The new Spanish River Public Library has a cafe, more flat panel screens than I’ve ever seen in one place, and what appeared to be Herman Miller office chairs in the childrens computer room. Oh, and it’s on the water.
I’ve written about the wonders of the Alaska Airlines $50 companion ticket that comes with their Bank of America co-branded credit card.
The small business version of the card comes with a $99 companion certificate which is paper and requires airport ticketing. You can’t even mail in the certificate like you can US Airways’ Bank of American or Juniper Bank $99 companion tickets.
On the other hand, like its $50 cousin, the certificate is pretty much unrestricted and represents the best way to get into first class on Alaska Airlines.
And for me that airport ticketing annoyance turned into a boon, as the outsourced agents at Reagan National ticketed both sides of the companion fare at $99 plus tax for first class tickets to Reno (via Seattle).
Alas, the day of travel came and the DC-Seattle aircraft was going to be arriving late, delaying my departure about an hour and meaning that I was highly likely to miss my Reno connection. Alas there was nothing out of DCA in first class getting into Reno that afternoon. I could have moved up my travel time a few hours (impossible) or headed out to Dulles (which would have meant leaving the office earlier, impossible). So I took my only late-departing option: Continental via Houston… in coach.
This was my first cross country flight in coach since June, 2001. To say I was apprehensive about it would have been a huge understatement. Now, it’s not that I don’t fly coach. I do my best to avoid it, but since I don’t bother burning upgrade instruments to confirm flights down to South Florida in advance, I’ll sometimes find myself in the back of the plane. No big deal for two hours. But DC – Houston – Reno? Egads. The last time was when I failed to clear Los Angeles – Dulles seven years ago, and then I had a whole row of United’s economy plus to myself.
Yes, I’ve lived a charmed travel life. I manage to book far enough in advance and with enough flexibility to confirm transcon upgrades in advance most of the time, and I’ve lucked out when I haven’t. I’ve been lucky enough not to have flights go mechanical which would have necessitated rebooking on flights likely already full up front. My long string of luck came to an end!
The bright spot of the trip was the quick pop-in to the Continental Presidents Club at National. It’s small, upstairs, and very bright. The bartender was a clueless idiot, though, leaving his post for 5-10 minutes at a time and taking drink orders but ignoring them. The front desk staff was friendly and found me exit row seats for Houston-Reno.
The second to last row of the 737 to Houston was painful enough, but I managed to work a bit in the tight confines. Stopped by a busy Presidents Club in Houston before the onward Reno flight. The exit row offered better legroom, of course, but the flight seemed never ending. Never did get the exit row safety briefing. Landing was on time in Reno, and I managed to escape my several hours-long confinement.
The return was much more pleasant. Reno is such a small station and virtually deserted on a Saturday morning. Following a short hop to Los Angeles onboard Horizon, I headed up to the Alaska Boardroom where they have flavored torani syrups to go along with the automatic espresso machine (it’s the little things…) A short air traffic control delay and then up in the air, we made up the time and the Captain let us know we’d even land a few minutes early.
The movies were bloody awful on the digE player, but the food was decent. Printed menus for lunch, even if the pork and the pasta both seemed uninspired. Still, the smoked salmon slices were large on the salad, the meal was served in courses rather than the tray-based affair, and we got ice cream sundaes.
An all in all humbling experience. 
The Westin Diplomat offers the best Platinum elite recognition in all of Starwood. With the exception of the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and perhaps Presidents Weekend and Memorial Weekend, a suite upgrade is almost guaranteed (they have over 80 of them). In addition, the club lounge is just lovely — a 33rd floor affair with both indoor and outdoor seating and an extensive breakfast, evening canapes, and after dinner treats.
I’ve written about my stays at the Diplomat several times, for example here, here, and here.
Here’s the pool at the Diplomat, during the day and at night:
And sunrise off the balcony of my corner suite:
One Mile at a Time thinks Delta’s new fuel surcharges on frequent flyer awards are actually a good thing.
There is something of a point here: if fuel surcharges were inevitable, then Delta’s move really isn’t bad — $$50 internationally is less than the fuel surcharges one normally sees on paid tickets, so it could have been much worse… like $100 each way. Now the fuel surcharges could go up later, but it should take awhile, and other airlines aren’t likely to go full out when Delta has laid down its marker at the $50 price point.
