Posted by Seth on October 20, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points | 
Airlines appear to have virtually no limits when it comes to identifying new ways to give out points in their loyalty programs. Early on it was other travel partners where the program synergies made sense to offer the rewards. Then it was credit cards and then retail partners. Next up on the list: Social Media outlets.
Because we have small resources and we want to manage our costs effectively we have picked social media as a new strategy to promote the brand and market the services we have. – Tero Taskila, CEO of Estonian Air
Estonian Air has teamed up with SimpliFlying to create a new marketing effort focused on Facebook and similar platforms.
People are being rewarded not just for flying the airline but really for being advocates. So whether or not you are flying Estonian Air you can be rewarded for example by sharing tips on flying or taking part in quizzes or polls on Facebook. You will earn points that are then translated into virtual rewards like badges as well as real world rewards like Amazon gift vouchers…or even free flights if you can accumulate enough points. – Shashank Nigam, CEO of SimpliFlying
The potential on this front is tremendous, particularly given the relatively low costs of creating the loyalty schemes in this manner. The cost to produce the rewards – especially the virtual ones – is nearly nil relative to the brand publicity produced. Of course, there is also the potential for abuse and for brand exhaustion should some folks become seen as shills rather than as providing honest opinion about the products, but that is something only time will bear out as a result.
In a similar vein, JAL and TripAdvisor have teamed up in Japan to provide points for JAL Mileage Bank members who create reviews on the TripAdvisor site. The program is limited only to members who live in Japan and it is limited to only 300 points per month, but it is a similar approach to building brand loyalty through social media channels.
Definitely some interesting developments on this front.
Posted by Seth on October 4, 2011 under Flying, News |
JAL has updated the seat maps for their inaugural 787 Dreamliner route – Boston to Tokyo – and is showing off one of the more interesting cabin configurations I’ve seen in a long time. The Business Class cabin is reasonably normal with 7 rows of 2-2-2 seats. And the economy cabin will be similar to the ANA cabin with a 2-4-2 configuration and 144 seats, roughly 40 fewer than North American launch customer United Airlines will be putting in the same cabin. But that’s not the interesting part; it is the row layout that is unique.
There is a row of seats all the way at the back of the plane, just in front of the rear-most galley. Extra exit row seats – albeit the last folks to get off the plane – means potentially more seats with extra leg room. Always nice to see that sort of option showing up.
A hat tip to JALPak for noticing the new seat maps coming online.
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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 6, 2011 under News |
Boeing and ANA held a party in Washington today to celebrate the first 787 Dreamliner that is being delivered. The event was mostly to show off the new livery rather than to actually deliver the aircraft, so not an enormously important event. Still, it was good to see the plane painted and ready to go.
Photo from @BoeingAirplanes Twitter Feed
That it looks more like SkyTeam at the back than ANA, but sure, why not.
And then there’s the coverage that Reuters offered:
Nothing quite like having the local competitor featured in the headline photo. That’s quality stock image work there, folks.
Anyways, the plane is now expected to be delivered at some point next month and to operate on short and medium-haul routes.
Posted by Seth on May 25, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, News, points |
If you’ve got the days to spare (4 night minimum) and can find flights that work, this is a deal not to be missed. The Japan National Tourism Organization has partnered with JAL, Continental, ANA and United Airlines as well as five hotels in Tokyo to offer up a simply unbelievable package. It is pricing at $780 including all taxes and fees and includes round-trip air and four nights of hotel in Tokyo.
Considering that the best sale fares seem to hit around $575 or so adding on $200 for the hotel is a bargain unless you planned on sleeping in a plywood box like I did last time I was there. And the hotels participating appear to be pretty nice (one has rack rates over $250/night).
Availability is spotty but it is there for some departure dates. Bookings must be done through an affiliated travel agency, not online. And there are no guarantees that you’ll earn frequent flyer points on the flights as they could be considered consolidator tickets. Still, if the inventory shows up and you can spare the time this is a phenomenal deal. Plenty of time to have a blast in Tokyo.
