View from the Wing

American wants you to text WORLD to 88398 and they’ll send you back a 10% discount code valid on roundtrips originating in Chicago.

Discount requires booking by December 19 for travel through March 31, 2007.

I hadn’t seen this before, and have been wanting such a tool ever since Dave Friedman’s excellent site stopped working maybe three years ago — a website that finds United Mileage Plus promotions and automaticallly signs you up for them.

The only caveat is that the tool doesn’t discriminate between better or worse promotions, so if there are two out there which are mutually exclusive (don’t permit double dipping) you’ll wind up getting the first one the tool finds.

But for busy people without the time or inclination to specifically track what’s available at any given time, this is outstanding.

This is the best offer I’ve seen yet for an Alaska Airlines Signature Visa from Bank of America: 20,000 miles plus two board room passes on approval, 1000 additional miles for applying online, plus the standard annual $50 companion ticket.

The $75 fee isn’t waived, but the benefits strike me as worth it — enough miles to upgrade two transcon flights, for instance.

The best bonus I’ve seen previously for this card was 10,000 miles. So a big thanks to reader David for the heads up.

Update: I understand this is a promotion intended to ‘come out’ November 1, but they apparently made it live a bit early. I’ve put in my application..

Starwood is offering progressively increasing bonus points at 15 participating Texas hotels for stays through January 13, 2007: 1,000 points for one night, 2,000 points for two nights and 3,000 points for three or more nights, up to 25,000 total bonus points.

Registration required.

I’ve never really given much thought to Asiana’s frequent flyer program, even though I knew that they had an especially attractive to make and retain Star Alliance Gold status: you need to fly 100,000 miles with their program but you aren’t limited to a calendar year to do it — in fact, take as long as you need. What’s more, status lasts three years and you have those three years to rack up just another 40,000 miles to requalify. Easiest Star Alliance Gold there is.

(One caveat — although given the generosity of the criteria for earning status not really a huge one for most — is that not all coach fare classes earn 100% of miles flown.)

What makes the program even more interesting — and what I hadn’t realized — is (as outlined in this Flyertalk discussion) the flexibility of the program’s rules when redeeming awards.

Within the given mileages you can fly around as you wish. And 4 stopovers are allowed, but limited to just one stopover in a country.

…

There are only few limitations according to Asiana’s rules :


1. No stopover allowed in the country where you start your trip.

2. You must return to the country where you start your trip.

3. 1 stopover allowed per country.

4. 12 segments are allowed per award itinerary.



One open-jaw is allowed which makes the restriction of must-return simply a joke which again allows combining multiple reward itineraries resulting in something possibly better than the RTW!!!!. (Asiana Club doesn’t offer the RTW as a reward)

One example from the thread of using this to your advantage — 35,000 miles buying you a coach trip from Frankfurt to Paris (stopover) to Lisbon (stopover) to Madrid (destination) to Vienna (stopover) to Prague (stopover) to Munich.

Certainly some interesting applicability.

Maybe I’ve been under a rock for awhile, but this is the first time I’ve seen the United Business Visa with fee waived first year — hence in the past I’ve never churned these. They’re offering 21,000 bonus miles after $250 in purchases, and since there’s finally no fee to get those miles I’ll give an application a whirl.

(Hat tip to Don.)

Update: a helpful reader points out the business visa also comes with 25,000 points after $250 in purchases, fee waived the first year. I knew about this offer on the personal card, didn’t realize it applied to the business card…

The Avis iTunes promo is back — through September 30, 2007. Registration is required, but when I tried to register it told me I already was — presumably because I registered for the last iTunes promo. Haven’t had a chance to verify that’s the reason yet.

HotelChatter reports that the Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach’s $45 million renovation will complete on December 21. (This hotel needed it!) Among the cooler innovations

invisible televisions in the master bathroom - cleverly hidden behind the mirror and only visible when turned on–seven-jet oversized showers and free-standing soaking tubs with views of the ocean.

