Posted by Seth on February 28, 2011 under Mileage Run, Review, Trip Reports | 
It was the best of flights, it was the worst of ground service. The seat was good, getting it was miserable.The fare was phenomenal, the extortion was unconscionable. Yes, indeed, my experience flying long-haul on South African Airways was very much a study in contrasts.
The trip was relatively simple, if not entirely too short. I was flying from Washington’s Dulles airport to Johannesburg (via Dakar) on the outbound and returning to New York City‘s JFK (also via Dakar) on the return. For those keeping score at home that’s roughly 36 hours on the airplane total, and that doesn’t include the side-trip to Mauritius which, at only 4 hours each way, is a separate short-haul report. Yeah, I’m crazy.
Putting aside the problems with the ticket, the ground handling at Dulles and Jo’burg was pretty bad. Generally they do not assign the exit row seats in advance of the day of departure. These seats also happen to have unlimited legroom and are rather coveted for the ease of getting in and out without bothering your seatmate and the general comfort provided. Of course I wanted one. So I asked. Actually, first I checked the seat maps to make sure they were still available and then I asked. First I was outright told that they were already assigned. No, they aren’t. Oh, well we can hold your boarding pass and let you know.
I headed off to the lounge (Lufthansa Senator lounge in Dulles – quite nice!) and then back to the gate. Still no seats "available" even though they were still unassigned. And then they assigned one to some other random guy who walked up and asked. Yet I still couldn’t have one?!?! I persisted and got it eventually, but it was rather annoying.
On the return trip it was more of the same, with alternating reports of the seat being assigned, blocked, under airport control, under gate control and otherwise not available to me. Imaging my surprise when half way through the Jo’burg – Dakar segment I walked back and saw the seat open. Thanks for nothing, gate agents.
The crew in-flight, however, was the complete opposite. They were incredibly on the 3 segments I interacted with them (I slept the whole last segment). On one flight my seat-mate and I started chatting about the wonderful South Africa wines and the choices available on the flight. As the FA passed by to take drink orders before dinner I was having trouble making up my mind. When I mentioned my predicament, as well as my concern that the order needed to last all the way through dinner, he simply smiled, reached his hands into the cart and came out with one of everything for me. Yeah, that was nice.
The food on the flights was surprisingly good as well. There aren’t as many meals as I’ve become used to with my US – Europe flights, which is to say there was no breakfast on the eastbound redeye nor a second meal on the northbound JNB-DKR segment. I appreciated that for the first one: no need to wake up extra early when the flight is already barely long enough to get any sleep. On the return I could’ve used a bit more food near the end of the flight but they did have some snacks available in the galley so it wasn’t all bad.
I mostly ordered the lamb rather than the chicken or fish options. Seemed somewhat a safer bet. The meat was moist, not over-cooked and actually had flavor to it. I was quite surprised. Sure, it looks like most every other coach airline meal I’ve ever photographed, but it was surprisingly tasty.
The breakfasts offered (one on the DKR-JNB route and one just before arrival into JFK) were OK, too. Definitely slightly different flavors – like why were the apple-filled "pancakes" in a strawberry sauce – but overall quite reasonable. Even better is that they actually came with sides, like a yogurt, fresh fruit and a croissant. They were much more filling than I’m used to for a redeye breakfast.
The in-flight entertainment system is pretty nice, though it was also out of service on one of the segments. Rather than ads on their in-flight map they show tips about staying healthy during the trip using animations similar to the awesome guy they have in the safety demo video. When the AVOD is working the selection is rather impressive and the functionality is pretty sweet. And they have a handset controller so no one is tapping the back of your seat all flight long.
Overall I’m reasonably convinced that the good outweighed the bad, but there will always be a little worry in the back of my mind wondering if it is worth the risk to book with them; after all, paying hundreds of dollars more than expected at the departure airport isn’t high on my list of acceptable travel surprises. But in the end they’re the most direct path to Southern Africa and beyond and the in-flight experience is pretty solid.
Now about that $305 they owe me….
