View from the Wing

Southwest is offering 8 Rapid Rewards credits just for signing up as part of their promoting Washington-Dulles service.

Join Rapid Rewards and get 8 free credits. All you have to do is enroll by January 31, 2007. That puts you halfway to a free Award (16 credits). Plus, you’ll receive double credit each time you book on southwest.com and fly by January 31, 2007. That means you can fly 2 roundtrips into or out of Dulles and get 1 roundtrip free (it usually takes 8 roundtrips to get 1 free!) to anywhere we fly.

The Times of India is reporting that Air India will join the Star Alliance and that an announcement will be forthcoming by the end of December.

Last week I passed along that Starwood would be announcing a devaluation of its points by introducing a new higher category for some hotels requiring additional points.

Yesterday Starwood Lurker posted on Flyertalk that just such a change is coming. (I assume the announcement was pushed forward because I broke the news here on this blog and on Flyertalk.)

Starwood Preferred Guest will be adding a Category 7 to it’s Free Night Award redemption ladder in February 2007. This new category will feature a limited number of hotels which are often unique and have rooms which may not be standard in terms of size, configuration and/or amenities.



Free nights at Category 7 hotels will cost 30,000 Starpoints per night in low season and 35,000 Starpoints per night in high season. Please note that where there are only suite awards available at a given property, the minimum cost will be 60,000 Starpoints per night in low season and 70,000 Starpoints per night in high season; however, depending upon the type and configuration of the suite, it could run even higher in a few instances.

…

You might as well also be informed that a lot of other hotels are moving up in category for next year and very few are moving down in category status. SPG members may now redeem for Free Night Awards online or through the Customer Contact Center up to 18 months from arrival, so take advantage of every hotel’s current Starpoint category by redeeming your future Free Night Awards before these changes in category go into effect.

The real outstanding questions now are:

1. Whether transferring points to airline miles will be devalued to bring Starwood Preferred Guest’s cost per point on transfers in line with their new cost structure for hotel redemptions. A move has already been announced where beginning January 1 it will take 2 Starwood points intead of 1 to get a Continental mile (not linkable, but see on the Continental website “Continental.com –> OnePass Frequent Flyer –> OnePass News and Offers –> Starwood Hotels & Resorts - Program Changes”).
   

   
   

2. Now that there’s a category 7 whether the average daily rate ranges that correspond to redemption categories will be realigned… in other words, whether a hotel that costs, say, $150 on average will become category 4 instead of category 3… same average rate, higher category?

Online Travel Review points to Air Zimbabwe suspending its only profitable route, Harare to London, over fears that its aircraft would be seized for nonpayment of debts.

70% unemployment and 1200% inflation, the country can’t mine its significant resources because it lacks the hard currency to secure replacement parts for its machinery. Lay this at the feet of dictator Robert Mugabe, whose wife has been known to take the national airline’s planes on shopping trips forcing the carrier to cancel passenger flights.

The Upgrade Travel blog points to a story in the Sunday Times of London on bogus reviews on internet websites like TripAdvisor.

Proprietors describing hotels as “outstanding”, “excellent” and “charming” without declaring their interest in the business.


Marketing executives to top British hotels recommending perks be offered to customers in return for a promise of a good review.


Hotel star ratings on well-known websites that could be easily “ramped” with just a few e-mails from bogus customers.

To me it matters little whether reviews are bogus or just written by the median traveler with preferences nothing like my own. I don’t go off of internet rankings of properties. That’s not why I find sites like TripAdvisor useful. I look for common themes in written reviews, specifically for repeated factual details about a property. For instance, if several reviews mention “mold” or “peeling wallpaper” I take that seriously.

Properties get knocked for bizarre reasons that aren’t meaningful to me… check out the Ritz-Carlton Central Park (which is currently ranked #45 in Manhattan, though it is certainly better than that). You’ll no doubt find reviews here and at other top properties complaining that room service is expensive. Gee. That’s not a particularly useful comment. Neither is ‘great stay’. Again, look for facts and patterns and these sites can be useful. It’s rare that bogus reviews will have completely false factual details on the property.

