Posted by Seth on February 4, 2012 under Flying, frequent flyer, points | 
One of the more notable stories in frequent flyer land this week was that award inventory for Korean Air is being published into the GDSes, meaning that it is publicly visible and searchable. Both Gary and Ben mentioned it earlier today and both of them also note that folks can sign up for an ExpertFlyer account to search the inventory and setup email alerts for it. I’m a big fan of ExpertFlyer and I love the access they have to a lot of otherwise private inventory and fare data, but I’m also a big fan of free access to free data, and in the case of Korean Air awards and upgrades, getting the information for free is absolutely possible.
One of my many travel-related projects is the Wandering Aramean Travel Tools website. It includes, among other things, award inventory information for a bunch of airlines. And now that the data is accessible, Korean Air is part of that collection. You can search for award or upgrade inventory for free. And there’s even an email alert function that can be set, allowing you to get a message if the award inventory opens up.
Yes, you have to register to gain access to the data, but it is free and no strings attached.
Here’s a snip of what the search page looks like:
Not particularly pretty, but quite functional. Also of note is that sometimes the system will provide options that don’t quite get you where you’re going, but to an intermediate connecting point instead. On the above Seoul to Singapore search there are two non-stop flights (KE 641 and 643) that are both available, but there is also KE 683 to SGN, from which you might be able to pick up a connection on SkyTeam partner Vietnam Airlines, another of the carriers searchable in the tool collection. Displaying more than just the non-stop options should help folks with flexibility to better find awards that work.
Coach award inventory is not currently available in the system and first class isn’t available to partners, but otherwise the data should be accurate for redemptions.
Give the tools a try and let me know what you think.
Tags: award, frequent flier, frequent flyer, Korean, points, Seoul, Singapore, SkyTeam, upgrade, Vietnam, Vietnam Airlines
Posted by Seth on January 30, 2012 under Trip Reports |
I had a grand plan for transiting three different cities across Europe on consecutive days. Sure, I’d sleep a couple hours each night, but I was also going to spend most of the 20-ish hours on the ground at each stop exploring the town, eating their food and drinking their booze. It was a grand plan, alright, but the execution was a bit lacking.
My first stop of the hopping was Berlin, a city I’d heard great things about and one I was quite excited to visit. I even sortof knew what I wanted to see while I was there. Sortof. OK, other than the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust memorial, nothing at all. But I’d figure it out, right? After all, I always have.
The bus in from the airport was incredibly easy (except the ticket machines don’t make change for bills larger than 10 Euro) and 20 minutes or so later I was in front of the beautiful, towering, modern Hauptbahnhof. I knew my hotel was just a stop or two away from there so I headed inside. Sure, I spent the next 20 minutes or so wandering around lost in the enormous station, trying to find the appropriate S-Bahn train, but I didn’t mind at all. The station truly is beautiful.
And then, after dropping my bag in the hotel I was back out. I had only an hour before I was due to meet a friend for drinks and dinner and that really isn’t much time in a city as grand as Berlin. But I knew the two things I wanted to see and they were only about a 10 minute walk from the hotel; I was doing fine.
The Gate is pretty. They light it up lovely at night. And I even got a couple photos of it that I don’t particularly hate, which is somewhat impressive given that I had no tripod, the exposures were painfully slow and it was pretty darn cold outside so I was shivering a lot.
From Brandenburg Gate I headed around the corner to see the Holocaust memorial. It is beautiful. It is amazing. It is rather intimidating to walk into when it is dark outside. The photo here is a VERY long exposure, making it appear reasonably light outside. Truth is that the sky was the same darkness as the Brandenburg Gate photos above. Still, thanks to the miracles of modern technology I got the pretty cool picture below.
And then my hour as a tourist was up. I had to race to the U-Bahn to meet up with my friend. I found the station, figured out which track and caught the next train going my way. I was rather confused 2 stops later when they made the "Last Stop" announcement (though at least they repeated it in English). Apparently there were track works in progress and I was supposed to find a replacement bus to the next major station. At this point I became acutely aware of just how hard it must be for the tourists in New York City who are forced to navigate the constantly changing construction projects we have, all without the benefit of any communication in their native language. Even with the little bits of English on the signs it was a challenge. I made it, eventually, but it wasn’t easy.
