Last month I posted about a 20,000 mile signup bonus for the US Airways small business Mastercard. Looks like the 25,000 mile offer is still around, however. Not bad.

Though US Airways has made some pretty unfriendly changes to the Dividend MIles program recently (award redemption fees and ending bonus miles for elite flying), they are still a Star Alliance member — for how long, no one knows — and as such their miles can be redeemed throughout the world on some lovely carriers such as Singapore, ANA, and Asiana. And unlike United they do not generally filter out award seats those carriers are making available. Plus their award chart is closer to United in requiring fewer miles for awards than most Star Alliance carriers.

25,000 for the small business Mastercard, 15,000 for the personal Mastercard, and 25,000 for the Bank of America Visa and you’ve got 65,000 miles… well on your way to a premium class award ticket to Asia…

Continental is ending its iDine (err… Rewards Network aka dining for miles) participation as of October 31. That’s alright, the bonuses were never that great and you should be accruing your dining-induced points elsewhere (such as with American, or at least United) anyway.

Continental is making a bunch of changes effective August 17th (and no promises that more changes won’t follow… just not in the next 30 days).

• No more award holds. Even Delta lets you hold an award online, just not over the phone anymore. No holds at all with Continental, but they’ll refund your miles and taxes/fees if you cancel within 24 hours. The exception is if you don’t have enough miles in your account, then you get a three day hold so you can transfer miles in. (A pretty good reason not to keep any miles in your Continental account, you get more accomodation out of Onepass than if you have a large mileage balance.) There are no more holds on paid tickets, either, except group tickets and tickets purchased using Western Union, cash or eCertificates.

• Award change and redeposit fees go up to $150, with Platinums still exempt.

• There’s a $75 fee for all redemptions within 21 days of departure, except that Platinums continue to pay $35 for travel within 4 to 14 days, and $50 for travel within 3 days of booking.

• Upgrade co-pays increase $50 to $100. So now it costs $500 each way in addition to using miles to upgrade the least expensive international (and Hawaii) coach tickets

One MIle at a Time says ” it could be a lot worse.” Although, to me, increasing the upgrade co-pay is really, really bad. Intenrational upgrades now $200 more expensive roundtrip? Upgrades are what miles are for….

But the gift of the program doesn’t change. Continental is not the program for international upgrades. The only reason to bank with Continental is if you need elite status for the complimentary upgrades. And that really only makes sense if you can achieve top tier, and especially if you live in Houston…

Flyertalk is giving away tickets on OpenSkies — A pair of tickets a week for ten weeks, five pairs will be New York to Paris, and five pairs will be for a future OpenSkies destination. The tickets will be in Prem+, which is pretty similar to the international business class offerings on Delta and Continental (but not lay-flat, which British Airways and sibling OpenSkies offer in business class). The tickets will be open date, with travel to be complete by the end of November.

Write an email to randy@flyertalk.com and tell him what you think about FlyerTalk; how it has benefited (or disappointed) you, and how you would like to see it grow.

Every Friday – starting July 18 and ending Sept. 19 – there will be a drawing from among those that have submitted emails. Only one email is necessary to be entered in each remaining drawing. The only catch is — no new member accounts are eligible. You need to have registered on Flyertalk prior to July 16th.

Make your email subject ‘OpenSkies’ and include in the body your full name, contact phone number, and Flyertalk username, as well as what you think about Flyertalk…

Flyertalker (and Alaska employee) missydarlin shared the news that Alaska will not book Air France awards to Asia after August 31st. (Air France awards to Europe remain possible, as well as awards to Tahiti since those are booked via Los Angeles.)

Combined with this week’s news that Alaska will no longer book British Airways awards to Australia, clearly the changes are being driven by Alaska Airlines rather than their partners, and it’s a cost issue.

As with the British Airways news, the change won’t affect a whole lot of people, most Alaska members are on the U.S. West Coast and traveling to Asia or Australia via Europe is truly ‘the long way’ and of interest to only a few folks who really enjoy flying for flying’s sake. But for me they are sad losses.

You can still book awards using Alaska Mileage Plan miles for British Airways flights from the U.S. to Australia via London.  Yes, that’s the long way around!  At least twice as long from the West Coast of the US than going Qantas directly. 