I especially dig the televisions — LCD screens inside a mirror, the screen appears only when turned on and vanishes when turned off.

Through December 31, Northwest is offering new members enrolling in Worldperks up to 7000 miles:

• Earn 1,000 Bonus Miles: complete your first flight (one-way or roundtrip)
  
• Earn 5,000 Bonus Miles: complete a second flight (roundtrip only)

• Earn 1,000 Bonus Miles: subscribe to NWA E-mail for two consecutive months.

Flights must be completed within six months of enrolling to earn the bonuses, and the offer is available to accounts with North American addresses only.

(Hat tip to Flyertalk’s slippahs.)

Through December 29th you can get a free ride on a scotter to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and 1000 British Airways miles.

The Upgrade Travel Blog says you should avoid Northwest DC-9s because these aging planes are increasingly responsible for delays, with a single plane causing 2564 minutes of delays so far year to date.

I say you should avoid Northwest DC-9s because their first class cabins offer a tighter pitch (34 - 35 inches) than United’s economy plus on an Airbus A320 (36 inches). And the United Airbus offers channel 9 air traffic control, rather than no inflight entertainment at all.

Who needs unlimited domestic upgrades when that just means first class on a Northwest DC-9?

This is available on Continental.com, Expedia, etc. The fare basis is Y3E and is a mileage-based fare rather than routing-based. You’re permitted 4813 miles each way without surcharges.

Full fare tickets are refundable, upgradable, and earn 150% of flown miles.

This has been out for at least 10 hours but still appears to be going strong.

Update 11:15am Eastern: Still available. Here’s the Flyertalk discussion. Really great fare.

Update 7:05pm Eastern: This fare is still available. Turns out it was filed on October 17th. Didn’t get posted on Flyertalk till the weekend and no one seems to be minding the store. Sure, it prices out around $600 with taxes — but it’s a full fare refundable ticket that’s upgradable and earns bonus miles and bonus qualifying miles. This could give someone Platinum status on a Skyteam airline for under $3000 — and do it in the comfort of upgraded business class. Sure, $600 isn’t nothin’ but it’s also less than the lowest coach fare might be in July or August, and this fare does permit booking next summer!

Update Sunday 10:35am Eastern: Still there!

Expedia’s getting its money’s worth out of its government relations folks, who have managed to have their 10th anniversary named a national holiday.

[I]n order to encourage Americans to take some time off, Congressman Jon Porter (R-NV) has announced a House Resolution declaring October 23rd “National Plan Your Vacation” Day.



The new holiday falls on Expedia.com’s tenth anniversary.

Since the hotel’s opening, the Intercontinental Thalasso on Bora Bora has shown no award availability.

As reported on Flyertalk, they’ve finally loaded their award inventory — and apparently accidentally made all room types bookable as awards.

Priority Club has a fairly anachronistic award structure. Most hotels of a given brand come at the same cost. Intercontinental hotels cost 30,000 points a night (unless they’re an all-inclusive property, in which case it’s 40,000 points). So the two Intercontinentals in Cleveland, which can sometimes be had for as little as $99, cost the same number of points on an award as the Intercontinentals in French Polynesia. The $900+ a night Overwater Diamond Bungalows are currently redeemable for 30,000 points…

100 SQM OVERWATER VILLA FACING THE MAIN ISLAND OF BORA BORAVIEW OF OTEMANU MOUNTAIN TERRACE SUN DECK GLASS BOTTOM TABLE SEPARATE LIVING RM HIGH SPEED INTERNET 2 SOFA BEDS DIRECT DIAL PHONE 2 FLAT SCREEN TV DVD PLAYER MINIBAR ESPRESSO MACHINE CEILING FAN VILLA WITH 2 SGL BEDS AVAIL

Travelocity issued a release officially announcing their VIP customer program. The benefits are:

• Special customer service line with ’seasoned agents specifically educated in VIP benefits’
  

• 
  Bonus points for Travelocity bookings made with the Travelocity co-branded credit card.
  

