An update on my April post about Virgin FFP earning & redemption on other Virgin airlines.

When Virgin America launched their frequent flyer program eleVAte a significant criticism was the lack of earning and redemption on other Virgin airlines.

Finally, eleVATe members can now earn points when flying Virgin Atlantic, and both Flying Club (Virgin Atlantic FFP) and Velocity Rewards (Virgin Blue FFP) members can earn points when flying Virgin America.

Confused? The following summary may help. VX is Virgin America, VS is Virgin Atlantic and DJ/VA is Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue, Polynesian Blue and V Australia.

• VX members can earn points but cannot redeem on DJ/VA flights (excluding Pacific Blue and Polynesia Blue flights). Redemptions are coming “late 2010″.
• VX members can now earn points but cannot redeem on VS flights.
• DJ/VA members can earn points, earn status credits and redeem on VS flights.
• DJ/VA members can now earn points but cannot redeem on VX flights.
• VS members can earn miles (but not tier points) and can redeem on DJ/VA flights (excluding Pacific Blue and Polynesian Blue flights).
• VS members can now earn miles (but not tier points) and cannot redeem on VX flights.

Hat-tip The Wandering Aramean for the latest update.

To celebrate, all 3 Virgin programs have a promotion to win a trip for 2 for 7 days to Richard Branson’s private Necker Island (in the Caribbean).  To enter you need to register by 31 January 2011, and credit flights on 2 or more Virgin airlines to your account by 31 January 2011.  2 different airlines gets 1 entry, 3 gets 2 entries and 4 gets 3 entries.  Since each FFP is offering the same promotion, 3 flights on all 4 Virgin airlines can get 12 entries if credited across the 3 programs

Every day I get dozens of travel-related emails.  Most of them I don’t comment on, for a number of reasons.  But sometimes I get one that catches my interest, and this one about Iconic Guides was one.

They’ve only just started out with audio guides for a handful of historic sites, but with plans to add a lot more.  Given how many places I’ve visited that have lots of people listening to audio guides this should be of interest to a reasonable number of travellers.  Yet despite that, I’ve never bothered with an audio guide myself – I’ll either have a human guide, or will already have some knowledge of the subject, or just want to take everything as it comes.

For those who do use audio guides – were they useful? Good value?  How do you know you’re getting quality information?

Air NZ has been experimenting with travel insurance being opt-out instead of the more customer-friendly opt-in.  Ie travel insurance is automatically included (for extra $) unless you take a step to unselect it.  This is a practice I detest.  I’m not alone in hating this – US travel consumer advocate Christopher Elliott calls insurance opt-out reprehensible. 

You come to expect it as a money grab from low cost airlines, but it isn’t a practice I’d associated with Air NZ … until recently.

Air New Zealand claims insurance opt-out is an industry norm.  However, that wasn’t my experience with dummy bookings for their main competitors and a few other sites.  A quick browse reveals the following airlines and online travel agents have insurance opt-out (please let me know if I’ve missed some):

• Air NZ
• Frontier
• Jetstar
• Orbitz
• Pacific Blue
• Spirit
• Travelocity
• Yahoo Travel

Spot the odd one out!  For those surprised not to see Ryanair (or EasyJet or …) in the list above, that is only thanks to EU regulations banning the practice.

If you find you have purchased travel insurance by accident, almost everyone will allow it to be cancelled if you call within 24 hours (and some have longer cooling off periods).  However, it is still annoying to do so and doesn’t help those who don’t want insurance and didn’t notice they have bought it. 

Air New Zealand please change insurance to being opt-in – you’ll annoy a lot less customers and potential customers, as well as saving a lot of time and effort in dealing with cancellations and customer complaints.

The how to get to series of posts have now been updated for TAM and Aegean joining Star Alliance, Shanghai leaving Star Alliance, Vietnam Airlines and TAROM joining Sky Team.  Apologies for the delay.

Advice has been changed for:

• Bolivia
• Burma (aka Myanmar)
• China
• Vietnam

Flying to central Asia on an award ticket, an around the world fare or other discounted air fares has long been problematic.  This is because there have been few flights to Central Asia and most of these originate in Europe.  Backtracking between Europe and Asia is not permitted on round the world fares.  Availability of award and discounted paid seats are also relatively low.  Flying to central Asia is becoming easier as more flights to the region are being added, and with a rule change.

In Star Alliance, Asiana provides a Central Asia connection with South Korea through flights to Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Tashkent (Uzbekistan), while various airlines fly from Europe.  In Sky Team, China Southern Airlines now provides flights from China to several cities in Central Asia with Aeroflot providing connections to Europe.  To date Oneworld has no service to central Asia other than on codeshares.

With the pending entry of S7 to Oneworld, the rules for the Oneworld Explorer RTW have been amended to include Central Asia within the Europe continental definition, which means back-tracking is permitted.  S7 flies to all the major cities in Central Asia so these will all be available from later this year.

The tourist tax for ESTA visa waiver visitors to USA has been confirmed to start September 08 (source: Travel Weekly).  When the tourist tax (application fee for ESTA visa waiver) was previously announced it was going to be US$10 but even before implementation it has been increased to US$14 as an unavoidable admin fee of US$4 has been added.

The legislation allowing this charge calls it travel promotion (see news release), but it is really a visa in drag.

More bad news for people booked to fly on Mexicana.  Ticket sales on all Mexicana international flights have been suspended.  (Their domestic flights are largely run by 2 subsidiaries which continue to sell tickets.)  That is not a good sign, for without revenue no airline can last long.

If you have flexible tickets for Mexicana flights that can easily be changed to another airline, now may be the time to do so.  Likewise for refundable fares I’d be considering cancelling and rebooking on other airlines where that is practical.  If valid options, both these changes are much more easily done before an airline closes than after.

Crankyflier has an analysis of Mexicana’s current labor problems.

At the start of the year Air New Zealand launched their new longhaul products (primarily the skycouch in economy and a greatly improved premium economy seat, but with other service changes too) with a lot of hype.  The new products will be available on 77W aircraft, and were due to commence around November with Auckland to Melbourne familiarisation flights then enter longhaul to Los Angeles early December.  This week, Air NZ has quietly pushed back the launch to January 2011 and changed the trans-Tasman route operated by 77W from Melbourne to Brisbane.

In the last few years I’ve seen and experienced delayed launches of new products/aircraft time and again – most famously Singapore Airlines first A380 flight was delayed from June 2006 to October 2008.  My expectations were so low that I didn’t bother booking the inaugural flight for Air New Zealand’s 77W.  I still want to take the first flight, if my schedule permits, but I’ll wait a bit more before booking in case the launch slips again.

Oneworld airline Mexicana has filed for bankruptcy in Mexico and USA.  They’ve also cancelled some flights over the next week or so on 31 routes (so far) – with some routes being dropped completely, while others have reduced frequencies.  Here is a list of routes with some Mexicana flight cancellations.  Any route not listed will presumably operate as normal, at least as normal as it is possible to do in a bankruptcy.

If you are flying Mexicana within the next few days it is a good idea to check with the airline or your travel agent on whether your itinerary is disrupted or not.

Some free access availability tools (eg seatcounter.com) have recently stopped working, apparently the old ITN interface is no longer available.  Paid subscription availability tools still work at KVS (some methods are unavailable but decent coverage remains) and Expert Flyer (not affected).