Posted by Seth on January 1, 2012 under Flying, Review, Trip Reports | 
An image like this near your airport is simply not good. Flying out of a tropical cyclone almost guarantees an adventure.
About the best thing that can be said for Cyclone Thane is that it passed over 100 miles to the south of Chennai, meaning that the winds and rains were steady, but not excessively strong. Our flight got out basically on time and that was a most welcome relief. Our biggest adventure was actually getting to the airport, with some areas of road having standing water and other issues. On the plus side, it seems that most folks decided to stay home in the rain so there wasn’t too much traffic.
The flight itself was on one of the relatively new Airbus A320s in the SriLankan fleet and it was pretty much an uneventful 65 minute trip from Chennai to Colombo. Cloud cover was heavy for nearly the entire flight so there were plenty of bumps along the way, but nothing too strong.
The seats were comfortable enough. I scored a bulkhead in advance through their online booking system with no issues, though it is a solid bulkhead with no foot cutout.
They even managed to serve a meal to a relatively full aircraft in that short flight time. The vegetable Biryani was not half bad, though it also wasn’t particularly wonderful. (I also think now, 72 hours later, that it was this meal that got me ill, necessitating dipping in to the emergency cipro supply, so maybe the "not half bad" comment above was a bit off.)
The family of four sitting adjacent to us (we both wanted window seats and they took the middle/aisle adjacent) was pretty entertaining, including the decision to change the lap child’s diaper at the seat. Ick. At least the kid was cute and didn’t scream. And his brother fell asleep shortly after takeoff, ending that shouting as well.
The flight attendant uniforms were pretty awesome, with the women wearing a sari-esque outfit. Didn’t manage to snag a photo, sadly, but I’m a big fan.
I was also impressed with the amenities offered up to passengers in the forward cabin on the short flight. Never seen anything close on a short-haul flight.
Oh, and coloring books (colored pencils, not crayons!) or hats for the kids on the plane was a nice touch, too.
And then, as we started our approach into Colombo, the skies cleared and we were treated to a beautiful view of the Sri Lankan countryside as we came in to land on runway 22 at CMB.
I’ve also heard reasonably good things about the long-haul product that SriLankan offers and was actually planning on trying it out, albeit on a somewhat shorter CMB-BKK flight. I booked those tickets online also with no issues. Trying to get them refunded, however, has been nothing short of a nightmare. The refunds for online bookings can only be handled online and the webpage has failed three separate times for me. Fortunately I was able to get through to someone in the call center here in Sri Lanka and have them at least cancel out the seats but I foresee much trouble in the future getting my money back; they insist that I now send emails to a refunds group. AmEx might be getting a call on this one.
Tags: American Express, Chennai, Colombo, Flying, in flight, India, NYE2011, Photos, review, Sri Lanka, SriLankan, Trip Report
Posted by Seth on November 9, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Following on the heels of this summer’s award chart adjustments that saw many awards increase in cost it appears that Aeroplan, the loyalty program associated with Air Canada, is also adjusting the surcharges they levy on certain award redemptions. Specifically, it appears that the YQ fuel surcharge, to date only levied against redemptions on Air Canada flights, is now applying to flights operated by Lufthansa, Austrian and a few others.
This trend is not a new one. Recently American Airlines began charging the YQ surcharge on flights operated by partner British Airways. Delta charges a similar fee for flights originating outside the USA, even if flown on Delta airplanes, while not charging where the flights originate in the USA. Needless to say, the development is a costly one for customers.
With Aeroplan as one of the last great redemption options for the American Express Membership Rewards program this move also devalues those points a bit. Not great news at any level.
More over at View From the Wing.
Posted by Seth on October 22, 2011 under Trip Reports |
I’ve been working lately on cobbling together a rather ridiculous series of flights for our winter vacation this year. The plan is mostly South Asia, focusing on the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka, plus a quick stop in Bangkok on the way home. At least that’s the theory.
