View from the Wing

Tim Winship makes a point about Delta’s new miles as money option for award tickets that I neglected to mention: that the tickets you ‘buy’ at one cent per point are treated as award, rather than paid, tickets. In other words, they don’t earn miles and they can’t be upgraded.

Still, Winship concludes

[T]he increased flexibility, transparency, and convenience provided by Pay with Miles will be welcomed by many SkyMiles members and sets a new industry standard for award availability.

Now, as I mentioned previously, United already offers Choices — a similar program for Mileage Plus members with a co-branded Visa credit card. So it’s hardly a new industry standard being pioneered by Delta. Of course, holders of the Delta American Express card can use all their miles in this program, rather than just the miles earned via the credit card (as United’s program limits members to doing). But United treats redemptions via their program as paid tickets which earn miles and can be upgraded. So here, United offers the better value proposition (although still not a good enough one to entice me to redeem any of my miles this way).

I agree that this development isn’t a bad thing but we shouldn’t pretend it’s a meaningfully good thing either.

It’s not even a ‘new standard for award availability’ as Winship claims, either, because up until recently with Delta you could redeem any seat on the aircraft for additional miles. Delta took away that options (though there are hints they may bring it back at a new extortionary level). Most other airlines still allow this.

So it doesn’t yield more availability. But it does allow you to get at availability for otherwise cheap tickets. It’s better to use 15,000 miles for a $150 ticket than to use 25,000 (or more) miles for that ticket. But that doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t be wasting your miles this way anyway!

Meanwhile, the program doesn’t help, really, with availability on expensive last minute fares. If a ticket would cost $1500, it’ll cost you 150,000 miles! Under the old ‘any seat for twice the price model’ you could expect to obtain last seat availability for 50,000 miles…

My real point is that this new program is a non-issue. And despite positive coverage elsewhere it does not move Delta to the head of the pack for award availability. They’re still behind the better players like American (and United, given availability with Star Alliance partners).

Yesterday I sought advice on Flyertalk for a co-worker on how to obtaina a credit card in the U.S. as a non-citizen who has just immigrated here and therefore doesn’t have a credit history attached to his new U.S. social security number.

I received four pieces of advice, that I thought I’d pass along here.

• Go to the non-US bank where the person already has a relationship and have them set something up with a US affiliate, if there is one. In this case, the person is Canadian, so they could try to work through Royal Bank of Canada (which has the North Carolina-based RBC Centura) or Toronto Dominion (which has TD Bank North).

• Have their employer take them to the financial institution where the business banks, and ask a senior person there to assist.

• Get a secured card such as this one from Bank of America. After some time building a history with such a card it should be possible to obtain a standard card.

• There are also credit cards, such as this British Airways card from Chase (which carries the standard BA co-branded card $75 annual fee along with signup bonus miles), that target folks arriving in the U.S. without a US credit history. This particular card is marketed at British expats, but presumably others could use it as well. It’s a Signature Visa so the underwriting standards for issuance without a US credit history may not be insignificant.

Anyone have other approaches?

This Flyertalk thread reports that new Delta Skymiles members signing up with a non-US address will receive 6000 bonus miles after their first coach flight or 11,000 bonus miles if their first flight is in paid business class. No promotion code is necessary, it apparently is automatic for new members outside the U.S.

One Mile at a Time reports that Virgin America passengers flying paid first class from San Francisco can now use the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse there.. for an additional $40.

Naturally, a move to charge folks flying in paid first class for lounge access will seem strange to many. But since most US airlines don’t offer lounge access for paid domestic first class tickets (Alaska Airlines is one exception), since the price of a one-way first class ticket from San Francisco to Los Angeles isn’t especially high, and since the Virgin Clubhouse is a rather nice lounge by US standards, this seems more than reasonable to me.

I’ll be visiting the Virgin Clubhouse at Washington-Dulles for the first time in a few weeks, I understand that it’s rather underwhelming for a Virgin lounge but still the nicest on offer at Dulles. It has showers, a full menu, bar, Playstation, DVD library, computers, and dart board.

