Posted by Seth on December 13, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points | 
Ethiopian Airlines became the third African carrier to join the Star Alliance network this week, growing the alliance to 28 carriers. Of those 28, 16 provide service to Africa, covering 110 airports in 48 countries. The move also integrates Ethiopian into the fare and award products, though some integration on fare products won’t occur until January 2012.
The move also integrates the carrier into frequent flier earning across the alliance. Thus far I’ve seen earing details for Asiana, Continental, United Airlines, Turkish, TAP Air Portugal, Air Canada, Lufthansa‘s Miles & More and Agean Airlines. Those earning rates have been incorporated into the calculators on the Travel Tools site. Generally speaking most of the carriers are providing 100% earning rates for all economy fares and a bonus for business class fares. Full details about the rates can be found on the Travel Tools Update here.
Tags: Africa, Agean, Air Canada, Asiana, Continental, Ethiopian Airlines, frequent flier, frequent flyer, Lufthansa, points, Star Alliance, TAP Air Portugal, tools, Turkish Air, United, United Airlines
Posted by Seth on December 24, 2010 under frequent flyer, News |
First there was the announcement that Air Canada’s Aeroplan program would require flights on AC metal to earn elite status. Now there are rumors floating around that booking options for award flights – particularly on partner airlines – are being artificially limited by the company.
Previously one was always able to check for the award inventory directly via a number of different tools (AwardNexus or www.ana.co.jp are the most popular and comprehensive for Star Alliance) and then feed the flights to an agent segment by segment. Now the agents are apparently limited to only being able to sell the seats they see on their search screens. Among other things this restricts some carriers, including Asiana and Swiss, from being displayed at all. Not very helpful.
Currently partner bookings are still being processed by managers but it is not clear how willing they will be to process such requests going forward. Either way, it is a rather unfortunate devaluation of the Aeroplan program. Coming on the heels of their wins at the Frequent Traveler Awards program this past November these devaluations are especially unfortunate.
More discussion on this recent development here.
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Posted by Seth on December 19, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Finally some good news in the world of fees and surcharges! Most major international airlines are cutting them now that fuel costs are dropping back to early 2007 levels.
Recently bmi announced that they were removing fuel surcharges from flights to/from Heathrow, and then they expanded that plan to remove the surcharges on all their regional flights in Europe. The other British carriers have also announced major cuts, with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic both trimming their fees. The amount varies depending on the cabin and trip length, but every little bit helps. Then again, the surcharges don’t seem to be changing for the premium cabins, so maybe it doesn’t help so much.
Most of the major Asian carriers are reducing as well, with ANA, JAL, Asiana and Korean all announcing cuts in the past week or so. The cuts range from 30-70%, which is pretty impressive. That being said, the ANA and JAL cuts are coming down from some ridiculously high levels and they are at the lower end of the range for the cut amounts, so those flights will still have a rather significant surcharge associated with them.
Here’s the thing – we almost certainly won’t see lower fares because of this. The surcharges will decrease but the carriers will almost certainly attempt to raise fares to match the decreases. So why does it matter? In a word, rewards. Reward tickets are subject to “taxes and fees” so they pay for fuel surcharges in most cases. This can render a reward ticket virtually useless for many trips. As the surcharges are traded out and fares raised to compensate folks buying tickets will pay the same price but folks redeeming for a reward trip will see their costs reduced significantly. That’s a great thing.
