Japan’s StarFlyer Airlines has this as its slogan:

Blazing like a mother comet producing meteor showers throughout the world

(Via the Upgrade Travel blog.)

The Global Traveler reports that bmi British Midland is now offering up to 625% mileage earning for miles flown in paid first class.

Normal bmi is already generous on these fares — 300% miles for first class and 200% miles for business class plus Gold members earn a 25% status bonus.

Now once you reach 55,000 status miles in a calendar year excess status miles get converted to redeemable frequent flyer miles at a one to one ratio.

In total, after passing 55,000 status miles, first class fares would earn 625% of flown miles and business class would earn 425% of flown miles.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

(Of course, membership in bmi’s frequent flyer program is only open to residents of the UK, Ireland, Belgium, France, Netherlands and Spain. So you may need to move to join, or at least your mailing address will.)

I had a decent enough place to stay when I was in Bangkok, but it wasn’t at one of the generally-accepted nicest hotels in the city. The top honor usually falls to the Peninsula, followed by the Oriental and the Metropolitan.

I went to dinner one night at Sala Rim Naan, the Thai restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental. The Oriental has part of its property across the river, right next to the Peninsula, and this restaurant is part of that across-the-river outpost. You take the hotel’s boat to get there, naturally.

Here’s a view of the restaurant’s outside seating

Here a view of the Mandarin Oriental from the restaurant

My appetizer sampler

My lobster entree

The next day we had late afternoon drinks at the Peninsula.

You can either arrive at the hotel on the same side of the river as the Oriental and most hotels (the Shangri-La, etc).

The contrast between the Oriental and the Peninsula could not have been more stark. The lobby of the Oriental was busy, bustling, a veritable madhouse. It was small and anything but peaceful. The Peninsula was subdued and tranquil.

View of the Peninsula from the boat across the river

Here’s the entrance to the Peninsula

View from the Peninsula’s patio where we had drinks

The ‘front’ entrance to the Peninsula, where you would arrive if you came by car rather than taking their boat across the river.

Starwood is currently surveying some of its customers on how to increase the points required for awards in the least objectionable way.

The following survey was passed along to me by a reader I trust.

Hilton Hotels has “raised their prices” to redeem a free night. Starwood Hotels and Resorts is considering changing its redemption program. If Starwood were to “raise their prices” we want to know what would be most acceptable to you.



In thinking about the “price increases”, please review the following option below and rank them in order from 1 to 4 with 1 = the most acceptable and 4 = the least acceptable.



1 = highest ranking …4 = lowest ranking





• Raise the award redemption level on all six tiers of hotels in the Starwood Hotels program. For example a hotel at a 10,000 Starpoint redemption level might go to 13,000 Starpoints to redeem a free night and a 20,000 Starpoint redemption level might go to 25,000 to redeem a free night.
  

• Raise the award redemption level on tier 4, 5, 6 hotels only with a 25% increase in Starpoints required to redeem a free night off peak and a 50% increase in Starpoints required to redeem a free night during peak season
  

• Add a seventh tier of hotel with a 30,000 Starpoint redemption level for a free night. All high demand hotels would be added to this level e.g. St. John, Maui, Paris, New York
  

• Create an off peak and peak Starpoint redemption level for all hotels with the peak redemption pricing about 25% more than off peak

This is bad. Very bad.

Starwood, the perennial Freddie Awards favorite, got trounced this year. Lots of folks have lots of theories on why, but it seems to me that they are all explained by a drift away from providing superior value to customers. Starwood was so far head and shoulders above everyone else — ease of award redemption, suite upgrades, customer service — for so long. I have anecdotes only, and certainly there are countervailing examples, but the trend seems to be moving in the opposite direction.

Now is the time to head off a massive (25%+ in one shot) devaluation at the pass.

A Flyertalk member posted a summary of Wednesday’s Alaska Airlines MVP Gold lunch in Anchorage. (Alaska regularly hosts gatherings for their top tier elites.)

Key points:

• A new Platinum top tier will be introduced in 2008, requiring 70,000 to 80,000 miles.
  
• MVP Gold “Guest Upgrade” certificates will be going electronic in 2007 (bye bye, eBay).
  
• Alaska’s website can now book partner awards on Delta.
  
• Alaska will be introducing a new destination that members “will really like.” Rumors have been flying for a long time about Hawaii, but this is hardly confirmation of that. (Alaska’s 737s can make the jaunt…)

The cover story (free) of the May Inside Flyer is a fun piece on the history of frequent flyer programs.

These programs are 25 years old this month, and publisher Randy Petersen has the story on how the programs came into being. A good read.

American is celebrating 25 years of their AAdvantage program this month with 25 separate offers, one available each day for 25 days.

Today is the third day, and the offer is that you can register for 25% bonus miles on your spending with the Citibank American Airlines Mastercard posted on your May, June, and July statements (up to 2500 bonus miles, that is based on up to $10,000 in spending).

The spending cap reduces the potential value of the offer, but it’s still worthwhile, and the daily offer website is worth checking, well, daily.