Initially I booked the trip using points for award travel round-trip between New York City and India. Since then the itinerary has morphed a bit so I’ll be changing things up (thank goodness for free award changes as an elite!) but I actually need to get a couple of the tickets purchased in order to make those changes, just in case. And it is proving incredibly difficult to buy at least one of the tickets.
If you had asked me a month ago, before I started all of this, I would have bet that the ticket on Sri Lankan would have been the hard one to acquire. I would have lost that bet. The transaction with them was smooth as could be, handled fully online and it was only a couple days later that American Express called to make sure that I really was buying a couple one way flights from Colombo to Bangkok in early January. It wasn’t even a big enough risk for them to call immediately.
Buying the flight from Bangkok to JFK on EgyptAir, however, is proving to be a ridiculous mess. I started with their website which looks pretty slick, at least for the flight selection search bits. It showed the fare I had seen otherwise online (about $150 less for each ticket than any other channel) and I went through the long process of entering in all our personal data to book the flight. At the final payment screen, however, the transaction was denied. Repeatedly.
My first call was to Visa to make sure my card was OK. It wasn’t, but they cleared that up. Waiting two hours didn’t help; still denied. Another 24 hours later and still denied. Even more strange, however, was that the credit card company didn’t even show the most recent transactions. It is as if EgyptAir never even tried to authorize the card; they just rejected the transaction. It took a couple calls but eventually I got in touch with someone in the EgyptAir ticketing office in New York to try to process the transaction. The first agent saw the reservation and the price I was quoted online. She transferred me to another agent to handle the transaction who promptly informed me that the fare was $300 higher. Ugggh.
So long as I was not going to get the discounted fare I figured I’d try to get some other value for the transaction. American Express offers bonus Membership Rewards points for travel booked through their portal so why not give that a go, right? Apparently their system is not robust enough to handle selling a one-way ticket in business class from Bangkok to New York City:
That’s is simply ludicrous, especially considering that probably a dozen airlines or more offer service on that route with a single connection.
And so I’m essentially left with a bevy of third party online travel agencies through which I can try to book the flight, but now I’m faced with wading through their differing fares and service fees to find the right price. Plus I’m stuck with dealing with one of them for service going forward rather than dealing with the airline directly. What a mess.
It shouldn’t be this complicated to spend money on a plane ticket.
Tags: American Express, Bangkok, Egypt, EgyptAir, India, internet, Membership Rewards, New York City, NYE2011, Sri Lanka, Thailand
Posted by Seth on October 9, 2011 under Hotel, points |
I’ve never been a particularly big fan of using American Express Membership Rewards points for hotel stay transfers. The rates are generally pretty awful and there are better ways to accumulate hotel points out there. Still, the option is there and every now and then it is something that folks use.
It looks like AmEx is trying to make the product a bit better, at least for a few months.
UPDATE: This promo is only for cards in the MR First program, namely US-issued Platinum and Centurion cards. Sorry for getting anyone else excited, though you probably shouldn’t have been anyways.
Through the end of the year they’ve got a sale on for transfers to Hilton HHonors and Starwood Preferred Guest. Both programs are offering 25% off.
There is also a 25% discount on the various free night certificates that are available via the Marriott Rewards program:
None of these are a particularly great deal but it does suck a bit less.
Posted by Seth on October 2, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
The partnership between American Express Membership Rewards and Virgin America was announced several weeks ago but without many details at the time. Those details were expected to be announced by October 5, 2011, when the partnership was supposed to be fully in effect. Apparently the numbers came out a bit early and The Points Guy noticed the rates. Wow do they suck.
The conversion rate is 200 AmEx MR points -> 100 Virgin America Elevate points. Virgin America’s Elevate program has relatively fixed redemption values for the points, topping out around the 2 cents/point range. With this conversion factor the AmEx points are topping out at 1 cent/point and can actually do rather worse. That’s a pretty bad rate of return on those points.