I also had grand plans for the morning, to see more of town before my noon-ish flight onward to Munich and then Ljubljana. Alas, when I awoke I discovered that there had been a schedule change at some point previously and I was now faced with a 5 minute connection in Munich rather than the originally booked 30 minutes. The airport is easy, but not that easy. A panicked phone call to the folks at Continental (this was an award ticket) got me booked on the next earlier Berlin-Munich flight which meant I’d make my connection. It also meant scrapping my plans for a morning in Berlin.
And so, the entirety of my tourist time in town was an hour (plus an awesome dinner with an old friend). I definitely saw a lot in that hour and had a blast, but it also would be a disservice to Berlin to say that I saw the city. Guess I’ll just have to go back.
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Posted by Seth on January 18, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points |
The frequent flyer partnership between United Airlines‘ Continental subsidiary and Virgin Atlantic is being terminated as of February 13, 2012. This date is the last for mileage earning or redemption ticket issuance on the partner, with award redemptions valid for one year from that date, assuming they are issued. This isn’t a particularly surprising move, though it is a bit of a downgrade in terms of the MileagePlus program.
The Continental/Virgin relationship made a lot of sense when it was originally launched. Continental had a minimal amount of traffic into London at all and none into Heathrow due to the Bermuda II restrictions. It allowed Continental to market flights into Heathrow under their own code and to sell onward connections using Heathrow as a transit point. Since the establishment of the Open Skies agreement between the US and the EU, however, Continental has had access to Heathrow and has steadily increased flights there. Add in the merger with United and there are only a few cities now where Virgin had nonstop service ex-LHR that the combined United doesn’t and those are less significant today.
The end of the partnership is rather unfortunate on the redemption side of the frequent flyer program in particular as Virgin has often had decent award availability, especially in their Upper Class business class product and especially close to the travel date. I’ve taken advantage of that a couple times and, though I’m not a huge fan of the product, it is still an option being lost which is unfortunate.
Also unfortunate is the timing of the announcement. The company provided barely 4 weeks’ notice of the change, one that they have likely known about for some time. It is a shame that the changes to partners and earning rates are trickling out so slowly as part of the merger process.
Posted by Seth on November 20, 2011 under Flying, Trip Reports |
I like to think that I have a pretty solid grasp of how revenue and inventory management work together within the airlines to control the price of a flight. I understand fare rules, inventory allocations and routing rules and I can generally figure out what’s going on. Heck, I’ve even built tools that help find the information and distill it to simple numbers. So I was incredibly surprised this weekend when I went to purchase a few "local" flights for our New Years trip to South Asia. Needless to say, the numbers were not playing nice.
I got an award flight into India using my OnePass miles from Continental and a revenue ticket on the return from Colombo, Sri Lanka on a combination of Emirates and British Airways. That part was relatively easy, though I did run into some issues booking one of the return options (now since discarded) via EgyptAir from Bangkok. But that was nothing compared to the crazy I experienced trying to buy the domestic flights in India and the short hop from Chennai to Colombo.
Here’s a screen shot from the ITA pricing engine for one of the flights we wanted:
Pretty simple, really. Based on that we should have been able to get the flight for about $200 without much trouble, right? So I started checking around a few different booking engines. Thanks to the various referral link/rebate options for flight bookings I was checking three different engines, Expedia, Vayama and CheapoAir (n.b. – those links earn me that rebate if you use them). The rebates offered vary so there is some flexibility in figuring out which is best deal but, all else being equal, I should be able to get the published fare from each, right??
Not at all.
For that flight which nominally cost $200 the options I got were $257 or $247 from Vayama and CheapoAir, respectively:
Exact same flight, date, time and fare bucket, but a price that was 25% higher. Zoinks! Fortunately Expedia was able to book the flight at the "correct" price for that one.
For the flight from Chennai to Cochin a few days earlier, however, CheapoAir was about $50 less than Expedia and actually ended up being less than the published price in ITA thanks to a coupon that they had published, a coupon that didn’t work on the above itinerary.