There are reports of the cheese wheels (that I previously wrote about) — with a shiny Boeing 777 on the box, so you know it’s the right one — for as low as $2.99.

While details on the company website are limited, one Flyertalker reports confirming there’s no limit to the number of 500 mile codes from the boxes that you can enter for miles. That’s $60 per 10,000 American miles, and depending on your tax situation you might be able to reduce your cost basis further by donating the cheese to a charity. Miles for you, and a cheese-a-licious Thanksgiving for someone in need!

This is still twice the price of pudding, of course, but a great deal on miles (and since I’m just a wee bit shy of my next lifetime status mark on American I could really use the miles infusion before that particular benefit, lifetime status based on any miles deposited into an account, goes away).

Anything less than $4.99 a package with the shiny airplane on it, I’m buying!

I haven’t been able to get this confirmed officially, but I’ve heard from multiple sources that the devaluation is coming after all, and in the form of a new category 7.

I apologize that I cannot attribute this, and I hope that the places I heard this are wrong. But my gut says they aren’t.

I imagine we’ll know more as the year comes to a close or the new year begins, but that’s just an assumption as to timing.

It’s unclear what this would mean initially. Perhaps the really expensive properties like Bora Bora Nui and W Maldives — that already charge more than category 6 prices for redemption — would go into this category. Perhaps it’s just a way to make headroom for rising hotel rates and pressure for greater internal reimbursment on award stays from Starwood to the hotels. But I suspect that hotels seeing greater than 90% occupancy, especially in resort destinations, may ‘jump the queue’ a bit to higher categories than their average daily room rate would otherwise suggest.

Starwood annually reassigns hotel properties to redemption categories based on their previous year’s average daily room rates. The category determines the number of points requiremed for a free night, and the room rate determines the price Starwood Preferred Guest pays the hotel for the room.

In my experience (based on hotel bills showing the internal reimbursement rate on my folio on award stays, or the hotel flagging the award rate plan as earning Starpoints and thus seeing points post to my account based on the internal reimbursement), Starwood pays a hotel three-quarters of a cent to one penny per point redeemed. But I also know that when a hotel’s occupancy rate exceeds 90%, Starwood pays the hotel its average daily room rate. Redemptions at hotels that wind up close to full get extremely expensive for Starwood. I imagine that high-season redemptions at the Westin St. John and Westin Maui, and much of the year in New York are putting real pressure on SPG’s bottom line.

So higher redemption costs are coming. My understanding of the form that’ll take is a new higher category introduced into the program (making it also easier to shuffle some properties upward in existing categories). But we should know soon, I’d imagine.

Frontier and Airtran now offer reciprocal earning and burning. In addition to mileage earning and award redemption, the two airlines are recognizing each others’ elite members with priority checkin, boarding, and security — plus Airtran elites get free DirecTV on Frontier flights. Glad I’m a lifetime Airtran elite.

Update: Randy Petersen has thoughts on the alliance, and offers some important advice:

One caveat, so don’t blame me if you mess up after reading this. The only way this works is if you do indeed book your travel on the airline partner, either Frontier or AirTran, within the airlines Web sites. Going to Expedia, booking a ticket and then trying to get cross program credit is not going to get you anywhere. This is similar to some of the restrictions that hotel programs have in that you won’t earn credit when booking through a third party agent. So, bonus miles and credits beware.



And in closing, there is one more silver lining to this: all those dumpster divers who earned credits in the AirTran program by collecting used drink cups at Wendy’s will have somewhere else now to fly.

Travelocity has a coupon offering $50 off a two-night ‘Travelocity GoodBuy’ hotel stay booked by November 30th (requires paying with Mastercard). Promo code is HOTEL50.

If the discount code doesn’t work for you it’s likely that you have a Travelocity affiliate cookie on your computer (eg you clicked on a Travelocity link somewhere, such as from a cashback mall). Travelocity won’t let you use the coupon and pay someone a commission on the booking at the same time, so you need to delete these cookies for this to work.

There’s a current Flyertalk thread on hotel stays you can get for free via this promo, mostly centered on Las Vegas properties.

