View from the Wing

The Dream Hotel in Bangkok is pricing out rooms starting at a bit over $3 a night beginning in January, 2009.

I haven’t been there myself, but it’s very well-regarded on TripAdvisor.

Now, hotel mistake rates are never guaranteed. And rates booked directly with a property’s website even less so. But this is a great opportunity nonetheless. Some nights will even include a junior suite on offer from ~ US$5/night.

Rates are published in Thai Baht, so 100 Baht is about $3…

(Hat tip to Flyertalk.)

Update 9:08pm: A commenter notes the deal is gone.

In what’s the first instance I know of the mainstream media picking up on United’s underhanded practice of refusing to book award tickets that their partners are offering, the Washington Times runs a piece that touches on United’s filtering and rebuts some common explanations for it.

United Airlines, however, has decided that, in addition to its own award inventory, it should “manage” that of its partners as well - more precisely, seats made available for booking with United miles by fellow members of the Star Alliance, a global network of 24 carriers.

“We manage award availability on our Star Alliance partners just as we do with United’s own saver awards,” said Jeff Kovick, a United spokesman.

The piece outlines how it’s possible to use US Airways to book partner award seats that United won’t permit to be booked, and quotes Lufthansa and a Star Alliance representative as saying that airlines are offered the same award seats — contra a claim frequently offered by United reps that each partner offers different availability to different Star Alliance members (another version of which is that United ‘must have used up its allocation of seats’ when an award seat is being offered to other partners but United won’t book it).

And the article even lays out how extreme United’s filtering can be, using the example of Lufthansa’s Frankurt-Munich flights (a route that United doesn’t serve, also contradicting the occasional theory that United is just trying to push passengers onto its own planes). The author of the piece finds Lufthansa offering award seats on an average of 10 of its 12 daily flights, with United unwilling to book a single seat on two random days in October.  (I once found 53 flights over 51 days between Heathrow and Bangkok where Thai was offering not one but two first class award seats, and United would not permit booking of a single one.)

While United is quoted suggesting they filter out award seats to protect their revenue (so that available partner awards don’t encourage customers to use miles instead of paying for tickets), the filtering of Frankfurt-Munich belies the claim since United doesn’t really stand to gain from purchases on that route outside of incremental codesare purchases (and recognizing the fact tat miles are generally used on that route only as an add-on to other award flights rather than as standalone tickets).

Ultimately I find the tactic of refusing to book award seats that partner airlines are offering to United to be deceptive.  This is especially true whenthe common explanation is that award seats aren’t being offered on the flight (or in one common manifestation of award filtering, the flight doesn’t show up as even existing.   And it’s one reason that contra conventional wisdom I’ve suggested that in the short run at least, and despite higher booking fees, US Airways miles are more valuable than United miles.  (Anything can change in the future, so I don’t endorse US Airways as a place to bank miles over time necessarily, but I do recognize that today. a US Airways mile in many cases is worth more than a United mile.)

In late 2003, Airtran offered elite status matches. Not big news, most US airlines have offered something like that. Except that Airtran status was more or less ‘for life.’ Once you achieved elite status there was no requalification requirement.

I haven’t seen Airtran offer status matches since then, and I was happy to have gotten in on the offer at the time five years ago.

Unfortunately along with the introduction of new elite benefits, Aitran is apparently now Airtran elite status will start expiringgoing to require that elite members requalify or lose their status. Understandable, but personally disappointing.

I still remember my very first ever upgrade, to United’s business class from Los Angeles to Washington-Dulles on a Boeing 777 in March, 1998. There was a fabulous shrimp appetizer, and I had a perfectly nice steak. And that was a lunch flight. I wasn’t ready for the flight to end.

It’s truly a different world today.

Lucky summarizes domestic premum cabin meal cutbacks at United.

