TAM joined the Star Alliance today.

Never heard of TAM? They’re the the biggest airline in the Southern Hemisphere and they’re based in Brazil. They fly to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, the US, and the biggest destinations in Europe.

TAM appears to have a nice new first class product, not true suites (and no doors – hah!) but certainly a good looking seat. So you know I’m happy with their joining Star! Maybe I can convince US Airways to route a US – Europe award via Sao Paolo?

Wednesday night S&P downgraded TAM’s debt but the timing seems odd. Their concern is that yields won’t recover sufficiently in the Brazilian market, but goodness knows that the Star tie-in should help.

Most importantly, the ANA Mileage Club award search website – the Star Alliance award search tool killer app – has already been updated such that it includes TAM when searching award availability. Thanks much to the folks in Japan!

Emirates is bringing A380 service back to JFK beginning October 31.

They had served New York – Dubai with this aircraft and then moved 380 service up to Toronto where they were only permitted service 3 days a week and could better utilize the extra capacity of the aircraft.

Now, the A380 is still just cool. And Emirates offers one of the most over-the-top first class cabins on that aircraft. Like Singapore’s A380 and Jet Airways 777s (and thus Turkish leased Jet Airways 777s), they offer suites with doors. And unlike anyone else in the sky, they have showers.

I’ve not much paid attention to Emirates, I do realize that they are a Continental partner at reasonable award pricing and a United partner at more expensive mileage pricing. My impression had been that Continental only had access to business class awards on Emirates and not first class, but perhaps that understanding pre-dates Continental’s entrance into the Star Alliance and introduction of first class awards. United certainly publishes first class award pricing.

So the next question becomes, how does someone with miles across many programs but who has never been an Emirates Skywards member secure first class award space on the A380??

Expertflyer says that it searches for Emirates award and upgrade space, and that first class awards/upgrades come out of the “Z” inventory bucket and that first class ‘peak awards’ come out of “A”. My hunch is that peak award seats will be relatively doable, e.g. I see plenty of A space for Toronto Dubai and Paris-Dubai on A380 aircraft. But I haven’t researched what that is, I assume it’s only open to Skywards members at a hefty mileage premium.

Anyone with suggestions how to score first class on this bird, please pass them along in the comments…!

After our last complimentary ‘all you can order off the menu’ breakfast, we said goodbye to the Westin. I had a bit of a confusing interaction with the front desk over the bill, but it was minor. I should have had complimentary internet, but they charged for two days’ worth. When I asked about this they explained that their system offered two speeds, the slower internet was free, I had selected the faster option.

Now, I’m confident that I didn’t do that, as I guessed that they might charge for the faster speed, I didn’t really need it, and I didn’t feel like asking. But they initially stood their ground. As did I, and they removed it from my bill.

Rather than taking the hotel’s free shuttle, I opted to hang around an extra 15 minutes or so and ordered up a cab so that I could leave at my leisure. Couldn’t have been more than $10. And we quickly arrived at the ferry dock.

Once again I was glad to be riding the ferry in Super Class, if only not to have to wait in any lines (not to mention the extra baggage allowance, though I didn’t see them enforcing restrictions in the next line over).

We quickly had our tickets and proceeded through passport control. There were a couple of tours departing at the same time we were, and I still wonder why everyone but me had a ‘Turbojet’ lapel sticker. But we were through immigration quickly, we went straight to our ferry gate as we had timed things rather closely. And we… waited. The boat was a bit late coming in from the airport and then they needed a few minutes to freshen it up before returning. They boarded quickly, we proceeded upstairs and had our seats.

Almost immediately after departure we were handed our snack trays which were strikingly similar to the ones we had on the way over, same tuna fish and all. The waters were really rough and there were a few gutwrenching waves, but after 45 minutes we had safely arrived at the airport.

Straight to the transfer desk, they issued boarding passes and keyed in our luggage tags that we received in Macau, then to the booth for a refund of airport taxes as hadn’t entered Hong Kong but American Airlines didn’t know that when issuing our tickets, and then through transit security and on to the Wing. Sadly I wouldn’t visit The Pier this trip, as again our flight was departing from a gate near the Wing and that’s also where we were clearing security. I couldn’t imagine that the Pier was going to be worth the long trek, so we simply settled into our familiar surroundings.

I visited The Haven, first class dining area of the Wing, and boy was it packed! So I took a plate from the buffet back to the open seating area overlooking the gates and an attendant followed with napkins and silverware for me. Another attendant quickly came by to offer beverages. And my wife visited the noodle bar.

