View from the Wing

Back in March I posted about American Airlines snacks inthe United Red Carpet Club.

Now lucky’s got Northwest glassware on a United flight.

Suppliers gone awry, and staffers don’t care?

Thrifty is offering 2,000 Delta miles on rentals of two days or longer between May 15 and August 15.

Of course, these are Delta miles and you have to rent from Thrifty to get them but it’s not a bad offer.

Via Frugal Travel Guy, the Citibank Platinum American Express has comes packed with goodies:

• 15,000 Thank You Points after spending $300 on the card

• Free Priority Pass annual membership, with first three lounge visits included ($24 thereafter)

• For the first 24 months of cardmembership, receive 5 Thank You Points per dollar spent at supermarkets, drug stores and gas stations and 3 ThankYou Points per dollar on all other purchases.

• Annual fee waived the first year ($125 thereafter, I’ll consider keeping it for year two given the spend bonuses but definitely won’t keep it for year three).

Thank You Points can be deceptively valuable I haven’t checked to see whether this card is eligible for Citi’s fixed point redemption chart, but if you link it to an Expedia account the points can be used with the fixed chart which provide up to 2 cents a point in value on domestic coach airfare and 3 cents on domestic first.  (Don’t ever redeem points for the standard one cent apiece offers..)

Via Frugal Travel Guy, Northwest is offering new members who enroll by July 15 up to 6,000 bonus miles for flights.

You will receive 1,000 Bonus Miles for any flight you take on Northwest Airlines or KLM within six months of enrolling. If you take a second roundtrip flight on Northwest Airlines or KLM during this six-month period, you receive 5,000 Bonus Miles.

United is increasing a variety of fees for redeeming awards effective May 15.

• Change fees go from $100 to $150 (matching changes United made to many of its revenue fares).

• Telephone ticketing goes from $15 to $25.

• “Close-in Processing Fees” (1) now $100 (from $75) for ticketing less than 7 days from departure (2) $75 (from $50) for tickets less than 21 days from departure — where the $50 used to apply less than 14 days from departure, so they’ve stretched out the period for this fee.

This doesn’t appear to change the fee waivers of United 1Ks (100,000 mile flyers) who can still change their award tickets at no cost over and over, constantly striving for better routings and carriers to meet their needs (thank goodness).

(Hat tip to One Mile at a Time.)

I booked a South African Airways ticket on Expedia yesterday. The person I booked it for wanted to include their South African frequent flyer number with the reservation. But Expedia doesn’t include South African in their long drop down box of potential programs. So I dropped a note to the Expedia Elite Plus email address. A couple of hours later I received this strange reply:

Unfortunately, due to technical, regulatory, and/or other limitations, we currently do not support frequent flyer programs from all airlines. In this light, you would need to contact South African Airways directly and provide them with the passenger’s frequent flyer number. The number is 800-722-9675. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Technical, regulatory, and/or other limitations?Certainly there’s no regulatory barrier to adding a South African Airways frequent flyer number to a reservation. And a technical problem? Like that their website doesn’t support it? And if that wasn’t it, they are prevented by “and/or other limitations.” Well, that’s enlightening.

So Expedia’s Elite Desk tells me to pick up the phone and call South African. Now, they’re the issuing agent. They have the phone number. Couldn’t they just, like, pick up the phone and call South African? Then they could have emailed back “We apologize that our system doesn’t currently allow you to add a South African Airways frequent flyer program to a reservation through our website. I spoke to South African Airways and had them add the number to the reservation instead. Pleasant travels!”

Then I would have gotten my $7 booking fee’s worth!

Well, I guess perhaps I got my $7’s worth anyway, just not having to deal with South African’s website of which I’m not a fan. But how hard would it have been to offer superior customer service in this case?

Airtran is offering a 50% bonus on flight credit earning for purchases made with an American Express card with travel complete by the end of 2008.

Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.

Lucky walks through how he goes about constructing mileage runs. A useful narrative for those that have thought about taking an extra trip to earn the next level of status (which is how I generally recommend mileage runs) or to earn redeemable miles.