 Massive Premium Service (PS) cutbacks in first and business. Staffing in first goes from two FA’s to one, and as a result service is now done on trays. The business appetizer has been cut and the gourmet meals they now offer are along the lines of hot dogs and cheeseburgers. No more pre-arrival snack for breakfast flights. This service would now more appropriately be called POS.

Hawaii catering has gone downhill. No Mai Tai’s and a bunch of other cuts, since 757 galleys are now catered roundtrip from the mainland…. don’t eat the fish on 757’s ex-Hawaii!

BusinessOne routes (prime business routes ex-ORD) no longer get hot meals, but now get cold fruit plates for breakfast and cheese plates for lunch and dinner

Three cabin domestic flights get buy on board service in business, although that’s nothing new

No more sundaes in transcon first

Transcon first no longer has hot meals for lunch, because let’s face it, hot meals are just too generous for a six hour flight!

TACA is offering 50% off on the purchase of miles through September 30th. Only those with TACA accounts prior to September 7th are eligible. It’s a nice offer, miles cost 1.5 cents apiece.

One Flyertalk member offers a fairly representative experience:

I am unable to find any Clase Ejecutiva [business class] availability SJO-JFK [San Jose, Costa Rica - New York-JFK], so these miles are not worth much to me. The one good use I found was SJO-PTY [San Jose, Costa Rica - Panama City, Panama] a couple of weeks ago when the coach fare was $750 and I was able to redeem 14,000 miles.

TACA does partner with United and Iberia, which presents some options, but my vague recollection from the last time I looked at this program many moons ago was that there’s some difficulty in redeeming for business class tickets using Distancia miles on these partners. Something to vet if that’s your goal.

I don’t write about goldpoints plus very often. They do sometimes have very nice bonuses, although I don’t often find myself frequenting their hotels (Radisson, Country Inns & Suites, etc). There are some quite nice Radisson properties but on the whole I find them rather inconsistent, and I’m a slave to my loyalty with Starwood and Priority Club.

When the Goldpoints program was linked to the shopping portal and TGI Fridays rewards program it was especially flaky, although six years ago there were some amazing bonuses on offer and I purchased many many many magazines purely for the miles. Somehow I still have about 30,000 points in their program, leftover from when they cut the transfer to miles rate in half. Eventually I’ll use them for a single free night somewhere.

For those more inclined towards Radissons and such — and by the way I’m told they have rather nice beds — there’s a pretty good bonus on offer: stay three times between October 1 and the end of the year and you can redeem an award next year for half the points (any stay up to four nights).

One of my political blogger friends once scoffed at my miles and points blogging enterprise, suggesting that it’s not like I’m “curing cancer or anything.”

Heh.

While I’m a bit late in mentioning this (since it’s already been flagged by Lucky and Frugal Travel Guy), but Delta is offering 250 bonus miles for each online booking and online checkin through October 31.

Each bonus activity also earns an equivalent number of miles for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Registration is required.

In my experience, companies most often make a fixed contribution to a charity and only suggest that consumer behavior has some role in influencing the magnitude of the contribution. And the company does it because they believe it will generate more goodwill and ultimately revenue than the cost of the contribution. But that all just makes it win-win.

And if consumers can feel like they’re saving the world while padding their mileage accounts, so much the better!

Upgrade: Travel Better notes the irony in United’s expected $500 million loss from speculating on oil prices.

Weren’t they among the ones telling us — just two months ago — that speculation was evil, the source of high fuel prices, and shouldn’t be permitted?

All the while they were, umm, speculating. Badly.

Now we know they were really just asking Congress to save them from themselves.

The Global Traveller outlines the new Singapore Airlines ‘Full’ Awards and compares it to other airline offerings. Although full awards still don’t permit redemption for first class (suiites) on the A380, a first class roundtrip from Australia to Europe can run as much as 1,558,000 miles for last seat availability.

On the plus side, Singapore is introducing one-way awards for 50% of the roundtrip mileage, down from the current 70%.

