Posted by Seth on October 29, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points | 
I understand that the airlines operate their frequent flyer programs in an effort to generate revenue, not to give things away to passengers. Still, I wonder sometimes about just what they think of customers when I see some of the promotions that come out. If you could guarantee that your investment would be cut in half would you still complete the transaction? I didn’t think so. Yet that’s just what is on offer right now from JetBlue.
In addition to the “normal” ways of earning points, JetBlue allows members to buy points directly. Lots of programs offer a similar feature and it can be useful in limited occasions to top off an account for an award or something like that, but it rarely makes sense to buy points in any large volume. There are exceptions (US Airways’s 100% bonus is one that has been pretty common lately) but generally it just isn’t a good plan. At least the value of those programs is somewhat variable depending on the type of award and the cabin of travel. In the case of the JetBlue program that simply is not the case.
JetBlue TrueBlue points are worth between 0.8 and 1.3 cents each, depending on the reward being redeemed. It is not really possible to tweak the system and get more value from them. So the idea of paying 2.7 cents for one of those points – watching the value of your investment drop by 50-75% immediately and irrecoverably – just seems wrong to me. Right now JetBlue sells points for 2.5-2.88 cents each. Add on the 25% bonus that is running through January 15, 2011 along with the 7.5% excise tax and the $20 transaction fee and you’re rarely going to get much lower than that 2.7 cents per mile cost.
Unless JetBlue dramatically changes the structure of their loyalty program – a move that seems HIGHLY unlikely in the near future – buying points there is a rather questionable investment.
And, just to be clear, I’m not picking only on JetBlue here. American Airlines commonly runs similar programs (right now it is a 25% bonus on transfers from one member to another) as do the other carriers. None of them are generally a good value. Indeed, only the US Air deal mentioned above has ever consistently shown itself to be a worthwhile investment and then only if you’re into long-haul premium cabin seats.
Posted by Seth on October 28, 2010 under Trip Reports |
A few months ago I was ecstatic after securing an award ticket to New Zealand for this coming December. It wasn’t just that I got seats on the dates I wanted. And it wasn’t just that they were in premium cabins almost the entire way. And it wasn’t just that I was able to get one of the longest possible routings along the way to maximize my time in the big comfy seats (and lounges). OK, maybe it was that last one.
Unfortunately, however, the reason I was going to New Zealand changed around a bit. And it looks like we’re going to be spending a couple weeks in India at the end of December, No reason I cannot combine the two trips, right? Apparently Continental felt that was actually going to be a problem.
It seems there are two ways for the airline to issue award tickets and mine was originally set up with the method that requires the agents working on the ticket to manually verify the details. Based on what the agent I spoke with today explained, it seems that a small detail was missed during the original, manual booking of my award. It wasn’t a legal routing according to their system. Oopsie.
Of course, I wasn’t really ready to give up on what was an absolutely awesome award trip, despite their suggestions that they could convert it to an Around the World award for only 120,000 extra points (75% more than the 160K I originally redeemed). Ummmm, no thanks. After a bit of discussion we agreed that, while it might not actually be valid in their system, I shouldn’t be penalized because someone misunderstood the rules a couple months ago when issuing it. So I was permitted to make my change – and I was still able to find seats on flights I wanted within a couple days of my ideal – and to keep the ticket.
So I ended up with this little bit of awesomeness:
![map[1]](http://boardingarea.com/blogs/thewanderingaramean/files/2010/10/map1.png)
I get a new carrier (Swiss) as well as my first experiences in the Lufthansa and Thai Airways first class cabins. Only the segment between Auckland and Melbourne is in coach; the rest are all in the highest class of service available on the flight. I tried to mix Air Canada in for one of the transatlantic segments but couldn’t make that work. And I gave up the chance at a first class suite on the Turkish 77W, but those are apparently less consistent these days anyways so it wasn’t a sure think even if I did keep that route.