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Posted by Seth on February 23, 2011 under Internet, News |
About a month ago the news came out that Verizon Wireless was killing their unlimited international data plans for all smartphone devices. Not only was this a huge blow to folks who travel a lot in terms of roaming costs, but it was also rather unexpected as there was no announcement that the plan was going away before it abruptly disappeared. It seems that the company has received enough negative feedback on this change that they are now reconsidering their position.
If you have ever had the plan previously and were following the financially sound practice of turning it off and on as needed it seems that you have one last chance to get it back. Many users are reporting that they are able to get the plan put back on their account "one last time" as an exception to the new policies. While this means it will still be more expensive to have the plan on "full time" rather than as needed, it is definitely less expensive than the new roaming rates, especially if you travel farther afield than Europe and the Caribbean.
Make the call now if you want the plan back. No telling how long VZW will keep this grandfathering option available.
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Posted by Seth on February 21, 2011 under Trip Reports |
Last week I took a quick jaunt over to South Africa and Mauritius. The trip overall was great and I’ll be sharing plenty from it in the coming days, but there is one part that I’m still struggling to comprehend: On the day of departure I was told by South African Airways (“SAA”) that I was on the hook for hundreds of dollars in additional costs in order to make my trip.
The problem stemmed from a schedule change that SAA instituted. Schedule changes happen; I get that. The amazing thing to me in this case was that the airline chose to disavow all responsibility for accommodations when they made the change. If I wanted to travel I was on the hook for all costs associated with their change. This was apparently non-negotiable.
I was notified of the change only 4 days prior to departure. Two of those days were the weekend when apparently no changes could be made to the ticket because their support group was closed. By the time that desk opened up and I was able to get through we were basically inside 24 hours to departure so changes could only be handled at the airport. Knowing that it would be a mess I got to the airport early – 5 hours early – to deal with an agent and try to resolve the issue.
Their first offer was that we could fly standby on an earlier flight out the same departure day. We wouldn’t know if it had cleared (“Oh, just call back to the USA and check up on it”) and it would involve leaving 7 hours earlier than planned. Losing the only day I was to spend in Mauritius was not particularly appealing and the fact that it was standby made that option unacceptable.
Or we could take the original (now hour later) booked flight and spend the night in Johannesburg before continuing home, arriving 24 hours later. The costs for the additional time spent in Jo’burg would be solely mine; they would not assist with hotel costs at all. Despite the change being of their doing.
I suggested alternate routings, mostly on SAA and also using Star Alliance partners. Absolutely impossible was their reply as I would be changing the routing on the trip. Never mind that the change was required by their scheduling.
Ultimately their offer was that they would sell me a seat on a British Airways/Comair flight from Mauritius to Jo’burg that just happened to be at the same time as the SAA flight was originally booked. For just $305 I could actually keep my original itinerary. It was borderline extortion at the airport and I had no problem claiming that to them. Sadly, however, we were now 2+ hours into the discussion and it was time to get checked in and start the trip. I paid the $305, collected my re-issued ticket and began the journey.
Once I made the extortion on Twitter I managed to rouse some other folks in their customer service group. This started a string of emails that appeared to hold promise. That appearance was apparently a mirage as nothing positive came from the conversations. Some choice comments from their position include:
Understandably, our industry’s revenue environment has permanently changed, and we must operate our airline accordingly…. Please know I will be sharing your feedback with our Network Planning and Analysis leadership teams for their future consideration and internal review.
OK…so you’ll file a paper on it and in the meantime I’m still out $305. Thanks for nothing. The emails continued a few more times and the only assurances I received were that they really cared about me as a customer and that they “treat any report of customer dissatisfaction very seriously.” Apparently not seriously enough to actually make the customer whole, however.
There were a few more emails and I’m glad that they took the time to respond. I would have been much more impressed, however, had they acknowledged that they were actually at fault rather than leaving me on the hook for hundreds of dollars in costs.
