BREAKING NEWS

“Continental Airlines will begin charging coach customers extra if they want a seat with more leg room…

Prices will vary depending on the length of a flight and popularity of the route. A spokeswoman said extra room on a Houston-New York flight might cost $59. International fliers would pay more than that…

Starting March 17, coach customers will be able to pay the charge at check-in to get an exit-row seat with at least 7 inches more legroom than the other rows..

Top-level members of Continental’s frequent-flier program — those who rack up at least 25,000 miles a year — and their traveling companions will still be able to claim the exit row without extra charge…

.Some other airlines already charge extra for exit-row seats. United, for example, sells “economy plus” seats in coach, with up to five extra inches of legroom…

On its Web site, United says the upgrade costs $49 on Denver-to-Seattle flights and $109 going from Los Angeles to Tokyo.

JetBlue also charges more for legroom. Some carriers charge extra for aisle or bulkhead seats. On US Airways, window or aisle seats can cost $5 to $30 extra. ” (via seattletimes.nwsource.com  ) by DAVID KOENIG

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to read more – Continental to charge more for seats with extra leg room

Thanks to Jason B. for the tip

“I’m a teacher, so can only fly on weekends, major holidays, or at peak times in the summer. I manage to collect points on United, but usually can’t find a way to USE those points. Do you have any ideas as to how a non-elite-level flyer can book a flight with points at peak times?”

Wouldn’t we all like to know? Luckily, FlyerTalk founder Randy Petersen, the world’s leading expert on frequent-flier programs, has the answers and has graciously shared them with us. Here are Randy’s top tips for travelers who want to use their miles for free tickets:

1. Pick up the phone. Call the airline mileage-award-redemption desk. The award-booking tools on airline web sites often don’t display all the award seats that are actually available. Phoning the desk will cost you a few dollars, but that’s a small price to pay if you find a helpful reservations agent who will think creatively, look into alternate routes and partner airlines, and find that available seat you’re looking for.

2. Try to predict which flights will have award seats available. Generally speaking, the emptier a flight, the lower the airfare will be and the more award seats it will have. So look to see which flights during your travel window are priced lowest, since they will be most likely to have award seats. Try using Bing’s Farecast technology for this. If you search for a flight and the “predictor” says “wait” to buy it because the price may drop, then award availability is a possibility.  ”When fares are predicted to go down,” says Randy, “then award seat availability can be predicted to rise.”

3. Know which days of the week offer the most award seats. It varies by destination. For flights to Hawaii, for instance, award seats are most likely to be available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. For flights to Florida, they are most likely to be available on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

4. Consider flying into one airport and back from another. A number of programs now offer one-way awards, allowing you to fly into one airport and return from another, which can be very helpful if your destination has more than one airport. Say you want to fly to New York City.  ”Just because Tuesday into JFK isn’t available doesn’t mean that Wednesday into Newark isn’t either,” says Randy. Say you want to fly to Los Angeles. You could fly into LAX and back from Ontario or Orange County airports.

5. Look for award seats six months ahead. After years of research, Randy and his team have figured out that six months before your travel date is the time when you’ll find the greatest award-seat availability. If you plan to travel during the peak summer months, the best time to look for award seats is December. ” ( via concierge.com ) by Wendy Perrin

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to read more about Get the flights you want with the miles you have.

From a post on Timeshareforums.com …

How worthless is the new Delta SkyMiles?…  Some on FlyerTalk call it SkyPiles, and for good reason…

I was once a DL SkyMiles Gold Medallion before Rob Borden gutted the program, when I bailed out to NW…

Now that DL has taken over NW, some of my NW Worldperks miles that I had not been able to burn have been involuntarily converted to SkyPiles, and the Jeff Robertson version of SkyPiles is much worse than the Borden version…

I recently checked several TATL (trans-Atlantic) itineraries on the DL and NW websites for award availbility. At NW and in the Borden and pre-Borden days at DL there was reasonable TATL availibility at normal miles, even if you were flexible a few weeks out in high season. Ten months out, almost everything was availible. That has all changed.

