News and notes from around the interweb:

• Tnooz carries my predictions about how online hotel booking will change in the near future.
  
• Frugal Travel Lawyer tells you how to get free Godiva chocolate every month.

• A stewardess for Nigerian airline Arik Air was arrested after she was found with six kilos of cocaine at Heathrow. The drugs were discovered “on a bus which had been used to transport air crew following a flight from Lagos.” If it had been a smaller amount of blow I’d have considered it a reasonable defense that one needs mind-altering substances to deal with busing around Heathrow’s underbelly. (HT: uggboy on Milepoint)

• One Mile at a Time writes that the cash portion of AviancaTaca LifeMiles cash and points awards seems to have gotten more expensive. Whereas it used to be 1.3 cents per mile, it now appears to run at between 1.4 and 1.6 cents per mile. The price increase appeared without any advance notice, but these awards still represent a darned good deal.

On Tuesday I announced a giveaway offer of a bunch of cool stuff from National Car Rental. You still have a day to enter.

And since I don’t take anything myself when I do those, I have two of National’s “Summer On-The-Go” Prize Packs:

• Package one: Apple iPod Touch, $250 AMEX Gift Card, National-branded swag
  
• Package two: Apple iPod Touch, $50 iTunes Gift Card, National-branded swag

I’ve gotten a couple of questions about what the National-branded swag is.

• National Golf Umbrella
  
• National Ultimate Privacy Luggage Tag
  
• National 14oz Striped Coffee Tumbler

Since I’m not getting these for myself, I don’t know more than that! But they’re a nice add-on to the iPod Touches and gift cards.

Remember, to enter:

1. Take a picture of yourself adding leisure to a business trip or business meeting. For instance, renting a car and getting out of the city you’re visiting or doing meetings in a scenic location, or extending a business trip to add time to explore a new city.
   
2. Follow @garyleff on Twitter and tweet the photo, mentioning @garyleff and #SummerOnTheGo. Do this no later than Friday, May 24 at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific.
   
3. I will draw the winners at random early next week from those that meet these guidelines and direct message the winner for an email address so we can get the prize out.

I’ve gotten some really creative entries so far, but there aren’t that many entries, taking a photo and tweeting it is more work than commenting on a blog it seems!

ThanksAgain is the service you link your credit card to and then you earn miles automatically when shopping with participating merchants.

It’s like making purchases through an online shopping portal to earn miles for what you’re buying anyway, only it’s for in-person retail purchases.

And it functions like Rewards Network (formerly known as iDine but which to me will always be Transmedia), you hand over your credit card for the purchase and the miles credit automatically nothing else to do and the store clerk doesn’t see any difference between those who earn miles and those who don’t.

I first wrote about ThanksAgain in 2007 when they were giving 500 miles in your choice of program just for signing up. Back then it seemed like most of their partners were dry cleaners, none of which were near me.

I’ve used them for partner transactions in promotions like the US Airways Grand Slam in the past as well, in that case through one of their online rather than brick and mortar shopping options.

They’ve really grown their retail shopping base, with a focus on airports, and tomorrow are launching across Dallas Fort Worth airport where they expect most purchases will count towards mileage earning.

You can choose to earn miles with Alaska Airlines, American, Delta, Frontier, United, US Airways, or Hilton.

Most merchants offering one mile per dollar spent (or two hotel points), with some merchants restricting earning to specific cards (eg not to higher processing cost American Express cards).

In addition, there’s a bonus based on the amount you spend cumulatively each 90 days.

• Earn 500 bonus miles/points when you spend $250 or more (2 miles/points per dollar spent)
  
• Earn 1,500 bonus miles/points when you spend $500 or more (3 miles/points per dollar spent)
  
• Earn 4,000 bonus miles/points when you spend $1,000 or more (4 miles/points per dollar spent)
  
• Earn 25,000 bonus miles/points when you spend $5,000 or more (5 miles/points per dollar spent)

With Hilton the bonus points earning is double, but the points are worth less. My own earning choice would be United, followed by American and then Alaska, but your preferences may vary.

There’s currently a 100 mile signup bonus with your choice of program, no transactions required.

Up until 2001, employees of the US federal government were not allowed to accrue frequent flyer miles from official travel and apply them towards personal trips. They were supposed to earn miles and use them to offset the cost of government travel.

This didn’t really happen in practice. Since employees weren’t benefiting from collecting miles, those that weren’t attuned to also earning elite status tended not to bother collecting the miles at all.

There was no good way of tracking the miles earned on government travel, and certainly no good centralized way of monitoring this. It’s difficult to parse out miles earned from one type of activity from miles earned for things like credit card spend, rental cars, hotel stays, transfers in from other programs, etc.

And then actually using the miles for work purposes represents a challenge, since there’s usually far less flexibility and no desire to go through the hassle of getting the seats.

Ultimately the federal government determined that the policy wasn’t actually saving money. So why take away the benefits? Now there’s plenty of data that argues low-skilled federal jobs pay more than comparable work in the private sector, once factoring in all benefits. But those job aren’t necessarily the ones which involve travel. Many high-skill jobs don’t pay as well (though this is a very tough issue to parse well), and there was concern that denying mileage-earning was one way in which federal employment of high skilled workers was at a disadvantage relative to private employment.

