The author of the Denver Post piece I mentioned yesterday did extensive interview with Gary Steiger and with me about a year ago. That interview is posted on the story author’s website.

View from the Wing was mentioned in Sunday’s Denver Post. It’s nice to learn that you helped someone earn the miles for a trip of a lifetime, in this case case to Africa. Thanks for the shout out!

This blog has been covered in the Washington Post and I’ve been quoted in the Financial Times, San Francisco Chronicle and many other places. But it always feels kinda good. Even if I do get just a bit mention this time.

Business Travel News carries a piece on corporate travel departments pushing travelers to rent cars from off-airport locations in order to save on skyrocketing fees associated with airport rentals (hat tip to Tripso Daily).

While the piece documents the high taxes, some at truly bizarre heights, it mentions only a couple of companies pushing travelers to rent off-airport in a couple of circumstances — which seem to me about as much as convenience than cost savings, or at least both married together.

The trend that bothers me most is airports with ‘on-airport’ car rental facilities that are really off-airport, where you have to take a shuttle bus off the airport facility to a car rental facility. As long as off-airport rental companies pick you up at baggage claim as frequently as on-airport buses, or at least come quickly when you call them, they can be just as convenient and cheaper.

And in some cases you’ll find it quicker to take a shuttle to your hotel and rent a car from there at your leisure.

In any case, there certainly is a limit to the costs that a municipality can impose on airport car rentals.

Rumors of an America West-USAirways linkup have been all over the news. The two carriers are certainly in talks. There’s a certain logic to it: USAirways has a strong East Coast route network, America West has a strong West Coast route network, together they’d be a true national carrier (the nation’s 6th largest).

But America West is close to profitability and is winning analyst plaudits. USAirways remains in bankruptcy for the second time since 9/11, is short on cash and on life support. USAirways has a much more senior workforce than America West. Integrating union labor pools is always a difficult task and one which can lead to significant acrimony.

It’s really unclear to me how America West would make USAirways’ assets profitable.

Rumors of the two carriers combining go back to 1997 (or at least that’s how far back my memory goes, perhaps rumors go back farther).

United almost bought America West purely for the planes, in order to throw most of ‘em at USAirways which was building a significant presence at Dulles in 1998.
Then United tried to buy USAirways but the unions scuttled the deal (so United didn’t put up a fight with regulators, allowing the Justice Department to kill it which got United out of heavy breakup payments to US).

What a long time ago that was in the airline business. Airplanes are parked in the desert and on the market cheaply now.

I wonder why America West doesn’t just grow organically, rather than taking on expenses and combining workforce cultures. There really aren’t too many barriers to airline expansion, except at a couple of airport such as LaGuardia, Reagan National, and O’Hare.

I also wonder what would happen to USAirways’ Star Alliance membership and partnership with United if an America West deal goes through. Perhaps America West gets swallowed up into the larger picture. Perhaps the USAirways linkages fall apart, as United and America West are significant West Coast competitors.

A colleague asked me today about the CapitalOne Go Miles Card. He said

From what I got in the mail it seems you get 20,000 bonus miles and can use the points for a bunch of airlines, and there is no annual fee. I’m wondering what the catch is.

Smart fellow, assuming there was a catch, it’s that the miles are in CapitalOne’s own own proprietary program (they aren’t really “miles” as normally understood).

• You can’t actually transfer points earned with this card to other airlines. Instead you use the ‘points’ towards a ticket they purchase for you.
  

• The value of that ticket is capped and requires advance purchase. This flips the frequent flyer mile proposition on its head — miles are best used for expensive tickets like last-minute transcon flights (at least) or international business or first class travel, rather than cheap advanced purchase domestic coach flights that can be generally had for a few hundred dollars anyway.
  

• You can only earn points from one source — credit card spending — rather than combining from several sources like you can with frequent flyer miles (e.g. flights, credit cards, hotels, rental cars, online surveys, whatnot)

The benefit of a card like this is that you don’t have to deal with capacity controls. If you follow the rules, redemption is easy. The downside is that earning is limited and the value of redemption is limited.