After checking US to Dublin for a relative and finding nothing at anything but high miles (and with their unique and disadvantageous 3-tier award system, high means sky high) over multiple months, I checked US to Bucharest over the entire upcoming ten months and found nothing but high miles seats the whole time, including low season. This really stinks.

And DL raised the minimum number of miles for TATL award tickets to 60K, although those seem to be extreme rarities these days. Usually, one has to part with far more miles than that on DL. On AA, in comparision, a low or shoulder season TATL award ticket is 40K miles and they are actually availible at that level. On BMI they are 45K miles all year and they are actually availible.

BMI has even got me one way award tickets KIV to VIE on their partner Austrian airlines’ Friday afternoon flights that are usually sold out and often oversold for a mere 6K miles on several occaisions a month or two before the flight.

FF programs are all about incentives. DL has certainly given me an incentive to avoid buying tickets on it or its partners like the plague. They have stolen my NW miles and they will not get any of my cash or my employers cash for my work related travel in the future.

DELTA = Driving Every Loyal Traveller Away

Carolinian – member

——-

We have found Delta charges more than other airlines. We used ours to fly to Hawaii last summer. It cost 52,000 miles per person, while my parents, daughter, son-in-law, son and daughter-in-law only used 40,000 flying United. We booked ours as soon as we could as did they. This year we used United. 40,000. At the same time Delta was 78,000. I just checked and Delta is now down to 62,000. We cancelled our American Express Sky Miles Card and are using our United card only. When we talked to American Express, they asked why we were cancelling. We told them two reasons, your fee went up $15 and it was not easy getting flights to where we wanted to go.

The three tier can be a joke. We tried high, medium and low, different days, they were the same amount. Maybe it was just when we tried, but it did not leave a good feeling. A high out and a medium back. No difference. Same with a high out and a low back. It was so crazy, we thought what the heck, try first class. It was marked LOW when economy was marked HIGH. The first class ticket was only 2000 miles more.

We talked to an agent, “We just can’t give our product away”. Had to remind her, that American Express pays for those miles, so the flights are not exactly free using the credit card miles.

d1950m -Member

——————-

Delta indeed seems to have far fewer point saver award tickets for FF’s. If they weren’t cheaper than everyone else we probably wouldn’t fly them. Unfortunately, since all airlines are about at bad as the other, price wins the day, even if we have a tough time spending those miles

dougp26364 – Member

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to follow this thread on Timeshareforums.com

BREAKING NEWS!…

“U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for a federal review of complaints by consumers that they are losing millions of frequent flier miles without notice in confusing agreements…

He wants to establish industry rules for frequent flier programs that are billed as a free benefit to help attract and retain customers… There are few restrictions now on how airlines can manage and redeem the miles…

csays he suspects consumers are actually paying for frequent frier programs through air fare and fees. If so, he said rules are needed to protect consumers. He’s asking the Department of Transportation to review the complaints…

“As the holiday travel season approaches, we cannot let airlines and credit card companies continue to fly off with hard-earned frequent flier miles,” Schumer said in an announcement scheduled for Sunday… “When a consumer accumulates valuable frequent flier miles, they should not have to constantly worry that they are going to expire with little or no notification from the airline.”

InsideFlyer magazine finds the lack of consumer protections on frequent flier miles a common concern. Complaints include miles expiring without clear notice and a frequent change in the value of the miles, according to magazine spokeswoman Michelle O’Neill.

Other complaints include confusion over how many miles can be accumulated for certain trips, O’Neill said. ” (via 1010wins.com  and ap.com) by MICHAEL GORMLEY

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to read the rest of Sen. Schumer Wants Federal Probe of Airline Miles Plans

Many of our readers love the Starwood Preferred Guest^® Credit Card from American Express for its ability to move 20,000 points into 25,000 miles into almost 30 airlines frequent flyer programs…

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Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here for Get up to 25,000 Starwood Hotels Starpoints®

Some of Starwood brands are Sheraton, W Hotels, aloft hotels, The Luxury Collection, Le Méridien, Westin Hotels & Resorts, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts

Frequent-flier rewards are more elusive than ever. Tips to help you score

“The average leisure traveler no longer has a prayer of compiling enough miles for a free trip simply by flying a few times a year. Most airlines now demand more miles before you qualify, and they expire quicker than ever — in 18 months, typically.