Starwood’s 4th quarter promotion rolled out today, and it’s a winner. Lots of different points-earning options for different types of travelers, and instead of targeting the offers to make members stretch to earn anything they let you choose which one you want (but you get to choose once and you have to stick to it!).

Registration is required before earning towards the promotion.

Lucky bullets the options.

Two stays earns you 2,000 bonus Starpoints

Four nights earns you 2,000 bonus Starpoints

Four stays earns you a free weekend night

Six stays earns you 9,000 bonus Starpoints

12 nights earns you 9,000 bonus Starpoints

Four nights earns you a US$25 Amazon.com gift card

Eight nights earns you a free weekend night

Double your Starpoints with no earning limit

Two stays earns you a US$25 Amazon.com gift card

Ten stays earns you 25,000 bonus Starpoints

20 nights earns you 25,000 bonus Starpoints

Each stay counts double toward elite status

If you’re striving for Platinum status, double stays is the ticket.  If you’re a truly heavy traveler, ten stays (or 20 nights if you tend to do long stays) for 25,000 bonus points — earnable up to 4 times! — is the ticket.   At the less frequent travel end, just two stays or four nights will earn 2,000 bonus points.  But whatever you do give the $25 Amazon gift cards a pass, woudlja?

Regarding my post yesterday on the 20% bonus for transfers from American Express Membership Rewards to Delta (after my comment earlier in the day about using Delta miles for Singapore Airlines redemptions), lucky comments that the 20% bonus

makes an F award on SQ <120K miles, which is cheaper than UA. Also, it seems like DL has much better SQ availability…..

It seems to me there are (3) downsides to building up a Delta Skymiles account for Singapore redemption:

• Taxes and fees are much higher using DL miles. Reports of as high as $750.

I tend to think the Delta relationship is less stable than the relationship with Star Alliance partners, and it’s the only thing I’d want Delta miles for (it’s the one real international first class option and value in the Skymiles program), which suggests it can’t last. And the existence of the option is an historical anomaly, there was the old Delta-Singapore partnership that even involved a long-since divested equity stake in each carrier.

• There’s a real problem with booking flights beyond Singapore, where Delta seems to put folks in economy even when on first class awards (though some have had luck getting upgraded at checkin with Singapore).

On the other hand, there’s:

• Reports of better availability, which seems hard to understand, and hasn’t really been fleshed out or quantified

• Reports of being able to book awards TO INDIA via Singapore at the same mileage price.

But on the whole if I were transferring Amex points with the intention of Singapore redemption — and if I weren’t just topping off an account but transferring the full number of miles needed — I’d tend to prefer an Air Canada transfer than Delta transfer, even with the 20% bonus (which will take a LONG time to post).

Still, Singapore Airlines first class is the best Delta award there is, even if fuel surcharges, booking fees, and taxes could set you back $750 on top of the miles.

Delta is promoting a 20% bonus on American Express Membership Rewards transfers through October 17th. Registration is required before initating the transfer.

20% certainly isn’t enough to lure me into Delta transfers that I wouldn’t otherwise be making, I’d rather preserve the flexibility of my Amex points and they are far more value when transferred into other programs (such as ANA and Air Canada). Still, if you’re transferring to Delta anyway this is worth knowing about.

Unfortunately, the bonus can’t be used immediately for booking travel. Rather, you’ll still need to make your full transfers necessary to redeem an award, and the bonus will post after the end of the promotion period.

Ameriprise offers 500 Delta Skymiles for an auto insurance quote. The miles tend to post quickly, and some reports are you can do this every six months.

The key in my mind is not to enter your social security number when requesting the quote. It’s optoinal on the form, and I’d just assume not have the inquiry show on my credit file (in truth it won’t appear as a request for credit, but 500 miles aren’t worth enough for me to mess with my credit report in any dimension).

Here’s the current Flyertalk discussion.