If it didn’t actually save money for the federal government to dictate all miles would be used for business travel, why not let employees keep their miles as is standard in the private sector?

Twelve years later, American Samoa has apparently decided that government business travel will accrue miles only to offset government travel costs, according to the Associated Press’ Fili Sagapolutele.

American Samoa plans to take away frequent flier miles from government workers who travel on behalf of the U.S. territory.

Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga says the territory will use the miles to help medical patients travel off-island when needed, or help students travel for educational programs.

Moliga says Hawaiian Airlines agreed to the plan that takes effect June 1. Hawaiian is the only carrier connecting the U.S. territory to the rest of the country.

According to American Samoa’s government, they’ve solved the issue of co-mingled miles. Hawaiian will apparently be depositing miles into a separate account for use by the government of American Samoa.

Hawaiian seems especially accommodating, considering that the Samoan govenrment has gone all populist on it in the past over its high fares. Hawaiian is the only carrier service Pago Pago in American Samoa. (independent Samoa on the other hand has service to the US, New Zealand, Australia, and elsewhere). And fares are higher because they can’t fill the planes but continue service with US federal subsidies.

Legislation demanding this has been bandied about in American Samoa since at least 2008, though it would likely have been pre-empted by the U.S.’s Airline Deregulation Act.

Still, I wonder how easy it will be to get saver seats on Hawaiian’s thrice-weekly Pago Pago flights. ‘Coach flex’ awards run 55,000 miles each way from Pago Pago to Honolulu. And who will be tasked with booking the awards? Working with HawaiianMiles can be a vexing task indeed. I suspect this won’t amount to much savings for the U.S. territory.

And there’s as yet no indication how this edict will play out with travel beyond Honolulu on other airlines.

News and Notes from Around the Interweb:

• You’ve got a second chance – make it count!: The Star MegaDO was supposed to go on sale on Monday but technical glitches got in the way. Seats are now available, get them while they last (which usually isn’t for very long at all).

• Actually not the first time this has happened: But still interesting to me, Canadian Kilometers writes that this blog made it into a legal filing — a dispute between a traveler who booked a Yangon mistake fare and Swiss who cancelled the ticket.

• I’ll still just transfer money to my bank account instead: Bluebird’s offer to send you free paper checks has been extended to August 13.

• Chase’s United Explorer Card Eliminates Foreign Transaction Fees: Effective June 1, this card joins the myriad other Chase cards and handful of other issuer cards that don’t whack you for an extra 3% on purchases originating outside the U.S.

• Frontier Lied, they’re more generous than they wanted you to believe: Reports back in September were that Frontier would no longer allow advance seat assignments or mileage earning on tickets booked through online agencies like Expedia. It turns out this isn’t quite true. Online Travel Review flags that their full benefits fares are available to OTAs. They’ve just filed fares without benefits that are 10 cents cheaper and OTAs default to show you the lowest fares which exclude these benefits. But third parties don’t have to book these hobbled fares.

Yesterday I discussed the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the case of the Rabbi whose Northwest account was closed for complaining too much.

Ginsburg sued. His complaint was dismissed in federal district court on the basis that state law can’t be used to address airline price, route or service issues since those are pre-empted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act. A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling disagreed, and now the Supreme Court will hear the issue.

I asked reader and attorney Eric M. Fraser if he’d share thoughts on the case.

Mr. Fraser is an attorney with Osborn Maledon and an active flyer. He has written posts about the Supreme Court at SCOTUSblog and has preferred status in US Airways’s Dividend Miles program — status he doesn’t want to see disappear.

His comments follow:

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg had top-tier status in Northwest’s WorldPerks program.  His wife had Silver status.  Northwest revoked his membership in 2008. 

Ginsberg sued Northwest in federal court in California on a number of theories, including that Northwest breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.  This implied covenant theory, rooted in Minnesota state law, means that he is not suing directly for a breach of the terms of the WorldPerks contract (which allows Northwest “in its sole judgment” to cancel a member’s account).  Essentially, Ginsberg’s theory of the case means that even through the WorldPerks agreement gives Northwest the discretion to terminate his membership, he is entitled to compensation if Northwest abuses that discretion and unjustly deprives him of the benefits of the contract.  This is a long-standing principle: parties to a contract have to act in good faith.  But that principle is from state law, not from the terms of the contract itself.

Ginsberg sought to certify his case as a class action on behalf of all former WorldPerks members whose status was revoked.  (We should wonder how big that class would be!)  The district court dismissed the case quickly, meaning a factual record was never developed.  As a result, we don’t know why Northwest kicked him out.  Of note for the readers of this blog, Ginsberg claims his status was revoked because he complained to Northwest too much and that he booked reservations on full flights with the purpose of being bumped.  Unfortunately the case hasn’t developed far enough procedurally to know whether those were really the reasons.

The court dismissed the case because the Airline Deregulation Act says that a state may not enact laws “related to a price, route, or service” of an airline.  Although the case was brought in federal court, state law applies to Ginsberg’s claim, so the court dismissed the case.

