View from the Wing

I’ve received my free iPod, my free flat screen TV order has been sent to the vendor, and I’ve completed all of the tasks for the free desktop PC.

A couple of reminders.

If you sign up for an account, you’ll be taken through a whole series of marketing offers where you’re asked if you’re interested. The choices are Yes/No. Just choose No — these offers do not help you get your free stuff.

The object then is to get credit for an offer without spending any money. So far I’ve done the AOL Free Trial (for the iPod), Video Professor (for the Flat Screen), and Infone (for the computer).

I had no problems with AOL. I signed up and then a couple weeks later just called up to cancel. They give you a 45 day free trial, so there’s not really much of a clock you have to beat. But you do need to cancel!

Video Professor, on the other hand, was a bit of a pain. The credit for the free TV posted instantly, which was nice. They charge $6.95 shipping, which is supposed to be credited back if you return the first tape within 10 days. The tape never came. They cancelled my membership and said they were crediting back my $6.95. The future charges showed up on my credit card and I had to call up the bank to dispute them. In the end it worked fine and I won’t wind up paying any money, but Video Professor was just a pain.

The easiest by far in Infone, which I used for the computer offer. They credit the offer instantly, so no waiting and wondering if credit went through. And if you don’t ever use the service you don’t ever get charged. Plus they’re going to email you a $10 Amazon gift certificate just for signing up. Sweet!

Other potential offers are the GM Mastercard and the eBay credit card, neither one costs anything but I didn’t want to sign up for another credit card (and have an extra pull on my credit report when it wasn’t necessary).

eBay is another easy offer. Sign up for an eBay account and place a bid is all that you had to do. However, most people already have eBay accounts and they’re pretty good at disqualifying folks who are signing up for second accounts. I think this offer has been pulled from the various websites as I haven’t seen it in awhile. I already had an eBay account, so this one just wasn’t going to work for me.

Ancestry.com is another easy free trial offer. You’ll need to call and cancel this one just like AOL (though you have less time within which to cancel). I didn’t use this only because I signed up for an Ancestry.com trial in exchange for eBay Anything Points back when those were converting at better than 1:1 into American Airlines miles.

Spot On discovers that Chicago hotels have better security than New York airports.

I’m as opposed to Northwest’s new fees for booking with a telephone agent as the next person. But there are just some silly claims being made in the debate.

John Frenaye writes

Last time you walked into a bank to deposit your paycheck, were you charged extra because you dealt with a person instead of an ATM? … No, of course not.

In fact, it is quite common for banks to offer “self service” checking accounts where no fees are charged for ATM banking but use of a teller at a branch incurs a service fee.

It’s frightening because there are millions of people out there without Internet access or credit cards. These folks are now going to be penalized for doing business with Northwest since they will be forced to deal with a travel agency or a Northwest employee face-to-face.

Lack of internet access really isn’t that common, and is especially uncommon among those likely to travel by air. Free internet access is available in many public libraries and other locations. And those without computers or who do not use the internet already pay more for many items including airline tickets because they aren’t taking advantage of special internet deals. So this is hardly new.

Northwest’s decision is funny, too. Funny, because it’s so ridiculous. First, Northwest caps its commissions, then it eliminates them. And - let me get this straight - now it wants me to pay it to sell its tickets?



I can’t think of any other business that forces its distributors to pay for the privilege of selling its product. Not one.

While Northwest may not pay agent “commissions” they certainly do pay overrides and incentives. Structure is different, effect is the same.

And product distributors often pay licensing or royalty fees, although this usually involves exclusivity over a particular geographic region.

So my I’ve been playing with my free iPod for a couple weeks, and my free Flat Screen TV has been sent to the vendor for shipping. The next freebie opportunity has arrived: an opportunity for a free Desktop PC.

Like the previous deals, you need to complete one of their offers (such as a free trial, which you can cancel free of charge) and get friends to complete offers as well. Then they ship you a computer.

Airtran is now offering space available upgrades to business class from any fare. Upgrades at checkin cost $35 per flight segment, except for flights to and from Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas which cost $50.

Airtran elite members continue to get confirmed upgrades to business class at booking on full fare tickets, and purchased upgrades remain available the day before travel on all other fares.

Mile-Zilla, “A Monster Promotion,” earns miles for a combination of activities such as buying tickets, checking in online, and crediting hotel and car rental points to a Worldperks account.

Qualifying activities can begin September 7th and points can be accrued for activity through January 31st. Registration is required by December 31st. Up to 100,000 miles can be earned.

The Watergate hotel is closing.

Monument Realty has completed its purchase of the historic Watergate Hotel.



Monument says it will change the name of the hotel to the Belle Rives and plans to transform the Watergate into 133 residences by 2006.



Monument says they will range in price from $700,000 to more than $3 million for a three-bedroom penthouse.

From 9am to 9pm Eastern time tomorrow, August 26th, the W New York can be booked for Sunday nights between September 5 and November 21, 2004 for $98.

