Posted by Seth on January 29, 2010 under News | 
Continental Airlines announced this morning that they will be increasing service between London and their Newark hub starting this summer. The increases – up to four daily departures beginning at the end of March and five daily beginning at the end of October – will be mostly operated by the carrier’s Boeing 757-200 aircraft; one of the daily flights will remain on the 777-200s.
In addition to the increased frequencies, Continental has committed to operating all these flights with their new fully flat Business Class product, effective June 1, 2010. It is the first time in recent memory that Continental has committed to including a specific product that only exists on a subset of its fleet on a specific route. The carrier generally avoids such commitments since they generally cycle their planes through their route network very aggressively rather than dedicating specific planes to specific routes. They get increased utilization from the planes but it also increases the troubles when they have mechanical issues and it prevents planes from being dedicated to routes.
The original timeline for the new lie-flat BusinessFirst seats is actually pretty slow; the 777s and 757s aren’t scheduled to be completed until mid-to-late 2011. But two 777s were ferried to Hong Kong – the site of the retrofits – recently increasing the speed of the deployment. And the 757s can be cycled through the upgrade pretty quickly as well. This is good news for passengers as it means getting the new product out into the fleet faster. The increased service also means more options for customers who are delayed in getting to Newark on connecting flights and more opportunities for connections to London-based Star Alliance partner bmi.
It is also worth noting that the increase in service is coming from Newark rather than the other potential option: Cleveland. Continental has previously run seasonal service to London from the Hublet but that was cut at the end of last summer. Rather than reinstating it there this year’s increase is going to Newark. This speaks to the increased flexibility of having the 757 in Newark and to the higher demand in Newark versus that of Cleveland. The good news for the folks there is that they have a lot of options (ORD, IAD, YYZ, YUL, etc.) that allow them to avoid connecting in Newark if they choose thanks to partners.
Here’s what the new schedule will look like:
Effective March 27, 2010, the airline’s Heathrow schedule will be as follows:
To London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO18 9:00 a.m. 9:20 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO28 6:40 p.m. 6:45 a.m.+1 Daily 777
New York/Newark CO112 7:20 p.m. 7:40 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO110 8:00 p.m. 8:20a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
Houston CO34 3:45 p.m. 6:55 a.m.+1 Daily 777
Houston CO4 6:25 p.m. 9:35 a.m.+1 Daily 777
From London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO29 10:25 a.m. 1:15 p.m. Daily 777
New York/Newark CO113 10:50 a.m. 1:55 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO111 12:05 p.m. 3:15 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO19 6:30 p.m. 9:40 p.m. Daily 757-200
Houston CO35 8:40 a.m. 12:40 p.m. Daily 777
Houston CO5 11:40 a.m. 3:50 p.m. Daily 777
Effective Oct. 30, 2010, Continental’s Heathrow schedule will be as follows:
To London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO18 9:00 a.m. 9:20 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO28 6:25 p.m. 6:20 a.m.+1 Daily 777
New York/Newark CO112 7:15 p.m. 7:25 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO110 9:20 p.m. 9:25 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO114 10:10 p.m. 10:15 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
Houston CO34 3:50 p.m. 6:50 a.m.+1 Daily 777
Houston CO4 6:35 p.m. 9:35 a.m.+1 Daily 777
From London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO115 8:40 a.m. 12:05 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO29 10:30 a.m. 1:30 p.m. Daily 777
New York/Newark CO113 11:15 a.m. 2:45 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO111 12:35 p.m. 4:05 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO19 6:00 p.m. 9:30 p.m. Daily 757-200
Houston CO35 9:20 a.m. 1:40 p.m. Daily 777
Houston CO5 11:40 a.m. 4:05 p.m. Daily 777
Posted by Seth on January 18, 2010 under frequent flyer, News |
It has been barely six weeks since the new management team stepped in at bmi, the British carrier that Lufthansa took full ownership of several months ago. But the new management team hasn’t wasted any time in making rather drastic changes to the airline, its service offerings and its frequent flyer loyalty program. First there were the cuts to the mid-haul service and the announcement that the Airbus A330s would be returned after the lease expired in early 2010. Then there were the announcements of the Dublin crew base closures and cuts to the service between that city and London. And then they started strictly enforcing some of the previously unenforced rules of their loyalty program, trimming a bit of value out for folks looking to redeem in premium cabin service.