I am not complaining one bit, even if I did have to trade a boondoggle in Singapore for an overnight in Bangkok.
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Tags: Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Auckland, Australia, award, Bangkok, Continental, India, Lufthansa, Munich, Thai Air, Thailand
Posted by Seth on October 27, 2010 under News |
JetBlue is launching seasonal service between their focus city in Long Beach, California and Anchorage, Alaska for the 2011 summer. The service, which will operate between 26MAY11 and 05SEP11, will be an evening flight northbound and a redeye southbound.
Fares on the route start as low as $119 each way on the west coast. Connections from the east coast are not priced particularly aggressively but there is still time for those fares to drop in the coming months before the service actually starts. This pricing will be competing with the $347 one way fares that Alaska Airlines currently charges between Anchorage and Los Angeles. Competition appears to be a good thing for the consumer in this case.
Booking is available now at jetblue.com.
Posted by Seth on October 22, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points |
StarMegaDo is a little slice of heaven for aerophiles. Basically a week-long party with airlines, aircraft manufacturers, frequent flyer programs and even some hotel loyalty program fun mixed in as well. Frankfurt for dinner with Lufthansa and Star Alliance? Yeah, we’ll go there and back overnight for that. And, sure, you could fly from Houston to Seattle on a scheduled flight, but you’d miss the party with US Airways (including CEO Doug Parker) and flying into Paine Field, north of Seattle, for the exclusive tour of the Boeing wide-body assembly facility. Did I mention that the domestic segments are on a chartered 757-300 where we get to set the menu and catering policies.
The event is pretty much sold out at this point, but it is still possible to score a free seat, thanks to Lufthansa.
You’ll join us for the whole trip – from Frankfurt to Houston to Phoenix to Seattle and back to Houston. Hotel and airfare are included for the lucky winner and the event covers almost every meal (and most of the booze) in between. This is truly a unique experience and one worth going for, especially since it is so easy to win.
Check out the rules here: http://www.lufthansa.com/online/portal/lh/us/nonav/local?nodeid=2795872. Then get on Twitter and go for the win.
All entries must be received by 6pm Eastern Time on Monday, October 25, 2010.
Good Luck!
Posted by Seth on October 22, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Southwest has recently filed a cease and desist notice against TripIt, demanding that the travel itinerary and loyalty program management company stop helping its customers monitor their Rapid Rewards accounts. The demand, based on the fine print T&C on southwest.com, alleges that TripIt was violating the intellectual property rights of the airline by scraping data to provide access to recent transactions, point balances and other account details.
According to a TripIt spokesperson the demand was spread across all comparable tools, not just the TripIt product, as Southwest works to strictly limit access to the data on their site. TripIt has complied with the demands from Southwest and removed the access to that data from the site.
This is a terribly anti-consumer move by Southwest. They certainly do not want to be in a position of other companies misrepresenting the data about Rapid Rewards accounts or other details that are published on the site, but there is no indication that there is any such activity going on. These monitoring sites simply make it easier for customers to understand what their points balances are, monitor expiration dates and other similar functions. Yes, these site increase the value that customers can derive from the loyalty programs. Is that really what Southwest is trying to prevent?
This is the latest in a series of moves that Southwest has made which adversely affects their customers. Sure, bags fly free, but with all these other negative moves it seems that it will be harder and harder for them to continue their claim that they’re so customer-friendly. After all, moves like this one certainly are not.
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Posted by Seth on October 22, 2010 under frequent flyer, News |
The SkyTeam alliance, oft faulted for their lack of coverage south of the equator, is working to rectify that situation with the announcement this week that Aerolineas Argentinas is expected to sign an agreement to join the alliance later this month. The carrier will aim to be fully integrated into SkyTeam at some point in 2012.