But according to this Flyertalk thread (and confirmed on the Alaska Airlines website), the option will be going away August 31st. (You can redeem for travel past then, but August 31st will be the last day to book.)

Alaska’s partnership with British Airways continues, as far as I know, they just won’t allow you to book Australia awards. While it’s a lot of flying, it’s also quite a redemption value, spending 150,000 miles for all that first class flying. First class was just a 50% premium over coach (business class a mere 25% premium).

It’s never great to lose options, though I suspect this one won’t effect a ton of people. I lament its passing, though, because BA’s own members had to spend nearly 3 times as many miles in the Executive Club program if they wanted the same award….

Expedia is offering 1000 bonus Thank You Network points for booking a ‘special rate’ hotel by July 31 for travel through August 31. Enter promotional code TY1000 on the rate details page. Valid once per account. This wouldn’t sway my hotel choice, but it’s a pretty good deal if you’re going to book a hotel via Expedia anyway.

As posted on Flyertalk, American Express will give you 1000 Starpoints per additional cardholder (up to 2) to your Starwood Amex. Points post within 12 weeks of first purchase on the new card.

I do suggest printing a copy of the offer page and each subsequent page, it’s useful in case points don’t post on their own.

Frugal Travey Guy points to a Rewards Network (I still call them iDine) offer of 1500 American Airlines miles just for signing up and making your first dine of $25 or more at a participating restaurant. You also have to opt in for their emails.

The bonus is only for new accounts, but that doesn’t mean you have ot be new to Rewards Network, just to their Aadvantage partnership. For example, if you have a United Mileage Plus membership you can also create an American membership and sign up a different credit card with that program. I do this with several, so I can take advantage of the different promotions they offer through each.

Over at the Perrin Post a reader asks the following question:

I’m not able to book a business- or first-class mileage award on AA/Cathay Pacific, even though I try for 335 days out, calling at different times of the day and night. Do the agents make a distinction between miles earned by flying vs. by spending money on the affinity credit card? Most of my miles are from credit card transactions. Please advise.

And I answer in the comments.

There’s no distinction between earning your miles via flying versus credit card spend. Some mileage programs allow an extra inventory of awards for their mid- or top-tier elites, but those are fairly limited in scope. In most cases, members all have the same access to award availability.

While most airlines load their schedules 330 days out, that doesn’t mean 330 days out is the best time to book an award. In fact it can be too soon.

Airlines want to make awards available for seats that they don’t actually expect to sell. So while some inventory may be opened up at the very beginning of the schedule, airlines will constantly adjust their inventory both for paid fares (whether the cheapest fare classes are available on a given flight) and for awards. And a year out it’s much more difficult to precit what a flight’s load will look like. But as things become more clear cut additional seats become available.

I’ve had great luck booking at 6 months out, and 3 months out, and within a week prior to travel. Actually, for flights that aren’t sold out, the very best awards can sometimes be found right before departure. Want that Singapore or ANA first class award? You’ll frequently see lots of them a few days prior to the flight as the airline sees the seats will go out unsold.

Cathay Pacific premium class awards are difficult to get regardless of when you’re looking to book them. And finding two premium class award seats on Cathay for the same flight is nearly a needle in a haystack.

The best thing to do is homework prior to talking to your frequent flyer program. If you’re using American Airlines miles, consider signing up for a Qantas frequent flyer account and also a British Airways account, and using their websites to search for the awards. You still have to call American to complete the booking, but both Qantas and BA allow you to search different members of the oneworld alliance partnership for awards. You’ll know in advance what flights can likely be booked and then you share those with the agent.

Although, of course, I pointed out recently one situation where butt-in-seat miles can make a difference, although it’s truly a long shot and won’t help most members. And United offers Global Services members the ability to upgrade award seats, meaning that such members can book awards out of upgrade inventory (which is frequently more generous for premium class awards) instead of award inventory, as long as there’s a lower class award available on the same flight. United also offers 100,000 mile flyers special coach award inventory, and several arilines in fact offer extra award seats for elites. But these are all differences at the margin.

