Posted by Seth on February 7, 2012 under frequent flyer, points, Wandering Aramean Travel Tools | 
One of the great benefits of top-tier airline elite status is the upgrade certificates the programs issue. While American Airlines offers eVIPs which are valid on all fares, Delta and United Airlines have fare limitations on theirs, making shopping for upgradable fares a bit more difficult. On top of that, comparing the fares from nearby departure points or to nearby destination points can be time consuming and annoying.
Well, it is time for the annoyance and frustration to go away. It is time for an easier search interface. It is time for another update to the Wandering Aramean Travel Tools!
The United SWUable tool has been around for a while now, though it has recently seen a number of updates to get it back online after a short hiatus due to data source issues. The Delta version of the tool is a new addition and has just come out of beta and is ready for action.
Here’s how it works:
- Head to either the United or Delta version of the tool.
- Zoom in on the map to find your departure city or destination airport.
- Or scroll down and choose from the airports or price points listed.
- Check out the fare data and pick the option that works for you!
The fares listed are EXCLUSIVE of taxes and fees. This means that any YQ fuel surcharges are not included. I wish they were, but the GDS from which the data comes doesn’t have them and I cannot just make up the data so I’m publishing what I’ve got. Still better than a poke in the eye. Also, the fares are published fares, not necessarily the lowest available on your specific dates of travel. Not perfect, but a good starting point. And the CPM is point-to-point, so odds are you can do better than that with creative routings on most city pairs.
Not seeing the fare you want, but hoping that it will happen? I’ve got a system set up for that, too. Click on the "Manage My Alerts" link and you can set up email alerts for various cities and price points. Every morning after the fare data is collected the system checks the alert queue and sends out emails if the fares are available.
There’s also fare history (more useful for the United data right now, but the Delta data is building) so you can watch trends.
The fare history page also has the actual numbers so you can see those bits, too. And I’ve fixed the bug that’s causing the multiple daily entries the past couple weeks.
Hopefully the tool can help you better apply the SWUs you’ve earned. Happy flying!!
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 31, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Citibank caused quite a stir a week ago when they started sending out 1099s to folks who had received large quantities of bonus miles for opening accounts. Needless to say, there was quite the uproar, with various opinions being shared, ranging from Congress to bloggers. Well, a week has passed and the IRS have finally clarified its position. Sortof. Things are still not incredibly clear, though it is readily apparent that the IRS sees some miles as taxable and not at a particularly favorable rate.
Michelle Elridge, an IRS spokeswoman is quoted in that LA Times column as offering up three very specific bits of information about points and their taxability:
When frequent-flier miles are provided as a premium for opening a financial account, it can be a taxable situation subject to reporting under current law.
This part is pretty clear, though not necessarily what most folks want to hear. It suggests that Citi was correct to be sending out the 1099s and reporting the tax liability. The particularly interesting bit is the use of the term "financial account." Not only would this apply to bank accounts, but it could also be reasonably interpreted to apply to credit card and investment accounts as well. After all, those are financial accounts and the points are provided as a premium for opening the account. Not particularly good news for folks who are accustomed to churning CCs and Fidelity/Ameritrade accounts for the huge sign-up bonuses.
As for taxing "regular" levels of mileage earning on CC spend or the actual flying, that’s still safe. The IRS continues to see that as a rebate and not income, so no tax liability there.
A common analogy is buying a $500 television at a retail store and receiving a $50 manufacturer’s rebate. It’s not income, just a deemed reduction of the cost of the television.
The most complicated (and oft-debated) part of the debate might be the valuation of the miles. Many insist that the liability should be the fraction of a cent that the banks pay to buy the points from the airlines. The banks disagree, reporting the value at the full retail price as reported by the airlines. And the IRS is somewhere in the middle.
Under the income tax law the amount of income to the taxpayer is the value of the property received, not the cost that the business paid to acquire the property.
The real gray area there is "value of the property received" which is, by the nature of the property in this case, variable. And it could even be argued that the recipient actually never receives property since the T&Cs of the programs say that the points are the property of the programs. There are others who have explained how to dispute the value reported on the 1099s.
Whatever the approach consumers take, it is clear that the IRS sees these sign-up bonuses as a very different beast from the regular spend earning. And the use of the term "financial account" is very open-ended. The CC churn boondoggle may be coming to an end sooner than we all hoped.
Posted by Seth on January 24, 2012 under points |
Here’s the thing about marketing – it only works when you’re actually able to effectively convince someone that they need to buy what you’re selling. And one of the first steps in that process should be to actually understand what you’re selling and how much it costs. Apparently the folks sending emails at OnePass missed that memo this week, at least if the email I just received is any indication.
It is amazing, really, that 255,712 miles might only just be enough points to make it to select cities in Asia. They don’t even mention which cabin of service, but that is actually enough for two business class tickets to anywhere in Asia. I guess if you "select" all cities served by Star Alliance of them that still counts as "select cities" in their world?? Oh, and it is also more than enough for a trip to Australia or New Zealand, unless I’m flying up front at the rule-buster levels; no need to actually buy more.