Then we just relaxed until it was time to board for London and we had to leave the peace and quiet of the lounge. The gate area was a madhouse for our full 747 to Heathrow. They board business and first class together, but once we made it into the first class cabin all was peaceful. They were expecting (and had) a completely full flight, but even with nine out of nine seats occupied it never felt crowded. In fact sitting in the Cathay Pacific First Seat, in row 1, you rarely notice that there’s anyone else in the cabin.

It was time for the very familiar service routine.. predeparture beverage and towel, menus, nuts and another beverage after takeoff, orders taken and the first meal begins.

Here’s the menu for the flight:

LUNCH

Caviar and Balik
Caviar and Balik salmon “Tsar Nicolaj”

International Favourites
Lobser Bisque

Mesclun salad with asparagus, sun-dried tomato and Balsamic vinaigrette

Grilled beef tenderloin with gratin potato, asparagus and baby carrots
Or
Pesto totellini with tomato sauce and pine nuts

Chinese Favourites
Pork soup with winter melon and dried duck gizzard

Cold plate – deep fried sea bass with sweet vinegar dressing

Prawn butterfly wrapped with bean curd skin
Or
Braised duck with onion sauce

Served with steamed jasmine rice, stir-fried asparagus, pepper and shimeji mushrooms

Cheese and Dessert
Forme d’Ambert, Manchego, Arenberger, French Brie

Fresh berries and ginger syrup

Cherry clafoutis cake with vanilla ice cream and raspberry coulis

Black sesame soup

Tea and coffee

Pralines

SNACKS
Beef skewer with salad and capsicum relish

Assorted sandwiches

Ice cream

From our series of classic Signature dishes
Shrimp wontons with noodle in soup
Szechuenese dan dan noodle in soup

DINNER

Starter
Seasonal fresh fruit

Main courses
Pan-fried cornfed chicken with rosemary, grilled new potatoes, French beans, capsicum and mushrooms

Steamed cod fillet in preserved olive, steamed jasmine rice and stir-fried broccoli

Mushroom and garlic agnolotti with basil tomato concasse and mixed mushrooms

Cheese and Dessert
Cambozola, Comte, Double Gloucester, Chaumes

Selected pastries

Tea and Coffee

Pralines

Once again I opted to dine with my wife, I took the buddy seat in her suite and they installed a table extender. This time even the Chinese meal wasn’t quite as good, and I had already learned to always opt for the Chinese choices on Cathay. Ultimately I wasn’t overly impressed by the cuisine — it was perfectly adequate, nothing was bad, but not at all impressive in the way that ANA and Asiana offer.

First, a little welcoming note. Though the flight attendant forgot to sign it! (She remembered on my wife’s.)

Then lunch.

After a filling ‘adequate’ meal it was time to relax. I changed into my pajamas (and learned better than to take a large this time!) while a flight attendant made my bed.

I relaxed with a few classic movies before drifting to sleep. I woke up maybe 5 hours outside of London and decided to have a snack instead of taking the second meal (which really didn’t especially appeal based on the menu).

I had the beef skewers and the dan dan noodle soup, the flight attendant suggested that she might add wontons to it and I accepted.

An hour or so from arrival I filled out our immigration cards, slipped them into our passports along with our fast track invitations, and as soon as we landed we were ready to go! Second in line at immigration after the long trek through Heathrow and out of the airport rather quickly, on to the Waldorf Hotel and the Fat Duck Restaurant!

Scott McCartney covers the IdeaWorks ‘study’ of award availability (.pdf), it points to some interesting results though the methodology of the underlying research is somewhat suspect. And some of the results are so strange that it calls for what’s pretty commonplace in science — the notion that a single study is rarely meaningful, it’s only when results are replicable and pointing in the same direction that we can begin to reasonably draw conclusions.

Still, I certainly applaud efforts to systematically measure and quantify the performance of frequent flyer programs!

A study testing the availability of free seats showed that Southwest Airlines Co. could fulfill 99.3% of requests for award seats requiring standard mileage levels, and Alaska Air Group Inc.’s Alaska Airlines offered choices on 75% of requests. US Airways Group Inc. could fulfil just 10.7%. Delta Air Lines Inc. was among the stingiest, too, with awards requiring the lowest mileage available for only 12.9% of requests made by IdeaWorks Co., a consulting firm.