For the most part members get the same access to awards regardless of the source of the miles. Though many airlines offer at least their top tier elites free changes to award tickets, which is a really valuable tool in grabbing whatever seats are available and continually revising and improving the itinerary over time as better options open up.

As a followup to my previous post about All Nippon Airways showing two first class award seats available on the same flights, when previously even grabbing one was next to impossible, here are some more dates and city pairs. This list isn’t comprehensive, I only checked April, 2009 and only Dulles – Tokyo and Chicago – Tokyo. But talk about wide open!

• 4/5 IAD-NRT
• 4/5 ORD-NRT
• 4/7 IAD-NRT
• 4/7 ORD-NRT
• 4/8 IAD-NRT
• 4/9 ORD-NRT
• 4/12 IAD-NRT
• 4/12 ORD-NRT
• 4/13 IAD-NRT
• 4/13 ORD-NRT
• 4/14 IAD-NRT
• 4/15 IAD-NRT
• 4/15 ORD-NRT
• 4/16 ORD-NRT
• 4/19 IAD-NRT
• 4/19 ORD-NRT
• 4/20 IAD-NRT
• 4/20 ORD-NRT
• 4/21 IAD-NRT
• 4/21 ORD-NRT
• 4/22 ORD-NRT

I’ve also been seeing tons of Asiana Seoul – Los Angeles flights with two award seats in first, and occsaional Seoul – Chicago flights as well.

And the good news for Mileage Plus members is that these are filtered out far less frequently by StarNet than Lufthansa first class awards (which are otherwise extemely available to Star Alliance members). Of course once the evil United programmers realize these opportunities they could very well get shut down, or these carriers could end their award seat generosity, so it’s best to grab these awards while you can.

For those without sufficient miles in a Star Alliance frequent flyer account, remember that American Express Membership Rewards points transfer to Air Canada, ANA, and Singapore (which all have different award charts of course, Air Canada being generally closest to United’s in terms of mileage requirements). Starwood transfers to several programs, perhaps the best option for these seats at the lowest mileage cost is US Airways (since United transfers are sadly 2:1).

There’s a long Fatwallet thread about how to get (currently) 25% off on eBay Buy It Now purchases through the Microsoft Cashback program. (Hat tip to Flyertalk.)

The summary is as follows:

1. Go to eBay.com and find an item you want to buy (it MUST have a Buy it now option with paypal)
2. You can get up to $250 per completed item/auction. Pick something $1000+ to get maximum CashBack
3. Add that item to your watch list.
4. go to live search type in cheap pc or try the following links until you see a CashBack link in the gray ‘Sponsored Sites’ section (refresh a few times if you don’t see it)
cheap pc
5. click on the 15% banner (Live Search CashBack)
6. Now you are in eBay go to my eBay and look at items on your watchlist
7. Click on that item
8. Click on ‘Buy it now’.
9. Before ‘Committing to Buy’, be sure the CashBack details are shown on the screen with the proper 10% of the item(s) value
9. check out and pay with Paypal and the CashBack will be yours!

Note: If you do not receive a Cash Back message in your eBay Inbox, contact eBay through chat support. They will manually send the message to you.

If there isn’t an item you’d buy anyway, then gift cards are probably a decent option.

All Nippon Airways offers one of the very best long-haul first class products in the world.  Certainly their food is the very best.  Their seat and entertainment system are nice.  Their service is outstanding.  The only real area for improvement is ground service, they excel in the air but really aren’t special pre-departure or on arrival.

One doesn’t hear about their first class product nearly as often as Singapore’s.  But then ANA flies only a handful of routes that offer first class, including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Washington DC to Tokyo.

Ever since their flights were all upgraded to new first class seats, first class awards have become next to impossible to get.  One seat is exceptionally rare, outside of a couple days to departure.

And so it’s strange that I’m seating flights showing up with two first class award seats together.  Now is a real opportunity for securing those awards!

I haven’t done any particularly deep searches, but did notice that Washington DC to Tokyo is available for two award seats in first class March 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8.  Lots of opportunities around those dates out of Chicago as well.