I do think this is bad, it’s a terrible precedent, and the fuel surcharges are likely to spread to other carriers and eventually go up. But as lucky points out, it could have been worse.
Deals, Travel, and Family Life surveys more than 100 free things you can get on your birthday, many of which require advance signup but plenty of the restaurants on the list allow you to enjoy your free item simply around rather than just on your birthday.
Via Frugal Travel Guy, British Midland keeps changing up their offers for signing up for a new Diamond Club account. The current offer is 3000 miles just for creating a new account. Terms and conditions of the offer are here.
I don’t have a stable internet connection during my travels at the moment, and I’ll have much more to say on this later I’m sure.
And that’s why I fully expect US airlines to begin passing fuel surcharges on to award customers (and other ‘free’ tickets including those given as denied boarding compensation).
Now Delta has announced
we will add the following fuel surcharge to Award Tickets originating from the U.S. and Canada, effective August 15, 2008:
- $25 for Award Travel between the 50 states and Canada
- $50 for Award Travel between the 50 states/Canada and all international destinations
(They already have fuel surcharges ex-Europe.)
As my prediction suggests, I imagine others will eventually follow.
Yesterday I posted Online Travel Review‘s take on the new OpenSkies flight between New York-JFK and Paris-Orly.
Now One Mile at a Time has a report. First is a discussion with tons of photos of the new Prem+ product. Then there’s a discussion and photos of the Intercontinental LeGrand in Paris and some touristy stuff.
I anxiously await his return photo trip report of business class, Paris to New York…
bmi is offering 12,000 bonus miles to new Diamond Club members who credit a roundtrip or two one way bmi flights to their account by August 31.
bmi points can go quite a long way, since they offer one-way awards and a cash and points award chart.
Jeff Robertson, who runs the Delta Skymiles program, made his latest Flyertalk post yesterday. I tend to think it’s his most useful to date, and for the most part devoid of the usual marketing-speak.
He confirms that Delta Reserve Amex cardholders receive priority within status and fare levels for upgrades.
Delta Reserve customers receive priority upgrade status within tier and fare class. In essence, this means that if two customers who are Platinum both booked an L fare, the Platinum with the Delta Reserve card bumps the Platinum who doesn’t have the card.
That’s a pretty strong reason for Delta elites to get the card.
Meanwhile, he commits to website award booking improvements and predicts easier-to-use international upgrades for top tier elites post-Northwest merger (I’ll be cautiously optimistic and won’t bank on anything major).
Online Travel Review flies the inaugural JFK-Paris OpenSkies flight and shares his impressions.
The three-cabin 757 offers BA’s NextGen Club World seats for business class, a Prem+ class that’s similar to most US carriers’ business, and economy. He’s struck by the value of the Prem+ cabin (currently pricing just a couple hundred bucks more than coach) and the lack of storage space in business class.
The NextGen business seats on BA are excellent, true lie-flat, but storage space is one of my two issues, having flown it for the first time back in April. The other is that on the 747 in particular it’s difficult to get in and out of the seats which aren’t on the aisle, and flight attendants find it difficult to serve interior passengers without disturbing the passengers in the aisle. The 757 should solve this issue, however, but some storage space designed into the seat would be nice, there really isn’t any.
Undoubtedly this is the best product from the US to Paris (flies to Orly, rather than Charles deGaulle). But it’s a difficult economic environment in which to launch the product, so we’ll see how quickly they manasge to expand to other European cities as planned.
I’m bummed I missed this trip, I was stuck flying US Airways domestic instead…
Three and a half years ago I thought that Air Tahiti Nui and Delta were working on a partnership. To date, it hasn’t materialized.
Already they partner with Skyteam member Northwest (use Worldperks miles to redeem on Air Tahiti Nnui) and American (both earn and burn).
The latest rumor, though, has Air Tahiti Nui joining Skyteam as well as exiting the Osaka market and turning New York-JFK into seasonal service.
I’m just hoping that if they join Skyteam it doesn’t cause them to sever ties with American, that partnership is a good one. And I’m hoping they don’t learn from Skyteam members about how to limit even further the availability of premium class award seats.
I was traveling when this was announced, and quickly all the news sources and blogs picked up the story. So I’ve been pretty silent.