This will be my first visit to a Virgin Clubhouse. A well-regarded architect that I know described his recent visit to their flagship location at Heathrow thusly:

This place is too cool to describe – an architect’s dream of Platner, Eames, Corbusier and Austin Powers. Floating ceilings with indirect lighting, a sixty foot long bar with backlit onyx top, pool tables, flat screens, saunas, waiters and waitresses buzzing about taking your drink or food order wherever you sit. There is a spa with 4 very busy hairdressers.

Even if the San Francisco lounge is a far cry from Heathrow, it will still offer a proper meal and a nice place to relax prior to boarding. Certainly $40 isn’t crazy considering that American charges $50 for a day pass to its Admiral’s Club lounges and that only gets you access to .. an Admiral’s Club. No meal served there (except for those nasty sandwiches they will sell you).

The one downside to the Virgin Clubhouse in San Francisco - and this is a serious drawback - is that the lounge is ‘landside’ (i.e. prior to security) so passengers need to leave (a variable and somewhat unpredictable) amount of time to clear the TSA checkpoint.

Webflyer.com wrote up details of Delta’s new pay with miles feature.  Skymiles members with a co-branded American Express card can now use their miles to pay directly for tickets rather than searching award availability.

I haven’t previously mentioned that this was coming (I don’t think) mainly because it doesn’t merit much attention. As I expected, the best you’ll ever do by using miles as cash for a ticket is one cent per mile in value.

Now, Delta miles aren’t generally worth much more than a cent, I use my United and American miles to redeem (with ease, relatively speaking) for premium cabin international awards. In recent years I’ve booked international first class tickets on tons of airlines including Qantas, Air Tahiti Nui, Asiana, United, Thai, ANA, and Lufthansa (not to mention business class on many of the same carriers, as well as Singapore and British Airways). It’s much easier to do that with Untied and American miles, so I place a higher premium on the value of those miles than I do on Delta Skymiles.

Still, one cent per mile seems almost like giving up. If you’re happy with a 1% rebate on your credit card spend, get a 1% cashback card. If you’re spending the miles earned on your Delta American Express with the miles as money option from Delta, you’re turning that Amex card into a 1% rebate — with the restriction that doesn’t apply to cash that the rebate can only be used for travel and even then only on travel booked through Delta. 1% cashback is better (sure, the Delta Amex comes with bonuses but so to do the better cashback cards).

This program is exceedingly similar to United’s Choices… a 1% value applied towards United tickets, and less value when used for rental cars and other most other travel options. At least Choices gives you the option of redeeming miles directly for elite qualifying miles to help you retain status, and that’s in addition to the miles towards status earned on the top premium co-branded credit card. (But Delta and American Express are already sort of the pioneers with earning status based on credit card spend, it’s possible to earn as many as 40,000 qualifying miles per year with enough spending on both the personal and business versions of the card, so probably not a real need to expand this).

One obvious improvement over Choices is that with United, only those miles earned via the co-branded Visa credit card can be used as money towards ticket.  With Delta, any holder of a Delta American Express card (with a U.S. address in their Skymiles account) can take advantage of this.  And all Skymiles in their account can be used, not just those earned with American Express spending.  This is a great improvement, if only because it limits the confusion. 

Webflyer.com has a feature called Head2Head, where you can compare any two programs next to each such that the features, pros, and cons of each are side by side.

I contributed descriptions of Continental OnePass and United Mileage Plus for them. With Continental I made substantial revisions to what was already there, for United I started from scratch.

I’d appeciate comments or thoughts from readers here about whether I was fair to the programs, whether I should have highlighted something I left off, etc.

This is your last chance to vote in the annual Freddie Awards, voting ends tomorrow February 29th.

On the whole (and in spite of the not insubstantial quibbles that I have with these programs!) I find that United Mileage Plus and American AAdvantage offer the best value for top tier elites and for all members’ mileage redemption but they don’t often rise to the top in this poll.