Ginsberg appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which reversed and reinstated his case.  The Ninth Circuit reasoned that the Minnesota implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing is not related to prices, routes, or service of an airline.  Minnesota isn’t trying to regulate an airline, in other words.  Northwest then turned to the United States Supreme Court, which accepted the case.

Courts have given us several guideposts about that preemption provision.  States cannot prohibit deceptive airfare advertisements.  But they can forbid employment discrimination under state law.  Passengers may also bring state law claims for personal injury and wrongful death.  And, in the American Airlines v. Wolens case that Gary mentioned, a passenger may bring a routine contract claim, but cannot bring a claim based on a state consumer protection law.

Northwest tries to paint the Wolens case as distinguishing between a state-imposed obligation (preempted) versus an obligation the airline imposed on itself through contract (not preempted).  Ginsberg tries to paint the case as distinguishing between enforcing ordinary contract claims (not preempted) versus state enacted laws that have the effect of regulating airlines (preempted).  Said another way, Northwest suggests that the “good faith” obligation is not a contract claim, whereas Ginsberg suggests that it is a state contract remedy.  To law nerds, these distinctions matter.  Both sides are trying to fit the case into one corner or another of the old Wolens holding.

Gary is concerned about the ongoing vitality of the Wolens principle.  Wolens is unlikely to go away.  That means that passengers will continue to have the right to sue for breach of contract under state law.  The question the Supreme Court will answer is whether passengers may also sue when the claim isn’t defined by the terms of the contract, but instead is based on a state’s principle that parties to a contract must operate in good faith.

It’s important to note that the Supreme Court won’t resolve the question many readers will want answered: whether an airline can close accounts and use the broad, unfettered discretion the frequent flyer programs’ contracts give to the airlines.  If Ginsberg’s case survives, the lower courts will begin to answer that question (unless Northwest settles).  But the Supreme Court will answer the question of whether those claims can even be brought in court at all without immediately being dismissed.

The Supreme Court is not hearing any more cases this term before its summer break, so the case will be briefed over the summer and probably argued in the fall.  The decision will be released before June 2014. 

Thanks to Eric M. Fraser for his perspective!

In almost every category the Ink Bold® Business Card and Ink Plus® Business Card come out as the best rewards cards.

They were #1 (tied) in each of the following lists that I put together:

• The 5 Most Rewarding Cards for Your Spending Every Day
  
• The 5 Best All-Around Rewards Cards
  
• The 5 Most Lucrative Signup Bonuses
  
• The 5 Best Small Business Credit Cards

That’s because these cards earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points which can be transferred at a one-to-one ratio to:

• Airlines: United, Korean, British Airways, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic
  
• Hotels: Hyatt, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Priority Club
  
• Train: Amtrak

Points can actually even be transferred to Hilton at 1:2 by first transferring to Virgin Atlantic and on to Hilton.

What’s more, the cards offer a 50,000 point signup bonus if you put $5000 in spend on them within the first three months of cardmembership.

And the continued points-earning is exceptionally strong with 5 points per dollar on telecommunications (cable and satellite TV, cell phone, internet) and office supply spending (it’s amazing how much of your shopping can be done at office supply stores for 5x) as well as 2 points per dollar on hotels and gas.

There’s a $0 fee the first year, $95 thereafter.

You should consider adding one of these cards to your portfolio… but which one?

The key difference between them is that Ink Bold is a ‘charge card’ and Ink Plus is a ‘credit card’.

That means with Ink Bold you have you pay your bill in full each month. There is no option to pay over time (while paying interest on the balance).

While with Ink Plus you can pay a minimum payment or more each month if you have to.

Of course, even with Ink Plus you should pay off your balance in full each month whether you have to or not. Functionally, then, for those who handle their credit well there’s little if any difference between the cards.

So which one should you get? Let me tell you what I did. I lucked into this approach because I first got the Ink Bold card before Ink Plus was introduced broadly, but I think it turns out to be good way to proceed.

I got the Ink Bold card. I decided I wanted Ink Plus because, well, I have to have first-hand experience with as many of the products I’m going to write about as possible, right? When I applied for Ink Plus I wasn’t instantly approved, so I called up to speak with Chase and I knew why I wanted Ink Plus. Well, besides “because it’s there.” What’s the salient difference? The ability to pay over time. I wouldn’t have had that as a reason if I held an Ink Plus card and was trying to get Ink Bold instead.

If you don’t yet have either card, it’s a close call because they’re so similar, but I’d start with the Ink Bold® Business Card.

(Note that the cards in this post offer credit to me if you’re approved using my links. I try to offer only the best available cards, and most lucrative deals available for those cards. So if you’re aware of better deals than I’ve featured please do let me know! The opinions, analyses, and evaluations here are mine. The content is not provided or commissioned by American Express, by Chase, by Citibank, US Bank, Bank of America, Barclays or any other company. They have not reviewed, approved or endorsed what I have to say.)

There’s a persistent myth that the best time to book an award ticket is instantly when an airline’s schedule opens — and that the time is 12:01am exactly 330 days prior to travel.

But this isn’t quite right on two levels.