It is even more crazy when you consider American Express also has a buy with points option that natively values the points at a penny each (1.25 for Platinum/Centurion card holders) and buying via that method actually is seen by the airlines as a revenue ticket so one earns more points (the native program points, not Membership Rewards points) for flying on that flight.
The only slightly reasonable explanation for why one would transfer AmEx points into Elevate at these rates is if you’ve got almost enough for a reasonably high-value award already and you just need to top off the account. Otherwise it is quite a bad deal.
This change, coming on the heels of Continental exiting the program as a redemption partner and the impending doom of devaluation for US-based earners in the British Airways Avios conversion, doesn’t really do much to offset the losses in the Membership Rewards program.
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Posted by Seth on September 12, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, Mileage Run, Trip Reports |
Anyone ever tried to buy a round of drinks for an entire airplane? I did today and the logistics were surprisingly complicated. Maybe that’s because no one ever does this sort of thing. Or because it is ridiculous. But that mostly just describes me so I gave it a go.
American Express offers a $200 credit to platinum charge cardholders to offset the various fees airlines will hit you with these days. The catch is that it can only be used against one airline and once you choose the carrier you’re stuck with that choice for the whole year. Most of my flying is on airlines where I have status and I rarely check a bag, even when I don’t have status. Plus I get upgraded a fair amount so food and booze are often part of the deal. Nearly a year into the program’s existence I haven’t figured out a scenario where I could reasonably spend that $200.
Sitting a lunch with a friend in Anchorage I decided that today would be the day. I was going to commit my $200 in "fees" credit to Alaska Airlines and get my money’s worth. It is my first flight ever on Alaska and probably my last for the year so committing to spending the $200 on my own is too tall a task. But with a little help it shouldn’t be much of an issue. After all, it is a flight to Honolulu and folks should mostly be pretty happy about that, right? A free drink should make it even better.
After stowing my bag in the overhead bin I made my way back to the galley to explain my plan to the flight attendants.
Me: Hi there! I’ve got a strange situation here. I want to buy drinks. A lot of them.
FA: Huh?
Me: I want to buy the first round for the whole plane. That’s probably 40-50 drinks, right?
FA: Huh?
OK, so the quotes aren’t entirely verbatim, but the confusion expressed by the FAs was pretty close. We spent the next 10 minutes chatting about my scheme and trying to figure out the best way to handle the logistics. One option was for her to run the card 30+ times and have me hand the receipts to the lucky drinkers. We threw that one out pretty quickly as way too much work. Eventually we agreed that they’d just do a normal beverage service but rather than charge everyone they would just tally the total drinks consumed and I’d pay the bill at the end of the service.
Because the offer was only revealed after the drink was ordered the initial damage was actually rather limited. We didn’t quite get to the $200 threshold on the first pass. This, of course, raised another issue of trying to figure out how to spend the rest of the credit on board. I made a sign, figuring I’d walk through the cabin offering up the drinks that way.
Ultimately, however, that seemed less friendly. So I just started asking folks if they wanted a drink. I’m wearing a Hawaiian shirt that is similar in color to that of the flight attendants so A few people confused me for that; I even had one ask how to fill out the agricultural declaration form. But once I explained that I’m just a guy buying drinks for anyone who wanted one I did manage to get a few takers. Pretty soon my sales efforts were rewarded and the $200 credit (and a few dollars more) was over. I was willing to keep going (a bit) but the third beverage service is about to start and that means free mai tais for everyone!
I had entirely too much fun on this flight. I don’t know why but flights to Hawaii make me want to have more fun than most. Also, a special thanks to the crew from Alaska Airlines who were willing to help me out on this ridiculous bit of entertainment.
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Tags: Alaska, Alaska Air, Alaska Airlines, American Express, Anchorage, elite status, fees, Hawaii, Honolulu, Mileage Run, PacificLines, Trip Report, upgrade
Posted by Seth on August 24, 2011 under frequent flyer, points |
For many months now the rumor mill was been swirling with thoughts on changes to the lifetime elite status program offered by American Airlines‘ AAdvantage program. Today those rumors – most of which were accurate – are laid to rest as the company has announced the details of their new lifetime qualification requirements and benefit levels. The new rules go into effect on December 1, 2011.