Today you must pile up points by every means available, and do so in a hurry. That means taking advantage of the airlines’ partner programs and being smart about how to use them. Here, with help from insideflyer.com ’s Randy Petersen, are ways to turn everyday activities into miles.

Go ahead and get crafty.

Choose plastic There’s a good chance you already have an airline-affiliated credit card. Get another one: It’s hands down the quickest way to earn a free trip. Most of these cards deliver enough bonus points for a domestic round trip after you make your first purchase.

Eat out Register your credit or debit card with an airline’s dining program and you’ll earn up to five miles for every $1 spent at partner restaurants. Alaska Airlines, American, Delta, Southwest, and United have very similar programs — and nearly identical Web sites. The restaurant options are better than you might imagine: around 600 in New York City alone, for example — most of them independently owned.
Word to the wise
To get the full five miles per $1, you have to use your card for a meal at least 12 times a year, and let the restaurants send you promotional e-mails. If you block the e-mails, you could get only one mile per $1 spent — or worse, maybe even nothing.
American and Delta: 1,000-mile bonus for spending $25 or more within 30 days of joining, and up to five miles per $1 spent at partner restaurants thereafter.
United: Similar to American and Delta — but minus the 1,000-mile bonus.
Southwest: One-quarter credit bonus for the first $25 spent, and then one-quarter credit for every additional $100.

Sell your house Picking a mortgage lender, real-estate agent, or moving service that works with a frequent-flier program is a quick way to pile up tens of thousands of miles.
Word to the wise
With financial transactions this huge, keep your eye on what’s really important; a few free flights won’t help that much if you end up paying thousands extra on your mortgage.
•    American: 1,000 miles for every $10,000 financed with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.
•    Continental: 3,000 miles per $10,000 of any home sale or purchase with a Realtor found through LendingTree (which adds up quickly — if you’re buying a $300,000 house and selling one of the same value, you’ll net 180,000 miles).

Go shopping Every airline has a bunch of retailers it partners with, and they’ll thank you for your business with 1 to 25 miles for every $1 you spend. Signing up is easy; enter the shopping section of your miles program’s Web site to browse stuff from Omaha Steaks, Staples, Target, iTunes, Mrs. Fields, Macy’s, REI, and more.
Word to the wise
It’s always good to comparison shop and root around for better deals. Even with the bonus miles factored in, you might be better off making the purchase elsewhere.
•    Alaska Airlines: Four miles per $1 spent at Macy’s.
•    American: 14,000 miles for activating a new FamilyTime plan from T-Mobile with a two-year service plan (though there’s a $200 penalty for dropping T-Mobile’s service before your term expires).
•    Continental: 10 miles per $1 spent with luggage vendor ebags.com , plus double miles if you pay with a Continental Chase card.
•    United: 2,000 miles for signing up with Netflix; a bonus of 2,000 miles if you pay with a United Visa card.

Pay your bills Everyday expenses, from buying your weekly groceries to paying monthly utility bills, can earn you some serious miles.
•    Continental: 3,000 miles for signing up with Energy Plus, an energy service in New York, plus two miles for every $1 spent on your electric bill.
•    Continental: One mile per $2 spent at ShopRite. But in order to collect, you have to spend at least $1,000 every three months. And you can’t roll your dollars over from quarter to quarter.
•    Alaska Airlines and United: 125 miles for spending $250 at Safeway supermarkets with a Safeway Club Card.
•    American: 2,000 miles at sign-up with Gexa Energy, a Texas-based electricity provider, plus two miles for every $1 of your monthly bill.
” (via msnbc.msn.com) by  Brad Tuttle, Budget Travel