• Different airlines publish their schedules at different times
  
• Different airlines load award seats at different times — not necessarily when their schedule loads

Airlines want to release those seats as (saver / low) awards that they don’t expect to sell for cash. They may load some award seats when the schedule opens but ~ 11 months out they only have a rough idea of what seats are going to go unsold. They may not add a single award seat on a given flight when the schedule opens.

As time passes, as the date of travel for a given flight approaches, airlines adjust availability. They constantly evaluate how the flight is selling. If sales exceed expectations, they may withdraw award availability, thinking they can sell the seats for a higher fare instead of offering the seats as awards. When award availability disappears, it does not mean that someone booked the award. It could just as easily mean that the airline decided not to offer the seat as an award anymore, thinking now that they might sell that seat.

Similarly, an airline might add more award seats, perhaps a flight is selling below expectation or circumstances have changed to make them believe that they won’t sell the seat.

Because of the myth of booking award seats the moment the schedule opens, it’s a very common story for people to stay up until midnight. And when they don’t get the seat they want they’re frustrated because they think that somehow someone else beat them to the seats.

Frequently people who want me to book their award tickets for them are anxious to jump on the seats once the schedule loads, they’re just too frustrated with the process of staying up until midnight and getting ‘beaten out’ by someone even quicker on the draw.

While timeshares may actually work this way, frequent flyer awards rarely do. Most of the time when an award seat isn’t available at midnight when the schedule opens, it’s that the airline didn’t make those seats available yet. It was just too early for them to make a decision.

Some airlines open seats right away, others only a month after the schedule loads, and some airlines vary the pattern by route and even day of the week.

Still, since “right away when schedules loads” is one good time to book awards (although not the only time) it’s worth reviewing when different airlines load their schedules.

So when do airline schedules load?

Here is a sampling of airlines and the number of days prior to travel that their schedules load:

• Adria Airways – 355
  
• Air Canada – 355
  
• Air China – 355
  
• Alaska Airlines – 330
  
• All Nippon – 355
  
• American – 331
  
• Asiana – 352
  
• Austrian Airlines – 355
  
• AviancaTaca – 355
  
• British Airways – 353
  
• Cathay Pacific – 360
  
• Croatian – 355
  
• Delta – 331
  
• EgyptAir – 355
  
• Finnair – 354
  
• Iberia – 354
  
• Lufthansa – 349
  
• Qantas – 354
  
• Singapore – 350
  
• Thai – 338
  
• Turkish – 354
  
• United – 337
  
• US Airways – 330
  
• Virgin Atlantic – 336

But there are exceptions…

There are some exceptions and variations in these dates. For instance, while ANA schedules are loaded 355 days out I do not believe you can use the ANA website to search more than 331 days out. And while Thai is currently showing schedules 338 days out, I’ve seen them not load schedules past 260 days … and then add a couple of months all at once.

I didn’t include Etihad in the list above. Right now I’m seeing their schedules 331 days out, though I’m certain I’ve seen them loaded farther out in the past. Perhaps they changed this when they switched reservation systems towards the end of February.

Also not on the list is Air France because of a strange anomaly — they won’t let members book award travel more than 10 months out, even though schedules are loaded further out than that (and thus Delta and Alaska Airlines members can book travel on Air France earlier than Air France’s own members can).

Some airlines load schedules flight-by-flight in the local time zone of departure when the calendar turns. But that’s not universally true. Time zone issues can affect the moment that a schedule becomes available.

The most important date is when the airline whose miles you have loads its schedule

In most cases you can only book as far out as the airline whose miles you are using loads its own schedules (although of course you cannot book on a partner farther than out than that partner loads its own seats).

So even though AviancaTaca loads its own schedules 355 days out, you can’t use their LifeMiles to book a United flight more than 337 days out from travel.

Conversely, you cannot use United miles to book an Air China flight more than 337 days out, even though Air China has already had its schedules loaded for 18 days — because United’s systems go out only 337 days.

The lone exception to this rule I can think of is Alaska Airlines. Even though Alaska loads its schedules 331 days out, you can use Alaska Airlines miles to book partner flights whenever those partner flights are loaded. You can’t include Alaska Airlines flights in the itinerary until 331 days out, of course, so if you book a Qantas or Cathay Pacific flight immediately upon schedule opening you’ll have to call back later when the Alaska schedules open to add any domestic feeder flights to your award.

The U.S. Senate is sometimes called the “world’s greatest deliberative body.”

The Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate. The name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders

In this grand tradition, Senator Chuck Schumer wants airlines to reverse their recent increases in change fees on non-refundable tickets.

The New York Democrat said on Sunday that higher fees recently implemented by Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and U.S. Airways make it difficult for families on budgets to travel, according to the Associated Press.

The four carriers recently raised fees on ticket changes from $150 to $200

The distinguished Senator Schumer’s Wikipedia entry describes his political style,

Schumer’s propensity for publicity is the subject of a running joke among many commentators. He has been described as an “incorrigible publicity hound”.[19] Bob Dole once quipped that “the most dangerous place in Washington is between Charles Schumer and a television camera”,[20] while Barack Obama joked that Schumer brought along the press to a banquet as his “loved ones”

But is it fair to say that the airlines are making travel unaffordable?