The best way to think about the CapitalOne card (and any other credit card company proprietary mileage program) is that it’s a cash rebate card where you’re restricted in the way that you can use the rebate. You may be better off going for a real cash rebate card instead.

If your real desire is flexibility, consider that (a) redemptions can be made easier if you outsource them to a company like AwardPlanner and (b) there are traditional programs you can earn points in that really do provide flexibility without sacrificing value.

My favorite one of these is Starwood. The Starwood American Express earns one point per dollar spent, and Starwood lets you redeem those points for hotel stays without capacity controls (if there’s a standard room available, you get it) or transfer the points to most airline programs. You get to choose whose miles you want later, and you can use the card to top off various accounts. Moreover, if you transfer 20,000 points you get 5000 bonus miles – so in most of those cases you’re really earning 1.25 miles per dollar rather than just 1. And the card (free the first year, $30 thereafter) is even cheaper than most airline cards.

Some have argued that recent changes to the Hilton American Express make it a better general use card than the Starwood card. It has no annual fee, and instead of the usual 3 Hilton points per dollar spent it earns 5 Hilton points on purchases at supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations, dining establishments, the U.S. Postal Service, and for wireless phone bills.

The changes to the Hilton American Express are indeed intruiging. They’ve even included Gold elite status if you spend $25,000 in a calendar year. (Though readers of this blog are all already Gold.)

By the way I’d love to see Diamond offered for $100,000 in spend, I’d put that on the card in a second. I’d also love to see Starwood offer Platinum for $100,000 in spend on the card as well. That may seem far-fetched, but credit card spending is as important as product loyalty to many of these programs, and I do think this will be a future trend. Furthermore, since Starwood is apparently offering Platinum status to top-tier elites at Delta, the level doesn’t seem quite as vaulted and rare as it once might have. (Not to mention that it’s a published benefit of simply holding an American Express Centurion card, though that comes with a hefty $2500 annual fee.)

Even at 5 Hilton HHonors points per dollar spent, the Starwood card is still a better card for earning frequent flyer points than the Hilton one, even if a majority of your spending is on things like groceries and dinner out just based on conversion ratios.

If you’re simply comparing earning for hotel night awards, and you leave aside ease of redemption and quality of properties (we all have different tastes!) then the Hilton card wins on those spending items where American Express is offering 5 points per dollar.

But that strikes me as a pretty limited case, and certainly doesn’t describe my situation — I value the ease of redemption (no capacity controls, unlike Hilton) and the specific properties that Starwood offers. Frankly I don’t want too many hundreds of thousands of Hilton points, as you can only go to Hawaii so many times.

I do have both cards, and I have changed my spending patterns slightly. I put my cell phone bill on the Hilton Amex (I used to put it on Diners Club) and I put grocery bills on the Hilton card as well. But it hasn’t come close to supplanting my Starwood Amex as my “favorite card in the wallet.”

Through the end of May, British Midland is offering to match elite status that you might have with another carrier (other Star Alliance airlines excluded).

On Saturday, a pricing error caused several USAirways routes to go on sale for about $40 all-in. I was out of town on Saturday and couldn’t take advantage of the fares. One thing worth noting was the stand-up response from USAirways:

“Obviously, if we sold any tickets at that rate, we’ll honor them,” said airline spokesman Chuck Allen.

Three cheers for USAirways!

In my experience, error rates where money has already changed hands are usually honored. United’s $29 Paris fares, British Airways’ $20 World Traveler Plus fares to Europe, Mexicana’s $55 business class fares to Puerta Vallarta were all honored. Thai Airways’ first class fare from London to Bangkok was not — the fare could be reserved online but had to be ticketed in person (and Thai’s London offices were closed for the weekend, by the time they were reopened the error was discovered).