• 
  Discounts, especially on “GoodBuy” hotels

They claim to offer a first of its kind program, though of course Orbitz and Expedia already have VIP programs (and I assume Travelocity did as well — I only know about the Expedia and Orbitz programs from first-hand experience). Those programs offer special dedicated customer service lines which I’ve found to (1) not be outsourced abroad, thus providing well-spoken English (2) to be answered quite quickly (3) to be staffed with agents empowered to solve problems more easily than standard agents.

What appears to be different about the Travelocity program is that it’s published and there’s a clear, current effort behind it.

Customers need only five qualified bookings in a 12-month period to become a VIP, which can add up very quickly through Travelocity’s program.

I’m an Orbitz and Expedia VIP but I have no idea what their criteria is, nor have I been marketed to as such in quite awhile. It only takes 5 bookings a year to hit VIP with Travelocity, which doesn’t strike me as a lot. I have over 200 Expedia bookings (granted, in perhaps 8 years) and just a litle less with Orbitz. Maybe Travelocity will offer a status match?

United’s new website is available in beta test.

There appear to be some improvements on the way, but hardly a panacea.

Me, I’ll be happy if the my itineraries function will be able to display, well, my itineraries - without timing out that is.

For those that missed out on this morning’s $20 rate at Caesar’s Palace, the Venetian has a published special of $119 per night on weeknights.

Meanwhile New York New York is offering rooms from $69 which, to me, doesn’t seem like nearly as nice a deal.

There are the Southwest’s of the world with expiring credits every 24 months (used to be 12 months, but there were no capacity controls on awards — so in that case the tradeoff was well worth it).

But then there are the major carriers, where the rough standard on mileage expiration is that you need account activity every 36 months, otherwise your miles don’t expire.

But Air Canada is introducing new rules, as explained on Flyertalk but an official from Aeroplan:

Change #1: Effective January 1, 2007, Aeroplan will begin date-stamping Aeroplan Miles. This means that Aeroplan Miles issued on or after January 1, 2007, will have a date-stamp of 7 years (84-months) from the month the mile is accumulated. Miles in an account that exceed 84-months without being redeemed will be automatically deducted from members’ balances on a monthly basis. All Aeroplan Miles issued prior to January 1, 2007 will be date-stamped as December 31, 2006, resulting in an end date of December 31, 2013.

…

Change #2: Effective July 1, 2007, Aeroplan will change the terms of its mileage expiry policy to require members to have transacted with the program – either one accumulation or one redemption – once in a consecutive 12-month period. This means that, as of July 1, 2007 and onwards from this date, a member must have transacted once with the program in the 12 months prior to avoid expiry of all miles in the account.

Twelve months of inactivity closes an account — that’s truly at the extreme end of what any airline program imposes (technically Starwood’s rules impose the same thing on the hotel side, even stricter since only hotel or credit card earning counts, but in practice it isn’t enforced). And even if you keep your account active your miles will expire if you don’t use them in seven years. These rules make playing with Aeroplan on an truly occasional basis rather difficult.

Via the Upgrade Travel Blog, SkyEurope has become the first airline to pay you to fly. Through Sunday you can book flights for as little as -₤1 .. taxes and fees are extra of course so you don’t actually put money in your pocket. But it’s still a neat gimick.

Priceline has Caesars Palace at $20. I assume it was intended to be $200.

This is not their ‘name your own price’ product — when you go to Priceline.com and search for Las Vegas hotels the system first brings up a conventional booking engine. Look uder four star properties in the “Strip - Fremont Area” and you’ll see Caesars Palace at $20.

It’s prepaid, but you can cancel for a refund minus $25 fee.

If you don’t see the rate for the date(s) you’re looking for try different dates, the ‘priceline special rate’ may be sold out.

Being discussed on Flyertalk.