… IdeaWorks made 6,160 queries at 22 airline websites—280 seat requests at each airline. The firm tested long routes and shorter trips under 2,500 miles in big markets. At most airlines, it had greater success with shorter routes. The requests were made in February and March for travel in June through October. Among carriers outside the U.S., Air Canada, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Singapore Airlines were among the most generous.

Now, read the study, but there’s no conceivable way that Southwest and Air Canada are meeting customer redemption needs over 90% of the time. Air Canada is actually relatively tight with award availability, though they’ll certainly make seats available for incrementally more points.

And while on the whole Southwest is actually pretty good, there certainly are redemption complaints from members. And don’t forget that this is a bit apples-to-apples. Even if Southwest really is the best, who cares? You’re still redeeming your points to Tulsa or Oakland or wherever. That’s not really the aspirational sort of awards that make these programs in general valuable in the first place.

Lufthansa is pretty good, as the report suggests. But Singapore near the top? No way. And American should certainly be near the top not the bottom. But the study is highly sensitive to route selection bias.

Furthermore, a real limitation of the survey is querying routes on the program websites, which vary widely in quality. And some programs offer partner award availability online while others do not.

Any time you see different results for award availability between Continental and US Airways you know it’s a booking interface issue rather than an availability issue, at least accounting for 95% of the variance.

Sure, web functionality factors into overall member performance but it’s not entirely fair to blame lack of award inventory on a program’s IT problems.

Indeed, Delta concedes its results were bad, precisely because the study involved searching for awards online — they finally admit their website is broken!

But bizarrely also claim that their poor showing is due to the Northwest merger and more miles from the combined programs chasing their seats. That makes no sense since Delta and Northwest were already frequent flyer redemption partners before the merger.

Meanwhile rather than fight back with data, US Airways concedes the results of the survey — which are completely inconsistent with my own pretty extensive experience. Since the beginning of 2010 US Airways has been excellent with domestic award inventory, including transcon routes like Charlotte and Philadelphia to Los Angeles and San francisco, and especially in first class.

Instead of pointing this out (perhaps they don’t even realize?), they concede that their award availability is poor because (1) they release seats closer to departure than the study was examining and (2) they offer the seats “at a different price point” (i.e. for more miles – hah!).

This old canard unforunately gets repeated:

To get seats to vacation destinations, you typically need to book 11 months in advance, when airlines open up flights for reservations.

Now, some seats are released on some flights on some airlines when schedules load into the system — with most carriers 331 days out. But many flights don’t get any award seats at that time!

Airlines want to make awards available for seats that will otherwise go unsold. A year out they don’t necessarily have as good an idea of how many seats that will be, and their knowledge gets better as travel approaches — at 6 months out, 3 months out, 2 weeks out, etc. Many carriers release seats all along the way as they expect seats to remain open, many are much more generous closer to travel than 11 months out.

That doesn’t seem you can’t get awards right away when a schedule loads, each carrier is a bit different in that regard, but the notion that you need to call immediately when the schedule opens and that when you’re unsuccessful it means someone else got to those seats before you did is just wrong.

Ultimately the study, no matter how much it may get wrong in its particulars, points to the idea that not all airline miles are created equal. That’s an important point indeed.

My own currency preferences are first to go for flexibility, you really can’t underestimate the value of American Express Membership Rewards points for instance. (Starwood points are actually more valuable for airline mileage transfers in most cases, but the fact that they take several days to a couple of weeks to transfer makes it a bit difficult maintaining that flexibility at redemption time — you can’t really put an award on hold and then trasnfer points from Starwood).

And for airline programs in particular, I value Air Canada Aeroplan, Continental, US Airways, and American in that order among North American programs, IdeaWorks testing notwithstanding.

Full details of the Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminar are out and posted on Flyertalk.

The event is being organized by Rick Ingersoll, the Frugal Travel Guy and will be held October 16 and 17 at the Holiday Inn Elk Grove near Chicago-O’Hare. Naturally they’ve got a special rate of $89+tax per night including breakfast and lunch for one person as well as internet, airport shuttle, parking, and Saturday night cocktails. The current plan is a total buyout of the hotel by frequent flyers.

Registration is a whopping $20, no media or recording and no one under 18. (I didn’t make the rules.)