It is crap like this that gives marketing a bad name.
Posted by Seth on January 23, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points |
The partnership with Hawaiian Airlines marks a number of firsts for JetBlue. While all the details are still not yet available there is enough information in the press release about the partnership to identify these developments, all of which seem to be quite positive.
For starters, Hawaiian will be, subject to government approval, adding their code to some JetBlue flights. None of the previously established interline agreements have included such a marketing offer. This is not particularly significant from an operational perspective but for pricing reasons this should allow fares to be sold that are not necessarily additive via the connecting city. That’s a big step for JetBlue and a great benefit for the customers in terms of pricing.
The other major first is that the deal will permit not only accrual of points in both programs – on all flights, unlike the limited partnership with American Airlines – but it will also permit redemption on all flights:
Hawaiian and JetBlue have reached a preliminary agreement to allow members of each carrier’s frequent flyer program to earn and redeem loyalty points or miles for travel on either carrier. Under this agreement JetBlue’s TrueBlue members will soon be able to accrue points on any Hawaiian-operated flight, while HawaiianMiles members will be able to earn miles on any JetBlue-operated flights. Similarly, frequent fliers will be able to redeem their points or miles for travel on either carrier’s network, bringing new, much-requested destinations to each program’s loyal members.
The details on earning and redemption rates are scarce at this point. And the two programs are quite different, with Hawaiian operating a more traditional model (points earnt by distance flown; redemption calculated by zones) while both earning and redemption rates in the JetBlue TrueBlue program are more tightly tied to the fare on the flight. Obviously there will need to be some reconciliation between these two schemes along the way.
The arrangement also marks the first time that a JetBlue partner will operate from the JetBlue terminal at JFK airport. There is at least one gate in T5 which can support the Airbus A330 aircraft that Hawaiian will be flying in to New York City, though it remains to be seen what the impact is on the waiting areas with a 294-passenger aircraft using the space; the JetBlue A320s max out at 150 passengers.
Still a number of questions to be answered, but lots of positive developments so far.
Related Posts:
Posted by Seth on January 23, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Hawaiian Airlines and JetBlue will announce today a partnership for both travel and their frequent flyer programs. The deal comes on the heels of the recent announcement of new service by Hawaiian Airlines with the upcoming launch of non-stop service between New York’s JFK and Honolulu. While the Hawaiian service doesn’t start up until June, the deal will start sooner, with the carriers routing passengers via Los Angeles for one stop service on interline itineraries.
JetBlue has been steadily growing their roster of interline partners but one one of those – American Airlines – has any form of points reciprocity set up. This deal will include at least some reciprocity on the frequent flyer side. Full details are yet to come, but it is nice to see benefits in both the flight and loyalty programs coming to fruition.
More details to come as they are made available…
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 January 10, 2012 under frequent flyer, points |
JetBlue and interline partner South African Airways have come up with a rather interesting promotion for earning points in the TrueBlue program this month. They’re letting passengers double dip on points earnings for a limited time, netting 10,000 TrueBlue points in addition to the regular points the route would earn on South African. The rules are reasonably simple: Book by 20 January and travel by 31 March. Fill out the web form after the trip and you should score the TrueBlue points.
There is also a contest to win two "free" tickets to South Africa, but I’m not as convinced of the value there. There are blackout dates, which is fine, but the winner is responsible for all fuel surcharges on the winning, which is pretty crappy, especially considering that they are still "subject to seat availability" as well.
I wouldn’t go out of my way to book a trip just for the TrueBlue points, but if you’re buying and flying inside the promo dates anyways there’s definitely nothing wrong with 10,000 free TrueBlue points.
See http://flysaausa.com/jetblue/ for all the fine print.
Posted by Seth on January 2, 2012 under frequent flyer, points |
It is an annual tradition. At the stroke of midnight (though the time zone varies) frequent flyer accounts reset the counter on elite status. Records of the travel from the previous twelve months is wiped out, leaving accounts looking something like this:
Zeros everywhere. Blank progress bars. An empty travel record. And many folks seem to lament the situation, sad that the big numbers from the previous year are gone.
But not me.
I’m a bit perverse in that way, I suppose, but I love the zeros. I love seeing an empty slate and having a full twelve months of fun in which to plan and, more importantly, to travel, again trying to drive the numbers higher. Without that reset to zero there is a lack of motivation, of urgency, of excitement for the new travel year in many ways.
Yeah, I’ve got a lot of zeros on my accounts, but it won’t stay that way for long. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Posted by Seth on December 28, 2011 under frequent flyer, points |
Yeah, I said it. So did Chris Elliott recently, and perhaps for the only time ever I’m going to mostly defend his point of view on this topic. I think he went too far in suggesting that all customers should walk away wholesale from the programs and that the programs are "corrupt and corrupting" (especially without explaining what he means there). And I disagree that there is a problem with only some passengers enjoying all the benefits of the programs. But there is definitely a large group of folks for whom focusing on the points is absolutely not the smart play.