I fear that Alaska Airlines will again do well in spite of changes to their program that really affect the way that I use it - especially their decision to hold back inventory for upgrades, making those more difficult to redeem for on transcontinental flights in particular, combined with a requirement to buy higher fares in order to redeem for an upgrade. Domestic first class awards are much less available on these flights in my experience as well.

For hotel programs, Starwood still offers the best redemption but their award prices have become so much higher. Hilton is on the way towards catching up in ease of redemption. They don’t have the large number of properties that I want to stay at. that Starwood does.

Intercontinental Royal Ambassador is probably the most consistently rewarding elite level, but with too few properties to make a huge impact. In some sense it’s a subset of the Priority Club program and Royal Ambassadors also receive Priority Club Platinum status — the most inconsistent of all program elite levels when applied at the hotel properties where it matters (Holiday Inns, Crowne Plazas, etc).

Meanwhile, Marriott and Hilton aren’t great for deliver suite upgrades so they’re immediately off my list for best elite level — a category in which I ultimately pick Starwood. And since the other programs have gone through their own devaluations (to varying extents, my general sense is that Starwood’s was the most severe followed by Priority Club, Hyatt, Hilton, and then Marriott as the least affected) I haven’t given up on Starwood across the board either.

The Starwood American Express is still my choice for credit cards. Diners Club is no longer meaningfully on the scene. The Hilton American Express is improving as a value proposition with redemption improvements at Hilton (I just wish there were options to redeem for room upgrades like ocean views and suites). But in spite of the devaluation of points over the past year, Starwood’s credit card earning appeals because of the ease with which points are redeemed for hotel nights and still transfer out to mileage programs in a rewarding way.

Here’s a little bit of creativity on Flyertalk that requires a more adventurous spirit than I have, represents a great deal, and also teaches a little something about global economics.

Venezuela imposes currency controls. If you buy your tickets there, the dollar price of the fare is converted to Venezuelan currency at the official rate. But you can buy your Venezuelan funds at the much more favorable black market rate. So you wind up saving about 60% on your tickets.

This only works for tickets issued in Venezuela. There’s some discussion of whether the tickets need to be purchased in Venezuela or just from Venezuela, and whether tickets would need to originate in Venezuela (think flying from Caracas to somewhere else as the first segment on a much larger itinerary with stopovers taking you to several places in the world). One Flyertalker points out the value of premium class round the world tickets, and crediting the miles (as an already requalified Gold member) to the british midland program to earn 625% of flown miles.

I thus far had resisted the non-urge to comment on the ‘too pretty to fly Southwest’ non-story.

Certainly the reason that the two girls ‘who really aren’t all that’ had a confrontation with flight attendants isn’t because they’re supposedly good looking.

And apparently regularly outsmarted by cheese…

I think they were just discriminating against because we were young decent-looking girls. I mean, nobody else on the plane looked like us except us,” she said. “[The flight attendants] were like older ladies. We were younger.

The real story, though, is that being a bit grumpy on a plane these days can get you a one-way ticket to interrogation and detention by law enforcement. That’s not the piece of the story the media is covering.

But what prompts this post is Cranky Flier pointing to Southwest using YouTube to respond.

Back when Kyla Ebbert had her 15 minutes of fame Southwest was behind the curve on their response, offering up a belated fare sale

Southwest Airlines today faces the bare facts and reveals the naked truth by issuing an apology to its Customers who have commented about its handling of a few who were dressed in revealing clothing. Poking fun at itself, Southwest has lowered its already skimpy fares to “mini-skirt” size of $49 to $109 one-way.

“Some have said we’ve gone from loving hot pants to having hot flashes but nothing could be farther from the truth, “said Southwest’s CEO Gary Kelly. “The publicity caught us with our pants down, quite frankly. The story has such great legs, but we have an even better sense of humor, so we’re going to jump out there and lower our fares to match the mini skirts we’ve all been hearing so much about.”