The in-flight service was top-notch and I would have no qualms about recommending SAA in that regard. But the ground handling was abysmal and the nasty surprise of being charged $305 extra at the airport for a ticket that was previously fully paid and confirmed was unconscionable. Such a surprise on the day of travel is not the way customers should be treated.
It is going to take a lot to convince me to try SAA again. Sad, because the product really is quite pleasant.
UPDATE (4 April 2011): Well, SAA finally realized the error of their ways. I got my money back!
Posted by Seth on February 18, 2011 under Dining, Review, Trip Reports |
The art of la dolce vita is alive and well in Lecce, Italy. The small town, nestled in the center of the heel of the country’s boot, provides a great base of operations to access the rest of the Puglia region. But even without leaving town there is enough to see and do to take up a day or two. There is enough to eat to last much longer, if desired.
There are several quite decent restaurants available covering the local cuisine, and, even more enjoyably, many options for breakfast and dessert. Indeed, the town appears to have an over-abundance of gelato and pastry shops, mostly centered around the main piazzo at the heart of the city.
These are the type of shops that I expected would survive based on tourists flocking in during the summer months or through less than legitimate business dealings. After all, how can that many coffee and dessert shops succeed in such a small town?
Apparently I continue to underestimate the consumption rates of coffee, delicious little pastries and gelato. Because even though we were nearly alone as tourists in town during our weekend there, business at the gelaterias was rather bustling.
Each night they were serving up scoop after scoop of gelato as well as a variety of beverages – mostly based on espresso – and pastries.
I focused mostly on the gelato options and I must say that I can understand the success of these shops. Simply delicious.
Oh, and they were also the first stop in the morning for most of town to get started again. A couple espressos or cappuccinos to start the morning up is great if you’re into that sort of thing (by which I mean "Italian" in this case as most of town seemed to be there ever day).
We did most of our pastry and gelato consumption at Il Alvino, right in the center of town. There are other options that I’m sure are also quite good, but that’s where we were and I’d recommend it with no apprehension.
Read more of our adventures in and around Lecce, Italy, here.
Posted by Seth on February 17, 2011 under frequent flyer, News |
One of the many outstanding questions related to the Continental/United Airlines merger was that of the EconomyPlus product. United has offered it for many years now and Continental has not. Some hints were offered in recent months as Continental started to charge for their "Extra Leg Room" (‘ELR’) seats (mainly exit rows and bulkheads) where they previously had been free if available when check-in opened.
The mystery was laid to rest today when the announcement was made that the combined company would be keeping the product on the legacy UA fleet and adding it to the Continental fleet. The conversion of the Continental fleet will be starting in 2012; until then it is just the ELR seats on those planes.
Most notable in the still unanswered questions on this topic is whether adding the E+ seats will mean removing a row from first class or from coach, As noted by Scott O’Leary, United’s Managing Director of Customer Service, "It’s an important decision, especially for our domestic fleet, and one we’re putting a lot of thought into."
I’m betting that the 737-500, 737-700 and 757-300 keep their existing first class section and lose a row in economy while the 737-800/900/900ER settle at 16 first class seats (many are 20 today) to make this happen.
Definitely a move that will keep many of their frequent fliers happy and loyal to the company.
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Posted by Seth on February 17, 2011 under Dining, Review, Trip Reports |
To say that we had essentially no idea what to expect when we arrived in Lecce, Italy would be giving us more credit than we deserved. And yet we managed to find fantastic dining options around town (as well as a miss or two).
The most delicious meals we had were also the most simple. Many restaurants these days seem to be making recipes more complicated, with ingredient lists that are longer and longer. But not in Lecce. In Lecce the dishes were simple preparations of fresh ingredients. It was wonderful.
Our first meal in town was at Trattoria Nonna Tetti. Starting with a cheese plate is a good way to make sure that you’re getting just the most simple of preparations of ingredients. And the variety of local cheeses available was quite broad.
After that we chose a couple pastas for our first course. One was a gnocchi with pancetta and eggplant, tossed in a light tomato sauce.