The move will open up a number of new destinations for SkyTeam in South America. It will also open up a number of routes to connect the dots between other cities served by the alliance. With the uncertainty presented by the recently announced LAN/TAM merger and those carriers participating in OneWorld and Star Alliance, respectively, this move ties up one of the larger carriers in the continent as part of SkyTeam.
Personally, I’m hopeful that they can be integrated quickly and that I can use points from various SkyTeam programs for interesting frequent flyer redemptions, including Ushuaia and the antipodal routing of Buenos Aires – Auckland – Sydney. I don’t know why, but I really want that line on my map.
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Posted by Seth on October 22, 2010 under frequent flyer, News |
For the past couple years American Airlines has been the dark horse amongst the major carriers in the United States. They’ve been trailing the others in profitability (though they did report a profit in Q3 ‘10) and they’ve been struggling to keep their route network competitive with the other programs that are growing alliances. Things are starting to look up a bit, however, with the ATI deal for OneWorld partners British Airways and Iberia, the interline agreement with JetBlue and most recently the announcement earlier this week on an interline agreement with Canadian carrier WestJet.
The new agreement opens up the opportunity for American’s passengers to connect to flights on WestJet’s network throughout Canada. A total of 25 new cities will be available via connections in six Canadian gateways served by American or American Eagle: Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, Halifax and Ottawa. The two carriers expect a phase two of the agreement to eventually include connections at WestJet’s US gateways.
The current iteration of the interline agreement covers through ticketing and checked baggage but does not include things like frequent flyer program reciprocity. American and JetBlue have reportedly come to an agreement on the FF front so it is likely that similar negotiations will follow on the WestJet side.
The move is also a big win for WestJet. They have announced intentions to arrange a similar interline agreement with Southwest over two years ago. That agreement proved fruitless, however, and the deal was never actually implemented. The very quick start-up time on this deal – bookings on aa.com will be available starting on November 9, 2010 – should help avoid that this time around.
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Posted by Seth on October 20, 2010 under News |
The JetBlue/Steven Slater brouhaha has come to a close. Finally. The former flight attendant pled guilty to felony and misdemeanor criminal mischief charges associated with his grand exit from a plane at JFK a couple months ago. In addition to undergoing one year of counseling and substance-abuse treatment – which could have the felony charge expunged if completed successfully – he will also be required to compensate the airline $10,000 to reimburse the company for damages caused by his actions. If he does not successfully complete the counseling he will be subject to a 1-3 year prison term.
Remember, folks, even if you think it is a good idea to go out with a bang, there’s a pretty good chance it will come back to bite you in the end. He may have had his 15 minutes of fame, but in the end he is a criminal and an idiot and he is being treated as such.
Posted by Seth on October 18, 2010 under News |
What a difference a bit of competition can make in the market. As the sole operator currently on the Newark – Boston route, Continental Airlines can charge pretty much whatever they want, and they do. A one-way ticket on the route is $415; there are no advance purchase discounts and for stays shorter than 3 nights even buying a return ticket doesn’t offer a discount.
As of this morning, however, JetBlue has loaded fares into the GDSes and is selling seats on that route with service starting on May 4, 2011. Look at the difference in the fare chart:
Indeed, things are much more reasonable suddenly from a passenger perspective. Take a look at the range of one-way fares that JetBlue has published on the route:
Even without the introductory promo fare the high end of the range is well below today’s costs from Continental:
Also of interest is that Continental has not yet updated their fares to acknowledge the new competition on the route. Granted, the JetBlue fares are brand new so it will take a bit of time for Continental to respond – likely later today – but for now the disparity is quite significant.
Posted by Seth on October 12, 2010 under News |
Making good on a promise from March, today marks the end of “meals at mealtime” on Continental Airlines and the beginning of Food4Sale (F4S) on-board. The new program includes a range of offerings, depending on flight length and market. There are only three domestic routes still offering complimentary meals, for example. The company expects to realize an annual savings of $35MM from this change.