Cranky’s take on the YouTube effort this time around? That Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King fumbles a bit on camera, but:

Nice strategic placement in front of the picture that says “A beautiful way to fly.” Hah.

If Southwest decided to ban pretty people from flying, Brandy King wouldn’t be able to fly her own airline.

The standard offer for a Choice Privileges Visa is 8000 points. But through May 31 the offer is much better.

• 10,000 points with first use by August 14.

• 10,000 points when you use the card to pay for a stay at a Choice property by August 14.

The card is offered by Bank of America and comes with no annual fee. Each 5,000 points will transfer to 1,000 miles with several different airlines, or points can be used for hotel stays.

(Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)

The New York Post runs a piece on the devaluation of Starwood points resulting from annual ‘category creep’.

The author of the piece (and her editors at the Post, apparently) can’t do match and or catch reverses of some of the numbers. For example:

A 66 percent hike for what Starwood calls “elite” hotels, including W New York, the Westin St. John Resort and the Meridien Beach Plaza in Monte Carlo (now 12,000 points instead of 20,000).

A 40 percent hike in points needed to stay at the Westin Embassy Row, Washington, DC, or the Westin Sydney Australia (now 16,000 points instead of 10,000).

(Emphasis mine.)

I find the tone of the piece overly alarmist, especially this year as compared to last. But then I guess that’s the New York Post.

“It’s sneaky. Did they think no one was going to notice?” Starpoints gold member Jonathan Yarmis said. “This is not an adjustment. This is a significant change.”

“Brands spend so much time cultivating a ‘we’re your friend’ persona, but things like this make you realize ‘you’re not my friend,’ ” Yarmis said.

The changes this year were minor in comparison to the 2007 bloodletting and introduction of a new category 7. (I wish I had booked the Bora Bora Nui back in the days before the introduction of category 6, but am thankful I was able to stay there prior to the introduction of category 7!)

It’s good to call attention to these changes. But the coming category creep on March 4 really seems like a non-event, except at some specific properties. And on the whole they’re driven by higher occupancy rates (and thus higher room rates) at many properties, combined with the declining value of a dollar (thus the same room rate in Euros and Baht actually costs more dollars than it did last year).

At least you can still transfer Starwood points 1:1 into tons of airline programs (with transfer bonuses when moving 20,000 Starpoints) and 1:2 into LanPass.

In the past I’ve predicted a devaluation here. My rudimentary understanding is that frequent flyer transfers are more expensive on a per-point basis than basic hotel redemptions (when the hotel is at less than 90% occupancy). I’ve suggested that higher point costs for award nights would drive folks towards airline mile redemptions. And as a result, devaluing hotel awards would wind up costing Starwood Preferred Guest more on net. So they’d be forced to get their desired cost reductions out of changes to the mileage transfer chart.

However, the changes have really been few and far between. United and Continental now transfer at 2:1 instead of 1:1, the general assumption being that the airlines (with pressure from their credit card partner Chase) have pushed this on Starwood, rather than Starwood looking to these transfers for cost savings. (This is supposition only, not actual knowledge.) Qantas used to transfer 1:2 and is now at 1:1. But on the whole these minor variations over a period of years haven’t affected the core 1:1 ratios.

American is offering a 15% discount to either Cozumel or Cabo San Lucas for tickets purchased by February 27, 2008 for travel between March 1, 2008, and April 30, 2008 with promotion code AA44MEX3.

American is offering a 10% discount between New York-JFK and Los Angeles or San Francisco and between Washington-Dulles and Los Angeles for tickets purchased by February 26, 2008 for travel between February 26, 2008, and April 7, 2008 with promotion code AA178E1W.

American is offering a 15% discount to Hawaii for tickets purchased by March 4, 2008 for travel between April 1, 2008 and June 20, 2008 with promotion code DFHAWAII.

Alaska is offering a 10% discount to Seattle from any US or Canadian city for travel between June 22, 2008 and July 2, 2008 with code ECCMR9910.