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click to read the rest(page2) of 35 new tricks to maximize your miles

picture above is of Heather Locklear and Robert Buckley

This summer, travel to Canada for only 20,000 Mileage Plus miles when you book your travel at www.united.com by June 21, 2009

-Economy Saver Awards are available for 20,000 Mileage Plus miles instead of 25,000
-Offer valid for travel between the 48 contiguous United States and Canada

-Ticketing period: Now through June 21, 2009
-Travel period: Now through September 2, 2009
-Blackout dates: July 2, 2009 – July 6, 2009
-Valid for roundtrip travel in United Economy® on United® and United Express® operated flights

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here for info and to book United Airlines – Fly to Canada For Just 20,000 Miles

“Does your credit card give you something back every time the cash register rings? More than half of all cards issued have a rewards component — typically worth $0.01 to $0.03 per dollar spent — and the goodies range from free Frappuccinos to contributions to Junior’s college fund.

Perks aplenty; gotchas a-go-go
Airline miles are so yesterday. To make their perks look richer, today’s rewards programs offer chits with retailers, environmental groups, resorts, and even discount brokerages and college savings plans. And then there’s cash back. Payouts of as much as 5% are becoming standard fare. (Note the “as much as” verbiage.)

New customers are wooed as fiercely as pro athletes, signing bonuses and all. You can often get enough points for some valuable stuff just by applying. But although finding a loyalty program that suits you isn’t difficult, cashing in on it is another story.

According to Consumer Reports, 75% of airline miles go unused every year. That’s no wonder, given the plentiful and ever-changing rewards-card restrictions. Popular frequent-flier programs have instituted tighter expiration guidelines for unused miles. Many programs render points worthless within a year or two, and even start the use-it-or-lose-it stopwatch retroactively.

Credit card companies aren’t the only ones watching the clock: Airlines are also forcing people to forfeit miles if enough time goes by without any activity. Often, you can revive expired miles, but at a cost — fees that are sometimes so high, it doesn’t make sense to pay them.

Nevertheless, don’t give up entirely on the free-lunch promise of loyalty cards. Just recognize that going from frequent buyer to frequent flier requires some detailed planning — and some discipline.

Tips from a pro
For tips on turning points into magnificent trips, I went straight to my personal travel guru — a fellow Fool who in three years has taken $35,000 in free trips. She and her husband have traveled to Africa (three times), India, and China without paying a dime. Her secrets: flexibility and persistence.

She consolidates points with Starwood Hotels (and its dozens of airline and hotel partners), plans six months before departure or snags last-minute deals, and doggedly calls to cash in.” ( via fool.com/personal-finance/credit ) by Dayana Yochim

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click to read the rest of Make the Most of Frequent Flier Miles

“Almost every airline has a frequent flier program, and the credits, miles or points you earn when you fly add up to discounted or free flights, upgrades and other rewards.

Not all airline programs are the same, however, so here are 10 tips to make frequent flier programs take off for you.

Look for value.

If you have 25,000 miles and want to fly Delta Air Lines, consider how much the ticket is before you use the miles. Sales abound right now due to the weak economy. So consider saving your miles for a free transcontinental flight instead of a short flight that costs under $200.

Book early

Make sure you get that free ticket for only 25,000 miles. Don’t pay 50,000 miles that took you two years to accumulate for that cramped coach seat unless you absolutely have to.

The best way to maximize your miles is to book your reward ticket at least several months before you want to fly. That’s because the number of reward seats available at the lowest redemption level on many airlines are limited, particularly at peak hours of the day or peak days of the year.

“If someone tries to get an award on a high demand specific flight at a specific time of day and they’re not flexible, they may be disappointed,” American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith said.

If you must travel at a specific time on a specific day and your plans don’t come together until close to the day you want to leave, you still can get a free ticket, but it may cost you more miles. For 60,000 miles, Delta guarantees a free seat on a domestic flight, excluding travel to Hawaii, as long as a coach seat is available.

Diversify

Sign up for several reward programs — it’s free. Rewards on AirTran Airways add up fast. You can get a free domestic coach ticket for 16 flight credits, which take just eight round-trip paid flights, regardless of distance, to accumulate.