Markets
Since the original announcement there has been plenty of speculation about which routes would be affected. Most uncertain were the transcon flights from Newark as they were on the cusp of the announced flight duration threshold. The most recent Monthly Operational Update publication put that discussion to rest, noting that the following markets would be F4S:
- Domestic
- Canada
- Transcon
- Hawaii (LAX, SNA – OGG, HNL
- Latin/Caribbean Leisure
- Caribbean Business Hybrid (BQN, LIR, SJU)
At the same time, the publication also specifies the routes that will have complimentary meals:
..[F]irst class, BusinessFirst, Hawaii (IAH, EWR – HNL), Latin/Caribbean Business (including BJX, GDL) and Domestic/Leisure routes over 6.5 hours (i.e. IAH – ANC).
Food options
The catered options will depend on the flight duration (actual scheduled flight time, not the numbers on the timetable) with four main categories.
- On the shortest flights – less than 2.5 hours and designated “P” in the meal details – there will be no F4S service. There may be premium drinks available for purchase and maybe not, depending on if the flight was catered for such. These flights will also have Biscoff cookies at breakfast if longer than 2 hours and pretzels if longer than 1.5 hours at lunch and dinner times.
- Flights blocked between 2.5 and 3.5 hours – designated “G” in the meal details – there will be the additional option of packaged snacks for purchase. These options include potato chips, hummus dip, beef jerky and combo packs similar to those served on other BoB airlines. These flights will also be catered with premium beverages for sale.
- Flights between 3.5 and 6.5 hours – designated as “F” – will have the aforementioned snacks plus meal options. At breakfast this includes a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich. Later in the day choices include a fruit & cheese plate, grilled chicken spinach salad, cheeseburger and Asian noodle salad. It should be noted that the spinach/chicken salad is served with the chicken in a separate internal pack so it is a decent vegetarian option for passengers of that persuasion.
- Flights over 6.5 hours will have complimentary meals as noted above.
Also of note is that the meal options will only be catered at EWR, IAH, CLE, HNL and OGG. This opens up the potential for flights to sell out on the outbound portion of a return trip, leaving no options for passengers on the second flight. It remains to be seen how common such sell-out situations are.
Comps and refunds
It is best to not expect either comps nor refunds from the F4S products. That way customers will not be disappointed. The only passengers entitled to complimentary meals are unaccompanied minors documented on the flight manifest. Flight attendants have been explicitly instructed to not provide comps to any other passengers:
Comping F4S is only permitted for [unaccompanied minors]. F4S cannot be comped for anyone, including pass riders, deadheaders, dissatisfied customers, first class customers or delays.
Similarly, refunds are not going to be particularly common:
Refunds are only allowed on Fresh Food items for extraordinary circumstances due to product defect. Circumstances could include moldy bread or a foreign object.
Finally, do not expect to redeem Continental Currency coupons for the F4S program. Coupons will remain only acceptable for “liquor, specialty beverages and headsets.”
Wrapping up…
In many ways the switch from meals at mealtimes to F4S was foregone conclusion years ago. Still, a bit sad to have the last airline in the USA offering free meals in coach finally pull them. At least there are hot options that appear a bit more substantial than just packaged snack box junk on many flights.
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Posted by Seth on October 11, 2010 under Internet, News |
While airlines in the United States race to complete rollouts of in-flight internet connectivity, airlines in Asia are busy implementing GSM/GPRS connectivity for mobile devices on their airplanes. Singapore Air is the latest to announce such plans, indicating that they will install the picocell service from provider OnAir on their fleet of Airbus A340-500 and A380 aircraft as well as their Boeing 777-300 planes. The carrier intends to begin installation of the hardware in early 2011.
The OnAir product allows airlines to offer both voice and data services to their customers. Voice services will be billed at global roaming rates – rarely cheap – which helps to control the usage and limit the impact on other passengers. Data service rates are set by the carrier and Singapore Air has not yet announced their intentions on that front.