As one Flyertalk member observed, “just because the icon “Use MasterCard® and SAVE $50!” is not listed with a GoodBuy hotel… the promo most likely works (NOT all but MOST I’ve found in my extensive searches).”

As of December 29th, Hyatt is introducing a new higher award category (’category 5′) for their most expensive properties.

Currently the most points required for an award night is 15,000. The new category 5 will require 18,000 points for a single night. In the U.S. this includes the Park Hyatt DC, Hotel Victor. It includes the Park Hyatts in Tokyo, Paris, and Sydney. I get those. But Dubai and Zurich?

Here is the new award chart.

You may want to make 2007 reservations now, before December 29, using the old chart…

Specially marked packages of Swiss Knights Fondue and Cheese are offering 500 American Airlines miles. You can pick the stuff up at Costco, Traders Joes, and some supermarkets. Some folks looking to top off their American Airlines accounts may find buying long shelf-life, no need to refrigerate cheese worthwhile just for the miles.

The economics aren’t quite as good as buying pudding once was but I suppose you, too, can reduce your cost basis by donating the fondue to charity and taking a tax writeoff.

Product website is short on details, such as how long the promotion will run or whether there’s a maximum number of codes a single individual can redeem for their account.

Starwood’s new quarterly promo is out. As usual, you have to register and then you’ll find out the offer you get.

My offer in the Starry Nights Promo is

You’ll earn 3,000 Starpoints after your third stay, 3,000 after your sixth stay and 3,000 after your ninth stay for a total of up to 9,000 bonus Starpoints.

So 9000 points for 9 nights between December 1 and February 28. Registration is required by January 31.

Some folks get 2000 points for every 2 stays up to 6000 points instead of 3000 points every 3 stays up to 9000. So as they say, “your mileage may vary.”

I can’t vouch for the veracity of the piece, but Trinidad & Tobago’s Newsday reports that BWIA is not offering any additional mileage redemption seats at all through April 2007.

PERSONS wishing to use their BWEE Frequent Flyer Miles to book flights on BWIA may not be able to do so until April 2007 because all mile bookings for confirmed seats on BWIA for the rest of the year and early next year have been filled.



Yesterday, Newsday received calls from several concerned persons who said they contacted the BWEE Miles centre and were told that they may not be able to use their Frequent Flyer Miles to book tickets for the remainder of 2006 and possibly the first three months of 2007. Checks by Newsday with the BWEE Miles centre revealed that confirmed seats on BWIA for the rest of the year have been filled and it may not be possible for persons to book a flight using BWEE Frequent Flyer Miles until April 2007.



Some sources yesterday said this could be a case where people with frequent flyer miles wanted to use up as many miles as they could before BWIA is closed down on December 31 and its successor Caribbean Airlines begins operations in January. Contacted at a conference in London, BWIA communications manager Dionne Ligoure reiterated that BWEE Frequent Flyer Miles and Club memberships will be transferred to Caribbean Airlines and qualify on the new airline to ensure customer continuity and confidence.

United is offering:

• 5,000 bonus miles for completing one qualifying roundtrip
  
• 10,000 bonus miles for completing two qualifying roundtrips

• 25,000 bonus miles for completing three qualifying roundtrips

Ticketing and travel must be between November 10 and January 31, and the first roundtrip must be completed by December 31. Only roundtrips qualify, but it looks like all regular paid fare classes count.

Registration is required.

In the second quarter of 2006 United reported net income of $111 million on revenue of $5.1 billion. $97 million of that — 87% — was from “United Loyalty Services,” primarily the Mileage Plus frequent flyer program.

In the third quarter of 2006 United reported net income of $220 million on revenue of $5.2 billion. $112 million of that — 51% — was from United Loyalty Services.

It’s reasonable to say that United’s frequent flyer program drives its profitability (though it’s certainly possible for the airline to lose enough money that even its frequent flyer program couldn’t make up the difference).

Meanwhile, Air Canada’s Aeroplan frequent flyer program (which is a separate publicly traded entity) saw

its third-quarter profit jumped 77 percent as it sold more Aeroplan Miles through its commercial partners.



Aeroplan earned C$34.3 million ($30.4 million), or 17 Canadian cents a trust unit, up from year-earlier C$19.4 million, or 10 Canadian cents a unit.