First up, the qualification requirements:
Base miles earned by flying on American Airlines, American Eagle® or the AmericanConnection® carrier or any eligible AAdvantage program participating airline will count towards Million Miler status. Also, as a limited time offer, one mile for every dollar spent on eligible purchases using the new Citi ExecutiveSM / AAdvantage® World Elite™ MasterCard® credit card that post to billing statements through December 2012 will count toward Million Miler status*. The Citi ExecutiveSM / AAdvantage® World Elite™ MasterCard® credit card account must be open and in good standing by December 1, 2011.
Second, the benefits for reaching those levels:
- At 1,000,000 Million Miler miles, AAdvantage members will receive lifetime AAdvantage Gold® status and 35,000 AAdvantage bonus miles (which, as you know, can be exchanged for eight 500-mile upgrades if that’s what you prefer)
- At 2,000,000 Million Miler miles, AAdvantage members will receive lifetime AAdvantage Platinum® status and four one-way systemwide upgrades
- At each additional Million Miler mile mark, AAdvantage members will receive four additional one-way systemwide upgrades
Finally, any points accrued to your lifetime balance prior to the rules change will still be there.
As noted above, these changes do not come as much of a surprise to anyone paying attention to the program recently. And the changes bring the program much more in line with their competition. That’s not necessarily a good thing for consumers, particularly as previously American offered the easiest qualification to lifetime status of any program out there. Still, it is not hard to understand their desire to move in this direction based on the costs of servicing the ever growing elite population. AAdvantage President Maya Leibman commented to that point rather explicitly in a round table discussion in April.
The qualification options are still reasonable, however, including base miles flown on all AAdvantage airline partners, not just oneworld partners. It does not, however, include any class of service bonus points that might be accrued for flying in premium cabins or on full-fare tickets.
There is also a one year window for earning points on the credit card, assuming you have the right card and the account was open prior to the rules changing on December 1, 2011. The AA American Express cards are excluded from this earning.
Overall, the program is still reasonably competitive. Not nearly as lucrative as it used to be, but also not horrible. And there has been a decent amount of notice provided prior to the downgrade.
Not a great day for folks trying to be lifetime elite on AA without flying, to be sure, but I can think of many ways it could have been worse.
Update (5:33pm EDT 24 Aug 11):
I just realized that only the $450 annual fee credit card gets the spend to still count. Comparable to Continental and their top-end card, though still likely too pricey to justify. I guess it is a bit worse than I previously thought.
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Posted by Seth on June 2, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
The next two months are going to be a fantastic time for folks holding American Express Membership Rewards points and looking for travel awards through the British Airways Executive Club loyalty program. From now through July 31, 2011 transfers are earning a 50% bonus, meaning 1,000 MR points are now worth 1,500 BA points rather than the typical 1,000 rate. This transfer bonus is one of the best offered out of the Membership Rewards program in quite some time.
Is it a coincidence that this promotion came out mere hours after a news article and follow-on social media blitz panning the British Airways program for adding fuel surcharges to their award flights? Maybe so. But that’s fine by me. I’ll take the bonus any way I can get it, especially because I don’t plan on paying those extra fees anyways.
It was great to read the rants and vitriol spewed against BA and other carriers charging similar fees, if for no other reason than it didn’t reflect the whole story. Sure, there are times where those fees are going to apply and they suck when it happens. But there are still a number of times where they do not apply and that’s where the value proposition is of the programs.
Redeeming British Airways points on LAN attracts no YQ surcharge, for example. And if you can find the award seats a ticket from North America to Easter Island, with a stopover in Chile, all in business class can be had for a quite reasonable 80,000 points for the return trip. And with this latest bonus that’s only 54,000 points! Even better is that the award inventory seems to be pretty decent, at least for the days I’m looking to go around New Years.
