Posted by Seth on May 16, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points | 
I always enjoy reading Chris Elliott’s columns, sometimes because they are really good and sometimes because they are entertainingly bad. He writes them weekly and is syndicated in a number of papers around the country. And his attitude is always a bit, ummm, aggressive towards folks who express extreme loyalty to travel providers. This week’s column is no different. He attacks the concept that the loyalty programs can provide a return on the investment that the members make and even goes so far as to attack a couple airlines for their behavior with regard to their programs.
One of my favorite bits is where he brings in a “consumer advocate” to educate his readers on the fact that the loyalty cards often have a higher interest rate for folks carrying a balance. This isn’t at all new news, but apparently there are enough people blinded by the allure of those free trips all over the world that they are willing to pay extra – a TON extra, really – simply to earn a few points. Those are the people who need the sort of advice that Chris is offering. I wonder if they read his column.
The end of the article, however, drops off quite badly. Elliott cites a couple examples of instances where the airlines provide shoddy service as examples of why loyalty is bad. Should the airline refund a service fee if they cannot actually provide the service? Absolutely. Is their failure to do so a reason to not collect miles? Not that I can tell. Amazingly, he actually continues that same example to suggest that having sufficient loyalty to actually get status on an airline is a bad idea. The only problem in his logic there is that the fee in question is not waived for folks with status. Would someone with status be treated better in that particular scenario? I’m guessing probably not, actually. Does that mean having status is a waste? Again, not usually.
Knowing what you are getting and being rational about it is important. Simply giving up on any loyalty schemes at all because all the airlines have craptacular service these days isn’t the solution. Knowing how to focus your efforts so as to be in a position to get better service is. If I’m traveling that much anyways, you’d better believe I’m going to see if I can get more out of it than just the actual transportation. Maybe not a ton more, but if I can – and, most importantly, if the opportunity cost of that gain is lower than its cost – then I’m absolutely going to go for it.
Incidentally, I’ve accrued over 50,000 elite qualification miles on my primary carrier so far this year; I’m halfway to the top tier qualification level. But I haven’t really been flying them all that much. I’m not willing to pay the higher fares they’re charging. So I fly with partners and credit the miles there. Elliott might not think that there is a rational way to approach the situation but I’m pretty sure I can prove him wrong. Or, as I mentioned to him in an email conversation leading up to this week’s column (none of which was used in the actual column):
For folks who are travelling shorter hops and less frequencies the loyalty doesn’t pay nearly the same returns. For a lower-tier elite the benefits are very thin and they’re probably spending proportionally more of their travel budget on loyalty than they should be, especially with the limited return on that investment. And for the non-elite the benefits of loyalty are almost zero. Sure, you might eventually accumulate the miles for a reward over multiple years or through credit card transactions, but at what cost versus other schemes, such as cash back or other affinity programs?
Giving too much value to the points is a terrible mistake, one that the airlines and hotels and credit card companies have worked very hard to ingrain in the fabric of our society. At dinner the other night I was sitting at the bar and watched as the bartender rang up every tab. Card after card after card passing by and EVERY SINGLE ONE was an affinity card. I really hope all those folks are actually getting value back in excess of what they’re spending. I’m guessing they are not, at least not all of them. But I can hope.
Posted by Seth on May 14, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points |
AirTran is no stranger to poking fun at other airlines and doing what they can to poach frequent flyers from those carriers. They basically have no shame in that regard. And why should they? Marketing is all about going after the customers, right? Being able to do so with a sense of humor is an added bonus. In the case of their latest promotion, they’re going after the Midwest/Frontier combination in Milwaukee, and once again they’re being creative about it.
For starters, they are offering a status match to anyone who holds Midwest Miles Aspire or Executive status. Those customers can become AirTran A+ Elite simply by submitting a request. Considering the reciprocity between the AirTran and Frontier programs that is now coming to an end this makes sense as an effort to hold on to those customers.
And then there is the creative part. AirTran is also offering Midwest Miles members the opportunity to earn AirTran A+ credits simply by redeeming their Midwest miles. Yes, there are some restrictions. Midwest Miles members must redeem their miles for a charity donation through the Midwest program. Credit in the A+ program will only be earned at the 50,000 and 100,000 levels of donations/redemptions. But if someone chooses to redeem their miles that way they essentially can convert the reward miles from one program to the other – causing a donation to be made in the process – and the devaluation of the points isn’t all that horrible.
Like I said, quite a creative way to gain customers. And now that the new Midwest/Frontier is no longer Milwaukee’s hometown airline there is decent motivation for those customers to go looking.