I’m a terrible photographer. I have a pretty good camera, at least as far as small digitals go, but I really don’t know what I’m doing beyond point and shoot. I’m also not a particularly steady hand, so I have a tendency to blur photographs (although fortunately my camera corrects for shaky hands to some extent — that setting I’ve figured out!). My picture taking strategy as a result amounts to take lots of photos. I don’t take just one picture of anything, I take several, on the assumption that some of them may not turn out and I really want to be sure that at least one does. Since digital memory is so cheap, I use pretty substantial memory cards, and I can just keep snapping phtoos at almost no marginal cost (ok, a few extra seconds of my time).

Beyond that I have little advice to offer, but that one overriding strategy seems to work well for me. Still, I read with great interest 21 Ways to Shoot Better Photographs. It’s a blog post from about 10 months back, but I hadn’t seen it before, and there’s some useful advice for photography neophytes like me who know little more than point and shoot.

(Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.

Northwest is ofering 500 Bonus Miles for every $50 spent shopping at the WorldPerks Mall between May 1, 2008 and June 30, 2008. Registration is required.

The following merchants are excluded from the promotion: Blockbuster, FTD, Gamefly, Netflix, Teleflora and Vinesse. But otherwise all merchants are included. Gift card purchases don’t apply towards the bonus, except for GiftCertificates.com and Home Depot gift cards. Bonus is based on net purchase, excluding tax and shipping.

The neat thing about this bonus is it isn’t offered on each purchase of $50 or more but rather is based on total purchases through the Worldperks mall. So your $20 and $30 purchases add up towards the promo. And the bonus can be earned multiple times, up to 50,000 bonus miles.

This amounts to 10 bonus miles per dollar spent (if your spending total is an exact increment of $50), which means that all my online shopping is likely to be going through the Worldperks Mall through June 30.

Alaska Airlines used to be the easiest upgrade in the United States, thinking back seven or so years ago. Back then upgrades came out of revenue inventory and cost only 5000 frequent flyer miles each way, confirmed at booking.

Then they introduced U (capacity controlled upgrade) inventory, if memory serves around 2002. MVP Gold (top tier elite) members could confirm upgrades at the time of booking from any fare, provided U space was available. MVP’s (first tier elite) could do so on full fare tickets. The plus was that no miles were required. Of course any capacity controls are a bigger takeaway than whatever is offered in exchange. And this was the beginning of a gradual devaluation in upgrade benefits.

Admittedly, Alaska had little choice — they began flying cross-country and doing so with 737s with only 12 first class seats. It became easier to earn miles and status, and there simply weren’t enough first class seats to go around given the elites and the large stashes of miles that more and more folks were accumulating.

Alaska increased the number of miles required for an upgrade from 5,000 to 10,000 and those began coming out of U inventory as well.

In 2004 Alaska began requiring that MVP Golds wishing to upgrade at booking into first class do so by purchasing Q (mid-level coach) fares or higher. One could still confirm upgrades with any fare using miles. MVP Golds could also still upgrade at their window three days in advance of travel if any first class seats remained available. In 2006 Alaska bumped up the fare that had to be purchased in order to confirm upgrades.

Flash forward and now mileage upgrades cost 15,000 miles and can only be done on higher coach fares. MVP Golds can still upgrade at booking on the highest coach fares. But both types of upgrades come out of U inventory, and therein lies the biggest change. Where once first class upgrades came out of revenue inventory, and where later they came out of capacity controlled inventory but that inventory was more or less available in advance at least if you had some flexibility, now U upgrade inventory is rarely seen in advance except for on the shortest flights.

Sure, it makes sense. Alaska is hoping to sell those seats after all. A few years ago they considered getting rid of first class altogether, since they weren’t seeing a revenue premium associated with those seats (although clearing upgrades drove loyalty for their Mileage Plan members).

Now it’s very rare to find advance confirmable upgrades, even when spending miles or for MVP Golds buying a higher fare at booking. And I frequently see transcon flights sold out in first class weeks in advance.

How can that be? Is Alaska actually selling those seats? The answer is yes, sort of.

Two things appear to be going on.

First, they’ve made discounted first class seats regularly available, so the premium for actually buying first class isn’t that great. In my experience it’s roughly double the price of advanced purchase (but not the deepest sale fare) coach on many routes. A $500 transcon in coach might cost $1000 in first.