Time to make a transfer and some bookings!
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Posted by Seth on April 30, 2011 under frequent flyer, points |
Ever wonder what’s going through the minds of the folks running your favorite loyalty programs? Of course; we all do. Ever think you’d see five of the most prominent program leaders sitting in the same room, taking questions from their customers about what makes their programs work and why they have chosen certain specific policies? Me neither.
Last Friday, at the first ever Randy Petersen Travel Executive Summit, a group of us were treated to exactly that. The heads of Delta, American Airlines, United Airlines, Hyatt and American Express Membership Rewards came together for a question and answer session led by Mr. Petersen, by most accounts the guru of loyalty programs. After discussing the history of the programs (we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of the very first one this month) and taking a walk down memory lane it was time to get to the meat of the discussion. Many questions were asked and the program heads were mostly quite responsive, though there were a number of issues where answers were denied in favor of not violating company policy or SEC regulations. Can’t say I really blame them there.
So what were the highlights of the session? I’ve picked out a few of my favorite nuggets and expanded on those discussions.
The "elites" really are
One of the oft-asked and never answered questions about the airline loyalty programs is just how special are the "elite" customers, the ones flying the most miles, really are. And the airlines held firm this time around as well, refusing to disclose the data. But they did give a couple hints as to what the numbers are.
For United Airlines the population of top-tier elites – Global Services and 1Ks – was described as "small six figures" in size. If that’s anything like the way merger partner Continental describes "mid-year" there is certainly plenty of wiggle room there in terms of nailing down what the number really is, but may more specific than the previous non-disclosures. Foland also made it clear that they do distinguish between their frequent customers and their high value customers and that they have many metrics on which they measure those things. Not surprisingly, the two are not always the same folks.
For Delta the numbers were not presented so much based on how many are elite but rather who generates the revenue for the company. It is a very small number of people that really are the High Value Customers for them, similar to the other carriers. The top 1% of customers are responsible for 10-12% of revenue to the company. Expanding that pool out to the top ~3% of customers doubles the revenue pool to about 25%. It drops off precipitously from there, with the bottom 70% of the customers representing only 40% of the annual revenue. It is no wonder that the companies cater to their best customers; they far and away represent more cash.
Mileage expiry is a big deal, except when it isn’t
Jeff Robertson, the man running Delta‘s SkyMiles program, noted at one point that as a company they strive to do what is right for the customer and for the company, even if sometimes that move costs them a little bit of money. In the case of changing their expiry policy for SkyMiles, there is no doubt that the change had some costs, though Jeff also noted that miles expiring represented the single most significant complaint that they received as an organization. And apparently the cost of not expiring them wasn’t so high so everyone wins, right? That’s Delta’s take on the situation.
The other two airline executives speaking on the panel, Jeff Foland from United Airlines and Maya Lieberman from American Airlines, had a different take. They noted that the purpose of the programs is to keep customers engaged with the brand. If a customer hasn’t been engaged for almost two years the expiry is a great opportunity to bring them back into the fold and remind them of the value of those points they’re holding, way better than just holding the points on the book and hoping the customer comes back eventually. Which is better in the long term for the programs? I guess we’ll all have to wait and find out.
It is also worth noting that if the points accrual is so slow that there’s a two year gap in the process, odds are that the points are a bad investment anyways. A customer showing loyalty with such low frequency is likely to be better served financially by simply being loyal to their wallet and buying the cheapest fare available rather than paying extra to accrue miles in a program.
The folks buying miles aren’t who I thought they were
Pretty much every airline now offers the ability to just buy miles outright. During the booking process, at check-in and in various other transactions along the way the opportunities to buy miles are every growing. The problem with these programs is that they are rarely a good value, at least not in bulk. Every now and then it might make sense to top off an account for an award but just not that often.