Budget is offering 5000 Delta miles for car rentals at airport locations through March 31.

There are a few terms and conditions, and not all Budget locations participate, but it’s rare to see a large mileage bonus that’s valid on just a single day’s rental. So I have a feeling that some folks may want to steer their airport business to Budget for the next month.

Via Online Travel Review, Iraqi Airways has agreed to purchase 50 aircraft, 44 of which will come from Boeing.

They say the reason for selecting Boeing is because their “technicians and pilots are more used to planes from the US planemaker” and not because of, unmm, like, the U.S. military occupation.

Boeing planes may well make more sense for the airline, the story doesn’t say which ones or at what price they’re actually going to buy them. And the aircraft apparently won’t be arriving until 2015, so it’s also unclear how really committed this sale is. Again, details in the piece are sparse.

But I just have a hard time believing the airline’s government minder that it was because Iraqi Airways’ current pilots knew how to fly Boeing aircraft (I mean, did Iraqi Airways buy a whole buy of new 727s or something? And do they figure they can’t train their mechanics to work on an Airbus plane over the next seven years before they begin receiving aircraft?).

Still, there’s a certain honesty to any government spokesperson willing to go on the record and not duck the fact that

Some of Iraq’s current planes are so old some countries do not accept them at their airports for safety reasons, the official said.

United-Continental merger gossip from the PlaneBusiness Blog:

[T]he bulk of the existing United Airlines brand will continue to be used internationally, but Continental will take over the domestic operation for the most part.

Other details we were told included the fact that there has already been a transition team put together. The deal will be announced after Delta/Northwest goes public.

There will initially be a holding company set up to run both airlines. This operation will continue for three-five years. This will allow for a “smoother transition” from the two airlines into one operation.

Meanwhile, this Bloomberg piece (hat tip PlaneBusiness Blog) outlines details of how and why pilots are holding up the Delta-Northwest merger.

Northwest union chiefs want their members to be ranked by when they were hired, while their Delta counterparts want a formula that takes into account their larger chapter and the types of planes they fly, one person said.

…about 400 Northwest pilots have more seniority than their Delta peers, pushing down younger Delta pilots on a traditional seniority list based on hire date.

American Airlines pilots protested their 1999 merger integration with Reno Air, canceling 6,000 flights and costing $225 million.

Still, Delta-Northwest looks close enough that it could happen next week.

This USA Today story provides a good introduction to Priceline. (I’m quoted in the piece.) With hotel rates and occupancy as high as they’ve ever been in some major cities, Priceline has seen less inventory and higher rates… but still occasionally some incredible deals, as the spread between Priceline rates and otherwise-available rates is even higher.

I’ve personally moved away from Priceline for much of my travel over the past several years, in large measure because I’m addicted to the upgrades and other benefits of hotel loyalty programs, but for city stays where I don’t really value a suite Priceline still offers a real bargain, especially for multi-night stays and bookings involving more than one room, where the savings multiply. And I’ve probably made about 80 Priceline bookings a year for other people. I save them money, and I pocket the 3% cashback from Fatwallet.

Leigh Witchel has a lot of posts on Priceline including step-by-step tutorials on Priceline.

Via the Global Traveller, Qantas’ half-year results (.pdf) include a discussion of how airlines account for their frequent flyer programs on pages 45-50 of the document (pages 29-34 of the 38 page Acrobat file).

Nothing revolutionary, and regular readers of this blog will be familiar with most of it, but it does represent a clearr explication of the concepts (with visuals, whereas I use only words).

Joe Brancatelli offers a useful column on the basics of US domestic airline lounge programs and why you should be a member if you travel frequently.

Buried in the bottom section called ‘the fine print’ is the best piece of advice in the article.

 If you’re an American Express Platinum cardmember, use the Airport Club Access Program. If you pay for your ticket with the card, you receive access at some clubs run by American, Continental, Delta or Northwest airlines.