The second pasta was a pesto with sautéed shrimp. The sauce was top-notch and the shrimp were incredibly fresh.
For our secondi we chose to split the octopus. This was probably the best dish we had during our trip. The pulpo was simply phenomenal.
Our second meal was at Trattoria Le Zie – Cucina Casareccia. Given that we dine at a restaurant of a similar name in New York City on a very regular basis and that this one is played up as one of the best dining options in Lecce, we couldn’t resist. Faced with the premise of difficulty in getting a reservation for dinner we chose to go for lunch instead. Same menu but more casual and easier to get a table.
The food was mixed in quality. The anti pasta was quite good. Grilled eggplant, salads and a potato/mushroom thing of which I can say that the potatoes were quite nice.
Rather than pastas as our primi courses we ended up with potato casseroles. The pastas just didn’t sound very good and the potato options did. In retrospect we probably should’ve had one of each, but such is life.
One had artichoke mixed in while the other had mussels. I’ll never quite understand the service of mussels still in their shell unless in a bowl of broth. In broth it makes a bit of sense as the mussels are the only bits that you are eating. But when on a pizza or in a casserole it is a bit more strange.
Yet there they were. Mussels on the half shell, baked in with sliced potatoes, mini-zucchini and parmesan cheese that is toasted on top. I may not understand the mussels still in the shell but I definitely enjoyed the flavor of the dish.
For the secondi we skipped one of their more famous dishes – horse meat in a spicy tomato sauce – in favor of the stewed octopus in a red wine sauce. It was pretty good, though overly salty.
I think it is safe to say that whatever reputation Le Zie (Lecce) has these days doesn’t really show up in the food. Yeah, it got its start as serving up the food of the lower classes, prepared for folks who like to go out to dinner. Today, however, it seems to be just basic dishes that are hit or miss and not particularly special. Not worth the hype, I’d say, but still a decent enough meal. And it isn’t really all that expensive such that it is worth avoiding.
Our second night’s dinner was at La Vecchia Lecce, a restaurant that was listed as having a chef who trained at Trattoria Nonna Tetti, our previous night’s dinner locale. It turns out that was either a mistranslation or that "trained at" means "serves the exact same menu as" in Italy. I’m guessing the former.
Somehow it has a higher rating on TripAdvisor than Nonna which I can only attribute to it being larger and therefore easier to get in to. Otherwise the atmosphere was a step down and generally not worth the extra walk from the Piazzo. It was still a pretty good meal, though it did decrease our dining variety a bit in town. That said, the mozzarella was awesome.
Our final dinner in town was at the Joyce Enoteca. The restaurant is apparently known for its meat and cheese plates. Standing behind a counter by the entrance a gentleman stood patiently slicing up various pieces of pig that have been cured, smoked or otherwise made delicious. They are plated on large wooden trays, mixed with a variety of local cheeses if you want to go that way. Of course, we didn’t really figure that out until after we watched nearly every other table order that and we didn’t. Still, our meal was pretty damn good.
We limited our cheese intake to just one choice (the gorgonzola) rather than a tasting plate. Still damn good. We then moved on to the main courses. We had a pesto similar to that of the first night – though without the shrimp and not as good – as well as porcetta. The pork was pretty good, though the skin wasn’t quite as crispy as we generally prefer. Still, a quite good meal to wrap up our stay in Lecce.
Well, not quite wrapped up. I forgot about the grappa. We ordered a grappa and a limoncello after dinner. We had to get an extra grappa because it was that good. Just enough of the burn to remind you that it really is a strong alcohol but a smooth enough flavor to really make me want a third glass. Fortunately I was smart enough to resist so that I could actually walk back to the hotel room. But it was quite tempting.
Breakfast and dessert in Lecce are not generally to be had in restaurants. These are taken in the great gelato and pastry shops scattered about town. Il Alvino in the center of town saw us a few times and there are plenty of others as well. All good stuff.
Read more of our adventures in and around Lecce, Italy, here.