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Posted by Seth on May 14, 2010 under News |
Looking for an opportunity to experience the Airbus A380 but not willing to commit a ton of time or money to that search? Air France just might have the solution you’re looking for. The airline has announced that they will be operating one of their A380s on the London Heathrow – Paris route 3-4x weekly this summer. This will be the only short-haul route that the aircraft operates on and the fares aren’t bad at all.
The fares range from £80 in coach to £280 in business class. Service will be offered once daily on Saturday, Sunday and Mondays all summer long, as well as Fridays in July.
I just checked my schedule for the summer and I don’t have any weekends in either Paris or London, at least not yet.
Posted by Seth on May 12, 2010 under Trip Reports |
One of the nice things about out-of-town weddings is that they are a great excuse to see a city. Sure, there is a schedule to keep, but more often than not there is sufficient down-time that seeing at least a few of the highlights of the city is relatively easy. This past weekend we were in Philadelphia for my cousin’s wedding and we had plenty of free time on Saturday. Time to wander from the heart of downtown, City Hall, the length of Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Museum of Art, making a few stops along the way.
City Hall barely fits in to the rest of town. It barely fits into the classic American architectural style, really. Probably not too much of a surprise given its history, but it does seem a bit strange to me. Nonetheless, there it is, right in the middle of town, with all its columns, gargoyles, trim and giant tower rising up from the middle.
It was also the starting point for our adventure on Saturday morning. From there we headed up though Love Park and along the boulevard to the Museum of Art. Perhaps most famous for its role in the original Rocky movie, it also happens to be quite a beautiful building. The detail work, particularly around the roof line, is most impressive. We didn’t go inside, nor did we run the steps, but we did watch many, many, many others make the run.
It turns out that there was a regatta in town so there were a ton of rowing teams there. They arrived by the bus load, groups of ten to twenty spilling out onto the plaza at the bottom of the steps before making the run up to the top. The most zealous of the groups could be heard trying to encourage their friends to make the run again, though a single trips was generally enough for most folks.
After the trip up to the museum we headed down to the waterfront, walking along the Schuylkill down to Market Street and across to 30th Street Station. It was National Train Day and I wanted to see just how big the celebration was. Huge. Overwhelming, really. Lots more about that part of the day here.
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Posted by Seth on May 11, 2010 under Mileage Run, points, Trip Reports |
Thanks to the crazy 10th birthday sale that JetBlue offered yesterday I’m out flying today. I managed to schedule three segments, all three on routes that are new to me, and each for the low, low price of only $10, plus taxes. Not too bad overall.
Flight number one of my day also happens to be on JetBlue’s flight number 1, from JFK to Ft. Lauderdale. Not surprisingly, the flight is completely full. Somewhat surprisingly for me, however, the kiosks at JFK were unable to process my check-in when I got to the airport this morning. That quirk proved to be a bit of a blessing, however. No, I didn’t get to spend a few minutes in “my seat” in the food court area, but I did manage to get assigned the window seat in the reclining exit row for free. Score!
I also got to ask the agent at the counter to print my return boarding pass. He said that he couldn’t as they can only print out passes within four hours of the departure time. Needless to say that he was somewhat surprised when I suggested that I was quite close to that window. I’ve only got a 21 minute connection in Ft. Lauderdale so things are going to be quite tight, though it looks like we got off the ground pretty quickly out of JFK and will arrive early in Florida.
Boarding was only slightly chaotic, with an infant assigned to an exit row seat and a standby passenger boarded into a seat that someone else was already in. Neither proved to be a huge deal as the flight attendants took care of the issues and got everything situated quickly. And then we were off. Taxi time wasn’t particularly bad and we had a smooth climb-out from runway 4L, making a turn to the south and beginning the quick trip down to Florida, only 2:25 flight time today. Smooth air and clear skies. It is a great day to be up in the air.
I also have the pleasure of sitting next to a 31 year veteran flight attendant from TWA. We chatted a bit about the disappearing benefits as a retired employee and just how full flights are. There was also some reminiscing about the old video systems with the pull-down screens and projectors, compared to the in-seat options that LiveTV has in service today. Good stuff overall.
Finally, we had a great crew in the air today. Between the bunch of crew commuting home and the folks actually assigned to the flight everyone was having a great time. They didn’t quite understand why I’m just flying for the sake of flying today, even after I explained it, but such is life. Antonio in particular got into the spirit of the day, trading out his more traditional uniform for a 10th Birthday Celebration option:
JetBlue is also running a promotion with American Express today, giving out bonus TrueBlue points to all passengers. You get a card at the gate as you board and pull the tab to find out just how many points you earn. The range is 1,000-10,000 for everyone and there is a 5x multiplier if you happen to have a JetBlue AmEx card. The cards are being distributed in all 6 “hub” airports so I should be getting two more today, plus any I manage to pick up off seats as I leave the planes. All those bonus points are going to make this trip much closer to a mileage run than just a day of jetting about, eating as many Animal Crackers as they’ll serve me.
