Qantas Frequent Flyer and Air NZ Airpoints both charge join fees in their home markets (and some other parts of the world).  They can both be avoided, at the moment.

View from the Wing refers to the Flyer Talk thread on signing up to Qantas via Woolworths Everyday Rewards, or having a US address (for example).

For Air NZ Airpoints, NZ residents can avoid the fee by using the code APFRIEND and signing up by 31 May 2010. Residents of UK (and some other countries) are not charged the join fee in the first place.

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.

Kyrgyzstan

Visitors to Kyrgyzstan arrive by taxi or bus from neighbouring countries, or by air. Relatively few airlines fly to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and they include:

• Star Alliance – bmi, Turkish
• Oneworld – none
• Sky Team – Aeroflot, China Southern
• Other selected – S7

TIP The only alliance around the world tickets which can easily include travel to Kygyzstan are on Sky Team.  A Star Alliance around the world ticket would require a surface segment since backtracking to Europe is not allowed.

TIP On some Star Alliance and Skyteam frequent flyer programs longhaul awards to Kyrgyzstan are a bargain (the ones which ignore the transit through Europe) and on others very expensive (the ones which take the routing into account).

As posted by the Wandering Aramean, Air France are flying A380 for a few days a week between Paris CDG and London Heathrow during (northern) summer.  Air France also has promotional fares (eg London to Paris return £80 for economy and £280 for business class). Be quick – many seats have already gone at these sale fares.

These short hops on longhaul aircraft often happen when an airline introduces a new aircraft type. They are an easy way for the airline to train up lots of flight and cabin crew in a short period of time (of course there is also training before they fly the aircraft!).  I’m waiting for Air New Zealand’s 77W to arrive to take one such flight across the Tasman as a cheap way to try out their new longhaul seats in economy, premium economy and business class.

Today Brazilian airline TAM joins Star Alliance, restoring coverage of South America that was lost when Varig collapsed.

The “How to get to” series of posts will be updated in due course.

Air NZ has a non-mileage earning (except when credited to Air New Zealand Airpoints) fare from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Auckland return for $399+tax, about $480 all in.  Travel to NZ in May, with return late May or June. See sale page for more info.

Edited to add – some more dates in June have been added for both directions, and Qantas has a limited match (Los Angeles to Auckland only).

The long running dispute between British Airways and BASSA, a cabin crew union, continues.  New strike dates have been announced for:

18-22 May
24-28 May
30 May-3 June
5-9 June

(source BBC)

For those keeping track, there have been strikes and attempted strikes in December & March (twice). In the March round of strikes, British Airways operated a significant proportion of flights (almost all longhaul flights and most shorthaul) and I’d expect the same again this time.

Between strikes, threat of strikes and Icelandic volcanoes it has been a rough time to be flying BA.

British Airways will post information on flight cancellations & rebookings on their website here.

My trusty small rollaboard’s handle has broken. It is stuck in the down position. I quite like this one as it is a great size – small enough to be carried onboard even fairly small aircraft yet large enough for my gear for a 2-3 week trip.  Does anyone know how I can unstick the handle?

As promised, I am answering some of Wendy Perrin’s readers’ frequent flyer questions. This last batch of questions deals with choice of program, requalifying dilemma, first class costs and upgrades, and award for self or family dilemma.

Read More…

The first Lufthansa A380 destination is Tokyo from 11 June 2010.  Beijing commences 25 August 2010, and Johannesburg 25 October 2010.

A reminder there is only 8 first class seats and reportedly Lufthansa is blocking these from awards and upgrades. So, do the same “trick” as for Singapore – book the award before a flight switches from 747 to A380 aircraft type.

Since I don’t credit to United Mileage Plus and try to avoid flying United as much as possible, I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the elite upgrade changes this year on United. These are now processed automatically in advance for top elite status, subject to availability.

Last week I had a need to make a last minute change of flights due to a horrid schedule change (forcing an illegal connection). Since I would only know if I could make the earlier flight an hour or less from departure (dependent on my previous flight on a separate ticket arriving on time, and not being held up at immigration and customs), and I was flying on a busy route, I half expected to not be able to switch flights and be forced to cancel.

As this was a QUP fare (discounted economy fare that books into first class at time of purchase subject to availability) for a little mileage run, I wasn’t too fussed if I had to cancel.

Nonetheless when I reached check in, at 50 minutes to departure of the earlier flight, it was no problem switching flights. The reason – since the flight is a prime business route (Los Angeles to San Francisco), United had stopped the elite automatic upgrade process in the hopes of selling last minute first class fares. Fat chance – at the gate I saw the available first class seats at 8 until about 5 minutes before boarding when it rapidly dropped to zero.

If United had processed the upgrades at the 72 hour window as advertised, there would have been no seats available for me (and economy was oversold so I couldn’t have downgraded either).  United stinginess meant I could complete the little mileage run.