In inflation-adjusted 2000 dollars, the average airfare in 1979 was $442.88. In those same 2000 dollars, the average airfare plus related fees in 2011 was $279.60.

What’s more, the average trip distance has increased over 33 years from 1947 miles roundtrip to 2351 miles roundtrip.

The inflation adjusted cost per mile (fare plus fees) was 23 cents in 1979 and 12 cents in 2011.

I had this exchange on Twitter about Senator Schumer’s call for rolling back change fees.

Do you really trust Chuck Schumer to make your travel fantasies come true?

In response to my post the other day on Washington DC’s taxi protection racket cracking down on Uber again, I got a nastygram from the DC Taxicab Commission’s public information officer.

Her argument is essentially that they aren’t forcing Uber to go out of business here, since they could always just comply with the new rules.

But nowhere has she or anyone else explained the consumer harm that supposedly follows from Uber being allowed to run its business (which is why the much more likely explanation is that the taxi commission is backing entrenched interests, as they’ve done before — with a string of federal convictions to show for it).

It turns out, of course, that the DC taxi commission’s valiant efforts to protect consumers are occurring despite never having actually received a complaint from any consumer.

The note I received, though, was incredibly telling about where the DC government is coming from in all of this.

Ironically, regulators in DC have had the farthest to go to clean up the taxi industry because of the legacy of a deregulated, open-entry system which was the most atrocious in the US. Uber represents just the cutting edge of an attempt to deregulate yet again — with the same disastrous consequences. The city needs to stand up to Uber and its thuggish ways if they are to achieve a modern, integrated, and well-governed cab industry.

They believe that DC has had the farthest to go to clean up the industry because it used to be possible for anyone who could meet safety standards to start a business… rather than because it was about the dirtiest, most crooked agency in local government anywhere in the country?

There are only two real game changing innovations in rental cars that I can think of in my lifetime. One is keeping your information on file so that you can be pre-assigned a car and take off by showing just your driver’s license. The other is picking your own car.

Avis recently has been experimenting with the pick your own car concept in some locations. The pioneer in the space, of course, is National with its Emerald Aisle. I love National’s “Go Like a Pro” slogan because their Emerald Aisle concept, to me, is the perfect frequent business renter feature.

But there are really only five major travel stories that resonate with the public, and one of them is “summer travel.” So I don’t blame National one bit for looking to catch a little bit of attention with summer.

National Car Rental wants to help you get out of the office and enjoy what summer has to offer. So they asked me if I’d help them with a giveaway here on the blog. And since I don’t take anything myself when I do those, I have two of National’s “Summer On-The-Go” Prize Packs:

• Package one: Apple iPod Touch, $250 AMEX Gift Card, National-branded swag
  
• Package two: Apple iPod Touch, $50 iTunes Gift Card, National-branded swag

Since National – whose image is primarily as a business travel rental company – wants to blur the line between business and leisure travel this summer, here’s what we’re going to do.

There are several ways you can leverage your business travel to add a leisure component, from renting a car and getting out of the city you’re visiting (Heading to Austin? Drive to Lockhart for Barbecue!) to doing meetings offsite maybe outside in a park or a restaurant on the water or other scenic location, or even extending a business trip to give yourself a day or a weekend in a new location.

Entering is simple:

1. Take a picture of yourself adding leisure to a business trip or business meeting.
   
2. Follow @garyleff on Twitter and tweet the photo, mentioning @garyleff and #SummerOnTheGo. Do this no later than Friday, May 24 at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific.
   
3. I will draw the winners at random early next week from those that meet these guidelines and direct message the winner for an email address so we can get the prize out.

The fine print: the contest is open to US residents only (talk to the lawyers on this, sorry!). I’m the final arbiter in all matters related to this contest and in all matters of interpretation. There is no appeal. I’m doing this because there’s an opportunity to send out some cool prizes from a brand I like, and not taking anything from them in return, so please don’t give me a hard time in the process.

Any questions? Ask away. And remember that while you can share your thoughts here, or post your photos on instagram, only twitter entries count this time.

A couple of years ago the story went ’round about Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg, a Northwest Airlines Platinum elite who apparently complained too much and had his frequent flyer account shut down. He lost hundreds of thousands of miles (and his elite status) in the process.

Ginsburg sued. His complaint was dismissed in federal district court on the basis that state law can’t be used to address airline price, route or service issues since those are pre-empted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act.

A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling disagreed, and now the Supreme Court will hear the issue. The Supreme Court’s docket is here.

I admit I’m a bit surprised by the Supreme Court’s willingness to take this case, although I have not yet read the 9th Circuit’s decision (but I have read the petitioner’s brief to the Court).

Delta argues that the 9th Circuit’s ruling is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent as recognized in other circuits.

The issue here at this point is whether the District Court was correct to throw out the case as being precluded by the deregulation act which forbids certain kinds of state regulation of airlines.

Under the Court’s American Airlines vs Wolens decision, a suit for breach of contract by a frequent flyer program shouldn’t be pre-empted by federal law. However, in my rudimentary understanding, a claim created by state law (in this instance, an implied covenant of good faith in Minnesota law) would be barred.