Folks with Star Alliance miles, this is just a wonderful opportunity.  Fly to Tokyo, perhaps pick up first class onward seats to Bangkok on Thai Airways or Asiana to Seoul… a stopover is permitted, fly a bit of Singapore first intra-Asia.  Or just go wherever you wish.  But act quickly, surely this ANA generosity can not last.

A colleague today asked me whether I was going to blog about the ‘open letter’ from a dozen airline CEOs calling for regulation of oil speculation, blaming Congressional inaction for their fuel price woes. I scoffed, and said no. Of course, others have scoffed online and I didn’t want to feel left out.

Holly Hegemen of PlaneBuzz sticks a picture of Dr. Evil on her website and suggests that the airline industry is posturing the role of “victim”. I surmise it’s pressure for Congress to do something and if Congress can’t solve the fuel problems, then this is just act one… As victims there will be future calls for handouts, and it doesn’t matter a whit whether speculation is driving the price of oil or not.

On balance there’s probably not much impact on price, and certainly long-term price. There are still some technical economic debates about the role of speculation, its intertemporal effects, and the extent to which it can change the incentives for pulling out of out the ground now versus later. Tyler Cowen sums up some of these discussions.

But even if all of the arcane economics could be convincingly worked, there’s little if anything to suggest that government regulation could do much about it.

Paul Krugman likes regulation but even he doesn’t think it would reduce the price of oil. And he acknowledges that buying a futures contract is not the same as actually burning oil, that there’s still the same demand for using oil.

Of course the first problem is even beginning to formulate a clear definition of speculation, something Southwest Airlines certainly understands well — in fact it’s odd to see Southwest’s CEO sign onto this letter. Much of their profitability the past several years has been a result of fuel hedges. Buying futures contracts. Speculating in oil!

This is all a canard, orchestrated by the US airline industry’s lobbying group (the Air Transportation Association put together the joint letter). So you know it’s about positioning to get something from Congress.

Northwest has played follow the leader introducing a $15 1st checked bag fee on tickets sold beginning tomorrow for travel beginning >>. Elites and full fare passengers are exempt from the fee.

But they also dropped a bomb. They’re imposing “fuel surcharges” on all award tickets issued on or after September 15th. $25 for flights within North America, $50 transatlantic, $100 transpacific, $75 intra-Asia (unless travel originates in Hong Kong, in which case it’s $44), and $50 on all other itineraries.

Of course, fuel surcharges are just part of the price of a paid ticket and have nothing to do with fuel per se.

But just as I predicted in January, the allure of fees is just too compelling. Merger suitor Delta announced this sort of fee two weeks ago. They somehow believe it’s free money waiting to be picked up, that their members are invested in the program and of course you can’t really redeem your miles and get decent value out of them anywhere else. So customers are stuck, and there are tens of millions of dollars to be made here.

Only if other airlines somehow do not follow — hardly a trait to rely on in this industry — then they could have a real competitive advantage among members and that’s meaningful, not just because they’ll attract paying passengers when they’re needed most for the airline but because they’ll protect and enhance the value of their frequent flyer programs… which are the only asset making money for the airlines these days.

Remember the lesson I outlined several days ago: Fixed fees for award travel mean you shouldn’t redeem those miles for coach travel.

(If only wisdom of the ages referred to me, it does not, so keep reading.)

Air Tahiti Nui used to be one of the great undiscovered award options (for American Airlines miles, then also for Northwest miles also requiring quite a few more points than with American’s chart).

Los Angeles to Papeete and on to… Auckland and Sydney. Premium class awards were easy.

Air Tahiti Nui even introduced New York-JFk to Papeete service, giving them one-stop options from New York to Sydney and Auckland, which was precisely what Qantas offered. (They also fly Los Angeles to Paris, meaning a nice easy Paris – Down Under possibility in addition to West Coast – Europe, and Papeete really isn’t a bad place to connect given same-plane service.)

The nicest thing about Air Tahiti Nui, besides the food and service (I admit, their first class seat is a couple of generations behind… No suite, just lay flat, and two-by-two configuration so not great for privacy), was that they used to open up two first class award seats out of six total seats in the cabin… on every flight. The second nicest thing: the food, but that’s a different story. Only ANA’s food is clearly better, in my experience.