Similarly, for the flight to Colombo the ITA price seemed decent enough, with flights at the right time for what we wanted:
Once again, Vayama was terribly over-priced, even including the click-through rebate earnt:
And Expedia was still showing the published ITA rate:
But don’t forget to check the operating carrier, too. A quick visit to the SriLankan website pulled up this price:
That converts to USD $213 at the current exchange rates, a full $80 less than the fare published in ITA and a whopping $140 less than what Vayama wanted for the exact same rate.
So, is there a moral to the story? Maybe it is this: Airfare pricing is horribly inconsistent and near impossible for mere mortals to effectively and easily compare. It also further enforces my fears of how much worse it could get if the airlines continue to pull information out of the GDSes and move towards their direct sales model. In this case the direct model ended up saving me a few bucks, but only after quite a bit of digging to find the best price.
It really shouldn’t be this hard.
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Tags: award, Bangkok, British Airways, Chennai, Cochin, Colombo, Continental, EgyptAir, Emirates, frequent flyer, India, Jet Airways, Kochi, Madras, NYE2011, points, Sri Lanka, SriLankan
Posted by Seth on November 4, 2011 under frequent flyer, points |
United Airlines has historically had the rather customer-unfriendly policy of choosing to limit access to partner award inventory when customers try to redeem points for award tickets. Essentially they’ve decided that you shouldn’t have access to award seats that other airlines are willing to make available, simply because your miles are in the Mileage Plus program. Several months ago, around the time of the merger with Continental, that policy appeared to relax, with reports of blocked award inventory significantly reduced.
Apparently it is back.
There have been a number of recent incidents, including a couple I’ve verified myself, where award inventory made available by partner airlines has not been available to members of the Mileage Plus program. In a rather ironic twist, merger partner Continental will be happy to book these same award seats, often times on their website rather than requiring a call to an agent only to discover that the award seat you know exists won’t be made available because someone in United’s accounting department has decided it shouldn’t be.
No, StarNet blocking isn’t new. And United has never claimed that they stopped the practice, but the frequency of incidents was much lower recently, to near zero. Apparently that was just a mistake someone made up in Chicago and they’re working on fixing it. Hopefully it doesn’t survive into the new MileagePlus program, but I’m not holding my breath at this point.
Posted by Seth on September 27, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, News, points |
JetBlue has joined the ranks of airlines offering award redemption sales this fall, offering a limited-time 20% off sale for award travel. The deal requires booking by midnight on September 28, 2011 and there are some additional restrictions as well:
- Travel between 10/4 – 12/15/2011
- Travel not discounted on Friday or Sunday
- Blackout Dates: 11/22, 11/23, 11/26, 11/28/2011
More fine print here.
A quick check of redemption costs shows the sale rates valuing points at 1.70-ish cents each while the same route on a non-discount day has them at 1.35-ish cents, matching the 20% discount advertised. There is no indication that you’re getting a sale rate in the booking process but the pricing works out that way.
Not a bad deal at all, especially given the otherwise generally fixed value of the TrueBlue points. I might actually redeem a few myself…
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Posted by Seth on September 19, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, News, points |
Singapore Airlines has announced that effective 15 January 2012 the Singapore-Frankfurt-JFK route will change from the Boeing 747-400 to the Airbus A380. This change has been expected for quite some time and the news from the carrier finally puts to rest speculation on the timing of the change.
For the United States, our customers will be able to enjoy the latest cabin products on all routes, in addition to having the A380 serving both east and west coasts. For Germany, it will also mean offering our customers the latest cabin products on both of our daily Frankfurt flights as well as our daily Munich flights.
The change has both positive and negative aspects associated with it. The quality of the hard product on the 747 is pretty mediocre. It was great a decade ago when it was introduced but it has since been surpassed by many other carriers. The product quality on the A380 is significantly better throughout the aircraft so that’s an upgrade to be sure. There are also 25% more seats on the A380 which means potentially lower prices and easier access to award inventory. Sortof.