Continental entering a codesharing, marketing, and potentially revenue sharing (on certain international routes) agreement with United. They’re leaving Skyteam and joining Star Alliance. There will be reciprocal frequent flyer earn and burn, and lounge partnerships. But all the details remain to be seen, in particular, what about reciprocal upgrades for elites of each program as Continental currently offers to Northwest elites and vice versa. Of course all this will likely take until mid-next year to come to fruition.
The bottom-line, though, is this: the move is strongly positive for Continental frequent flyers, with little upside and some risk for United frequent flyers.
Continental offers perhaps the best domestic premium product in the U.S. but one of the stingiest programs for award redemption. Continental miles will become worth a whole lot more because they will be able to be used on Star Alliance airlines — which means premium class award redemption across the Atlantic and Pacific, something that is next to impossible now with Continental (and with their partners in Skyteam, the stingiest airline alliance for award redemption).
United flyers don’t get a whole lot when it comes to redemption, Continental doesn’t make it easy to get award seats. But they do get competition for those Star Alliance redemption seats from all the Continental flyers with large mileage balances who now have an opportunity to cash out for much more valuable trips.
For Continental folks who occasionally find United flights more attractive or affordable or the opposite, this will help claw towards elite status. So if you fall in this camp it’s a positive.
And sure, United flyers can earn Mileage Plus miles on Continental under the proposed partnership. And those miles will count towards status.
But the upside doesn’t really outweigh the risks if you’re a United member. On top of award redemption competition, there’s just all of the consumer-unfriendly practices of Onepass to be afraid of — stingy award redemption, especially for premium cabin travel; required co-pays for international upgrades; exorbitantly high award charts (United generally requires fewer miles for the same award); and a lack of confirmed upgrades for top tier elites. These things scare me and my large stash of Mileage Plus miles.
Bottom-line: For Continental flyers, this is good. For United flyers, the future is unknown, perhaps little will change, but there’s some risk out there.
Of course, my entire opinion could change depending on the details of reciprocal upgrades that ultimately emerge. The unique selling proposition of Continental’s program is unlimited complimentary upgrades. Other programs have copied it, but they pioneered it — and they maintain a domestic first class cabin worth upgrading into. If Continental elites suddenly have to compete against United elites for advance upgrades to the front cabin on Continental flights, then Continental flyers could be disadvantaged and there would be an actual benefit to United elites to be gained from this partnership.
I don’t expect things to work that way, however. First, because United and Continental have incompatible upgrade schemes — different tier levels (United top level requires 100,000 miles while Continental’s requires 75k) and different upgrade structures (unlimited for Continental, earned- or purchased-certificated based for United), so I don’t see an easy way for them to integrate advance upgrades. Second, because United and US Airways provide a model for expectations — reciprocal upgrades at the airport on day of departure. That would be my guess about where this partnership goes, at least over the next couple of years, and in that case my estimation of the winners and losers stands — not much for United flyers to gain, and a whole lot of upside for Continental’s members.
Who says there’s no off season in Vegas anymore? Summertime is hot and weekdays are lighter than weekends.
Still, The Venetian is offering a promo with rooms starting at $99 and that’s the lowest I’ve seen them advertise in a long, long while.
Tony France, guest-blogging for Cranky Flier, laments the decline of first class. He says it used to be about the service and the experience, the little touches, and now it’s just about the seats.
As for the food:
The caviar went first, a victim of conservationist activities as well as the most obvious “waste” on board the plane. One by one, everything almost down to the steak itself was removed and cost cut. Fresh eggs died an omelette with red sauce death long ago. Today’s premium passengers are essentially left to feel lucky they receive a meal at all. The entrees have become “lighter, healthier” and cheaper. The carved roasts and Maine lobsters are all in your dreams if you’re old enough to remember them at all.
This seems about right for first class on US carriers, but not as much for European ones and it’s hardly the case for the airlines of Asia.
Lufthansa still offers caviar, although I find it to be somewhat mediocre. Thai Airways removed caviar from its offering (I didn’t get any in March) but has reintroduced it now. It never left ANA or Singapore (Singapore’s ounge in Seoul even offers caviar.
I certainly wasn’t imagining the lobster in black bean sauce I had onboard Asiana last year, the lobster pad thai I had on Thai Airways in March (on a 4 hour flight), or the lobster thermidor on a two and a half hour business class flight on Singapore a couple months back either.