Hotel error rates are a somewhat different story. When Starwood’s Bora Bora Nui Resort published a rate of about $80 — about 90% off the usual price — they didn’t honor the offering. They even agreed to reimburse travelers who may have already purchased nonrefundable airfare. Of course, money hadn’t changed hands on the reservation yet.

Last week, Starwood’s Lanesborough hotel in London had a $35 offering including Mercedes airport transfer and breakfast. The hotel was otherwise-bookable for about $300. Rooms booked on Orbitz are being honored, with Orbitz picking up the difference between the discount offering and what the hotel actually charged. Rooms booked at Starwood.com are being honored for up to three nights only and without the airport transfer or breakfast. So there’s the odd situation of customers of third-party websites receiving a greater benefit than those booking directly with the hotel.

Then zen of which errors get honored are indeed a tricky matter. But kudos to USAirways! (Hat tip to Tripso Daily.)

Amtrak is offering three bonuses for its 5th anniversary.

• 200 points for registering for the promotion.
  

• 2400 points for earning Amtrak Guest Rewards points with three partners by June 30.
  

• 2400 points for spending $3000 on the Amtrak Guest Rewards Mastercard between April 15 and June 30.

The 200 points are a free gimme.

If you have the Amtrak credit card, $3000 in spending over two and a half months is easy to qualify for for most. I used to highly recommend the Amtrak credit card as indispensable because it has no annual fee, it charged only 1% on foreign currency transactions, and Amtrak points could be transferred 1:1 into United. However, Amtrak pulled the plug on United transferred and MBNA is increasing the foreign exchange transaction fee to 3%. I no longer recommend acquiring this card for most circumstances — but if you have it anyway it’s a good bonus.

Bonus points for partners are a bit more difficult since the number of Amtrak partners is small. If you’re not a Starwood elite member but are likely to have a hotel stay, you can credit your stay to Amtrak. Then credit a Hertz car rental to Amtrak. Then earn Amtrak points on a Hilton stay and you’ve earned your bonus. You can also use RewardsMall as a partner. But going out of your way to sign up for Nextel or Earthlink just for this 2400 point bonus doesn’t really seem worth it to me — perhaps for a bigger bonus like Northwest’s annual Fly Free Faster promotion.

(Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)

The La Quinta Returns Program is introducing redemption at Wyndham hotel and resort properties as a new option beginning this weekend.

Ironically, Wyndham doesn’t offer points towards future stays in its own ByRequest program.

Priority Club is offering 20% off hotel night award redemption for stays between April 15 and June 15 at select properties.

Participating Crowne Plaza properties are only 16,000 points… Participating Intercontinentals are just 24,000…

Residents of the U.K. are invited to receive elite status on the Star Alliance carrier of their choice (excluding Singapore) by filling out a form and faxing a copy of a frequent flyer statement that shows elite status with a competing airline.

For general discussion of elite status matching and instructions for receiving matches with several airline programs, see “The Status Match Master Thread” — a Flyertalk discussion I started in October 2003.

• Dove Moisture Bar
  

• Bausch & Lomb multi-purpose solution
  

• Head & Shoulders Shampoo
  

• Pepcid AC
  

• Garnier Fructis
  

• Celine Dion Perfume
  

• Covergirl Outlast Liquid Makeup
  

• John Frieda in your choice of colors

A piece in yesterday’s StartupJournal explained credit card interchange fees.

Interchange fees, what credit card companies charge merchants when you use your card, average 1.75% for Visa and Mastercard and 2.4% for American Express. Larger merchants, naturally, negotiate lower feels than mom and pop businesses, but those percentages are the average.

If Chase, which issues the United Visa, pays United 1.25 cents per mile and awards a mile per dollar spent on the card then they’re making half a cent on each dollar transaction. That half cent, plus any annual fee, funds their operations and any additional perks that come with the card.

It also turns out that which prestige level card you use may now play a part in determining what the merchant gets charged.