Today’s announcement, however, seems to be a rather major milestone in the efforts to completely reform the carrier into less of a stand-alone brand and into more of a regional feeder carrier. As of January 27, 2010 – only 10 days out – the carrier is cutting business class service on all its domestic UK and Dublin flights, switching to an economy-only product.
They will be introducing “Flexible Economy” fares as part of the cuts. These fares seem to be comparably expensive – less the APD tax differences – and earn the same Diamond Club miles as the business class seats did. They come with complimentary snacks and drinks and seats in the front of the plane. They even include access to lounge facilities in most destinations. In other words, they’re just like the business class seats used to be but without the name “business class” attached.
So roughly the same product with a slightly different name probably shouldn’t raise too many red flags for most folks, right? Well, except for the few very loyal domestic bmi customers you’d be right. The perks being cut affect the few customers who were generally paying more to fly on bmi than on competitors based on the benefits that the program offered in the form of upgrades and free snacks on the flights, two things that used to be a big part of the elite benefits for those flights. They’re gone now and that leaves a lot of customers wondering where the benefits are for the increased spend.
Ultimately this actually seems like it is the right move for the carrier to make. The service wasn’t really anything like an actual business class product so at least they won’t have disappointed customers who thought they were buying one thing and end up get something rather different. And the “out-the-door” price of the flights drops by about £20 thanks to the APD cut. That’s going to work out well for them from a competitive pricing perspective. But it is also yet another in a series of recent changes that have slowly chipped away at the value of the bmi product and loyalty program. It isn’t much of a surprise that this is happening – Lufthansa is in charge now and they actually want to change the carrier into a profitable organization – but it also raises some concerns about what may be just around the corner for folks holding a lot of Diamond Club points. They’re almost certainly going to become Miles & More points sooner or later and the pace of these other changes suggests that the case is likely to be sooner.
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Posted by Seth on November 25, 2009 under News |
There was a somewhat surprising announcement out of London this morning from regional airline bmi: they’re making some rather significant cuts to their fleet, destinations and staffing levels. There will be a loss of nine aircraft in total – over 25% of the fleet. Two of the planes beign removed from the fleet are A330s. This essentially kills any chance of longhaul service coming back to the bmi fold.
Destinations being cut include Kiev, Ukraine; Tel Aviv, Israel, Brussels, Belgium and Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Brussels route will be picked up by Star Alliance and Lufthansa Group partner Brussels Airlines. There is no indication that the other destinations will see service restored via a partner or other means. Most of these cuts take effect in the second week of January 2010.
And then there are the job cuts. The carrier expects to trim about 600 employees from their ranks and did not rule out additional cuts in the future. Not good at all for those affected by these cuts.
Looking past the cuts there is a rather glaring question out there: What is left of bmi? Sadly, the answer seems to be not all that much. They still hold a ton of slots at London’s Heathrow airport but even the value of those is dropping lately. Still, with the carrier now quickly rolling into the fold of the Lufthansa group (the new CEO either just started or is starting very soon) it makes a decent amount of sense to shift what few viable assets there are around in the organization to places where they make the most sense. Sure, bmi still offers a reasonably competitive regional network around the British Isles and Ireland, and they also have some decent coverage into the Middle East and former Soviet states. And they’ve got pretty decent connections from Heathrow to other Star Alliance partners. But they’re still a small fish in a big pond and having trouble remaining competitive.
Could the carrier remain as a holding company for the slots, slowly doling them out to other airlines in the Lufthansa group (or selling them for real money)? Few to zero direct operations but most of the routes would still be covered and customers would still have options within the alliance.
Things aren’t looking particularly great over at Donnington Hall. They haven’t been for a while now and it doesn’t seem that they’ll be turning a corner anytime soon. Not good at all.