But if you tend to take a lot of transcontinental flights, it may get you a faster free round-trip coach ticket on United Airlines or US Airways, which, like Delta, give reward miles based on the distance you travel. AirTran only flies in North America. But for 100 flight credits, AirTran will buy you a ticket anywhere in the world on another carrier.

Get the credit card

Some airline branded credit cards will give you 2 miles or points for every dollar spent on the partner airline and 1 mile or point for every dollar spent everywhere else. Some of those cards carry annual fees of up to $85 or more. AirTran and Delta, however, have partner credit cards that offer no-annual-fee options, but that comes with 1 point or mile for every dollar spent on the partner airline and one-half of 1 point or mile for every dollar spent everywhere else.

“For those people who charge very high dollar amounts annually to those cards but yet don’t carry a revolving balance, the mileage you generate is worthwhile. The annual fee is worthwhile,” said David Robertson, an expert on frequent flier credit card promotions and publisher of the Nilson Report, a credit card industry newsletter.

Watch for promotions

Some airlines offer frequent flier members the ability to get extra miles, points or credits if they rent a car with a partner company, fly to certain locations or buy a Netflix membership. For travel between now and May 14, United has lowered the miles required for travel to Europe from 55,000 to 40,000, spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said. Look for deals on airline Web sites and sign up with the airlines for e-mail alerts about promotions.” (via seattletimes.nwsource.com ) by HARRY R. WEBER

Pointswizard.com Spin: Read more about How to make the most of frequent-flier miles

“Who is to blame for the recent series of frequent-flier-program “enhancements” that have made it increasingly difficult to redeem miles for “award” tickets and reduced membership benefits?

Many of us in the press and elsewhere have often attributed those changes to the troubles of the industry caused by fuel-price fluctuations and the global economic crisis.

However, a closer look at the activities of most major U.S. carriers’ loyalty schemes by airline experts suggests that the main reason for those programs’ need to tighten their belts is the way they have been run for years.

“Frequent-flier programs are major businesses, but unfortunately, in most cases, they haven’t been run as businesses,” said Jay Sorensen, president of IdeaWorks, an airline consulting firm. “There is fiscal recklessness, and the outcome for the consumer is not attractive.”

U.S. airline programs are subsidiaries or divisions of the companies that own the respective carriers. They are usually profitable, even if the rest of the company is not, and their profitability is due in large part to their co-branded credit cards, Mr. Sorensen said.

This is where the problems began years ago, he added. The airline programs “have had a windfall of cash that has landed in their laps. With that comes a tremendous amount of responsibility, and that’s what the carriers have forgotten.”

They receive billions of dollars from selling miles to credit-card issuers, but they don’t use enough of that money for the loyalty schemes’ benefit, choosing instead to “spread the wealth” and help out other parts of the company. Sometimes, the frequent-flier programs are left with insufficient funds to cover their own costs, such as mileage redemption for “award” tickets.

That’s the case with United Airlines, Mr. Sorensen said. Last year, its Mileage Plus program pre-sold miles worth about $1 billion to its credit-card partner Chase – a major chunk of its annual revenue.

As readers of this column might recall, United has been blocking access for Mileage Plus members to thousands of “award” seats made available by its partner-carriers in the global Star Alliance, making it difficult for many of the miles it sold to Chase to be redeemed for flights. United, which has to pay partners for “award” tickets, says the blocking was put in place because otherwise it would exceed the budget it has to cover those payments.

The airline hasn’t said why that budget hasn’t been increased, given the new miles it has encouraged its customers to amass – not only from Chase, but also through the recently invented “award accelerator,” which allows fliers to double and triple their miles for a fee.

Mr. Sorensen’s answer is that “the cash [from Chase] is gone – it’s been spent on fuel” and other expenses. “In a sane business, a good chunk of the cash should have been set aside for ‘award’ redemption,” he said. “There is a tsunami of miles on the books that can’t be used, and in difficult times, the consumer doesn’t always get served very well.”