Of course, no airline ever offered better food than All Nippon Airways does today in its long-haul first class. their mid-flight order on demand snack menu is superior to just about any airline’s main meal presentation.
What’s to be lamented — in the US aviation market — is two things: (1) service and (2) a decent domestic first class product. In essence, Tony France is right… to a point… and only with respect to US carriers. (Although I sure wish such a thing as decent intra-European business class existed, it does not.)
France describes a pampering service that just doesn’t exist on American or United — although at times United can still pull it off, but it’s not a brand standard, just luck of the flight attendant draw. And things like a special concierge for first class passengers, escorting them to the plane and checking on them, meeting them at the gate, are gone for the most part.
An American Airlines union flight attendant with 30 years service bidding a Tokyo route because that’s where they want to go on vacation and servicing the first class cabin because their seniority lets them choose their on-board duty and they choose that cabin because fewer passengers means less work will never provide the same level of service offered by Singapore flight attendants. And the level of bitterness has only grown amongst the median flight crew member over the past decade.
But that experience isn’t generalizable across the entire world.
The little niceties of service still exist, on Singapore.. Cathay.. Asiana.. ANA to be sure. Flight attendants offer to make your bed when the time comes. They clean the lavatory between each use. It isn’t just about the Bvlgari or Hermes amenity kits, the actual mattresses and duvets for sleeping, the pajamas, or the escorts onto the plane and through VIP security and immigration, it’s an attention to detail so fine that a water glass never empties and yet the flight attendant never intrudes at an inoportune time. They’re trained to view the cabin from a discrete vantage point to ensure that they are unseen yet aware of each passenger’s needs.
This standard doesn’t apply worldwide, of course. I wouldn’t expect to find it on British Airways, their experience is more akin to that of US carriers and culturally they aren’t as service oriented as Japanese flight attendants.
But while the American carriers don’t offer service any longer, just a seat (and even then a seat which lags behind several world carriers), the ideal of first class flight certainly still exists, and has even taken on new dimensions which service that begins long before boarding and extends to a passenger’s departure from the airport.
And that’s why I save my miles, so I can experience this level of glory which I otherwise could never aspire to.
This probably won’t work for most members. But it might, and it’ll be about two weeks before we know whether it work. And the offer expires June 30th, so you need to register now, it takes just a second, so why not try?
The MileMaven blog points to a United Mileage Plus offer for free 90 days of Premier Executive Status. I’m guessing it’s targeted, but we’ll see. No status matching where you have to show your elite level and activity with another carrier. Just free.
If this works, the status should be reflected on your account within two weeks.
(Hat tip to Upgrade: Travel Better.)
The British Midland $35 off weekend coupon code for Hertz is apparently working when renting for just a single weekend day, picking up your one day rental on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
The Hertz rental also awards 1700 points in bmi’s program, which stretches miles further than pretty much any other with their cash and points award chart.
This deal could be the first time where I’ve really thought that renting cars just for the miles could make sense, if you find a reasonably priced one weekend day rental the car should be nearly free.
Of course this deal won’t last long, that’s for sure! The discount code you’ll need for the Hertz site is 121365. And if you aren’t already a bmi member, 1700 miles on a one day rental is certainly the best you’ll do apart from special one-time promos (such as 3000 Virgin Atlantic miles per Hertz rental which I consider only marginally better at most).
(Thanks, Frugal Travel Guy)
On the one hand, US Airways has been busy gutting their frequent flyer program, emphasizing the need to take away mileage earning opportunities given the current economic environment. (They taketh away other things too.)
Then on the other hand, they rolled out an announcement of a generous bonus miles earning promotion for partner activity… a “Grand Slam” promo for up to 40,000 Dividend Miles and the ability to earn gold elite status for yourself and a friend.
It appeared on WebFlyer’s NotiFlyer on June 9, but then was pulled.
FrugalTravelGuy reproduces the details of what the promotion may entail if it actually gets released.
Here’s your chance to pad your Dividend Miles account. From July 1 through Sept. 30, 2008, Dividend Miles members can earn up to 40,000 bonus miles with the Grand Slam promotion.The more partners you use, the more bonus miles you’ll earn. You’ll earn a “hit” for qualifying transactions with participating Dividend Miles partners, and for every fourth hit you’ll earn bonus miles in addition to the miles you would normally earn with the partner.You’ll earn 4,000 bonus miles for four hits, 8,000 for eight hits, 12,000 for 12, 16,000 for 16 and 20,000 bonus miles for 20 hits.