I’m not panicking about my stash of points in their program. Yet. But I am looking at cashing in a couple redemptions sooner than not just to hedge my bets on their rather advantageous reward chart. The points won’t just disappear but the Miles+More scheme isn’t as rewarding for me.
Posted by Seth on November 17, 2009 under points |
Diamond Club, the loyalty program of bmi, has long been a rather attractive program for folks who live in the United States and like to earn huge heaps of miles on relatively cheap first class fares. Apparently they also have some loyal customers in the UK who actually fly on their planes but I’ve not met too many of them yet. Still, they’ve announced a number of changes this morning that affect folks in both groups, some for the better and some for the worse.
So here are some of the changes:
Mileage Upgrades
It is actually somewhat hard for me to believe that these didn’t exist before, but apparently that is the case. Now members will be able to redeem 5-25K miles each way for upgrades on bmi-operated flights. These upgrades will only be available for customers booked on relatively higher fares (U, L, Y, S, O or B buckets) so it isn’t a great benefit, but it is out there at least.
Family Memberships
This is a nice benefit for folks with families who want to combine their miles to redeem for rewards. And, if you’re a bmi customer, it might also be nice for you to include “staff such as nannies and security” to join in the family account (yes, they really did write that on their website). The family membership feature actually is quite nice and a welcome benefit to the program.
Electronic Upgrade Vouchers
Historically bmi has given their elites four upgrade coupons (aka GUVs) annually to allow for upgrades on bmi-operated flights. Having never actually been on one of their planes I don’t really know much about the GUVs other than that they had to be redeemed at the airport on the day of travel and that there were always plenty of folks in the UK who were happy to accept them from me when my packet arrived each year and I offered them up. Now there will be no more paper upgrade GUVs; they are going to be electronic (eGUVs) and assigned to the account of each gold elite member. That means mo more trading/gifting the certificates. Bummer.
On the plus side, however, the certificates can be redeemed up to seven days in advance of flights now. It will also be possible to use the vouchers to upgrade on the longer and premium service flights (e.g. London-Cairo/Tel Aviv) though it will require as many as three eGUVs for those upgrades. And each member only gets four eGUVs annually so I’m not sure how one would be able to upgrade more than one trip. Maybe they’ll start selling the eGUVs or offer up another way to acquire them??
Overall I think that this is probably a wash in terms of the benefits. The lack of ability to trade/horde the eGUVs isn’t very welcome but the expanded utility of them probably is. Then again, I’ve never used one so I really have no idea.
Change is always difficult to gauge and it will affect each customer differently. For me the changes are mostly cosmetic since it means I can’t give away the vouchers anymore. That’s it. I can handle that. But for the folks who actually fly bmi with some frequency it means losing out on some benefits of the GUVs and getting the ability to use miles instead in very limited scenarios. Probably not great for them at all.
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Posted by Seth on November 8, 2009 under News, points |
Although initially announced to be launching on Monday, TrueBlue 2 – the new loyalty program from jetBlue – is now alive and well on the jetBlue homepage. The details are all there and most of them appear to match exactly what was previously suggested so no real big surprises there.
Among the new program features, there are no more black-out dates on reward travel. Not only that, but there are no inventory restrictions either. This means that every seat on every flight can be booked as a mileage redemption. It will likely cost a ton of points (one example is below), but it is possible.
The points also no longer expire, but again with a small catch. All the points in the account will stay active as long as there is some activity in the past 12 months. The 12 month window is at the shorter end of the scale compared to other carriers’ programs, but it is a significant improvement over the old program that expired the points even if you did have activity.
jetBlue also continues to offer double points earning for all flights booked on their website, www.jetblue.com. This again sets them apart from many in the industry and it is a nice touch that they are keeping the bonus in place.
Dollar-Based Earning
The most significant way that jetBlue is changing the program is that points earned are now directly tied to the fare price rather than miles flown. Some folks will love this change and some will hate it. For the business traveler it almost always comes out better this way, especially with jetBlue’s route network being the way that it is. For leisure travelers who are more price-sensitive in their purchasing behavior it will probably reduce their earning potential. That being said, there is a bit of hope that the other improvements will offset those changes.