Second, an increasing number of customers are using companion tickets on paid first class fares. The Bank of America co-branded Visa comes with a $50 companion ticket that is good on any fare, and which books the companion into the same fare class as the paid ticket. Moreover, the companion ticket’s availability isn’t capacity controlled in any way. (The Bank of America small business credit card offers a $99 companion ticket but functions in much the same way.)

Whereas an MVP Gold might have in the past used such a companion ticket on a Q fare and confirmed upgrades at booking for both passengers out of U inventory, now the most valuable use of these certificates by far is the purchase of a regular first class fare. Both customers are in first class, there’s no inventory control, the seats come out of the revenue first class fare bucket as long as first class is for sale on the flight. And roughly speaking the two passengers are in first class for the price of two coach tickets. Sure, it’s more expensive than buying a coach ticket and getting a $50 (or $99) companion ticket. But not that much. If the premium is, say, $400 then both passengers are in first class for an incremental $100 apiece each way. On Newark-Seattle, Boston-Seattle, or DC-Seattle (or for that matter, any of those cities to Anchorage or to Hawaii) this strikes me as clearly worthwhile — especially when upgrades have become so much more hit or miss, even for top-tier elites.

Perhaps Alaska is seeing a sufficient revenue premium from the purchase of first class seats using these certificates, at least compared to the past when first class might fill up on confirmed upgrades often using these same certificates. But there’s a reasonable likelihood that Alaska will become frustrated with selling paid first class tickets (which also come with a 50% mileage bonus and entrance to Alaska Airlines lounges on day of travel but not partner lounges) for the price of coach, even as they’re tightening upgrade space. In which case my worry is that these certificates will become less useful — usable on coach only, or capacity controlled in some way.

Perhaps not. Even if Alaska might contemplate such a move, hopefully Bank of America would push back. After all, these certificates are one of the most valuable features of the credit card, and Bank of America has some clout with Alaska to the extent that they’re purchasing over $200 million a year in miles from the airline which is a huge deal for a carrier of this size (where swings of $10 million or so in either direction mean the difference between profit and loss for the year).

In the meantime, one of the great values in airline travel is, in my view, the Bank of America companion ticket used to purchase Alaska Airlines first class travel for two.

Cathay Pacific used to offer the best award value for business class from the US East Coast to Europe. You could redeem 60,000 AsiaMiles for business class on partner British Airways using their distance-based award chart. Then in October they bumped the mileage requirement to 80,000. Still a definite value compared to BA’s own chart (which requires 100,000 miles to London and 120,000 for several cities beyond). But not the mind-blower it once was. Many a time I had folks transfer 50,000 Starwood points to Cathay Pacific to get the needed 60,000 AsiaMiles and redeem for BA business class. The especially nice thing about that deal is that I’ve found availability on British Airways from the US East Coast to be excellent.

One Mile at a Time points out another great redemption value across the Atlantic

With ANA’s new award chart, a 5,000-7,000 mile flight on a partner airline in Business Class is only 63,000 miles. JFK-LHR is just under 3,500 miles each way, and since Virgin Atlantic is a partner with ANA, that’s a great way to redeem miles, in my opinion. For only 5,000 miles more (68,000 miles roundtrip), you can take them from anywhere else on the East Coast or connect onward in Europe, anywhere less than 9,000 miles roundtrip.

And you can transfer to ANA from - off the top of my head - American Express Membership Rewards, Priority Club, Hyatt, and Starwood. For those transferring from Starwood, that’s just 58,000 Starpoints to get 68,000 ANA Mileage Club miles.

Ripped from Frugal Travel Guy:

A bank is giving away BW status with a new account, but it seems you can sign up without a banking relationship. Here is the info you’ll need:

Go to www.gcciasia.com/scb
Enter promo code: BWSCB2008
First 6 Digits of Card: 486419

You’ll get room upgrades, bonus points and the right to buy points at $10 per thousand

Haven’t done this myself, so your mileage may vary.

Upgrade: Travel Better details the way that Orbitz requires rental car companies to pay for site placement. Vanguard which owns National and Alamo wouldn’t pay a lump sum and higher commissions than their current contract required, so their results were given a lower priority than competing companies. Vanguard sued, but the suit was thrown out.

