One Mile at a Time has pictures of the new Westin Renewal Lounge inside United’s San Francisco Red Carpet Club. The bottom line?

It was worse than what I expected, and I went in with low expectations.

Frugal Travel Guy points out that creating a Northwest Airlines Gift Registry is enough to earn 500 miles in Northwest’s Mountains of Miles promo. (You’ll need to register for the promo before creating the registry in order to earn the miles.)

As Frugal Travel Guy’s post points out, and as I can confirm, once you have created a gift registry you’ll receive a short survey by email asking you how you heard about the gift registry and why you created it.  The survey will earn 250 points.

Update: A reader actually reads the terms and conditions of the gift registry part of the Mountains of Miles offer and points out in the comments that $25 needs to be deposited into the gift registry in order to earn the 500 miles, and money deposited by the reigstrant is excluded.  At the very least you can create the registry and get the email survey for 250 points. So I’ve changed the title of the thread to 250 free miles…

I guess they’ve learned some things from politics. The timestamp in my e-mail box is 3:29pm Eastern.

First, Continental will charge $15 for a first checked bag within the US and Canada effective October 7th for tickets purchased from today forward. Elites (including Skyteam elites), first class passengers, and full fare passengers are exempt.

Then come the changes to the frequent flyer program. Here’s the bad news.

Continental is ending 500 mile minimums for short hops effective January 1. They follow US Airways and United on this change. Best strategy is to credit those short flights to another program which still offers minimum mileage.

Very few flyers will find that the 200 or 350 miles will make a difference in award redemption or elite requalification. But it does require vigilance, as accruing more mileage in another program does have that tradeoff for those who need Onepass miles.

Oddly, the change only effects tickets purchased on or after November 15 — so if you get your New Year travel purchases in early you will still accrue the minimum mileage.

Meanwhile, Continental is increasing the mileage requirements for award tickets to Israel.

But here’s the killer: Continental is reducing elite bonus miles from 125% to 100% for Platinums and from 50% to 25% for Silvers. Platinums and Gold elites will both be earning 100% mileage bonuses going forward. At least Continental hasn’t made the suicidal change that US Airways announced, ending elite bonuses altogether! This will hurt Continental elites for sure, but Continental was already quite generous on these bonuses relative to other carriers. (Then again, it was the extra generous bonuses that made the frequent need to spend extra mileage for seat availability somewhat more palatable — Continental prints tons of mileage, and tends to offer relative difficulty in securing award seats on its own planes.)

Cranky Flier thinks United’s decision to reverse course on eliminating complimentary coach meal service to and from Dulles across the Atlantic was driven by Lufthansa…

Remember, Lufthansa and United have a revenue sharing agreement that makes them very tight partners on North Atlantic flying. Anything United does has the distinct possibility of significantly impacting Lufthansa’s revenue. Something tells me that charging for meals crossed the line here.

Is it really possible that United didn’t bother to discuss this with Lufthansa beforehand? If so, I’d think some heads might roll over this. They’re trying to spin this change in a positive light, but it really points to a management team that pulled the trigger on something major before properly vetting it.

Via Frugal Travel Guy, Starwood Preferred Guest is offering 250 Starpoints for reviewing their new redemption option, SPG Flights.

Granted, the conference call is only two and a half hours away. But the Wall Street Journal came out with news of Starwood introducing a new benefit, SPG Flights, where you can redeem your points for paid airline tickets.

Sure, the redemption rate is better than Amex or Diners Club offers these days, and better than Citi’s Thank You Network variable redemptions. Which is to say you get better than 1 cent in value per point. But it doesn’t look like you can ever do better than 1.5 cents, and so I can’t imagine that I would ever use or recommend this benefit to anyone.

Granted, adding benefits without taking benefits away is a positive thing. I was just hoping for more from the big announcement — something game-changing to take on Hilton which has matched Starwood’s room redemption policies (and Marriott will likely be matching as well).

And Starwood knows they have to do something, that their in-hotel points-earning really is not competitive, and they are no longer meaningfully better on the redemption side. Granted outside of Intercontinental Royal Ambassador, Starwood Platinum is the only elite level that puts suites in the terms and conditions, and that’s a big deal. But hotels vary in their delivery of the upgrade benefit, and too often Platinums are left unrecognized.

I suppose the conference call could unveil something else, not mentioned by the Journal. I’ll be hoping. But I probably won’t worry about making it into the office in time to be all situated for the 8 a.m. Eastern call. Instead I’ll wait to hear about it on Flyertalk or dial-in for the noon…

Update: Indeed, that’s all there is to the big announcement.  Oh well.  I hope there’s more coming in the next few months, because Starwood needs to do something to meaningfully differentiate themselves.

The redemption chart for the SPG Flights benefit is as follows:

Northwest has unveiled its new mileage promotion, Mountains of Miles. Not as great as the last one, not every activity under the sun earns credits towards miles (without any meaningful activitiy with Northwest — I’m not particularly involved with their program — I still managed to bank 10,000 miles last time).

Still, as always it’s worth registering for the promotion no matter what because any sort of activity at all will earn some bonus and you never know when that activity might just turn up, such as by getting re-routed from your planned carrier onto Northwest during irregular operations.

Register for the promo by December 31, 2008. But, really, register right away — because only activities from the time you register count. Activities completed by January 31, 2009 count towards the promo. And sadly, Northwest Worldperks members outside of the U.S. and Canada are not eligible to participate.

The Global Traveller details Air New Zealand’s introduction of a Space+ product, more legroom at the front of coach akin to United’s economy plus.

They’re starting with short-haul planes, which strikes The Global Traveller as odd. But it’s a clear improvement and these seats are open to Air New Zealand elites, Koru Club members, and to Star Alliance Gold members — the latter being a benefit that United used to offer but sadly took away.

Meanwhile, Air New Zealand has updated its video on demand offerings.

Way to go Air New Zealand!

Last month I mentioned speculation that United would finally be re-introducing Star Alliance upgrades. Hasn’t happened yet. In the past they’ve said it was technology issues standing in their way, though other Star Alliance airlines managed to make it happen.

Meanwhile, even Thai Airways has figured out how to offer these upgrade awards online. So time to get your act together, United! Or perhaps outsource your IT department to the Thai Airways web wizards?

Airtran is offering double credits on trips originating in Atlanta betwee September 2 and September 30th. Registration is required.

Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles, Chase offers the United Visa Signature Gold Class free the first year with 25,000 miles after $250 in purchases.

The value here is that you should be able to get the signup bonus for this card even if you’ve had a regular United Visa Signature in the past. Chase has really cracked down on churning signup bonuses with their cards, so having more, unique cards is huge. Pick up the 25,000 miles and no fee the first year Visa Signature, small business Visa, and this one and you’ve got 75,000 miles. Then there’s still the Platinum class card with a $165 fee and another 25,000 miles plus elite qualifying mileage bonuses, and you can be at 100,000 miles quite cheaply.

Update: Free Frequent Flyer Miles has posted an update, hedging whether he believes you can get the bonus for this card in addition to the regular Signature Visa card. Please let me know your experiences if you try.