The redemption process is also shifting to be more dollar-value based, though not specifically such. As noted above, every seat on a flight can be redeemed using points but the number of points required shifts based on advance purchase, demand, etc., just like the actual fare price changes. Even more interesting is that the value of the points is not linear; each point does not just have a set dollar value. A quick sampling of the reward costs this evening (more details analysis to come) shows that the points can range from 0.87 cents per point up to over 1.3 cents per point. Again, more detailed analysis is needed and will be forthcoming, but this is a good starting point for consideration. With an earning potential of 6 points/dollar spent (plus the bonuses detailed below) and an average redemption value of about one cent per point TrueBlue 2 members are looking at about a 6% return on their travel investment. That’s not bad at all, and it only gets better from there.
Bonus Points
jetBlue also is offering a couple different means to earn bonus points either for miles traveled or overall spending. There are bonus thresholds at every $500 threshold (assuming all purchases happen at jetblue.com) and the number of bonus points awarded increases as the spend does:
- 3,000 points ($500×6 points/dollar on jetblue.com) earned = 500 bonus points
- 6,000 points earned = 1,000 bonus points
- 9,000 points earned = 2,000 bonus points
- Each additional 3,000 points earned = 4,000 bonus points
It is important to note that ONLY points earned from buying tickets – excluding baggage fees, credit card spending or any other points earned – count against the threshold levels.
The bonus scheme for folks who fly long distances is also new, with every ten “long” one-way flights (>2000 miles; listing here) earning 10,000 bonus points. That can add up in a hurry for folks who fly a lot of transcons, even if they are on cheap fares.
Both of these bonus programs are calculated on a 12-month cycle, with the earning starting from a member’s first earning event. This is unlike the traditional calendar year qualification that many legacy carriers use and is much more similar to bmi’s Diamond Club scheme in the timing. One minor difference is that after the 12-month window expires the next window does not start until the next flight event.
Taking the bonus schemes into play, a member who spends $3,000 in a year to fly ten transcon round trips (~$350 for each trip, considering taxes and all) should bank about 48,000 TB2 points. That’s a 16% return on the trip investment. Not too shabby at all. A short-haul flier with the same spend would net only 28,000 points (no Go Long earnings) but that’s still over 9%.
One other bonus offer out there is for 100 bonus points on every Even More Legroom seat purchased. Not too shabby at all.
Summary
There is a lot of information to still digest (and a big thanks to Dave Canty over at jetBlue for answering my questions about the program on a Sunday evening). A lot more is coming in the spring when the Sabre conversion happens. But the new program looks to be rather revolutionary in the industry and also to be a very strong value proposition.
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Posted by Seth on March 17, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Business travel is down this year. There is no one arguing that fact. The carriers are all looking for ways to boost their numbers – thus far reasonably unsuccessfully – and it seems that there are a couple different approaches to the situation in play.
On one front, Continental is offering a stealth price guarantee program of sorts, with a $50 change fee on all transatlantic flights for the first 30 days after purchase. So if the fares drop within a month of the purchase you can get the new price for a $50 fee rather than the normal change fee of $250+ on those fares. Decent motivator, but not spectacular.
On another front, American Airlines is leading the charge to try to build up their elite passenger base with fewer miles flown through a repeat of their Double EQM Promotion from last year. The rules are simple enough. Fly between March 18th and June 15th and earn double EQMs for all flights on AA, American Eagle and American Connection. The bonus is only for EQMs, so no extra reward miles that can be redeemed for anything, but it still isn’t a horrible deal. Oh, and United is “expected to match” later this afternoon, though I’m not sure really who is expecting that or why. But that may happen.
I struggle trying to understand how this type of promotion is really good for the carriers in the long term. On the one hand, making passengers feel more welcome by giving them more benefits should drive customer loyalty. That would translate into a customer who knows that they are only going to fly 50K miles this year choosing one of the double EQM programs since they’ll get top-tier benefits for their no-so-top-tier flying pattern. On the other hand, however, it means a potential swelling of the elite ranks, which makes it difficult to truly provide distinctive service as the number of people at that tier is greater. If everyone is special, is anyone actually special?