Here is my previous post on the importance of airlines selling miles for their bottom-lines.

There’s been a Flyertalk thread over the past two months on how to earn 10,000 American miles at more or less no cost by opening a Citibank checking and e-savings account and linking an American Airlines Mastercard to those accounts. Even though I have an AA Mastercard!

(After all, you can get 20,000 miles or more with first purchase or $250 in purchases with fee waived the first year — and you can cancel before the fee is due, and they’ll give you signup bonuses many times).

But the Free Frequent Flyer Miles website has done a writeup on the offer, and now I have no excuse not to participate.

Cribbed from their latest update:

Super offer through December 31, 2006: Get 10,000 American Airlines miles for linking your existing American Airlines credit card to a new Citibank e-savings account within 30 days of funding the new account. You need not be a new Citibank customer to accept this offer. It is o.k. if you already have these accounts. Just open new ones. You need $100 to fund the required new checking account that goes with this account, and $1 to fund the e-savings account, but after funds clear there is no minimum balance required so long as you keep open both accounts, and no monthly maintenance fees. The procedure:


• You must first have a Citibank American Airlines Mastercard. Getting one now will earn you an additional free 20,000 miles. See the Annual Fee Cards page (though the card is free for a year) of my Credit Card section to see how.
  

• Call (877) 681-9200 and tell the rep you want full information on offer code CS2R. If asked, say that you heard if from a friend. Sorry, I can find no way to get the details online. I have spent a great deal of time tracking them down for you (and me).
  

• Open the new e-savings and checking accounts during that phone call. You risk the system not registering you for this offer if you do anything online. You may fund the account by transfer from another bank account while on the phone(very easy if it is an existing Citibank account) or by check after the accounts are opened.
  

• Within 10 business days you will receive a welcome kit and (I am told) the details of this offer. (As of November 11, 2006, I haven’t received mine yet.)
  

• After you receive the kit and within 30 days of opening the account, call (800)745-1534 and chose option 1. Tell the rep you want to link your Citibank American Airlines Mastercard to the new e-savings account, and give the info required. Be sure to give your American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flyer number.
  

• The 10,000 miles should post within 120 days of the closing date of the statement within which you got all of this done. (But the Flyertalk thread I tell you about below starting with post #89 says that the miles actually post 5 days after linking your credit card.) Keep the accounts open until you see the miles post. But you will probably like them anyway. On November 11, 2006, the e-savings account was paying an APY of 5%.

This has been out for a few months but it’s my absolute favorite commercial, I can watch it over and over and still laugh. But I’m weird.

It’s a great spot on points, but never really tells you why Priority Club is a good program or even how to join. What action are you supposed to take from this commercial? (I guess you’re supposed to ‘look again’ at Holiday Inn because you can earn points?) But it’s sheer brilliance nonetheless.

Northwest is offering 5000 bonus miles for spending $250 on a Northwest Visa at the WorldPerks Mall through January 15, 2007.
Registration is required.

Sofitel is having a sweepstakes that offers 500 Lufthansa miles just for entering.

Free Frequent Flyer Miles points to a whole bunch of iDine/Rewards Network (dining for miles) bonus offers.

• Register and dine 5 times for at least $25 or more at participating restaurants by the end of the year to earn elite status in the United Mileage Plus dining program for next year. That means earning 10 miles per dollar spent next year (instead of 1 without an online profile or 3 with a profile).
  

• Register for a similar ‘fast track’ to dining elite status in 2007 with the Alaska Airlines program, difference being that qualified dines need to be $20 or more rather than $25.

• The American Airlines dining program is offering elite status for $250 in spending at participating restaurants by the end of the year.

• Set up an online account by the end of the year with the Delta dining for miles program and earn 250 miles.

• The Delta dining for miles program is offering 100 bonus miles for filling out a survey rating the restaurant you earned miles with. Qualified dines happen through the end of the year, and electronic survey(s) need to be returned by January 15.
  

• Holders of the British Airways Visa can earn 500 miles just by creating a dining profile. Participants in the BA dining for miles program can earn 500 bonus miles just for a single $15+ dine.