Posted by Seth on May 10, 2010 under News, Trip Reports |
I certainly understand Amtrak’s efforts to promote rail ridership in the United States. Even if the offerings are relatively poor compared to many other countries, it is important to keep awareness up and try to attract more riders. For the third year now, Amtrak has run a National Train Day promotion, with events around the country to promote their services.
The festivities this year started in New York City a day prior to the actual event, with Taye Diggs launching a kick-off party for the weekend. Also present was the crew from the Cake Boss show on TLC. They were filming an episode for the show based on the fact that there was an enormous cake display set up in New York’s Pennsylvania Station. They had a model train set and a “city” made of cakes. There were about 30 buildings and roughly 3000 pounds of cake making up the model, not to mention two trains running on different levels in the model. I didn’t stick around for free cupcakes, mostly because the TLC folks apparently weren’t happy with the initial crowd reaction to the cake unveiling so they were going to take the shot again.
Next up on the schedule was actually riding the rails. We were in Philadelphia this weekend and decided to ride the rails rather than a bus this time a round. Between rush hour travel and the general comfort factor that Amtrak offers, plus a pretty good sale on advance purchase fares, the train just made more sense. Given the 6:30pm departure time and uncertain dinner schedule on arrival in Philadelphia, we decided to go for a bit of a picnic on the train. A block of cheese, some pretzel crisps and a bottle of champagne, decanted into water bottles made for quite the enjoyable ride. The pressure in one of the bottles of bubbly built up enough that it sounded like a firecracker going off when I opened the bottle on the train, but no one really seemed to mind too much in the end. And apparently consumption of private-stock alcohol isn’t permitted in the train on a regular basis but we didn’t have any troubles. All in all, a quite enjoyable commute down to Philadelphia.
The third bit of National Train Day that we celebrated was in Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, part of the main celebration event. It was a zoo. There were way more people out and about celebrating than I expected to see. We actually got shut out of a few of the exhibits – most notably the antique rolling stock – because the lines were too long. Still, it was nice to see so many avid train buffs taking advantage of the things Amtrak had on offer. Not quite as much history of the rails as I would have liked to see, but I can understand them trying to celebrate the future of rail travel more than its past. After all, that’s what is going to help them ensure their existence.
And, finally, for your foaming pleasure, a short video of part of my ride from Newark to New York earlier in the day. I was riding in the space between two of the cars and poked the camera out through the gap between the heavy rubber pads that separate the cars from each other.
Posted by Seth on May 10, 2010 under News |
A couple weeks back JetBlue offered all seats on their 10 original routes for $10. The tickets went on sale that Monday for travel on that Tuesday or Wednesday, Not much advance notice, but if you were willing to go the price couldn’t be beat. Well, the deal is back, but on every flight in their system (except flights originating in Bogota). Book online today before midnight Eastern.
It is a phenomenal sale; I just hope i can take advantage of it…
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Posted by Seth on May 7, 2010 under News |
All the way to South Africa, thanks to a new interline agreement announced this morning between South African Airways and JetBlue. This agreement is the broadest of the interline deals they have signed thus far, covering all destinations in both airline networks.
Effective May 12, 2010, customers will be able to purchase a single itinerary for travel on flights of both carriers in one simple transaction, enjoying easy connecting service between all JetBlue cities and 40 cities in the South African Airways network via JFK. Tickets can be purchased by visiting South African Airways’ website at www.flysaa.com, calling SAA Reservations at 1-800-722-9675, or through a travel agent.
…
This new partnership will offer increased convenience to customers on both sides of the Atlantic by allowing customers to travel on one single e-ticket and by offering through check-in. Customers will be able to check their bags to their final destination and receive boarding cards for both carriers’ flights upon check-in with either JetBlue in the U.S. or SAA in southern Africa.
I’m still hoping that they get some frequent flyer loyalty program reciprocity with all these new partners, and that the booking process include jetblue.com rather than just the other partners, but I guess it is more important to actually have the relationships set first and then grow them.
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Posted by Seth on May 5, 2010 under Trip Reports |
I’ve been through Frankfurt a few times in the past 10+ years. I’ve had connections, stopovers and even originates a return from Europe there once and yet I’d never really had a chance to explore the city. With a meeting scheduled for Monday morning and not much desire to arrive in an hour beforehand I decided to fly over on Saturday night instead and actually check out the city a bit. Sure, it was only a few hours on a quiet Sunday afternoon, but I did get to actually see a few things.