A couple of years ago they stopped offering two first class award seats on each flight. Only one per flight would be opened up, and usually only one business class award as well. Folks looking for two seats together would have to redeem one first and one business, hope another one opened up in first, or purchase an upgrade at checkin…. Or downgrade the first class seat in order to sit together. And quite honestly, there aren’t a whole lot of people traveling just to Tahiti who are by themselves.

I’ve noticed over the past month or so, though, that several flights at least on the Los Angeles – Papeete run show up with two first class award seats available. Not every flight like used to be the case, and less frequently on other routes such as Sydney and Auckland. But first class awards have relaxed quite a bit. Great news, as far as I’m concerned.

Fast forward to yesterday, a colleague’s wife was looking to go home to visit the grandkids in New Zealand over the Winter holidays. He wanted to use miles and wanted to fly her in business class. To New Zealand. Over Christmas and New Year’s.

Ugh. I’m good, but I’m not that good. High season. Holidays. And there’s really not that much lift into Auckland. No U.S. carrier flies there. But he had both United and American miles to play with, so…

• Air New Zealand business class, out of North America, nada.

• United to Sydney, I found an outbound flight that would work in first. But I still had to find something for the return. As mentioned about, nada on Air New Zealand.

• Let’s look at American miles, Qantas flies non-stop from the US to Auckland. They fly to Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane. Nada, unless we wanted coach.

• Grrr… We could still pay for tickets on United to Sydney and some flights had upgrade space, but we weren’t ready to go that route. Still working the American Aadvantage options, Air Pacific via Fiji would work on the outbound. But nothing on the return.

• And then I started working Air Tahiti Nui. Nothing in business. That’s not surprising, they seem to be selling those seats. But first was pretty available. The Auckland flight is just 3 days a week which meant we had a limited number of flights to choose from and needed to find space Los Angeles to Papeete, Papeete to Auckland, and for both flights on the return. Bingo. First class. To Auckland. Over Christmas and New Year’s.

One lesson is that while it’s great to focus on a single frequent flyer program to build up a stash of points, once you’ve got enough for your reward goals in that program it’s time to start concentrating on another program. Oh, still book all your flights in one program for the elite status and accompanying benefits. But that doesn’t mean you need to accumulate your non-flight miles there. Consider a credit card with a program other than your primary airline. Shopping portal miles, miles for mortgages, rental car points…

… A very wise Flyertalker, for other reasons, used to try to keep his United Mileage Plus miles ‘clean’ of non-flight miles. He even went so far as to ask that non-flight miles be removed from his account. That’s never been my strategy, but his success when he wrote about this back in 2002 was pretty compelling. And since this was Flyertalk member PremEx, probably the person I learned more of my approach to travel from than anyone else, it was worth listening to. (Of course, he didn’t ignore partner points — he posted them to other programs — which really is my point here today.)

Another lesson is to do your homework. The agent on the phone at American didn’t even want to work on my request for premium class award travel to Auckland over the holidays. Normally I’d just follow my own advice and hang up and call back, hoping for a better agent willing to do a bit of legwork. But I decided to win her over. I told her I had done some homework. She scoffed a bit. I told her I bet we could find the seats quickly, that I’d give her odds, and if I lost I’d eat my brussel sprouts for a week. She lightened up a bit. And was genuinely shocked that we found the award seats on the first go. I thanked her for her help, and she thanked me for my help in finding the seats!

I’ve written in the past about finding Star Alliance award seats (on carriers other than Swiss and Air China) using an All Nippon Airways frequent flyer account. Here I was searching Qantas availability on the Qantas website. And Air Tahiti Nui publishes their award inventory via Sabre, I was just looking for seats in the “A” bucket for first class awards. And then I checked the American Airlines website for the DC – Los Angeles flights (after verifying that Alaska’s non-stop into Reagan National wasn’t available, but then Alaska premium class award availability on the transcons is very tight so I didn’t expect to find any anyway).

Nonetheless, a very happy co-worker.  And really just a few minutes of work.

Via Spirit Air, Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas is offering Panorama suites for $177. Rate calendar for booking and availability is here.