Sure, collect them if you’re making the transaction anyways, but don’t be too disappointed if they expire (or use a service like GoMiles.com to help prevent them from expiring). And certainly don’t let points drive you to irrational spending decisions, like paying markedly more for the exact same product, just to earn a trivial number of points. That’s foolish even for the folks who can actually benefit from the programs and doubly so for folks who don’t benefit from them.
For the vast majority of travelers there are only two things that matter: price and schedule. And for most of those folks it is only price. Yes, there are significant differences in the way the travel experience will play out depending on which carrier you fly on. The difference between flying from New York City to Ft. Lauderdale on JetBlue or Spirit Air could not be more dramatic for a pair of products that are arguably the same thing, 1000 miles in a coach seat. But at the end of the day, if the Spirit flight is notably less expensive they’re going to sell seats to a chunk of customers.
The other thing to remember is that the vast majority of travelers are not actually particularly frequent fliers. The number of folks actually flying 25,000 miles or more annually is a terribly small subset of the total traveling public. For the folks who are actually flying a lot – and 25,000 miles annually is just the tip of that iceberg – there is absolutely value to be had in the programs. And even for some folks looking to rack up crazy amount of points via credit card transactions (hopefully with someone else’s money) there is value in the programs. But, again, that 25,000 annual number seems to be a pretty smart place to start as a threshold considering the fees and opportunity costs of directing spend to different cards.
The most surprising and also internally inconsistent claim made in that column is that the programs, started to help differentiate the airlines in a deregulated environment as the service levels started to rapidly decline, should somehow find a way to provide the same benefits for everyone. The programs are, for the most part, rewarding the folks who provide the most value to the airlines. Just because a passenger thinks they’re being loyal by making sure their once per year trip is on the same airline doesn’t mean they are actually a loyal customer. They certainly are unlikely to be a profitable one to the carriers. By providing incentives – mostly in the form of improved service levels in some form or another – to their most profitable customers the airlines are generating exactly the type of symbiotic relationship that good marketing should build. It isn’t at all clear why this is a bad thing in his view.
Are the programs perfect for everyone? Of course not. The implication that they should be is a pretty ridiculous leap that Elliott makes and one that unfortunately detracts from the very accurate part of his claim: most folks do not benefit from the programs. I certainly do, but I also know which of my friends and family to guide more towards loyalty and which to guide more towards always buying the cheapest fare, based on travel patterns and reward goals. The vast majority of the scenarios tend towards avoiding the loyalty programs, or at least not using them to drive purchasing decisions.
And anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or lying to you.
Posted by Seth on December 25, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
JetBlue‘s TrueBlue program has one area in which they offer something remotely similar to the elite levels of other loyalty programs: the Go Bonuses. These are offered for high spend (Go Big) or multiple long segments (Go Long) and can really add up, depending on travel patterns. The Go Big bonuses in particular can be attractive to folks buying more expensive tickets (read business travelers) as they’re not only accruing more TrueBlue points on the original fare purchase but they also hit the Go Big bonus numbers more quickly.
The bonuses are calculated on an annualized basis, much like other elite programs. Since the launch of the new TrueBlue program this annual period began when the first ticket was flown. It was difficult to track progress of the bonuses (there is no indication in your TrueBlue account what the to date levels or relevant dates are) and apparently sufficiently confusing overall that the company is changing the rules.
With barely 10 days notice (the first I saw of the change was an email dated 22 December) the policy is now earning based on a calendar year rather than a rolling basis:
SPECIAL NOTE:
Starting January 1, 2012, we’re making our Go Bonuses easier to understand. We will be using a calendar year instead of using a 12-month rolling period and introduce trackers for the ability to track your progress towards your next bonus.
Overall I think that this is probably the right move for the program. I was always a bit confused by the date tracking on the old scheme and oft longed for a better way to track the information. I was actually quite surprised to see my first Go Big bonus show up and only after going back and carefully studying the numbers did I realize I had actually earnt it. This change should help clear that confusion quite a bit.
But there’s a problem with the change, too. It does not seem that there is any allowance being made for folks who have been earning points recently and who reasonably expected that their rollover was not on January 1. Imagine having flown nine of the ten required longhaul segments for the Go Long bonus in the past 6 months and not earning the 10,000 point bump in January when flying the next one.
Certainly the company is within their rights to make the changes with zero notification or advance warning (the T&C permits such) but that doesn’t mean they should. Yes, it will be a bit more complex and cost them a few extra points in the long run, but tracking two separate schedules for the transition period and erring in favor of the customers rather than in favor of the company is the right move here. Hopefully JetBlue will reconsider on this point.
Note: This is a different version of this post than that which I originally published. The original was lost into the ether shortly after being posted due to some server issues and I’ve recreated it here. I’m pretty sure it is similar enough in content, though I know it isn’t the same. Such is life on the interwebs.