So shortly after arrival I checked into my hotel, took a shower and then headed to the train station and into town to see what I could see. Turns out I managed to cover quite a bit in those few hours. The train into town from the airport is a quick 15-20 minutes and only €3,80, not bad at all. Plus it has the advantage of arriving in the rather reasonable Hauptbahnhof relatively centrally located in town. I do love exploring European train stations for some reason. Alas, not a ton of time so only a cursory walk-through of the train station as I headed out the doors and into the adventure.
Having no particular destination in mind and a very loose sense of what was available in town I really had no particular path to follow. A couple turns on random streets later I found myself on the bank of the Main River which cuts through the center of town. There are a number of bridges that cross the river, a few of which are pedestrian only and quite nice.
On a Sunday afternoon the river was also a prime destination for folks just out enjoying the day. Whether couples strolling along the banks or families out for a picnic, there were plenty of people out and about, taking advantage of what the river offers.
Okay…enough of this wandering, I need some food. So I headed just off the river towards what appeared to be a reasonably large crowd of people. A couple minutes later I was smack in the middle of a square bustling with activity. There was one vendor selling pretzels and other breads off a cart and several restaurtants surrounding the square, all of them busy with what I guessed were mostly tourists, but, well I was one of those, too. Not quite willing to commit to a sit-down lunch I picked the stall that had large barrels set up out front as standing-only tables and placed an order. Well, really I just pointed at the plate of the guy who was being served as I walked up and nodded, suggesting that I wanted the same. And a bier. Definitely a bier.
Rindwurst and beer for brunch? You betcha.
After I was sated with wurst and bier it was on to the Dom, the Cathedral just around the corner from the square. It still has the classic look that most Cathedrals seem to have. The interior, however, is a much different experience. It is beautiful inside and certainly is of the same classic style, but the construction quality screams of modern recreation. I’m guessing that has to do with the fact that it was damaged during the wars but it was a bit strange to see it that way.
A tour through the main cathedral in town? It wouldn’t be a visit to a European city without that.
At this point it was back out to the airport for a meeting. Yeah, I let work get in the way of the fun, but given that it was actually a work trip and that’s what paid for the ticket, it wasn’t so bad. And then back downtown, this time with a friend along, for dinner. Yeah, the place was relatively touristy, but the schnitzel was pretty good and the bier was served in 1L mugs. Really nothing at all wrong with that.
Schnitzel for dinner. More or less a trifecta for a German city visit.
Hopping on a train back out of town.
Frankfurt was certainly quiet on this particular Sunday but overall a pleasant place to spend a few hours. Really rather pleasant.
Posted by Seth on May 4, 2010 under News |
The Department of Transportation (DoT) issued a ruling this afternoon denying the attempt by Delta and US Airways to dictate the terms of landing slot divestitures as part of a mega deal between the two carriers. The initial deal was announced last August, with Delta to gain over 120 slot pairs at LaGuardia and US Airways to gain more than 40 at National Airport in Washington, DC. The DoT had issues with that plan and suggested that the two carriers would need to divest some of those slots to offer other airlines the ability to become more competitive in the NYC and DC markets.
So then, in late March, the two carriers announced a plan to offer a number of slots to competitors. No, they didn’t offer quite as many as the DoT initially requested, but it was pretty close. And the swaps announced did offer a lot of competition. Most notable was the US Airways deal with JetBlue, bringing that carrier into National for the first time. But, in a ruling today, the DoT has stated that the plans drawn up by Delta, US Airways and the other five carriers are insufficient.
Why? Because the slot divestiture was not conducted as a blind auction. In other words, the two carriers should not have been permitted to negotiate with other airlines to get the best deal possible for the slots they are being forced to give up. They must, instead, simply place them up for grabs and hope that the revenue they realize is good enough. Odds are the prices will be similar enough, but it is hard to know for sure.
The other objection, one raised most vocally by Southwest, is that the airlines should not be allowed to choose their competitors. This makes a bit of sense coming from Southwest; they are not shy about their desire to acquire more slots at LaGuardia. But there is also nothing stopping them from pursuing those slots on the open market. If the price is right someone will be willing to sell the slots, right?
And so it is back to the drawing board, and the courthouse. Delta and US Airways have announced their intentions to appeal the ruling.
There are no winners in this decision – consumers lost, communities lost and our employees lost. Even our competitors lost.
Yeah, they’re not too happy about this at all. And I’m guessing that a few others are pretty annoyed, too, including JetBlue. The good news is that JetBlue still has eight slot pairs that it acquired in a deal with American Airlines. But those extra five would have been pretty nice to have.
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