Consumers need to understand that travel booking sites aren’t necessarily providing unbiased information. Beyond that I don’t have a problem with arrangements like this, even though I understand that consumers do assume that the booking engine is unbiased. Starwood defaults its rate display based on its ‘recommended’ rates. Expedia pushes its own ’special rates’ (negotiated deals with a higher margin).

This is hardly new ground. I recall that when American Airlines owned Sabre they privileged their own flights over those of their competitors. In that case there was a legal issue involving anti-trust law which doesn’t exist in the Orbitz case.

As always, check out multiple sites to compare information rather than assuming a single site is providing all the needed information to make the best possible decision.

Via Benet Wilson, Snoop Dogg will again be permitted into Britain. Wikipedia explains the history

On April 26, 2006, Snoop Dogg and members of his entourage were arrested being turned away from British Airways’ first class lounge. Snoop and his party were not allowed to enter the lounge because some of the entourage were flying first class, other members of the party were flying economy class. After the group was escorted outside, they vandalized a duty-free shop by throwing whiskey bottles. Seven police officers were injured in the fracas. After a night in prison, Snoop Dogg and the other men were released on bail ..On May 15, the Home Office decided that Snoop Dogg should be denied entry to the UK for the foreseeable future due to the fracas at Heathrow as well as his previous convictions in the United States for drugs and firearms offenses.

Lesson: the lounge dragons can deny you access to their facilities and the country. Or… know your lounge access rights, bring a printout if necessary, but don’t attack the police just because you aren’t entitled to lounge access.

I received a marketing email this morning for the Starwood Preferred Guest small business American Express card. I’ve written about offers for it in the past, 10,000 points with first purchase and another 15,000 points for spending $15,000 on the card during the first six months (plus fee waived the first year).

This morning’s email offered the usual 10,000 points with first purchase and 1,000 points for each additional card ordered for the account up to 5,000 points. So fewer total points, but no spending requirement for the extra bonus points. Planned on blogging it, as low spend readers might easily benefit.

The link in the offer, though, didn’t mention the 5,000 points for additional cardholders — the link offered instead the usual offer of 10,000 points + 15,000 more based on spending in the first six months.

Now, it might be that using the link will give you both the points based on spending and the points for additional cardholders. Or it might not. Or you might have to fight for one of the other. But someone who is in the mood might try and then push to receive both bonuses — by printing a copy of the website offer and getting a forwarded copy of the email offer that contained the link (just shoot me an email asking for it, but be sure to follow up with me to let me know how it turned out for you).

Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles, the new Delta iDine (Rewards Network/Dining for Miles) bonus is a pretty good one, registration required:

Earn 1,000 bonus miles when you spend $50, plus 1,000 more miles for every additional $100 you spend cumulatively (including tax and tip) at participating restaurants between 4/28/08 and 6/30/08 - up to 5,000 bonus miles.

That’ll make me switch my dines from the credit cards I have registered with United and American over to the one I have registered with the Delta program until I’ve spent $450 at participating restaurants.

The Phoenician is a lovely property, and in short worth of both its Starwood “Luxury Collection” branding and its recent fifth diamond. The facilities are beautiful and well-maintained. The service is prompt and courteous. And, for a property of this caliber, I didn’t even find the food offerings to be especially overpriced. Not cheap, mind you, but not really more expensive than better Westin properties.

If there was a short-coming, it was in this property’s understanding and recognition of Starwood Preferred Guest program benefits.

My status didn’t appear to be properly reflected in my reservation, and I asked the hotel to correct that which they told me they did.

In advance of my arrival, I received a concierge email that contained someone else’s reservation — but that showed my Starwood Preferred Guest number with the incorrect status. (I then received a copy of my own reservation, again with the wrong status showing.) I replied to the email asking that the reservation be updated with my correct status, but didn’t get a reply.

When I checked into the hotel, I appeared to them as a Gold. I handed them my Platinum card. Since I was pre-blocked into a room based on how they perceived my status, I asked whether a further room upgrade might be available as a Platinum.

The check-in agent told me that “Gold and Platinum benefits are the same here at the Phoenician” so he didn’t look for other room options. Whether or not better rooms would have been available, he didn’t decline a Platinum upgrade as a result of lack of availability — but rather because a Platinum wasn’t entitled to a better upgrade than a Gold.