The airline’s claim that they terminated the Rabbi’s membership over complaints related to service doesn’t mean that suing over alleged breach of contract by the mileage program means the state law addressing breach of contract is in fact impermissibly regulating service. But the Rabbi’s claim of breach of contract was thrown out by the District court and is not at issue here.

What’s being considered is not what’s in the Northwest Worldperks contract (I haven’t re-read it, but I’m confident it would have permitted changing of terms and termination of membership). What’s being considered is whether, aside from the contract, this is ‘fair’ under state law.

If the terms of the frequent flyer program are considered pricing and service under the Airline Deregulation Act, as Delta contends Wolens clearly says they are, then the Rabbi’s claim under Minnesota state law is pre-empted. If the terms of the frequent flyer program are entirely apart from the basics of operating an airline (the airline service, ticket pricing) as the 9th Circuit believes, the claim should be allowed.

In some manner it comes down to whether operating a frequent flyer program is part of operating an airline, with the miles a rebate for ticket purchases (and thus part of its pricing) or whether operating such a program is in effect a side business distinct from the operations of an airline.

And even if a frequent flyer program was primarily about flying when Wolens was decided, it might no longer be so now that a majority of miles are earned via financial services activities rather than flying.

I’m not especially sympathetic with the Rabbi whose couple dozen complaints seem a bit much, and I do not blame the airline for firing him as a customer. It seems to me that this ought to be a two-way decision, the Rabbi could choose not to fly an airline any longer if it wasn’t providing him the service he expects and an airline ought to be able to choose not to sell tickets to someone that it finds is too costly to satisfy.

On the other hand I do think that confiscating earned-miles is extreme, and I’d certainly seek redress of that myself if I could.

While I don’t think the Rabbi’s desire for a class action lawsuit makes sense, I also think there’s an important principle in Supreme Court jurisprudence potentially at issue and I’d hate to see Wolens narrowed or even interpreted in a time capsule, as though frequent flyer programs are what they were 18 years ago when the case was decided. Delta (which took over Northwest) is represented in the case by former Solicitor General Paul Clement, a real legal heavyweight.

The case will bear watching, entirely apart from the specifics of a kvetching Rabbi.

Do any of lawyers among my readership care to weigh in, especially to contradict or correct my read of the case?

(HT: LarryInNYC on Milepoint)

A year ago I broke down the deficiencies in the Marriott Rewards elite program. Some of those have since been corrected, at least a little bit.

Marriott Gold status comes after 50 nights, which is average for top tier status with other chains. Platinum takes a whopping 75 nights. One would expect superior or at least industry average benefits at that level.

And yet late checkout is on request only, day of departure (rather than guaranteed). Resorts are excluded — but since it isn’t guaranteed, why exclude resorts? Other chains exclude resorts from their guarantee, but will generally oblige subject to availability which is all Marriott is offering anyway.

Marriott’s breakfast benefit has also been weaker than the competition’s — free breakfast in the US and Canada has been guaranteed Monday – Friday only, with resorts excluded (although some properties extend it as a courtesy on the weekends anyway).

Marriott Boca Raton goes above and beyond, offering restaurant buffet breakfast when their club lounge is closed

Now the great weekend fast appears to be ending. Nancy Trejos reports in USA Today,

Starting June 22, Marriott Rewards Gold and Platinum Elite members plus a guest will get free continental breakfast seven days a week in the lounge or restaurant of participating hotels in the U.S. and Canada, the company will announce Tuesday.

If you’d rather not claim your muffin in the morning, you can opt for an additional 750 rewards points, instead.

Presumably the resort exclusion will continue to apply. And Marriott Courtyard properties apparently will not begin offering breakfast to elites, either.

The piece does make it sound as though Marriott is doing something industry-leading, mentioning only Starwood’s offering of free breakfast as a choice to Platinums. Starwood Platinums choose between their check-in points amenity and breakfast, while Marriott Rewards is offering points in lieu of breakfast but not as a substitute for the check-in amenity.

Unmentioned is that Hilton offers breakfast as a benefit to Gold and Diamond members, and Hyatt offers full breakfast (not just continental breakfast) to Diamonds when there’s no club lounge available.

Last month I surveyed which chains offer the most generous elite breakfast benefits. And while the option to take points instead of breakfast when there’s no lounge available on the weekends will be nice, Marriott will still lag Hyatt, Starwood, and Hilton due to the (presumably continued) resort exclusion.

News and Notes from Around the Interweb:

• Back in October I explained how to get free Marriott silver status. It still works.
  
• Travelocity is offering $50 off a hotel booking of $150 or more when you download their mobile app.
  
• Anyone with a valid American Express card can get a free one-year membership to Shoprunner (or an extension of a free membership). That gets you free two-day shipping with a variety of merchants, and is generally stackable with mileage mall earning. (HT: Dan’s Deals)
  
• In March I wrote that American Express’ Bluebird 100 paper checks tied to your account for free. The last day to take advantage of this is Tuesday (tomorrow).

Heels First Travel has a DYKWIA seatmate furious that the airline didn’t hold her connecting flight and muses on why an airline may choose to do so – or not to do so.