The main negative of the change is on the award inventory front. Singapore has chosen to outright block redemption of first class seats ("Suites") on their A380s from partners and allows redemption for KrisFlyer members only at incredibly inflated prices. Business class award seats are generally not available to partners either, though some routes are now showing award inventory to some partners so that wall is coming down a bit.
Overall this change is probably a good thing. It certainly is for the folks who are paying the going rate for premium cabin fares as they’ll be getting a much better product for their money. But it sucks for folks like me who tend to only fly in premium cabins on award redemptions. If this route starts to show award seats to partners then I’ll certainly consider it an upgrade overall. I did the JFK-FRA route once a couple years ago in business class and it was nice but not amazing. But given the choice between nice or not available I’ll take nice.
Hat tip to SitInFirst.com for noticing the update.
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Tags: A380, Airbus, award, Boeing, Frankfurt, frequent flyer, Munich, New York, New York City, points, Singapore, Singapore Air
Posted by Seth on September 17, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, points |
There are lots of different ways to maximize the value of award redemptions. Some folks look only at the cash value of the ticket were it purchased directly. Others look at the cabin of travel. Or the total distance covered. Or the number of points required.
I’ve used all of those metrics at one point or another, but my most recent redemption doesn’t hit on any of them. The goal of this particular redemption was to maximize the number of cities I could visit on a single one-way redemption. Officially the rules say a one-way award can have only a starting point and an ending point. I’ll be visiting four different cities on my current schedule.
I’m taking full advantage of the fact that a connection on an international itinerary is defined as anything less than 24 hours in the same city. Combine that with the relatively short travel distances in Europe and it turns out that there are a lot of ways to hop scotch across the continent without paying all that much extra. Here’s what my trip looks like:
Flying from Stockholm to Istanbul is a hair under 1400 miles; my routing is 1855. Not all that much longer in total travel distance but I’ll be spreading my travel out over 4 days rather than just a few hours. Stops are currently scheduled in Berlin (20 hours), Ljubljana (22), Skopje (23) and Istanbul (destination). Only one of the hops requires a connection – 30 minutes in Munich. I also get to fly some fun aircraft types and a new (to me) airline, along with new airports and countries. Not too shabby for only 12,500 points plus about $100 in taxes.
Building the award was surprisingly easy. I started by looking at flight timetables and route networks for the various Star Alliance carriers in Europe. The goal was to find mid-day flights that would allow me to get between cities while there was still a bit of daylight but also to be able to wake up each morning at a reasonable hour rather than silly early. Avoiding the early morning flights also makes it easier to actually keep the 23ish hour connections alive as the earlier flights make it harder and harder to stack the flights.
Once I had a framework for the trip I searched out the award inventory directly using ANA‘s website. Every single flight I wanted had award inventory available. With the specific flights in hand I called the reservations line at Continental. I fed the flights to the agent one at a time and when she pressed the magic "go" button it priced correctly automatically. No need to go through manual pricing or anything else for this one; we were both quite surprised at that. But it is booked and confirmed.
Now I just need to get my flight to Stockholm and home from Istanbul booked. But that should be easy, right??
Tags: ANA, award, Berlin, Continental, EuroHopping, frequent flyer, Istanbul, Ljubljana, Lufthansa, Munich, points, Skopje, Star Alliance, Stockholm, Turkish Air
Posted by Seth on September 8, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, Mileage Run, points |
With the Boeing 787 Dreamliner entering service in the next few weeks I’ve been quite excited about the opportunity to fly on it. Seats on the inaugural flight – from Tokyo to Hong Kong – are being auctioned off for charity and I’m quite certain I don’t have the scratch to make that work. Plus the dates for that flight wouldn’t work in my schedule. But thanks to a great sale fare from Seattle to China I’ve found a way to make it happen at a reasonable price.
The plan moved from the day dreaming phase to potentially real a couple weeks ago when a sale fare popped up between Seattle and Beijing. The timing on that deal was a bit tough – it only worked on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and had a 3-night minimum stay – but I had a few days at the end of October/beginning of November where it could fit in my schedule and the $400ish price tag was hard to complain about. At that point I was pretty much ready to go to China for a few days and wasn’t thinking much about the 787 options.