The W Times Square is available for $145 on those days.

This can be booked online or by calling 877-WHOTELS and mentioning rate plan WSUNDAY.

That’s better than Priceline.

Beginning October 15th United will charge $15 for booking awards via telephone reservations or at the airport. The fee will not apply to on-line bookings. They’re also increasing the change fee on award bookings from $75 to $100.

This is especially egregious because the United website is so poor for booking awards. It will not allow awards on partner airlines, which means all Star Alliance or even USAirways awards will incur a fee. It will not allow open jaw awards, only simple roundtrips, so those will incur a fee.

To add insult to injury, in my experience the website is incapable of booking an award in multiple classes of service. If I wanted to fly in business class to Tokyo, and there was availability on the transpacific flight but not on my domestic connection, the website wouldn’t allow me to ticket. I’d have to call United and pay the fee in order to be put in coach for part of my trip.

And United.com is just glitchy when it comes from finding award seats. You have to try several departure times throughout a day in order to pull up award seats, and the website will never think of all available routings to check.

United 100,000 mile flyers and Global Services members are exempted from this fee.

Northwest announced new booking fees yesterday. While revenue and award tickets booked on their website will not incur a charge, tickets booked over the phone will cost an extra $5 and tickets booked at the airport will cost an extra $10.

Travel agents will also have to pay $7.50 for booking domestic flights through a Global Distribution System rather than through Northwest’s proprietary system (though Orbitz and its “supplier link” is specifically exempt).

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the fee will stick or not, but it begins August 27th (September 1 for travel agents).

While Northwest has an excellent website compared to many of its competitors, the website is inadequate for many bookings. In the case of searching for award bookings, live agents are still superior. The recommendation, then, is to call up Northwest to search for awards and then plug the specific criteria they’ve found into the website to book in order to avoid the fee.

Naturally we can expect higher travel agency fees for Northwest bookings, especially from smaller agencies. Larger agencies may be able to negotiate larger “overrides” from Northwest to offset the booking fees.

The airport ticketing fee is somewhat troubling. Airport ticketing is necessary for some itineraries, when city ticket offices used to suffice. Northwest saved money by closing those offices, driving ticketing to the airport. Now they’re charging for airport ticketing. Their explanation of cost savings doesn’t make sense here: they aren’t paying an outside agent, their own ticket agents are issuing the tickets, and those agents usually give priority to passengers checking in in any case which means that airport ticketing is done in otherwise unproductive employee time that Northwest is already paying for.

What’s more, one class of customers doing airport ticketing is the last set you want to annoy: full fare, walkup passengers. It seems strange to tax them. I’d expect Northwest to at least waive the fee on full fares.

Meanwhile, Sabre is fighting back. They argue that Northwest is violating its agreement with the GDS by imposing a charge on travel agents for using their system.

Sabre announced that they intend to institute measures that will make it more difficult for travel agents and consumers to view Northwest flights and purchase Northwest tickets. Sabre also announced that it plans to increase the fees that Northwest must pay Sabre.

Ultimately I’d be surprised if the policy stuck in its current form without modification. Sure, they can impose the fee on award tickets - customers can’t take their miles to another carrier. But they’ve just made their tickets more expensive to many consumers, and most price increases haven’t held when other carriers failed to match. Moreover, unlike Independence Air and JetBlue, Northwest is touting their charge as an extra fee rather than a discount for booking online. Rhetorically this just seems like poor execution.

Developing…

Update: James Surowiecki agrees that Northwest has done an idiotic job framing their changes.

The latest offer for the Delta American Express with 10,000 bonus miles up front and the fee waived the first year is available, but only through August 31 (via Free Frequent Flyer Miles). The small business card is also available free the first year with 10,000 miles at signup. Yes, you can get both cards. And yes just about anyone qualifies as having a business (”Your Name & Associates”).

These are great ways to top off a Delta frequent flyer account. Be aware though that if you’ve received signup miles for a Delta American Express in the past that you’re unlikely to receive the miles again, at least for the personal card and likely for the business card. While many other cards (such as those issued by BankOne and Citibank) will allow you to claim signup bonus miles more than once, American Express generally will not.

Note also that after the first year each card charges an $85 fee, so you may or may not wish to keep them past twelve months.

John Gilmore’s fight against airline ID requirements is gaining momentum. He has been joined by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center in challenging the requirement that passengers identify themselves with government documents before being permitted to travel.

Though his case is a long shot, it raises some important questions.

Gilmore is claiming that the airlines’ often contradictory demands for ID before they let you fly—connected to federal mandates that are so secret the Justice Department’s lawyer wouldn’t even tell them to the judge in Gilmore’s original suit—constitute a violation of his right to travel, peaceably assemble, and be free from unwarranted searches and seizures. He further argues, among other things, that the secret directive violates due process and is inherently void due to vagueness.