And it’ll be possible to attend (5) of the following seminars:

1. Rookie Bootcamp led by Bikeguy
2. Mileage Run #1 with Viajero Joven as leader. Hooray VJ is back.
3. Mileage Run #2 with Wanaflyforless
4. Booking Award Travel by Gleff
5. Good Credit = Free Travel and How to Bump by Ingy and Lucky9876coins
6. Hotel Loyalty Programs by Ric Garrido of the Loyalty Traveler blog
7. The Rental Car Kings with Mrp Alert and Evan!
8. The Legends of Flyertalk with confirmations so far by Pudding Guy, Beaubo, MrPickles, Wanaflyforless and more to come. Yes, we have asked Randy.
9. Coupon Connection Event moderated by Beaubo
10. Alliance Roundtable with Wanaflyforless on OneWorld, Beaubo on Skyteam and Gleff on the Star Alliance. The LCC’s will also be included

Check it out on Flyertalk, grab a room before they’re all taken (booking details at the aforementioned link), and get your registration in.

I’ll be walking folks through booking award travel, there’ll be opportunities to learn how to profit from the best deals and mileage runs and bumps, and you’ll even get to meet the world famous Pudding Guy!

I’ve always assumed that the requirement to turn off all electronic devices prior to takeoff (and landing), and not to transmit signals inflight, was silly and not based in science. That perhaps if you could pick up cell signals it would be problematic for your providers, hopping around as you are. But that the median electronic device carried by the average business traveler couldn’t possibly interfere with an aircraft’s navigation systems. But as with so many rules, once implemented they’re hard to dislodge.

But I know nothing of the science of these things, and I know little of aircraft systems, so I don’t pontificate (or at least I try to shut my mouth about things I actually don’t know anything about, more or less).

I was most surprised to read this from Through the Lens, a blogging flight attendant:

Did you know that for my little aircraft, when a passenger texts or emails someone on a blackberry, an error message comes up on the screen in the cockpit. I have had the pilots call me right before and right after takeoff to do a walk through to try and find the blackberry that is still on.

Can this be right?

She goes on to justify the total ban on electronics by suggesting it isn’t possible to sort out in the hurry to do all the things required prior to takeoff which devices are safe and which are not. And I’ll be the first to agree that flight attendants are asked to do quite a bit, some for good reason and some for less good reasons. And asking them to ascertain the technical differences between various types of signal-emitting devices probably wouldn’t be a good idea (kinda like asking TSA to understand the chemical properties of batteries, though I have far more respect for flight attendants).

Now, I’m way out of my depths to begin speculating about solutions when I dont’ understand the underlying basis of concern. But certainly if it’s true that there are some devices that would be known as problems and many common devices that wouldn’t be then an easy process could be established to determine which is which. Perhaps companies building devices that are ok to ue inflight could voluntarily adopt a standard ‘green light on top’ that would exempt it from the rule? That particular strategy may not be the answer but surely we could come up with something that would allow me to continue to read off an electronic device while sitting in the penalty box at O’Hare…

Do any of y’all know whether problems really could ensure (and why or why not) from electronic devices below 10,000 feet?  Could they really interfere with tower communications, for instance?

Regular readers of this blog probably know and have already entered, for but you newbies out there act quickly — I’m actually giving away money, courtesy of Bing Travel and their summer travel forecast.

And all you have to do is leave a comment in the official entry thread about where you’ll be traveling this summer.  Note that there’s only just over 500 comments in that thread so far, so the chances to win are really really good.

You can have a second entry for the total of (20) $75 prizes I’m giving away by following @garyleff on twitter and tweeting:

RT this and follow @garyleff and @fareologist to win actual CA$H http://tinyurl.com/vftw-bing

Only one entry per person for each method, and the contest ends Tuesday, May 11 (today!) at noon Eastern time.

Full details in the main thread on this offer.

Delta is offering a 25% bonus on miles transferred from American Express Membership Rewards through June 30. Registration required.

You should register for this promo, but not transfer any points. That way if you find you happen to need to top off a Delta Skymiles account, you don’t forget about this bonus and are poised to benefit from it.

But one should never give up the flexibility and value of alternative uses of Membership Rewards points for a modest transfer bonus to Delta on the if-come. Delta miles are too hard to use, and the program tends to extract too many points for redemptions, to make it a worthwhile place to stash your miles.

Note also that while points tend to post instantly when transferred from Amex to Delta, and though they promise two-day transfers, the bonus isn’t promised so quickly:

Bonus miles will be posted 4 to 6 weeks following the end of the promotion.

It may happen more quickly than that, but the terms and conditions suggest a sweep of accounts after the fact to post bonus points rather than instant posting.