Posted by Seth on February 16, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Delta Air Lines announced on Tuesday that they have removed the point expiration policy from their SKyMiles frequent flyer program. The change apparently went into effect on January 1, 2011 though it was not announced until six weeks later. This is an interesting move, bucking a trend in the industry to otherwise limit the value of points by making them harder to redeem and les likely to still be around down the line. Only Continental has a similar no expiration policy currently in play amongst the other competitors in the industry and the future of the OnePass program is uncertain (but doubtful) with the United Airlines merger currently in process.
The other significant change to the SkyMiles program that was announced yesterday is that Delta’s Gold Medallion tier will now be considered SkyTeam Elite Plus rather than SkyTeam Elite. This gives those customers a number of benefits, including lounge access when traveling on international itineraries and priority baggage handling. Given that their major US-based competitors all provided lounge access via their similar elite tier this move was long overdue and more playing catch-up than being a leader in the industry. Still, it is a great change for SkyMiles members.
The SkyMiles program has been beaten up of late due to difficulties and, in many cases, grossly overpriced award redemption costs, both in miles required and in associated fees. The changes announced this week certainly do not solve those problems but they do make things a bit better for many members. Not necessarily the folks flying 100K+ miles annually as those folks already had the lounge benefit and weren’t going to have their points expire, but for many more of the masses these are solid improvements to the program.
Posted by Seth on February 11, 2011 under Flying, Trip Reports |
Yes, I am really so strange as to actually enjoy the time I spend in airplanes, so much so that I want to do more of it. But that’s not what this particular post is about. Having just come off another transatlantic redeye flight from New York City to Milan I am legitimately lamenting just how quickly one can fly from the USA to Europe. I love that the quick flights mean a quick weekend (or even a day trip) is possible, but the morning of arrival is always a bit of a challenge. It is doubly so today because of a relatively long layover in Milan before our next flight to Brindisi. Such is life.
The flight over was actually rather uneventful. Since my last TATL redeye on Continental the dinner service seems to have improved a tiny bit. The ravioli was a decent option and the chicken was surprisingly moist. The salad has improved dramatically from a couple years ago, though the fruit in the morning is about the same.
The flight offered, like always, the opportunity to brush up on my foreign language skills via the in-flight announcements and the AirShow maps. Those are always fun. I can now properly say tailwind in Italian, for example, as vento a favore.
But the flights are to darn short. Only 7 hours en route last night meant that, after climb out, beverage service and dinner we only had about 5.5 hours left before landing. With the breakfast service starting a hour prior that leaves only about 4 hours for sleeping. That’s rough on the body.
On the plus side, we got to see this awesome sunrise over the Italian Alps as well as an Iran Air and El Al plane at adjacent gates on the ground here. Plus, we’re in Italy for what looks to be an awesome weekend. I’ll stop complaining, but it really would be nice to get a bit more sleep on those TATL flights.
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Posted by Seth on February 10, 2011 under frequent flyer, News |
When arch-rivals agree to start cooperating in the airline industry that’s a pretty good indication that strange things are afoot. The announcements by Copa Airlines and Avianca-Taca, the aviation leaders in Central and Northern South America and strong competitors in those markets, that both would be joining Star Alliance was one of those moments. The strange continues as the two have announced their plans to begin codesharing on each others flights in the region and beyond.
Taca has an existing codeshare relationship with United Airlines while Copa has an existing relationship with Continental Airlines. The Copa/Continental relationship extends to the operation of the Panamanian carrier’s frequent flyer program as well. Given these relationships it makes sense to see the combined Continental/United operation working to get their partnerships aligned as their merger integration efforts proceed. It is even better to see that the alignment is opening up more opportunities for customers rather than reducing them.
Posted by Seth on February 10, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Redeeming points for anything other than the travel awards of the program in which they were earnt is rarely a good value. Rather than giving away product that they own the loyalty program is buying something and selling it back to you so the value generally suffers based on the higher costs. Compounding that issue is the fact that awards with a fixed cash value – gift cards, statement credits and the like – are generally even less of a deal since the fixed costs have very little, if any, margin for the retailers to work with. Combine that with the fact that points.com generally preys on the uninformed to exploit their frustrations and fleece them on trade or redemption costs and you have something resembling a perfect storm: Points.com redemptions for PayPal credit.