If you need some ideas of things to do once you get there, consider these:
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Posted by Seth on November 18, 2009 under News, points |
The dance of buyouts and other aid offers surrounding Japan’s JAL sped up a bit overnight with Delta leading the effort from SkyTeam to offer over USD$1Bn in cash and loans to the beleaguered carrier should they be willing to defect from the OneWorld alliance. American Airlines offered back a similar amount, though without the need for $300MM in alliance-switch penalty guaranties. Yes, things are truly interesting over in Japan these days.
But with the two airlines in question hemorrhaging cash these days there is a rather important question that needs to be answered: Where are they getting the money to make such offers?
The answer, it would seem, has a lot to do with frequent flyer points. Lately the only way the airlines seem to be raising any cash is by selling their points to credit card companies. Both American and Delta have recently signed deals to raise funds from Citibank and American Express, respectively. So the airlines are selling a ton of points to third parties and then turning around to use that cash in an attempt to buy JAL. Yup, they’re trying to buy an airline with points. Not quite as crazy as getting a boob job using points though almost certainly a better value on a dollars/point ratio.
As for the actual effects of the loans/merger/buyout/bailout/whatever we’re calling it, that isn’t particularly clear. JAL holds the largest share of takeoff and landing slots at Tokyo’s Haneda airport and they are definitely worth a fair amount of money. Of course, that value depends on having a Japanese economy that is functional and able to push passengers onto the flights.
Perhaps Delta is looking to recreate the Pan American route network buy purchasing 5th freedom rights around the world. Then again, that didn’t work out so well for Pan Am.
And maybe they’re actually trying to drag SkyTeam out of its current position of the “we got picked last” alliance, though I’m not really sure that picking up an almost bankrupt carrier really helps on that front. Still, having the JAL route network would be a huge boon for SkyTeam, though perhaps not quite as significant as the hit OneWorld will take from losing their only representation in that region.
It doesn’t seem likely that anything will actually be decided in the immediate future so there will be plenty of time to watch this one play out. And it should be a rather entertaining dance to watch.
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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.
Posted by Seth on June 22, 2008 under News |
I hate surcharges. I’d much rather just see what the cost of an item is and make a decision based on that number. The airlines seem to disagree, trending towards surcharges and fees to generate revenue in pretty much every situation. Airlines have actually raised fares a dozen times so far this year, so they’re doing that, too, but the fees can get out of hand. The most egregious fee, in my opinion, is the fuel surcharge.
The fuel surcharge is unlike the checked baggage or assigned seat fees in that it actually applies to everyone. If I don’t check bags or care about my seat assignment I can fly for just the cost of the plane ticket. By when fuel surcharges come in to play the cost cannot be avoided. It is essentially part of the fare, but the airlines hide it as an extra fee, helping them advertise fares lower than what they are actually charging.
And now the fuel surcharge has broken into new territory, surpassing $1,000 for trips between Sydney and London on Japan Airlines. That is $1000 in addition to the actual fare. The flight is about 10,000 miles each way routing via Tokyo, and the $1,000 is a round trip fee, so the fee is only $500 each way. That’s about $0.05 per mile flown. Considering that the airlines pay about $0.03-0.04 per seat mile flown for fuel (based on CASM numbers published by the airlines) this fee will actually more than cover the fuel costs for the flights. Plus passengers are still going to pay the rest of the fare, meaning that the airlines should be able to cover their costs OK, but without charging higher fares, at least not officially.
Of course, if the airlines just raised the fares the folks paying money for their tickets wouldn’t really see any difference, as the end number is the same. But for passengers looking at reward redemptions they have to pay all taxes and fees as part of the redemption, in addition to the miles. So if you participated in the JAL frequent flier program and were looking to redeem your points to go from Sydney to London you’ll also have to pay the $1,000 fuel surcharge, since it is not part of the fare. That just sucks.
Interestingly enough, the fees vary from airline to airline, even for the same flights. I’ve just booked a flight on Turkish Airlines using some of my US Air miles. If I purchased the tickets outright from Turkish Air the taxes would be ~$70 for one person. Using my US Air miles the taxes were $6. Even with paying the US Air fee of $40 to book the ticket through the call center despite the fact that the online site doesn’t even recognize the destinations I still came out ahead on the cost by using the miles.
