Musings of The Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
With the planned changes to 747 first class seating (from 16 to 8 seats) next year, Lufthansa has recently zeroed out inventory for awards and upgrades in their first class on 747 flights, starting from April 2011.
I’m kicking myself that I hadn’t finished cashing in my miles ahead of the Miles and More devaluation at the end of the year, figuring I still had a couple of weeks to lock in awards at the old mileage levels.
As posted on Flyer Talk, there is a large devaluation of Miles & More premium awards from 1 January 2011, with many going up by over 20%. Other changes include one-way awards will become 50% of the return award cost (currently 75%) and tweaks to some award rules. Upgrade costs remain unchanged.
Time for me to cash in my stash, and re-evaluate my frequent flyer mileage-accrual plans for 2011.
Priority Club’s 5000 points Points Break awards are out for the period to 30 December 2010. The list is a little better than some recent ones, and includes the following Intercontinental hotels:
A hotel I already had 4 regular awards booked at came up on the list so I’ve switched those out to save 80%. One of these was for a Flyer Talk Do (*A Air NZ mega do) which continues the fine run of PB awards being available for Dos in NZ.
I’ve been a member of Virgin Blue’s Velocity Rewards program for a while but have, until now, never bothered with using their flexible points+cash redemption awards. I didn’t see a lot of point when the award cost is a direct function of fare and the points saved is about 1 point per cent, ie not great value. However, this flexibility is great for clearing out an account without wasting odd amounts of points.
What other programs can you do this with?
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.
Recently both EU and US regulators approved anti-trust immunity for American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia on the important trans-Atlantic routes with minimal conditions. Oneworld was the last of the 3 main airline alliances to get approval to co-operate closely on flights between USA and Europe. This means finally members of British Airways Executive Club and American AAdvantage will (in the near future) be able to earn and redeem on each other’s flights which has been a source of irritation for many frequent flyers for years.
Today, Oneworld announced Air Berlin will be joining the alliance (hat tip View from the Wing). No firm date has yet been given but normally it takes 12-18 months for an airline to complete entry into an alliance (Air India joining Star Alliance being a notable exception to this rule of thumb). Air Berlin is considered by some to be an odd choice – they aren’t quite full service nor low cost, and remind me a little of Australia’s Virgin Blue. I’ll be watching how well they integrate into the alliance with interest.
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.
Uganda
Source: Ed Wright
There are bus services from all neighbouring countries to Uganda. Airlines flying to Entebbe, Uganda include:
TIP Longhaul travel to/from Uganda most likely requires flying through Europe. There are relatively few flights intra-Africa and none between Asia and Uganda.
TIP The Oneworld continent-based Explorer around the world fare allows back-tracking through Europe from Uganda as an exception (along with Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania). Only one of the transits through Europe can have a stopover.
TIP For awards, Star Alliance offers the most routing options. However on some programs which limit the number of transfers there may be difficulties due to the lack of flights from any major hubs.
Reader Nun recently made the following comment
I’ve been following “How to get to” for a while. One thing I don’t understand is the strict treatment of the term “alliance.” Just because an airline belongs to an alliance doesn’t mean that’s all the partners they have or that’s all the routes they have. It’s often possible to get somewhere in a codeshare. For example, Iberia has lots of IB coded flights which are actually flown by Vueling. Vueling isn’t part of oneworld but the codeshares are. There are lots of examples. Just a thought…
Good question Nun, and of wider relevance than just for the “how to get to” series of posts. It is true I base the information on the airline operating the flights, not allowing for codeshare or partner flights. There are reasons for this, which I’ll explain below.
What is a codeshare?
A codeshare is where an airline markets a flight but it is actually operated by a different airline. Eg Air New Zealand codeshares on Aircalin flights between Auckland and Noumea, and Aircalin codeshares on Air New Zealand flights on the same route. There are different types of codeshare agreements between airlines but that is not important for this discussion.
What is a partner flight?
Most frequent flyer programs (FFPs) also partner with some non-alliance airlines. Sometimes this is limited to a specific route, and other times all routes are included. Some FFPs even partner with airlines that are members of a competing alliance. For the purpose of this discussion a partner flight excludes flights by other airlines within the same alliance.
Why the operating airline matters (codeshares)
Almost all alliance fare products are limited to flights on airlines within the alliance. There are some limited exceptions (such as Oneworld distance based Global Explorer around the world fare). The fare rules require both operating airline and marketing airline to be within the relevant airline alliance.
For mileage earning and redemption the situation is more complicated, as follows:
Why not include partner airline flights?
Partners of one frequent flyer program are not normally also partners of all other frequent flyer programs in the same alliance. A Flyer Talk thread on Star Alliance partner airlines illustrates – for example Virgin Atlantic is a partner of several Star Alliance airlines, but others are not partners with Virgin Atlantic.
Going back to Nun‘s question. I haven’t included partner airlines in the alliance listings in the “how to get to” series of posts because they are useful only to some frequent flyer programs and generally not useful for alliance products or awards. To include every airline flying to a country would mean some long lists and information that would quickly become out of date. I get around this by listing the main non-alliance airlines as “other”. The reader is left to check which ones may be useful for them for mileage earning or award redemption purposes.
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:
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 promised, I am answering some of Wendy Perrin’s readers’ frequent flyer questions. This batch of questions deals mostly with the difficulty in getting the awards you want; and also has first class ducks, award fees, getting to the US Open, household accounts and mileage promotions.