Then someone mentioned that the fare also permitted a stopover in Tokyo in either direction for only $100 more, Now it was getting interesting. I could get in a trip to China and a stop in Tokyo during the first week the 787 is supposed to be flying. Now the planning started to get interesting. I ticketed the Seattle – Beijing – Tokyo – Seattle flights and then started researching the 787 options.
Yikes!
I really, really, REALLY didn’t expect the fare to be so high. That was definitely putting a wrinkle in this master plan of mine. I found that I could get a one-way award ticket for only 6,000 points on the outbound flight to Hiroshima, saving $400, but the return flight was still full price. That was going to sting.
Fortunately, however, both ANA and JAL offer up Japan Air Pass tickets in conjunction with their alliance partners. These passes allow you to assemble domestic Japan flight segments in conjunction with an international itinerary at a much more reasonable rate. The Star Alliance version prices at ¥10,000 per segment, plus ¥50,000 in taxes per segment. Even better, the ¥50,000 ¥5,000 tax is not paid on any segment which is within 24 hours of the international arrival or departure. Since my total time in Tokyo is barely 40 hours it turns out that both of my domestic segments are within that threshold. All of a sudden I had hope for a quite reasonably priced adventure.
The challenge was not over yet, however. The Japan Air Pass on ANA requires inventory in the M fare bucket. This is a mid-level bucket on ANA so not impossible to find. In fact five of the seven outbound flights had the M bucket as an option for the day I was in town. Of course the one I wanted (the most reasonably timed flight in the morning) did not. Neither did the 787 flight from Haneda to Hiroshima. And for the return segment the Hiroshima to Haneda flight was also missing the appropriate inventory. Back to the drawing board. Sortof.
While considering whether paying the $400 was back to a viable approach for me I also figured that maybe I’d get lucky and that maybe the M inventory would open up. I set up an alert to watch that fare bucket and hoped that the email would come soon. Somewhat to my surprise, it did! A quick call to the folks at United Airlines (the Japan Pass is booked through the airline operating the intercontinental flight) and I had my seats reserved. It was going to take a few days for the rate desk to price it out but the seats were mine.
I called back a few days later as instructed and got the good news. That $800 plane ticket was mine for only $264.40. That’s 66% off. Woo hoo!
Sure, there is always the chance of an aircraft swap. And the day starts WAY too early so that I can also spend a few hours touristing about in Hiroshima. But overall I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity and about the price point at which I got everything put together. I’m also impressed that I finally found one of the regional passes where the fare makes sense. I guess there is a first time for everything.
A special thanks to the friends who suggested looking in to the Japan Air Pass option. Most excellent advice indeed.
Tags: 787, ANA, award, Beijing, Boeing, China, Dream2011, Dreamliner, frequent flyer, Hiroshima, Hong Kong, JAL, Japan, points
Posted by Seth on August 26, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, News |
American Airlines announced yesterday that they have expanded their Preferred Seating product offering. While this is being spun as making more seats available to all customers they are conveniently overlooking the part where such availability comes at a price – starting at $4 per seat per segment. This paid option starts at the 24-hour check-in window and will be available throughout the check-in period.
For customers interested in select aisle and window seats near the front of the main cabin, Preferred Seats are available for purchase as early as 24 hours prior to departure with prices beginning at $4 USD per flight.
Taking a look at a seat map for a flight with no customers yet booked one can get some ideas of what the seating options are. The forward two-thirds of the aircraft no longer offers aisle or window seats for free to non-premium passengers. That’s pretty rough. The MD80s are actually worse than the 737-800s, I think, as the two seat side is pretty much entirely blocked. There are significantly fewer free aisle or window seats available.
American is quick to point out that passengers choosing to not pay for a seat assignment will be given one for free. If there are still middle seats left to be assigned those will likely be the free ones. The company also points out that not all blocked seats are Preferred. Some are Preferred Plus, reserved only for elites and full fare customers. So the fee a non-elite pays for a seat assignment doesn’t even necessarily get them a particularly great seat.
The company is also advertising that active-duty military get free access to these Preferred seats. The fine print suggests that might actually only apply when they are ticketed on military fares, but it is not clear how this will actually apply at the airports.