I knew going in that the numbers would be bad. I just had no idea they would be this bad. The PayPal redemption option is currently available for three programs, American Airlines AAdvantage, US Airways Dividend Miles and Air Canada Aeroplan. The conversion rates vary as shown in the screen captures below, ranging from bad to terrible to so unbelievably horrible that I ran the check three times because I thought there was a mistake in it. Yeah, it is simply awful.
Aeroplan points hold the highest value in the conversion scheme, with 17,734 points converting to $100 in PayPal credit. At 100,000 points (roughly $600 in PayPal credit) you can get a round-trip first class ticket from North America to Europe. So, yeah, the ratio is pretty bad.
A CDN$250 AmEx dining credit is only 32,500 points, Or just get the regular CDN$250 Aeroplan Ultimate Card for 35,000 points. Basically it is an extra $50 in credit for taking the points as a pre-paid AmEx rather than as cash.
The 24,118 AAdvantage points are nearly enough for a domestic round-trip ticket (and AA has some great off-peak awards where those points go even farther) or $100. A 0.4 cents/mile valuation is well below the penny/point nominal cost valuation of the points and even worse compared to some of the better redemption options out there.
And then there is US Airways. I actually feel like there is a decimal point error in these numbers given how high the redemption costs are. A $100 PayPal credit costs over 120K Dividend Miles points. That is simply ridiculous.
The number of better things to do with 120,000 Dividend Miles is rather lengthy. Thanks to their Star Alliance partnerships the redemption options – both in coach and premium cabins – to nearly anywhere in the world are incredible. All for way better than the $100 you’d get instead. If you’re that desperate for the cash give me a call; I’m sure we can work out a deal.
So, yeah, the rates are horrible. And the US Airways option is quite possibly the worst value I’ve ever seen for points. EVER. Just don’t do it.
Posted by Seth on February 9, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Since its acquisition by Lufthansa, British regional carrier bmi has seen many bits of its operations aligned to their parent company’s operating model. Some routes have been cut and others aligned to partner hubs. Other changes have been announced, too, including a previous claim that their frequent flyer program, Diamond Club, would be subsumed into the Miles & More organization. Some reports suggested that change would come as early as the middle of this year.
Apparently someone has had a change of heart.
The latest reports, included in a FaceBook/Twitter-based chat with the CEO say that the end of Diamond Club is, in fact, not going to be happening this year as previously suggested.
Now that bmi is a part of the Lufthansa group of airlines, we are evaluating being part of Miles & More in the long term. A final decision has not been taken and such a move would not happen in 2011. For the foreseeable future we are firmly focused on ensuring that our Diamond Club scheme meets the needs of our loyal customers. Therefore we will continue to improve and develop Diamond Club. We will be launching Star Alliance Upgrade Awards in Q2 this year, which will enable Diamond Club members to upgrade on the majority of Star Alliance airlines using their miles, as well as bringing a number of new partners on board.
This is quite good news for most folks who have been collecting points in the Diamond Club program. It has a number of benefits over the Miles & More program, including cash & miles redemptions and a very flexible award chart. Adding in the Star Alliance upgrade option will improve the program even more.
At the same time, customers who were banking on the transition happening this year (like me) now have to make a decision on whether to extend their current loyalty or not.
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Putting aside the problems with the ticket, the ground handling at Dulles and Jo’burg was pretty bad. Generally they do not assign the exit row seats in advance of the day of departure. These seats also happen to have unlimited legroom and are rather coveted for the ease of getting in and out without bothering your seatmate and the general comfort provided. Of course I wanted one. So I asked. Actually, first I checked the seat maps to make sure they were still available and then I asked. First I was outright told that they were already assigned. No, they aren’t. Oh, well we can hold your boarding pass and let you know.