It was something like “I showed up at the gate at 7:59 and they said the flight was supposed to leave at 7:55 and was already taxiing. I don’t know why they couldn’t have held the flight, it’s the same airline, they knew my flight was arriving late, I mean they even had new tickets printed for me. Now I can’t leave until 1:20PM. I’m never flying this airline again.”

Airlines won’t generally hold an aircraft for a late arriving passenger.

• Holding a plane for 10 minutes may cause other passengers to misconnect on their next flight.
  
• Holding a plane means it likely arrives late, takes off late on its next flight, and faces continued delays which cascade through the day.
  
• Any time you delay a flight there’s the chance for other things to go wrong — be it more weather delays, if heading into a congested airport you might lose takeoff slot, and then those things cascade — for the two reasons above but also risking crews timing out especially if late in the day.

Bottom-line is that holding a plane can be very costly. American thinks they can reduce their average boarding time by 2 minutes by allowing passengers without carry on luggage to board early. If they’re right they consider that a big win.

When considering how to accommodate a passenger they need to compare the cost of that one passenger versus the cost to all of the other passengers, and the airline. There are unseen tradeoffs, and in general airlines try to balance these things as best they can (with imperfect information – they don’t know what plans each passenger has in order to weigh relative importance/subjective costs).

Still, airlines do hold aircraft. In March United held a flight so a man wouldn’t misconnect enroute to seeing his dying mother. A couple of years ago Southwest held a flight for a man going to see his dying 2 year old grandson. Stuff like that is compassionate and generates good publicity. And failing to do it will generate a media firestorm.

When I toured the American Airlines operations center last year during the oneworld MegaDO, they explained why they had cancelled the flight that MegaDOers participating in the optional European portion the day before were traveling on. Those passengers (and others on London-Dallas) could be fairly easily re-routed. A flight needed to be cancelled. Cancelling, say, London-Chicago instead would have been far more problematic — apparently there were a large group of passengers onboard continuing onto American’s Chicago – Tokyo service. I wouldn’t have expected that (most would just fly London-Tokyo non-stop!).

It’s not just which connecting flights get held, but also which departing flights get priority — when weather reduces an airport’s ability to handle takeoffs and landings, the airline will generally pick which flights get limited takeoff slots. And they’ll apply a similar rubric — a flight that’s carrying a substantial number of connecting passengers, especially passengers to connecting to a once daily international flight, is likely to be given priority.

Heels First was right to conclude, about her seatmate,

In this particular person’s case, it sounded like she was the only person affected by the delay and they could easily accommodate her on another plane leaving later without having to throw off the entire flight schedule for one person. Not to mention if missing one flight would cause her to “never ever ever fly them again” she’s probably not a customer worth keeping.

And she was probably right also not to tell her seatmate this.

Earlier in the month I shared details of the upcoming Star MegaDO frequent flyer charter adventure.

Join a couple hundred of your newest frequent flyer enthusiast friends, meeting with airline executives, getting behind the scenes tours, bringing home amazing souvenirs and memories, and earning bonus elite qualifying miles in the MileagePlus program along the way.

These events sell out quickly in days or even minutes. So if you’re interested, pay attention.

“North of the border to the desert to the sea”

• When? October 22nd-25th
• Partners: Air Canada, Marriott, Rimowa, Star Alliance, United
• Routing: Toronto – Tucson – San Francisco
• Touring: Rimowa factory, Air Canada, Aircraft Maintenance And Regeneration Center, plus a United Airlines Hanger Party
• Miles: 2500 – 15,000 elite qualifying miles with participating airline(s) depending on class of service

The new MegaDO website is up and bookings for this trip will open today at 1pm Eastern / Noon Central / 11am Mountain / 10am Pacifc.

So what’s a MegaDO? November’s Star MegaDO 4 chartered United’s first 787. Frequent flyers got to experience it in a fantastic party atmosphere, and it was covered by the Economist, by the New York Times, by the Wall Street Journal and by… the Wall Street Journal.

Intercontinental Hotels Group (includes Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, etc) will be offering $50 rebates when staying 2 consecutive weekend nights and paying by Mastercard between May 31 and September 1.

Registration will be required, but the website to register is not yet working.

You can earn no more than one rebate per weekend, and no more than four total per household during the promotion period. And like last time, they make the process just cumbersome enough that I suspect the intentionally are hoping people don’t fulfill all of the steps necessary to get the rebate in order to lower their fulfillment costs.

You actually have to mail documents in order to claim the rebate. You send them a copy of your registration confirmation and also your hotel folio with reservation number. As with all such things, keep copies of everything, whether this is a feature or a bug you may need to follow up vigorously to get your $50.

Still, it’ll be worth registering now and then sending in the paperwork if you have qualifying stays during the promotion period.

(HT: Loyalty Lobby)

One couple did, getting ticketed to Dhaka (Bangladesh) instead of Dakar (Senegal).