Actually, you do not need to pay for your ticket with the card to use the benefit. And it isn’t just some clubs, it’s all the standard lounges that a membership would get you into (ok, it doesn’t get you into American’s flagship lounge, but then neither does an AAdmiral’s Club membership). The only real caveat is that you have to access an airline’s lounge you must be flying that airline same day. You can’t use the Delta lounge in Atlanta with a Continental ticket, for example.

While situations may vary, I personally consider the American Express Platinum to be one of a handful of ‘killer apps’ for travel. Lounge access is the biggest benefit.

Generally travelers will be able to buy membership with a single airline for less. But this gets you both the network of Delta/Continental/Northwest lounges and American’s lounges. It really just leaves United/USAirways and Alaska out of the domestic US carrier mix. That’s a pretty big benefit if you’d otherwise buy a membership with any of the four carriers that American Express covers.

Amex also provides:

• a domestic companion airfare benefit that’s fairly rich (i.e. relatively usable and you don’t have to buy a full fare ticket to be eligible)

• Starwood Gold status (not worth a ton…)

• Virgin Atlantic Silver status (not worth a ton…)

• the Fine Hotels and Resorts program (if you stay at one of their properties and make the booking through them you may get a discount but will generally get some add-on amenities like free breakfast and a single category room upgrade)

• their Concierge service, provided by Circles which is a step above VIPdesk (which provides service for several less expensive cards)

• the fine dining program, only occasionally useful but they do appear to get a single table at a handful of difficult to reserve restaurants so you might luck out.

• a smattering of less useful benefits (not to mention roadside assistance, extended warrantys, etc).

Now, the card is expensive. The standard fee is $450. On very rare occasion I’ve seen a fee waived offer. I once posted such an offer and boom Amex pulled it in a few hours. But I’ve also seen targeted offers of as many as 100,000 Membership Rewards points at signup. That sort of bonus is huge.

Even carrying this card I’m not a big fan of the Membership Rewards program. It’s fine, but I still prefer to put spending on my Starwood American Express card, as Starpoints are more valuable.

But ithe Amex Platinum is a frequently underappreciated asset in my view. In fact, the only real benefit of great use to me that the Centurion (black) card offers that the Platinum does not is airline status (Continental, Delta, and Virgin Gold and USAirways Platinum). Ok, I’d take the Mandarin Oriental buy one night, get one free deal too I suppose. But with a $5000 upfront fee and $2500 annual fee, I’ll keep my Platinum card thank you.

Tonight I received my weekly MilesLink E-Newsletter from Randy Petersen’s shop. It contains an Ask Randy feature, with advice for a frequent flyer who wanted to know whether there was anything that they could do with their otherwise-expiring United systemwide upgrade (such as trade it with someone else for a future expiring upgrade)?

Randy outlined the Coupon Connection forum on Flyertalk. Quite natural advice.

I’d add that every United 1K member should know about an unpublished practice over at Mileage Plus: In each of the last couple years, United has been willing to extend the validity of one systemwide upgrade for a year upon request. There’s a long discussion of the phenomenon in the United Mileage Plus forum on Flyertalk.

Sabre’s version of Facebook is coming to an Amex Corporate Travel booking engine near you. But no one can tell you exactly why they’re spending money on this, other than the promise of cost savings like

once employees know they are traveling to the same location, they can arrange to share ground transportation, for example.

Technology investments predicated on reducing taxicab expense seem like a great idea to me.Not to worry, the business rationale promises to be

“more of a play that might compete with applications that do social networking for the entire enterprise, such as ones delivered by CoreSpeed and IBM, to benefit beyond the travel program and into a space where Sabre is competing with these generalists,”

Or something like that.Oh, it’s also about inverting the corporate travel dialogue, so that travel managers aren’t communicating out but developing better solutions for travelers in emerging markets. (They should, like, listen to their internal customers and stuff. Which they could probably do without a Sabre-powered social networking tool, they could read Flyertalk maybe.)