If you’re using a ‘premium’ Visa (such as Signature or Infinite) or Mastercard (such as World), the interchange fee is higher as of April 1. And once a merchant signs up to accept Visa, they can’t turn down your Signature card and insist you pay with a Visa Classic.

Banks are starting to charge merchants a bit more for premium cards, which generally include reward and rebate cards.

United is offering discounted award travel to Nagoya or Taipei via Nagoya. Ticket by June 30 and travel between April 28 and September 15.

Joel Widzer claimed a premium level first class award on a domestic flight from LA to Dallas. While that strikes me as a little crazy for a midcon flight, I can’t criticize him too much.

For the very first time I recently claimed a premium first class award on a domestic flight. It was a last-minute transcon, I was paying out of my own pocket, and the flight would have cost about $1500 in coach. Plus I knew I wouldn’t get an upgrade. I had to fly on one specific return flight, and there was only one first class seat left for sale.

Claiming the premium award allowed me to pull a seat from revenue inventory and take that last first class seat.

Still, it was a questionable use of miles defensible only based on the fact that I have a very large stash of miles (what am I saving them for, they’ll never be worth as much tomorrow as they are today) and I’m spoiled and have a terrible aversion to coach.

Some would argue I should have sucked it up and flown coach for half the miles. But the set that includes ‘some’ would not include ‘me’.

One of the worst cheeseburgers I ever ate was onboard a United Airlines flight to San Francisco when it made me sick. For awhile in 2001 that became the standard lunch offering on first class transcontinental flights. Occasionally it was edible, but flight attendants had a hard time preparing it and more often than not the bun was served rock hard. It was supposed to be a ‘gourmet’ burger but it just wasn’t.

I’ve long grilled my own burgers with a pat of butter inside the patty. It keeps the burger moist and juicy even if I overcook the meat. But Tyler Cowen offers an idea that I hadn’t thought of myself: stuff it with blue cheese as well. Yum!

As for me, I’d add some mushrooms and grilled onions and that might be the perfect burger. Simple and delicious, preferable even to this burger rendition.

Amtrak is moving to reserved service only across most Northeast trains effective April 25.

Members holding award tickets for unreserved trains can call Amtrak Guest Rewards customer service at 1-800-307-5000 to exchange the award for a reserved ticket for no additional points.

But I’m sick and most of what comes out of my keystrokes makes little sense. See you tomorrow!

The free iPods folks are offering a free I love Free iPods.com t-shirt when you complete one of their marketing offers. No referrals are required for this one, but you do need to do an offer youself.

Frankly not worth it. I’ll save doing offers myself for the offers I do want, like the free Playstation Portable or the free digital camera.

Joel Widzer thinks tipping should be quid pro quo for service.

Tyler Cowen points out that this isn’t how tipping generally functions.

Apparently there is generally “little relationship between quality of waiter service and size of tip,” tips go up in sunny weather, and waitresses (but not waiters) can increase their tips by drawing a smiley face on the check.

Joel’s advice makes intuitive sense to me, but clearly doesn’t mesh with existing norms and customs.

In fact, why should Joel’s advice work at all — making it clear to a service person that they’ll be rewarded with a tip? What’s the enforcement mechanism? Once good service has been rendered, why does the strategic tipper need to follow through at all, unless there’s an expectation of iterative interactions?

When tipping comes after service, why do we tip at all, especially when visiting a restaurant on vacation that we’re likely never to enter again? And what drives our tendency to tip independent of service received?

I find that I tip 15-20% at restaurants regardless of service, though closer to 15% when service is poor and closer to 20% when service is above-average. Probably a bigger driver of tip as a percentage of overall bill is the absolute size of the check. I feel bad leaving a buck or two.

I admit that tipping is a phenomenon I don’t understand very well. Why not just build tips into the total price of a service? Perhaps it’s a form of price discrimination. If service and tips don’t correlate, it may just be a way of extracting additional funds from those with a greater willingness to pay.