It turns out the mishap all came down to the three-letter airport code airlines routinely use when making bookings or entering information on baggage tags. Instead of entering DKR (for Dakar) in the computer system, the airline representative entered DAC (for Dhaka), sparking the intercontinental travel nightmare.
The couple, flying on Turkish Airlines, transited in Istanbul before joining their connecting flight to what they thought would be Dakar. They told the LA Times they didn’t notice anything was wrong, because they went by the flight number on their tickets. And the similarity in city names didn’t help matters. “When the flight attendant said we were heading to Dhaka, we believed that this was how you pronounced ‘Dakar’ with a Turkish accent,” Valdivieso said.

It was only after seeing a route map several hours into the flight showing their plane hovering over the Middle East that the pair realized something was wrong.

Usually when this happens, travelers find themselves on a flight to Sydney, Nova Scotia.. realizing something must be wrong when they board a Dash-8 aircraft from Halifax and start to wonder how it could possibly make it all the way across the Pacific?

(HT: uggboy on Milepoint)

Conde’ Nast Traveler has just posted three videos featuring my advice on a variety of subjects.

In this week’s edition of tips from our Top Travel Specialists Collection, we hear from Gary Leff, our specialist when it comes to award tickets and cashing in all manner of frequent flier (and frequent guest) points.

In these clips, Leff talks about the very best time to cash in your frequent flier miles for free seats—and it’s not necessarily on the 331-day timeline that’s so commonly thought of as the gold standard for award bookings. Leff also shares good tips about getting into business- and first-class cabins, where service is naturally that much better. As aircraft shift and global airline alliances change, Leff shares his tricks for making sure you’re in the best seat available.

In another clip, Leff has tips on hotel award programs, which offer freebies far beyond just free room nights, including free upgrades, free internet access, and oftentimes free late check outs.

The subjects of the videos are:

• When is the best time to book award travel?
  
• What are the best hotel perks for business travelers?
  
• What are the best first class rewards?

Each one is 3-5 minutes. So it won’t take long for you to watch them all.

Via Reader Alan H., TripAdvisor is finally going big in hotel metasearch as a way to drive bookings.

Hotel chains’ have long tried to push guests towards booking through their own channels, such as by denying elite stay credit (and in some cases elite benefits) to bookings made through online travel agents and by offering their ‘best price guarantees’ meant to suggest that customers will get the best deals there (not always true, it just means that on some rare occasions the chains will reward customers who discover they haven’t).

That’s because the payouts to online agents for hotel bookings are huge, although seem to have been coming down somewhat recently. I used to see major chains paying out commissions in the high 20% ranges, while more recently such high payouts seem to apply more to independent hotels. The savvier big chains like Marriott, depending on the online channel, may be down into the high teens.

Whereas flight sales isn’t especially lucrative, hotels bookings are, and TripAdvisor is naturally positioned to get a strong piece of that action — they (in theory, with problems) guide you towards the hotel that’s right for you. They should be better at monetizing that decision. That’s seen as a threat to Kayak.

Interesting, while the leading threat there ought to be coming from Google, which is certainly trying to provide customized answers and advice in the travel space, the conventional wisdom offered in he article on Kayak vs. Tripadvisor is that Google hasn’t made much of an impact. So much for the anti-trust concerned voiced by Google’s rivals in trying to get the US government to shut down Google as a competitor (mostly, to date, in flight search – and fortunately unsuccessful).

I’ve often found TripAdvisor useful (1) for real guest photos, and (2) to scan common themes in reviews. But never for the rankings, and never for the content of any single review.

There are several problems with TripAdvisor. One is fake reviews — hotels with fake personas trashing their competitors, hotels giving themselves high marks. Another is the inherent unreliability of complainers who also may represent outliers among guests. And still another is the rankings aren’t valid interpersonal comparisons. The guest doing a ranking may simply not think about hotels the same way that you do. And rankings are often simply not reasonable reflections of what a hotel is trying to accomplish (knocking down the Ritz-Carlton Central Park because its room service breakfast is expensive, for instance.. of course it is).

Into the space there are several new review sites, few of which have gained much traction. Hotels have tried to compete as well (remember, they really want you to book direct) with their own reviews. And they can even verify that a guest writing a review has really stayed at a hotel!

The competition here is far from over. But Kayak certainly will face pressure because while they can find you lots of different hotels (compared to chain sites which generally offer their brand only), it doesn’t do a good job at guiding you to book the room that’s most right for you.

That’s the big thing that was lost when mass travel became substantially an online booking phenomena — the loss of human agents who could understand your preferences, combine those with personal experience, and make recommendations that were in theory tied to the individual customer.

That’s also the future once again, even in the online booking space as sites race to get better at doing more than just returning results in a city and letting you sort by price or distance or ‘number of stars.’

No one is very good at it yet. Orbitz fumbled when they started returning higher priced hotels to Mac users.. when all they were doing was responding to their data which suggested that Mac users tended to book higher priced hotels than PC users, and so wanted to give those customers tailored results that were more likely to lead to a sale. They weren’t trying to ‘charge those customers more.’ They just didn’t want the customers not to find what they were after and go somewhere else to book instead.

There’s still a lot of room for work to be done, and contra conventional wisdom the future year is yet to be written. Let alone the future in mobile where last minute bookings are increasingly common, and customized advice won’t just be based on other guests’ experiences (social) but on real-time geolocation data.