And for members who earn 24 hits, you’ll get a Grand Slam award for a total of 30,000 bonus miles; and if you really hit it out of the park and earn 28 or more hits, you’ll earn a Hall of Fame award of 40,000 bonus miles.
To heat up the competition, the first 50 Dividend Miles member to earn a Grand Slam (24 hits) will get two upgrades to Gold Preferred Status – one for the registered member and one for a friend. You must register to earn the bonus miles and airline partners are not included in this promotion.
It may be that the information was just released too early, since the promotion start date is noted as July 1. But it could be they decided not to do anything positive for their members, I’d believe that too….
One Mile at a Time notes that first class awards to Australia on United appear wide open come April and May, 2009.
I noticed this over the weekend and apologize for not bringing this forward earlier. Australia can be one of the toughest redemption markets, and in a premium cabin no less.
OMAT points out some flights showing 9 first class seats available as awards, which is clearly not United’s intention…. Book those Australia awards now, and you can always change the dates or redeposit the miles even for a $150 fee (or free if you’re a 100,000 mile flyer).
Tyler Cowen tries to get at the effect an individual passenger has on airline route decisions and thus the environment.
A simple model of route expansion is that higher demand increases the number of total flights by some probability. For the system as a whole, the decisive flying unit has to come somewhere and there is no reason why, on average, it can’t be you. In other words, at least in stochastic terms you can’t escape the blame.
A second simple model of route expansion is that gates and other airport facilities are scarce and underpriced relative to demand. When demand goes up, supply is not very elastic and mostly they raise price rather than increasing output. Those who feel very guilty should prefer this second model.
Though still imperfect, I’d contend we can do much better in pinpointing the likelihood that traveling on any individual flight makes some contribution at the margin to an airline’s decision-making calculus. Your effect on airline expansion will on average vary proportionately to the fare bucket you’re buying your ticket out of. You can approximate your marginal impact on a flight segment by flight segment basis.
If you’re pulling inventory out of a low fare bucket, the strong expectation is that there’s little effect at the margin on your buying the ticket because the airline expects to operate a flight that doesn’t come close to filling up.
If you’re pulling inventory out of a high fare bucket, for coach fares at the extreme end if you’re traveling on a Y fare, you can pretty much expect that the flight will be close to sold out and that the airline is willing to risk displacing another passenger in the short term in exchange for your higher fare… or at least that the ticket cost is high enough to potentially influence behavior on the part of the airline (you’re part of a small subgroup of passengers paying the highest fares that airlines crave and will make their decisions based on the relative mix of such passengers rather than on passengers as a whole… whereas if you’re in a low fare bucket they’re just scooping up some incremental revenue for a flight they’re planning to operate for other reasons).
Reality is even a little bit more complicated than that. Cargo has to come into play, too. Regardless of what you pay and what fare class you’re booking in, your travel on United between San Francisco and Nagoya, Japan is going to have almost no effect whatsoever on United’s decision-making. They’ve got a very large contract with Toyota and they fill up their 747 with cargo and the flight goes out with very low load factors yet is still profitable for them to operate. That’s why the single easiest flight in the entire United system on which to score an international premium class award ticket on is San Francisco- Nagoya….
Meanwhile, speaking of award tickets if you’re traveling on an award at the saver level that’s the extreme limit of the belief on the part of the airline that they would (a) otherwise operate the flight and (b) that your seat would go unsold. Hence in the domestic case they’re billing the frequent flyer program only the true marginal cost of your travel rather than some average cost figure.
If you are traveling on saver-level award tickets you can be quite confident your environmental impact is quite small, limited for the most part to the extra cost of fuel driven by having your weight onboard the aircraft (and quite possibly outweighed by the fuel you’d be consuming were you not flying that day).
And if you’re paying for your ticket, and you want to be confident that your travel decision won’t effect route planning decisions, buy your tickets (a) close to the date of departure, the closer the better so that the airline’s guess about your effect will be far less speculative and (b) when the lowest fare buckets are showing wide open availability. Check the fare basis or ask your travel agent.
For example:
