Posted by Seth on December 29, 2008 under Uncategorized | 
There has been plenty of hype about the quality of the premium cabin in-flight product that Asian and Middle-East carriers are bringing to the skies. Singapore Air and Emirates have invested significantly in their A380 First Class experience. Singapore offers a double bed option for couples traveling together and Emirates offers a shower, among other benefits. But getting in to those seats is going to cost you a lot of cash; they cannot be booked using all those points you’ve been saving.
Singapore Air started limiting seats in their Suites by designating them a different booking class, and therefore making them ineligible for reward bookings, even for their own KrisFlyer members. Things got worse when they changed the rules on their new business class product, allowing redemption only using KrisFlyer points and then only at the unrestricted/double points level. Among other things this took the NYC and Los Angeles to Singapore non-stop flights away from partner award bookings, as they are configured in an all business class setup using the new product.
Emirates was actually letting folks still redeem for their premium cabin seats following the launch of their A380s earlier this year, but that well seems to have dried up, too. As of December 1, however, they apparently are no longer permitting any redemptions in either the business or first class cabins on those planes.
Qantas is in a similar position, blocking out their A380 first class cabin from reward redemption. A number of enterprising folks booked reward seats on flights that were operated by the 747-400 when the reward was booked, expecting that the aircraft would be swapped to the A380. As far as I know they have been successful in keeping their reward seats, but no new reward bookings are being taken on those flights.
Ten years ago the most luxurious way to travel was arguably the Concorde. Sure, the seats were small, as was the fuselage itself, but you were wined and dined and among the elite of air travel. And all the while it was bookable with reward points. I’m not saying that there were free seats out there every day for anyone who wanted one, but at least the option (or the dream) was there.
And then, just like that, poof. The option is gone.
Premium cabin long haul flights are still, by far, the best value for redeeming points, but it certainly is disheartening to see the greatest of the options disappearing. Hopefully the allure of the A380 will wear off and those seats will come back into reward inventory, but I’m not holding my breath.
Posted by Seth on July 3, 2008 under Uncategorized |
I know that redemption rates have been going up in various programs, especially in the “rule-buster” category where there are no inventory restrictions on the availability. But it seems that Qantas has gone rather overboard introducing their new Qantas Any Seat Award program. The new program allows passengers to pay for the trip – including all taxes and fees – using points valued at one penny each. This valuation is hardly a new one. Delta announced a similar scheme back in March. Still, looking at the fares for a first class trip from the USA to Australia and seeing that the redemption will cost 1MM+ points (i.e. $10,000+) each way is more than a bit unsettling.
On the plus side, they do let you include all the taxes and fees in the mileage payment, so there is zero cash outlay. And in the days of $1000 fuel surcharges (only 100K points!!) that is a big accommodation, but it still is not a good thing for just about everyone.
I can book any available seat on a Continental flight between Newark and Asia for 300,000 points. That’s the equivalent of a $3,000 fare using the penny/point valuation. And buying a seat between Newark and Asia for $3K is pretty hard to do except in very limited sale instances. Even in those situations where you’re paying more points than the normal rate you’re still getting a pretty good deal.
But the Delta – and now Qantas – rates are basically telling you that there is no longer a way to get good value from the points you’ve accrued. The opportunity cost for acquiring the miles is often in the penny/point range, plus or minus a bit. If that’s the only redemption value that you can get then you are better off shifting your accrual efforts to a cash-back card or something similar. When I can convert 220K points into a $8K RTW ticket (or 50K points into a $1800 trip to Europe this summer, with free changes as I make changes to my plans no less!) I am getting great return on the ticket value. Qantas appears to be joining Delta in moving away from that benefit for their customers.
Are they killing the goose that lays the golden egg? Maybe. Time will tell. In the interim, I’d look at other places to stash those miles if you can.
Posted by Seth on June 16, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Qantas has decided that they needed a bit of extra publicity around their launching of their A380 service later this year. And apparently selling seats at ridiculously cheap prices is their means for getting that publicity. Flights from Los Angeles or London to Sydney or Melbourne are on super sales, as low as GBP380 or USD470 for a round trip ticket. These fares are good for flights in November and December it seems.