Even though United increased the mileage required to redeem “awards” by as much as 40 percent earlier this month and halved the lifetime of unused miles to 18 months last year, the blocking of partner flights is still around.

All major U.S. carriers have either upped redemption requirements or are soon expected to do so. Some, such as Delta and Alaska Airlines, have created new “award” levels meant to mask the reduced availability of regular mileage seats and charge even more miles, and Delta has also introduced “award” booking fees.”( via www.washingtontimes.com  ) by Nicholas Kralev

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to read more of ” Frequent fliers question loyalty schemes “

BREAKING NEWS!

“YOU’VE signed up for fare alerts that send you an e-mail message when a flight you want to buy goes down in price. Ever wish you could get a similar message when a frequent-flier seat opens up on that plane?

Starting on Tuesday, Yapta.com will do just that. Known for alerting travelers to airfare price drops even after the ticket has been purchased, the site is testing a new service that allows travelers to receive an e-mail alert when an award seat becomes available. Travelers simply do a normal online search for airfare on Yapta.com and click “include award tickets” to begin tracking the flight. Yapta will automatically send alerts via e-mail if either the price drops or an award seat opens up.

The service, which is being offered free in a test phase, comes at a time when travelers, faced with sky-high airfares in a tough economic environment, may be increasingly tempted to use miles for flights. But finding an award seat, while rarely easy, could be particularly challenging as airlines cut capacity.

That said, if the falloff in travel demand turns out to be greater than the capacity cuts, travelers could find more award availability as airlines try to fill seats any way they can. That scenario, said Tim Winship, an editor for SmarterTravel.com and the publisher of FrequentFlier.com, would be “a terrific opportunity for the airlines to reduce the liability of having the miles on their books and do so without diluting revenue” since the award seats would most likely have gone unsold anyway.

Airlines typically release seats 11 months in advance but can release them at any time based on cancellations, changes or demand levels. “The reality is airlines do open and close buckets of inventory around award seats,” said Tom Romary, chief executive of Yapta.com. The new service, he said, constantly searches for those award seats so you don’t have to.

Mr. Romary, formerly a marketing executive with Alaska Airlines, said if 10 percent of the carrier’s seats were set aside for awards, typically only 5 percent were used. Alerting travelers to fresh award inventory, he added, can both help airlines alleviate some of their liability for unredeemed awards and encourage loyalty among travelers. “You are more likely to continue to use your airline credit card to earn more miles,” he said, if you’re able to redeem those miles.

The site will offer award-seat alerts for five major airlines ………….  ” (via travel.nytimes.com ) by  MICHELLE HIGGINS

Pointswizard.com Spin: Read more about Unused Frequent-Flier Seats in a Flash

“When litigator Mitchell Berns was told by Delta that his flight was canceled because of weather, he didn’t get mad. He did research.

He checked with the National Weather Service and found out the airline’s excuse was a sham: Snow wasn’t due for many hours.

See, airlines are allowed by law to cancel flights because of bad weather, but Berns knew at a glance that Delta was just using it as an excuse. He booked with another airline, took off, and then filed suit against Delta in small-claims court to force it to pay back the cost of his replacement flight.

Delta tried to settle the matter by offering him frequent flier miles. But as most travelers are already too aware, frequent flier miles are woefully devalued, over-issued, and flooding the travel market.

As Berns told Fortune — and this is my favorite part of the story — frequent flier miles are “Confederate currency.” Just as Dixie once did, instead of dealing with systemic problems, the airlines are just printing more useless cash to pawn off challengers.

Don’t be pawned off. Say no. Make the company that ripped you off up its game. Berns told Delta he didn’t want its Dixie dollars and that he wouldn’t accept them. Eventually, he got the carrier to pay all but $100 of his expenses.

It’s not just airlines that try to fob off legitimate beefs with pathetic offers ” (via walletpop.com/blog ) by Jason Cochran

Pointswizard.com Spin: Read more

“Return for a moment to 1981 and the dawn of airline deregulation: People Express launches a no-frills service with $29 regional one-ways and $99 coast-to-coast fares cheap enough for almost anyone to fly.