I have no desire really to hit elite on AA or United. But I can see how this would be beneficial for a lot of folks out there with travel budgets that have been slashed who still want keep their status. Of course, if you’re not really traveling I’m pretty sure that the status is of little value, but that doesn’t seem to figure in to the calculations. And there is always the forward looking aspect of elite status, since flying today is really about earning status for next year, when travel numbers might be up again.
I’m going to be top tier again in my two programs of choice (Continental and bmi) and I’m pretty comfortable with that. And I can do it by taking advantage of the “normal” quirks of their programs rather than needing the double promotions.
Posted by Seth on March 3, 2009 under Uncategorized |
I’m a huge fan of the bmi Diamond Club as a frequent flier program. The accrual rates are great and the redemption options are phenomenal, including one-way rewards and cash + points rates that are ridiculously reasonable. When Lufthansa exercised their right to buy out the carrier the writing was on the wall for the program, but for the first 10 weeks or so that Lufthansa has owned bmi they haven’t really done anything.
Until now.
They have quietly announced a change to their redemption charts from May 1, 2009, increasing the costs of first class tickets by a whopping 25%, plus an additional 10K point surcharge if you’re flying on Lufthansa. There are still a lot of open questions about the changes, like if they are for travel after May 1 or bookings made after May 1, and whether the 10K surcharge “per flight” on Lufthansa is per segment or per direction or something else.
At the end of the day it sucks, but the F reward on bmi is still one of the best values out there in the frequent flier world, even after this change. Too bad I don’t really know what I’d like to redeem my miles for now or I’d cash some in at the old rates; I guess I’ll just suffer the new rates when the time comes. Life goes on. The real question in my mind is when the other shoe will drop, and what that drop will signify.
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.
Posted by Seth on December 10, 2008 under Uncategorized |
British carrier bmi has joined the ranks of airlines offering online connectivity in flight. They’re fitting one of their planes, set to operate on the London – Moscow route, with a GSM relay system provided by OnAir. This seems to be the approach that most European carriers are going for in-flight connectivity.
They are limiting it to data/SMS only, which is nice as it means no conversations. The bad news is that most folks have annoying ring tones set for their SMS notification, so that could be a problem. It will also allow for GPRS data connections for folks who have their laptops configured to operate that way.
I’m always a fan of more in-flight connectivity, as long as it is silent. Here’s hoping this one works and can be priced affordably.
Posted by Seth on December 9, 2008 under Uncategorized |
The European Open Skies coverage is spreading. It was announced today that Canada has reached an agreement with the EU to remove just about every restriction on flights between the two regions. While foreign carriers will still not be eligible to operate flights wholly on the other side of the pond, it seems that there will be no limits on foreign investment on either side of the deal. This could really change things in the industry.
Lufthansa has been on a ridiculous shopping spree of late, picking up carriers all over the place. They bought a piece of jetBlue earlier in the year. They just announced a deal to buy an additional 50% of bmi which will close in about a month. Austrian and Swiss are also now in the Lufthansa fold, and there are rumors of SAS, though I’m not sure how reliable those are. And Lufthansa has a pretty strong relationship with Air Canada thanks to their membership in the Star Alliance group and also thanks to some anti-trust immunity that they enjoy on trans-Atlantic flights. This deal opens up a chance for Lufthansa to buy part or all of Air Canada.
Even if Lufthansa doesn’t buy out part of Air Canada, the deal enables even tighter integration of their systems and route networks. A decade ago when the global alliances started up they were a necessity because no single carrier had enough coverage to provide service around the world. Recent moves by Lufthansa, the Delta/Northwest merger and rumors of a Qantas/British Airways link-up seem to be pushing the concept of these alliances towards a quaint historical reference. I don’t really think that they will go away, but a couple of behemoths are really trying to put their stamp on some of the most traveled routes to consolidate control.
