Musings of The Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
Index to a series of Flyer Tips posts.
1- seat maps
2 – basics of airline revenue management
3 – booking classes
4 – availability tools
5 – booking class availability myths
6 – keeping informed of schedule changes
Seat preferences
flying alone
flying as a couple
flying with 2 others
flying with 3 others
Keep watching for more to come.
I fly longhaul often enough that I get to see most movies while up in the air. I’ve been wanting to watch Up in the Air starring George Clooney for some time, so I was happy when I found out that an airline I fly regularly had added it to their AVOD (audio video on demand) listings in March.
I haven’t flown that particular airline in March but I have lots of flights coming up so I expected to see it soon enough. Unfortunately I now see from their April listings that Up in the Air has already been removed from AVOD for 2 of their aircraft types. Guess which of their aircraft I’m flying on next? 
I wonder if there is anyone else who picks flights for the IFE (in flight entertainment) listing? Probably not many because most airlines currently do not publish their IFE listings online, and those that do list IFE tend to provide no or minimal notice of changes.
There have been a lot of changes to hotel stay programs this year. I don’t tend to pay as much attention to hotel program changes as I do to frequent flyer program (FFP) changes because I fly far more than I stay in hotels, and get much more value in total from FFPs.
Nonetheless Ric Garrido has done some handy comparisons between hotel programs lately – see Loyalty Wars posted on Loyalty Traveler, and Hotel Loyalty posted on Inside Flyer (free access article). The method Ric uses is fairly similar to that I use myself, although I also try to account for promotions and Point Stretcher/Points Break awards as these are material for me.
A few years ago Hilton HHonors scored highly in my own value tests with some great promos which allowed me to stay very cheaply in some fabulous hotels (eg Cavalieri in Rome, Hilton Budapest); but these days I do better with Intercontinental Priority Club. By following the relevant hotel forums on Flyer Talk I my earn:burn rates are at least twice as good as the standard you’d get ignoring promotions.
I recently posted about a ticket where all 16 flights have been changed. It is best if you find out as soon as possible when significant schedule changes to any of your bookings occur. Significant here means has a consequential impact – which could be missing an onward flight, requiring a change in flights/route, missing a night of already paid for accommodation or requiring an extra night, missing a cruise, etc.
The reason is because by being informed as early as possible you maximise your options. More on this later.
How to keep informed
There are a number of things you can easily do to keep up to date.
Twice a year schedule disruption
Major airlines and major airports coordinate schedules in 2 six-month periods – Northern Summer from April to September and Northern Winter from October to March. Conveniently the start and end of each “season” loosely coincides with the start and end of daylight savings in the countries which have daylight savings time in their summer. The non-alignment of daylight savings dates and travel between northern and southern hemispheres means there are some scheduling issues for most international airlines around those dates.
Anyway, when most of the schedules for the next season are worked out, well in advance of course, it is common for airline systems, websites, etc to take several days to adjust all the impacted flights and bookings.
This means you need to be careful not to assume a schedule change has created a problem. For example it may be the first flight has been retimed in your booking but the second has not yet but will do so to restore the connection.
The ticket I referred to above, with 16 flights changing, is a good example of ongoing changes. It is also an example of a ticket for travel in a subsequent season being bought before the new season’s schedule was updated.
What to do about schedule changes?
How to deal with schedule changes is a big topic in itself, so I’ll follow up in a later post.
Entries have closed for the draw to win a trip for 2 to Gold Coast Australia.
Thanks for all the great tips. I had fun reading them and picking one to go into the main draw – a 1 in 20 chance to win the fabulous prize offered by American Express and Boarding Area. While there can only be one winner, there are also some entries that deserve honorable mentions.
The most concise entry was this gem from Julie Vessigault – “Network with frequent fliers.”
The nice try award goes to Eileen, whose lengthy entry was as follows.
“1) ALL OF THE ABOVE!
2) Sign up …
[edited for space]
11) EVERYTHING POSTED BELOW.”
The tip I liked the most was this short and sweet advice from Patrick:
“Focus on one or two programs to maximize your benefits, then be flexible and plan ahead to get the most use out of the miles/points you’ve accumulated.”
Congratulations Patrick. I hope you win the fabulous trip for 2 to Gold Coast, Australia.
Not so many options for 5,000 points a night Priority Club Points Break awards this upcoming quarter. Some browser caches have problems accessing the updated list at the moment – see this listing on Flyer Talk for details of the April to June 2010 Points Break hotels available.
Some lowlights:
Central & South America – 1 Crowne Plaza
Oceania – 1 Holiday Inn and 1 Crowne Plaza
Africa – 1 Holiday Inn
This is part of a series of blog entries on how to get to countries and places. Here is a link to the index. I plan to eventually cover every country and some other places. If you have a request for a particular country or place please use the Contact link at the top, or leave a comment.
Kiribati
The country of Kiribati straddles the Equator and also the 180th degree of longitude – literally in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is difficult to get to. At the time of writing, 3 airlines fly to Tarawa in Kiribati – Air Pacific and Air Kiribati from Nadi Fiji, and Our Airline has resumed flying from Nauru. There are also infrequent supply ships from Fiji.
TIP In the past several years air services have been interrupted for extended periods, so do not book too far in advance of travel. Air Pacific used to fly to Kiritimati (Christmas Island) en route between Nadi and Honolulu but this was discontinued in 2008 due to runway safety concerns.
TIP Air Pacific partners with some airlines (eg American and Qantas) and thus their flights are available for awards and can be included in Oneworld Global Explorer around the world fare.
A reminder there is just a couple more days to go to enter to win a week for 2 in Gold Coast, Australia. More details of the prize and how to enter on my earlier post. Competition closes at midnight on 28 March (US mountain time).
Please post your entry in the official post, not this one.
TIP If you’ve thought of a better tip (thus more chance of winning) since you entered you can post the second tip and I’ll ignore the first comment & consider the latest one instead.
As promised, I am answering some of Wendy Perrin’s readers’ frequent flyer questions. This batch of answers are about mileage valuation – what are those miles really worth and when should we burn miles as opposed to earning them?
A couple of weeks ago I posted about a Lufthansa Private Jet promotion with Miles & More, which some Flyer Talkers are using for a HON Circle mileage run by private jet. Apparently the promotion has been so popular that the smallest, 6 seater, private jets are now sold out for the entire 5 week promotion period. Larger jets are still available, but the maths doesn’t work quite so well (not least because a maximum of 6 passengers per flight are eligible for miles).