Lest folks think that only non-elites are losing out here, it seems that elites are actually losing in some scenarios. Yes, they now get complimentary access to more seats (including bulkheads) which is a benefit, but they are also losing the ability to have companions on a separate reservation granted the good seats for free. That’s not so great.
Finally, there is one awesomely awful quirk in the new policy with respect to award tickets. While AAnytime Award tickets (double miles) are considered premium and will get the seats for free the same cannot be said for MileSAAver level (normal rates) tickets. In fact, these tickets are expressly ineligible for even paying for the seats.
We’re excited to provide you with even more options to customize your travel experience based on your needs.
Apparently paying more for the exact same seat assignment is a great new option for customers. I’m not buying it.
Posted by Seth on August 9, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
I’ve written many times about my love for free award changes as a top-tier elite. It is one of the most valuable benefits of airline status to me and one that I use a ton. It is not uncommon to find that a better seat/route/time might open up with award inventory just a day or two prior to departure as the operating carrier realizes that they will not be able to sell the seats and they are willing to take some points off the books in exchange. In fact, my most recent Lufthansa first class experience was a direct result of one such change, with the seats becoming available about 48 hours prior to the flight and me making the change about 36 hours prior to travel.
Had I been using Delta SkyMiles that change would not have been possible.
In a new policy announced today and which takes effect on 15 August 2011, Delta has stated that all awards will be considered non-refundable and non-changeable at 72 hours prior to departure. This comes just two weeks after the announcement that the awards would expire at the time of departure. The change applies to all SkyMiles redemptions, including those of Diamond and Platinum elite members.
Customers who would book a mid or high tier award as a hedge against nothing being available would previously be able to change that award to a low tier seat – and save a lot of miles – if the award inventory opened up. And if those seats were to open up it was quite commonly 48-72 hours out. With this new policy making that change – from high/mid to low at 48-72 hours out – is now impossible. Sure, the passengers can take the chance that the low will open up anyways (Delta is spinning this change as something which will "make those seats available to other members and ultimately increase award availability."). But that’s a pretty stupid bet to make from a customer perspective.
There are a couple interesting things that the change shows. For starters, apparently there were 400,000 awards that were not flown (and presumably refunded) nor canceled prior to departure in the prior year according to the Delta representative announcing the change. There were 1,000,000 awards that were sitting booked at 72 hours out that were never flown. That’s a lot of award miles that would be forfeit should the customers not make appropriate changes. It is not hard to see where Delta got the idea to make this change.
Another interesting bit is that they made these two announcements only two weeks apart. That’s two adjustments to the same policy, a policy that had existed for a long time with no variation, announced so close together that it is hard to believe someone competent actually approved the timing of the decision. If you’re still considering changing it further, particularly when that further change is so similar to the initial one, why not just wait until you’ve made a final decision and announce the change then? Sure, the change sucks for customers. No doubt about that. But the fact that it was changed twice in such a short period is truly pathetic.
Finally, the announcement of the change and its retroactive impact on the validity of existing award reservations is questionable. The program terms includes conflicting information on that topic:
Delta and its program partners reserve the right to change program rules, benefits, regulations, Travel Awards, fees, mileage Award levels, and special offers at any time without notice. This means that Delta may initiate changes, for instance, impacting partner affiliations, rules for earning mileage credit, continued availability of Awards, or blackout dates. … Unless otherwise stated, the terms and conditions of the SkyMiles Membership Guide and Program Rules in effect at the time of your travel, request for a benefit, or other transaction will govern the transaction.
Those are the first and last bits of the same paragraph. It is not hard to believe that the last line says that the rules in effect when I conducted the transaction – issuing the award reservation – should apply to that reservation. Based on everything Delta has stated so far, however, they will be using the first line as their policy and applying this change to existing bookings as well.
Ultimately this is just another in the long line of changes made to the SkyMiles program that devalues the points for their members. At least in this case the folks in Atlanta know that the change is not going to be well received. Didn’t stop them from making it, though.
They’re not known as SkyPesos for nothing, folks.
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