His appeal brief provides an impressive array of arguments and past precedent for these assertions, too long to summarize adequately here. One touches on the “no-fly” lists, made recently famous when they snared Teddy Kennedy. As Gilmore’s brief notes, the “true purpose of the ID requirement is to allow airline security to determine whether the passenger is among those individuals known…or suspected of posing…a threat… [It] is designed to check whether a person is on a government created list of suspects… A No-Fly rule directed at a specific group of people is equivalent to a bill of attainder unless with each person there is an associated judicial warrant or conviction. Yet judicial involvement in maintaining the lists is highly unlikely…”

Keith Alexander, whose Washington Post “Business Class” columns are generally quite good, writes today about a recent meeting between USAirways executives and a group of frequent flyers who call themselves cockroaches.

USAirways revealed that they aren’t getting rid of first class sections of their cabins, even as they try to transform themselves into a low cost carrier. At the same time, they have already reduced the number of first class seats on some planes and their heavy use of regional jets limits the flights that have those cabins now.

Unfortunately, USAirways isn’t bringing back real glasses to replace plastic cups in first class. And the dirty state of some of USAirways older planes goes unmentioned.

The article also includes the first public call I’ve seen from Randy Petersen to burn rather than earn USAirways miles.

The cause for Petersen’s concern, he said, is not that the airline could file for bankruptcy. In bankruptcy, a traveler’s frequent flier points are still honored. His concern is that travelers could lose their points if US Airways is liquidated.

Randy’s right. USAirways is not at all attractive as a takeover target. They do have assets, but those assets are only useful to another carrier purchased piecemeal.

When USAirways and United attempted to merge, United’s pilots (who held a seat on United’s board of directors) went nuclear. Even if USAirways manages to get tremendous cost concessions out of their unions, their personnel still have incredible seniority. Any merging of the USAirways workforce with another carrier will leave that other carrier’s existing employees in more junior positions.

Any acquisition of USAirways will almost certainly lead to higher labor costs for the new carrier combined with acrimonious labor relations.

So there’s certainly more downside risk than there is upside to USAirways miles at the moment. Personally I’m down to 16,000 miles in my account. I’ll probably top that off with some Membership Rewards points in the near future and burn them for a trip — that I’ll take very soon.

Air marshalls overnight at hotels on special discounts, often below standard government rates, but are concerned that they’re required to identify themselves as air marshalls (giving up their anonymity) in order to claim the rate.

Marshalls stay at a small list of designated property, so once a marshall has been identified, it’s likely that other marshalls will be there on a regular basis.

United announced new 15,000 mile coach awards for flights under 750 miles book at united.com. First class awards on these routes are available for 30,000 miles.

Flights are currently available for travel from September 1 through December 31.

American made a similar announcement earlier in the month.

Northwest’s Mileage Accelerator is back, doubling car rental miles from September 1 through November 30, 2004. Registration is required.

USAirways is establishing a mini-hub at Ft. Lauderdale. Some of the cities they’ll be serving will be

Cancun, Mexico; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Panama City; Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic; Kingston, Jamaica; and San Salvador

Long-term this makes strategic sense: they’re serving a growing market. They’re going up against American, which dominates the region, but little else. Ft. Lauderdale is a good alternative to Miami, and Miami lost its major United service. USAirways has been building up its Carribean operations across the board, so their branding is strong as are their operations on the ground.

The problem is that USAirways hardly has time to operate a route until it gets profitable. And new routes generally start off slowly. So this could be an initial money-loser that USAirways can’t afford, even if the routes are in its long-term best interest.

Developing…

I received my free iPod mini in the mail this past week. Finally got a chance to play with it yesterday afternoon - very cool!

Via Chris Elliott, Priceline and Ramada have settled with New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer and agreed to invest in making their websites accessible to the blind.

In one of the first enforcement actions of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the Internet, two major travel services have agreed to make sites more accessible to the blind and visually impaired.



Priceline.com and Ramada.com have agreed to changes that will allow users with “screen reader software” and other technology to navigate and listen to the text throughout their Web sites, according to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.



Although the software and other devices, including a vibrating mouse that lets the blind “feel” boxes and images on the computer screen, have been available for years, Web sites must have specific coding that allows the equipment to operate, Spitzer said.

…

Spitzer’s settlement follows investigations over the last two years to determine if Web sites conform to the federal act and state law that require all “places of public accommodation” and all “goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations” be accessible to the disabled.

Big news over the last couple of days is that Ted Kennedy faced substantial scrutiny boarding flights because of a similar name on the government’s no-fly list. It took three weeks to clear the matter up, but Homeland Security (the agency name still gives me the willies) Secretary Tom Ridge personally called to apologize.

Or was it a mistake considering his criminal activities. And since they involve alcohol, perhaps he was considered a risk for air rage?

[Tongue Planted Firmly In Cheek, For Those Lacking Imagination.]