That’s why I was surprised to hear the great mileage guru Randy Petersen announce (several times over the course of the events) that he buys the miles at the kiosk nearly every time. He’s got tons already and earns them at a blistering pace, and he’s buying more at almost certainly overpriced levels. Even more surprising was a statistic he shared with the group: Over 50% of the folks buying the miles have elite status on the airline they’re buying from. The people who have the most points are also most aggressive about buying more. I just do not understand that.
Speaking with Gary Leff during a break he related similar tales, including one US Airways Chairman’s Preferred member who buys the miles on every single trip. Sure, he gets some awesome reward redemptions out of the deal, but at what price? Then again, if you’re willing to pay the $4500 cost for the trip and points are the right way to find that price point, why not?
Loyalty programs are sortof a zero-sum game, but it is still possible to win
One of the questions asked of the panel was how it is possible that there are loyalty programs can provide value to the companies as well as the customers. All of the loyalty programs are obviously trying to drive revenue to the company so it is hard to have a situation where everyone can win. Indeed, at the macro level the programs are more or less zero-sum efforts – some customers are going to profit and some will not but overall it will still be a benefit for the programs.
Jeff Foland perhaps summed it up best:
We want our currency and elite status to carry more value for the member tomorrow than it does today. We have to do that against the backdrop of running a fiscally responsible company.
So what does that mean? Well, for starters it means that they really do want some customers to have a chance at winning. It also means that when the good arbitrage situations arise that the customers can exploit there is a pretty good chance that the airlines are going to be closing them up in search of that "fiscally responsible" effort.
There has only been one incident in recent memory that resulted in points (the "currency" Foland is referring to above) actually increasing in value. It doesn’t appear that there are any similar changes on the horizon. So to make sure that the currency value increases it is important to pay attention to the trends in the industry and to make sure you’re redeeming the points, not just accumulating them.
Other bits
There were a number of other interesting things discussed, from the future of lifetime status recognition (unsurprisingly United and American were quite tight-lipped on the topic) to how issuing a credit card can help Hyatt drive heads in beds, their core business focus. Oh, and apparently LOTS of folks like redeeming their Membership Rewards points for toasters and other housewares; such a horrible value.
Neither American nor United would comment on any possible changes that may be coming with their lifetime status levels though Ms. Lieberman did note that the ranks of elites on American are somewhat swollen due to their easier accrual policies. No particularly useful information on what the changes are going to be, other than that they’ll provide plenty of notice and communicate them effectively should anything happen, but otherwise mums the word there.
Delta noted that perhaps the biggest challenge they face from a loyalty program perspective is not the merger of Continental and United, but rather that of AirTran and Southwest. The latter represents a sea change to the competition landscape in Atlanta and the new Rapid Rewards program, part of a trend towards rewarding spend more than miles, is a huge part of that change. What it means for SkyMiles or passengers in Atlanta will be fun to watch in the coming months.
Ultimately I must say that it was a great event, both for the information shared and the networking opportunities in the room. Whether with other travel writers (Ben from Today In The Sky and Brian from The Points Guy were two of the bigger names there, along with Gary Leff who was one of the hosts) or rubbing elbows with the executives who make the decisions about how the programs actually operate, it was a great day for meeting new folks and extending existing relationships.
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Tags: AirTran, American Airlines, American Express, Atlanta, Continental, frequent flyer, Hyatt, Membership Rewards, merger, points, Southwest Airline, United, US Air
Posted by Seth on April 7, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
There was a time that the American Express Platinum Charge Card was a tremendous value for road warriors. The list of benefits was impressive, from airport lounges to point accrual to other perks, like concierge service. And the benefits covered a broad chunk of the travel landscape.
In recent years, however, the shine has started to fade. Some of it was little things, like the concierge service effectively becoming an operator with OpenTable and Google trying to find stuff that might work. There were some big things, too, like partners dropping out of the Membership Rewards program at an alarming pace. Sure, some others showed up, but the value was slipping. When AmEx raised their foreign exchange fees to 2.7% that was yet another reason to keep the card in my wallet rather than whip it out as I wandered the globe; the points just aren’t worth paying that much extra for on every transaction, especially when better cards offer 0% f/x rates.