It’s a 1,255 square foot suite with a 180-degree view of the Strip. Not bad!

Hat tip to SC Flier on Flyertalk.

I think I’ll be severely impressed and envious of travel in Singapore’s Airbus A380 first class cabin until I finally try it myself. But Singapore doesn’t offer award availability for their A380 suites, so I’m probably out of luck.

Some folks have lucked out by booking awards on routes that then turn into A380 routes. But I haven’t been gambling and chasing the seat, so… I’m left to read reports such as this one on Flyertalk with lots of photos of the suite itself and the first class cabin.

Definitely outstanding first class airline porn, for the luxury travel voyeurs among us.

Some followup on the Delta 9,999 bonus miles for a single day car rental offer.

First, some have been interpreting that the offer is good three times with Avis and three times with Budget. My read was three times total between Avis and Budget. I could be proven wrong, but I’m not making a 4th rental to try it out.

Second, print everything and I mean everything. I printed the offer itself.  I printed the page where I enter all the information about the rental (including my Skymiles number, etc).  I printed the confirmation page.  I’m saving all of those, and will save my rental receipt as well.

There are tons of things that could go wrong here and mess with the bonus posting. Somehow rentals are flagged as being booked through iSeatz, which provides Delta’s car rental bookings, iSeats presumably gets info back on which rentals booked through the site are consummated. And that’s how the bonus is triggered. But if the Avis location messes with the reservation the chain could easily be broken.

I picked up a car today at National airport. The agent there recognized me and, to be helpful, offered to plug in my wizard number. No thanks! That might count as another discount, promotion, or offer which would void my 10,000 bonus miles!

I handed over my credit card. Whoops — it’s the same card (Diners Club, for the primary rental insurance) I have linked to my Wizard nuimber. The Avis system automatically grabbed my Wizard number and added it to the reservation. And that triggered my corporate discount code to enter the reservation and drop the price. Uh oh! They had to work to get that puppy out of there, as it would have invalidated my 10,000 Delta miles (over a $10 savings). They got it out but I’m willing to bet the miles don’t post automatically now.   So I’ll have to wait six weeks and follow up.

For my next rental I’ll be careful not to let them add my Wizard number and not to hand them my Diners Club card, either. But I’ll still flash my super-ultra-premium elite card, and just ask them for a better car without touching the reservation . . . (I love my miles, but I love my upgrades too).

Reno’s Atlantis Casino has been a perennially easy hotel to score on Priceline, it’s been the only four-star property in Reno for awhile – or so Priceline says. It strikes me as rather three-star, but there’s no hard and fast Priceline rule distinguishing the two categories. Still, targeting Atlantis is easy if that’s your bag. Although at some point the Peppermill may get an upgrade to four stars as they complete a renovation.

Last week I was there on a $39 Priceline rate. At check-in I was told that no king bed rooms were available (I had put in a request for one in advance). I insisted and was offered a king in the motor lodge. There’s a no-tell motel facility out back, pretty dodgy, a separate facility that I wanted nothing to do with.

After pressing further I was given what I was told was a junior suite in the concierge tower. I actually think it was a standard room, although it had a nice-sized sitting area.

The room came with lounge access. The small lounge was only open for breakfast and late afternoon desserts. Breakfasts had no hot options or smoked salmon, just a sparse selection of pastries, a coffee machine, and orange juice plus milk for cereal. Wireless internet was paid, even in the lounge, but two computers were there for use.

While the room itself was relatively stylish (except for the bedspread) recently renovated and in much better shape than the rest of the hotel, I wasn’t impressed with housekeeping. There wasn’t any turndown service. Daily cleaning didn’t involve replenishing toileteries at all over the course of three days. And the bathroom amenities – while they included a flat panel television – were somewhat sparse. Only soap, shampoo, and moisturizer. That’s it.

Now, I have no complaints at all about the property. I was given a better room than I was entitled to, and even a standard room in the more basic ‘luxury tower’ would have been well worth the price I paid! And it’s unclear what property would be nicer in Reno. An upscale city this is not…

Tahoe, on the other hand, really is beautiful…

Although the Tahoe psychic with a for sale sign on their building clearly didn’t forsee the decline in their business…