To keep fares low, the discounter forgoes in-flight meals and charges 50 cents for sodas and $2 for a snack pack of salami, cheese and crackers. It earns the nickname “People’s Republic Express” as passengers jam aisles bearing all manner of carry-on items short of caged chickens to avoid a $3 fee per piece of checked luggage.

Leap ahead to mid-2008: Travelers can still book coast-to-coast roundtrips for $198 — which would be about $500 in 1981 dollars adjusted for inflation — and add-on fees are now the industry norm. It’s no wonder airlines are squeezed when we’re paying 40 cents on the dollar nearly three decades later.

Call it the free market meets the tyranny of the masses armed with technology. Consumers wanted cheap fares, the Internet gave us the instantaneous means to find them, and now our tightfistedness has brought a vital industry to the verge of collapse.

Even consumer advocates acknowledge the anarchy that’s resulted 30 years after the Civil Aeronautics Board stopped setting fares and routes. Deregulation has spawned a second-rate system offering little more than Greyhound buses with wings that make five or more often-late stops daily throughout the country to keep seats filled.

“In many ways we’ve seen the enemy and it is us,” concedes David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association. “We’re not willing to pay for better services yet we fully expect them.”

Sleazy survival tactics

To avoid massive losses or bankruptcy, airlines have resorted to charging a host of extra fees that People Express executives might have found deviously ingenious. The reason: They’re such slaves to fare search engines they don’t dare risk raising ticket prices and getting underbid by competitors.

“They can’t raise fares because they have no pricing control,” Stempler says. “It’s not that they don’t have the courage; it would be business suicide to fall out of lockstep.”

Instead, most airlines are nickeling, diming and fifty-dollaring buyers with fees hidden from search-engine sweeps to give the almighty consumers what they demand — except it’s now the illusion of the best-available bargain.

Consider the scope of a la carte pricing on services previously included in ticket costs: $2 sodas at US Airways (LCC) , $7 for a blanket and pillow at JetBlue (JBLU) , $40 for a “choice” window seat on Northwest (NWA) and $50 for a second checked bag at Delta (DAL) . As one blogger on travel-rants.com wrote: “What’s next, charging me to go to the toilet?”

In the height of audacity, several airlines are using the industry’s weak on-time performance as a revenue enhancer by charging extra for seats in the first two rows of coach. Their target market: Travelers needing to catch a connecting flight who fear that they won’t deplane quickly enough if they’re seated in the back rows.

Yet U.S. consumers complain about the airline industry like we do Big Oil when it’s our craving for the absolute lowest prices that’s crippled the industry.

Somewhere in the last 25 years, Americans came to believe cheap air travel is a right to which we’re entitled just like we did cheap gas — until that train left the station. With jet-fuel costs up 50% in the last year, we’re awakening from a similar greed.

The Southwest paradox

Southwest (LUV) is held up as the stellar example of a profitable airline. It’s avoided resorting to tack-on fees thanks to a hedging program that’s helped contain fuel costs. Yet it typifies what’s bad about the post-deregulation era. ” via(foxbusiness.proteus.com) by Chris Pummer

Pointswizard.com Spin: read more

 

“DAVID BORAK, an environmental policy analyst fromWashington, has 300,000 frequent-flier miles with United, but for five months now, he hasn’t been able to use them for a family vacation in Rome next summer.

While his dates are flexible, he said there were no seats available for the so-called Saver price of 50,000 miles.Exasperated, he posted a message on FlyerTalk.com, a Web site where travelers share tips about getting the most out of loyalty programs, venting his frustration: “I could not even find one lousy award ticket (economy or business) for IAD-FCO for the next 12 months!” he wrote, using the airport codes for Dulles and Leonardo da Vinci Airports. “What gives?”

There are similar gripes about nearly every frequent-flier program. “I’ve been looking for standard coach seats IAH-HNL for the 1st week of August since last October,” a Continental OnePass member recently posted, referring to the airports in Houston and Honolulu. “No luck whatsoever.” A Southwest Rapid Rewards member who couldn’t find any award seats from Virginia to Denver asked in a post last December, “Is this a trend?”

In a word, yes. Travelers have long complained about the difficulty of booking frequent-flier tickets, but now it’s becoming even harder. One issue is the airline load factor. Seats filled with paying passengers averaged 80 percent in the year ended October, up one percentage point from 2006. The industry considers that level a near-capacity load factor, and as a result, airlines have less incentive to offer award seats on planes they can easily fill with paying passengers.Meanwhile, airlines are issuing miles on credit card payments for everything from groceries to rent, resulting in a glut of miles competing for a shrinking number of seats. On top of this, airlines have been tweaking their frequent-flier programs, making miles both harder to redeem and cheaper in value.”( Via NYtimes.com)

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“By James Gilden
Special to the Chicago Tribune

Scoring a free or low-cost upgrade from coach to business or first class is among the most coveted of traveler perks. And these days, airlines are offering fliers more ways than ever to fill their first- and business-class seats.

Frequent-flier miles, upgrade coupons and vouchers, last-minute paid upgrades and the ever more rare “operational upgrade” are some of the more common paths to a more comfortable flight. All these options and each individual airline’s policies around them have made winning the upgrade game a confusing and sometimes frustrating undertaking.

The rules of the game can change even when you are flying on the same airline.

A colleague of mine was flying from Chicago O’Hare to London’s Heathrow Airport in August on British Airways. She had purchased discounted tickets for her and her husband in World Traveller Plus, BA’s business-class lite, which comes with a bit more leg room than a regular economy class seat.


Four days before her flight she called BA to inquire about an upgrade to business class. For an additional $200 (cost to change the ticket) plus 15,000 frequent flier miles each, she secured business-class seats between Chicago and London.

Upon arrival in London, she inquired at the BA service desk at Heathrow about doing the same for her return flight to Chicago. She was confused and disappointed when she was told no, that only the flights from the States offered that type of upgrade.

Despite repeated queries to a BA spokesman and visiting BA’s Web site, it is about as clear as mud what exactly my colleague paid for and why it was not available on her return flight.



Unraveling all the various rules regarding upgrades is a challenge, even for someone who devotes his life to it.

”Do I get confused? Yes,” said Matthew Bennett, a.k.a. “Mr. Upgrade.” He is the publisher of the Web site FlightBliss.com and the monthly newsletter First Class Flyer, which has about 15,000 subscribers, he said.

”It takes time to understand them,” he says, likening upgrade policies in their complexity to insurance policies. “That’s our job to unravel them.”

The newsletter is written more for the frequent flier and business traveler, not the average leisure traveler. A one-year subscription costs $97. But FlightBliss features a free blog where Bennett weighs in with some of the latest news and tips on upgrades.

My colleague’s upgrade from the States was actually typical if unusual in that it was unavailable on her return flight.

Most airlines these days will not allow passengers who have purchased many types of discounted tickets to use miles to upgrade, especially on international flights. Some, like BA and American Airlines, charge an added fee to upgrade. Others, such as United, only allow upgrading on certain types of fares.

If you are booking tickets on United’s Web site, there is an option to book an upgradeable fare. But for the uninitiated, the array of seven choices is confusing.

I decided to test United’s upgradeable fare options for a flight from O’Hare to Heathrow in mid-November (these fares are for comparison only and may no longer be available).

When I clicked the first category of upgrades using miles — an alphabet soup of 10 fare types — I received a message saying that option was not available. The second option, “miles-MH,” yielded a round-trip economy class “upgrade eligible” fare of $822, or $340 more than the lowest non-upgradeable fare of $482. That is in addition to 30,000 frequent flier miles each way.

But here’s the rub. Even if you pay the extra $340, you are not guaranteed an upgrade. And if your upgrade is waitlisted and does not go through, you are not entitled to a refund even though the only benefit to the higher fare is the ability to upgrade.

Knowing the ins and outs of a particular airline’s policies is key to increasing the odds of getting an upgrade.” [Via chicagotribune.com]

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