The final nail in the coffin seemed to be the decision by Continental to withdraw from the Membership Rewards and Airport Lounge programs. This move was announced back in September 2010 and it isn’t much of a surprise considering how tightly Continental has been tied to Chase in recent years. They even have their own premium credit card that includes lounge membership and some other travel benefits, and a similarly high annual fee.
And then AmEx was mostly quiet. There have been some ads and AmEx has shrink-wrapped the AirTrain at Newark touting the features of their Membership Rewards program to its customers at Continental’s hub. But the actual feature set hadn’t really gone anywhere useful. Until now.
First off, the end of foreign exchange fees finally happened. It was promised months ago in competitive response to Chase, Citi and a couple other issuers. Fortunately it has finally happened.
There is also the $200 “fee” credit that can be assigned to any one airline. Designated to offset baggage, food or other fees during a trip, this is a pretty sweet deal. It is not without fine print, but for the most part it is a solid benefit.
To address the lounge issue AmEx added US Airways as a partner last July. That was pretty good, but not so useful for international travel. That move was trumped by the addition this week of Priority Pass Select membership for card holders. The access is only for the primary card holder, not for guests and not for additional gold card holders, but it is still a pretty solid benefit, particularly overseas.
And, just for kicks, AmEx is also giving card holders free enrollment in the Global Entry program. This last one is actually the benefit I’ll probably get the most value out of. Sure, it is only $100, but I almost certainly wouldn’t have paid it myself given that I have not yet had a long line experience where it would have mattered.
Overall, it seems that AmEx really is trying to step up and provide value for the $450 annual fee. I’ve carried the card for nine years now and each year I say that I’ll cancel unless the value is there. They’ve still got me paying and these moves just ensured another year of fees. If I was only ever flying on Continental/United Airlines it would be a harder decision to make. But since I have options and I do fly with other carriers it is an easy one for me. At least this year.
For more details from AmEx on the card benefits check out their new site here.
And if you do not have an AmEx Platinum yet but are intrigued by the possibilities, you can apply for one here. It comes with 50K points for only $1000 spend in the first three months, which pretty much offsets the annual fee, and that’s before you get in to any of the benefits noted above. Definitely worth a look these days.
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Posted by Seth on April 4, 2011 under Trip Reports |
A couple weeks ago on my jaunt to Mauritius I had the great pleasure of flying on South African Airways, with one minor exception: they demanded $300 extra from me at departure to keep flights scheduled around my originally booked times following a schedule change that they initiated. Both twitter and this blog got their attention but the initial email conversations I had with them didn’t get very far and they stood their ground, insisting that it was my problem not theirs. Fortunately time heals some wounds, or at least give folks the chance to reconsider bad decisions. I’m happy to say that they have come full circle on this issue and acknowledged their error.
I received a call from a SAA representative late last week informing me of the good news and apologizing for the confusion. It was a nice chat and I’m glad that we had the opportunity to discuss the issue. The explanation given for why it happened in the first place was a bit weak, particularly given the specific details of the case, but in the long run it is the end results that matter and I got what I should have. It is somewhat disappointing that someone from the public relations side of the house had to “escalate the issue several levels within the organization” just to do what is right, especially when the customer service folks didn’t seem very interested at all. I’m sure the fact that American Express had initially sided with me in the charge dispute didn’t hurt my claim either.
Based on this turnabout on their part and the quality service I received in-flight I’m no longer hesitant to recommend flying with SAA. The product is one of the better long-haul economy experiences I’ve had and, so long as there isn’t a schedule change or you don’t need to deal with the airport agents too much, it really is a decent way to travel. Plus, I get to experience them again – in Business Class this time – on an upcoming award trip. Should be fun.
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