulled the $99 one-way fares between San Francisco/Los Angeles and Chicago that I had mentioned yesterday that were required to make this work, though they have just been reloaded them, so it’s once again possible to make Executive Platinum status for under $2,000 in just a few days.

One important thing to note regarding American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion between Dallas/Chicago and Los Angeles/San Francisco (which in this instance means you would get triple elite qualifying miles), is that travel must be nonstop between those cities to qualify for triple elite qualifying miles, and you can only book one roundtrip per ticket. The terms and conditions state the following:

Offer only applies to AAdvantage members with an address on file with AAdvantage Marketing Programs in California, Illinois or Texas. AAdvantage promotion is valid for round-trip travel on purchased, published fare tickets on American Airlines marketed and operated nonstop flights between Chicago (ORD) or Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) and Los Angeles (LAX) or San Francisco (SFO) from October 27, 2011 through March 31, 2012. A round trip is defined as two one-way trips booked in a single reservation under one ticket number. Reservations containing open jaws are eligible. A maximum of one round trip is permitted per reservation.

Let me make this exceedingly easy on you guys. Say you live in San Francisco. You could fly the following for $440 all-in:

American 1522 San Francisco to Chicago departing at 11:55PM and arriving at 5:50AM (+1 day)
American 1341 Chicago to San Francisco departing at 6:50AM and arriving at 9:25AM
American 556 San Francisco to Chicago departing at 10:35AM and arriving at 4:55PM
American 1561 Chicago to San Francisco departing at 7:15PM and arriving at 9:55PM

That would net you 22,152 elite qualifying miles. Do that for four days and you’re almost at Executive Platinum.

Look folks, I have no skin in the game here. I have travel booked for next year that will just about requalify me for Executive Platinum, and that was travel that was booked way before double elite qualifying miles were announced. Hell, I do have skin in the game — more Executive Platinum members means more competition for upgrades, which means more time in coach for me, which means fewer hot nuts and more time looking at the curtain from the wrong side (the horror). But I’m trying to help you guys out. This is the best opportunity I’ve seen to “get in the game” from scratch in at least a couple of years.

And don’t expect these fares to stick around. If you want to take advantage of this offer, do so now.