Incidentally, I also signed up for Skymiles Shopping, which Frugal Travel Guy assures will yield 250 points despite no mention of the miles on the Skymiles Shopping page. They are promoting signups, have sent out emails which ostensibly aren’t targeted, but I didn’t get one myself.

Still, 500 here and 250 there and eventually I’ll have my Singapore Airlines first class award — the one true value in the Delta program, even though with fuel surcharges and Delta’s other fees they’ll whack you with about $750 in charges.

I just hope that the Delta program will still have its Singapore relationship by the time I get around to using my miles this way, it’s a throwback to an old relationship where each airline took 5% stakes in each other years ago which I believe have long since been divested.

When the posturing in labor relations turns so ugly and public that management makes statements that will scare away customers, things are truly an intractable mess. Such is Alitalia, where the company says they don’t have enough money for fuel and will have to start flight cancellations on Monday.

Foreign suitors are making noises about pulling their offer to infuse cash because the unions won’t agree to contract concessions. The Prime Minister says he won’t let the flag carrier fail, despite E.U. laws Italy has already violated in subsidizing the airline…

Will Alitalia rise from the ashes once more? It’s one of the few companies to which I’d just assume say good riddance, I still resent them from cancelling all the miles from their ‘old’ frequent flyer program and starting anew. Still, it’s hard enough to redeem award tickets on Skyteam carriers it would be a shame to lose one.

If you didn’t have a hair loss procedure done just for the miles you might be in luck — if you find yourself in New Zealand, the national airline has another lucrative offer: they’ll pay to advertise on bald heads.

Air New Zealand said it wants 70 recruits to stand in lines in three airports — while wearing temporary tattoos on the back of their heads so the displays can be seen by people lining up behind them.

The airline would pay 1,000 New Zealand dollars ($660) for each walking billboard, a company official said.

The tattoos will promote a new system that is meant to reduce check-in waiting times.

American Airlines is offering 10% off within the 48 continental United States and Mexico for travel through October 31.

Thanks to reader Patrick for the tip.

Via High Anxiety, Airtran is actually improving elite benefits — granted, they’re introducing some pretty basic benefits that should have been there in the first place, but it’s improvement nonetheless.

And I’m personally fortunate that I took advantage of a temporary status match program they offered about 5 years ago — since at least up to this point elite status, once gained, is permanent….

Specifically, the new benefits are:

• Complimentary space available upgrades for elite members and a companion, at the gate 40 minutes prior to departure.

• Priority standby

• Reciprocal elite benefits on Frontier

• A dedicated elite phone number, we’ll see if it’s staffed with dedicated agents or if calls just get priority in the queue.

Frugal Travel Guy walks through in some detail the process of buying grocery store money orders with credit cards for the points, depositing the money orders in your checking account, and using the funds to pay off the credit card. Rinse, repeat. A definite must-read!

Meanwhile, I haven’t played around with this myself, but he also writes about $250 all-in fares to London (using Priceline and clicking through various flight options) and 250 free Delta miles for signing up for their online mall. Note that I haven’t seen anything myself about the 250 bonus miles, no email in my inbox and nothing on the website, so that one may well be ‘your mileage may vary’.

United is starting seasonal service from Los Angeles to Melbourne (December 17 - February 1). Since it’s a brand new flight, just loaded into the system a few days ago, it’s also a great opportunity for award seats and upgrades. Australia is notoriously difficult to secure premium class awards, so this is as good an opportunity as any, and during the heaviest travel season.

According to this Flyertalk thread, Lufthansa is adding a spa to their B Concourse First Class Lounge in Frankfurt. Which begs the question, will visiting that lounge be better than heading over to the First Class Terminal?

I’m one of the few who actually prefers the Thai Airways Bangkok ground experience over the First Class Terminal precisely because of their proper spa and wonderful hour-long treatments. If Lufthansa offered a quality spa they could retake the top spot in ground experience in my estimation…