It is VERY tempting, even though it would mean 15 hours in a 31″ of seat pitch. Plus I don’t know that I really have the time to spare. But it sure is tempting.
Posted by Seth on May 12, 2008 under Uncategorized |
And boy is it UGLY.
The seats in economy are a beautifully pre-stained shade of green, while the business class seats have a strange salmon glow to them.
Images from the Herald Sun
Overall, it doesn’t really look all that terrible, and the first class seats seem to have a swivel built in to allow them to extend fully flat for sleeping. Still, there is a lot of new coming out with this interior, so get ready for a spate of “love it”/”hate it” debates.
Oh, and one of the captions announced that the flight of this particular plane up to Hamburg to be fitted with the cabin interior is the end of production troubles for the A380. Don’t tell Emirates that; they’re still waiting for their ~50 planes and Airbus keeps saying production is going to be slower…
Posted by Seth on March 25, 2008 under News |
Don’t become obnoxiously drunk on a flight, especially when the South African rugby team is on board and willing to assist in quieting me down.
“He became extremely aggressive and abusive,” team representative Frikkie Erasmus told the Cape Town Argus. “That’s when one of the Stormers calmed him down with a good klap. It worked out quite well.”
I don’t know what a “klap” is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t comfortable.
Posted by Seth on February 16, 2008 under News |
Recently Europe opened up to an Open Skies (unlimited flights between any destinations) agreement with the USA. Now Australia has signed on as well. Prior to this agreement non-stop flights from the mainland US to Oz were limited in frequencies, destinations (LAX/SFO only on the USA side) and there were some controls on pricing. All that goes away with this agreement. Any carrier based in the USA or Australia can operate any flight to any airport between the two countries. This is going to be a big hit on Qantas’s operations, as they currently operate ~77% of the capacity between the two countries (United has the rest), and they do so at a significant premium over their other main longhaul route (Oz-London). The airline most likely to benefit in the immediate future is Virgin Blue, the Richard Branson operation down under. They’ve got the planes on the way and he’s got some experience taking on a major flag carrier on their money routes and winning. With all the recent news in the US travel market being about the potential mergers and the associated reductions in service levels that are likely to follow, this improvement is a nice one to see come to fruition.
Update: On further study this agreement is only semi-open. Perhaps “Ajar Skies” is a better description. The main limitation here is that the carrier has to be US or OZ-based, while regular open skies allows any carriers. This was done to prevent Singapore Air and Air Canada – two carriers that actually want to fly the routes – from competing. No US-based carrier has expressed any interest in starting the route in the immediate future, though Continental and Delta rumors are starting to swirl.
Posted by Seth on January 16, 2008 under News |
A few bits on the A380, aka the Whale:
- Singapore Air managed to lose one off the taxiway due to a failure in the tug, causing it to roll into the grass at Singapore International Airport. They had to move all the passengers to an alternate plane, a 747, and replace all the tires, just in case. Fortunately it happened the same day they took delivery of their second A380, so they weren’t out of commission for too long. And now they have both back in service. Hong Kong will be the second airport served by the A380 (SYD was first), and when the third plane arrives they’ll move the HKG service to LHR (London Heathrow) as they need two planes to meet those needs. They expect to have six in service by the end of July, ahead of the oft-revised delivery schedule from AirBus.
- According to these guys via FlightBlogger one can now book for the maiden EK flight of the A380, EK201 from DXB (Dubai) to JFK on 1 October 2008. It looks like a r/t F seat with a one week stay in NYC is ~$6,700. Flying in J will set you back ~$4200 and Y is ~$1400. The article cites etravelblackboard.com saying that there will be shower facilities on the plane. Carrying that extra ton of water will burn a lot of fuel, so hopefully they are selling a lot of those F fares.
- Qantas, the third carrier to take delivery of the A380, is getting closer. Their first plane was seen on the taxiway in Toulouse today.