I asked him whether the same benefits for Golds and Platinums applied to the program’s welcome amenity as well, and he said that it did — Platinums did not receive a separate amenity, and there was already something in my room that the hotel provides to all guests (4 pieces of fruit).

I asked if there were any differences between Platinums and Golds, and he said that “As a Platinum you earn more points than Golds for your spending here at the hotel.” That is, of course, incorrect (both Platinums and Golds earn a 50% bonus on in-hotel spend).

Now, this is an absolutely lovely hotel. We had a nice, spacious room overlooking the pool and the city with a large blacony. The grounds are beautiful, the staff is friendly, and the bath amenities are top-notch. Both a shower and a tub, with a separate toilet cabin, dual sinks, and full-sized spa-style bath amenities made me a happy guest.

Room service was prompt and of consistently high quality. I ordered coffee in the morning, and for a small additional cost there’s an option for a french press. The coffee was just outstanding. I ordered a cheeseburger, and they let me know I could have almost any cheese I could think of. I picked provolone. And they always managed to be clear about how long it would take them to deliver, and they managed to bring my order within the promised time, Sure, it wasn’t inexpensive. A cheeseburger with fries was $15 plus service, tax and delivery charge. If you’re looking to scrimp on room service costs, try the children’s cheese pizza for $9++ — it’s the size of a large personal pizza.

The lobby, the lobby terrace, the pool, and the 5th floor terrace restaurant are all beautiful spaces. The only thing that struck me about the pool is that it seemed small for a resort of this size. But the limited number of pool chairs weren’t fully occupied whenever I looked off my balcony. Others who have stayed in the past will be able to report whether this is a problem at other times. (One of my pet peeves is hotels where guests get up at 6 or 8am to reserve chairs.)

Despite the lack of clarity on Platinum benefits, I’ve decided that I prefer this property overwhelmingly compared to the Westin Kierland where I stayed in November — even though the Kierland provided me with a Casita Suite and has a lounge which Platinums can access for breakfast and other snacks.

Undoubtedly I will return to the Phoenician as my preferred property in Phoenix. But on a weekend where the top executives of Starwood Preferred Guest were actually all staying at the hotel, I would have expected the staff to be more familiar with the SPG program! Naturally, I’ve sent a note to Starwood to let them know about the training opportunities that exist here.

Eos files for bankruptcy and ceases operations.

Eos Airlines, an all-business-class carrier that flies between Kennedy International Airport and London, said that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and would cease operations by Monday.

The airline, which was founded in 2005, is planning to operate its final flights between London’s Stansted airport and Kennedy on Sunday.

Silverjet has been promoting their in-flight wine expertise as part of projecting an overall luxurious inflight experience.  The PR folks are sharing the following thoughts on wine. 

First, that the taste of wine onboard is influenced by

the atmospheric pressure, low humidity and vibration of the cabin, all affecting how efficiently our taste buds work.

This concluded that while

[t]here has been very little scientific research into this area… we have found is that wines tend to ‘thin out’ in the air, with both tannins and acidity being accentuated. As a result, tart, angular wines make a bad choice, whereas ripe, fruit-driven wines tend to show much better.

In practice this means that

Passengers often demand quite classic wine styles on the ground, such as white Burgundies; red Bordeaux; lean, mineral Chablis; and structured Clarets. They ere received favorably during this tasting as well. However, in the air, the wine tyles showed very badly: the minerality in the Chablis being replaced by a much thinner, more acidic perception; the tannins in the Bordeaux completely dominated the fruit in the air, making it far too angular a wine to enjoy without food. Conversely the star wine of the tasting in the air was a ripe, tropical cented Sauvignon Blanc, which on the ground had almost been discounted due to an almost unlikable strong perception of sweetness.

The fruit-driven requirement means that New World wines are generally better suited to in-flight drinking.

I’ve given some thought to what wines work best in the air. Certainly some of the better bottles don’t perform so well in the air, and at the same time the answer can’t be to simply serve swill. Still, I haven’t developed an overall theory of what wines work.

I’m interested in hearing feedback here from folks about what bottles have tasted especially well, which airlines offer good wines turned bad at 35,000 feet, and whether there’s a good approach to picking a wine that will stand up to the stresses of air travel.