You might guess that a lot of folks wind up having me book their travel.  And I’m not a travel agent, and don’t get commission (or ‘overrides,’ heh).

But I may be able to get something in my pocket for it anyway.  For instance, since airlines stopped offering bonus miles for online booking in most cases and online agencies stopped charging a service fee in most cases, there really weren’t many compelling reasons left to book directly with an airline over a travel site like Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity.  And sometimes those sites are easier to buy from, or even cheaper (depending on how they’re updating GDS inventory, or pricing fuel surcharges, for instance).

I personally like booking on Expedia the best, for its simple interface, though for complex multi-carrier itineraries I’ll sometimes use Orbitz.  Fatwallet used to pay 1% cashback on Expedia bookings and sometimes as much as 2.4%.  But now it’s a flat $3.  For a $1500 itinerary, that’s a huge waste.

So I’ve started making my Expedia purchases via e-bates which still offers a flat 1%. (There are of course other options as well.)  I’ll start with ebates, click their link to Expedia, and bam 1% in my pocket pretty reliably.

This is also a more general reminder that many travel providers, including many you wouldn’t expect, do offer cash back or miles for purchases and that it’s always worth checking EVReward< before making any purchase online. You’re losing out on cash or miles if you don’t. There are offers from United, JetBlue, Delta.. Avis, Thrifty, Sixt. Intercontinental, Holiday Inn, Marriott.. to name a few.

So don’t forget to go through the most advantageous portal when booking travel, whether for yourself or others.

All that said, when it comes to hotels especially it’s still usually better to go through the hotel’s own website directly because several chains will only give elite benefits or offer loyalty points accrual for bookings made directly with them.  Using a cashback link that offers something for booking on those hotel websites is perfectly fine, going through an Expedia or Travelocity is not.  It helps to know your favorite hotel program rules (and to consider a ‘best rate guarantee’ claim when a hotel’s rate on their own site is higher than what you can find elsewhere).

I’m actually giving away money, courtesy of Bing Travel and their summer travel forecast.

And all you have to do is leave a comment in the official entry thread about where you’ll be traveling this summer.

You can have a second entry for the total of (20) $75 prizes I’m giving away by following @garyleff on twitter and tweeting:

RT this and follow @garyleff and @fareologist to win actual CA$H http://tinyurl.com/vftw-bing

Only one entry per person for each method, and the contest ends Tuesday, May 11 at noon Eastern time.

Full details in the main thread on this offer.

Fernando’s, Beijing Kitchen, and the City of Dreams in Macau: a continuation of “Cathay & British Airways First Class, Philippines and Macau, a Presidential Suite, and the Fat Duck Restaurant”

During our three night stay in Macau, and in addition to our breakfasts at the Westin (unlimited complimentary order-off-the-menu), there are two meals I thought I’d highlight: Fernando’s and Beijing Kitchen at the Grand Hyatt.

Whenever I travel someplace new, I reserve food. And there were two things that really stood out as the ‘must-dos’ while I was in Macau: Fernando’s and Lord Stowe’s bakery for Portugese egg tarts. And as luck would have it, both were in Coloane where I’d be staying. In fact, Fernando’s is a short walk up the beach from the Westin, and we decided on dinner there our first full day in Macau.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from Fernando’s. It’s a beach place, most of the reviews seemed to suggest that it was more or less ‘famous for being famous’ rather than good, or perhaps living on past reputation. So in my mind I put it in the box of “Bloody Mary’s on Bora Bora.” Everyone is supposed to go there but there’s no good reason why. To mangle a line from Casablanca, “everyone goes to Fernando’s.”

But to my surprise it was really quite good. And best I could figure is that the negative reviews seem to come from people ordering fish and the positive reviews from people ordering pork. So I stuck to pork. Service is certainly slow even when the restaurant wasn’t busy. The bread earns raves but I wasn’t impressed. And having put some olive pits in the butter dish (gasp) I saw them take the pits out so they could re-use the butter which we hadn’t touched.

Ok, we’re not following the usual health department guidelines I’m used to in the US, and thank goodness for that! Because the pork was absolutely delicious.

I gotta say, pork sitting on a bed of fries, soaking up that juicy goodness.. awesome!

The next day we met Flyertalk’s SanDiego1K and her husband for lunch at their hotel. They were staying at the Grand Hyatt, and whereas I had been incredibly please with the deal and room and amenities of the Westin at the beach I just had to feel like I might have made a mistake as to where to stay when we entered the Grand Hyatt. It’s brand new, architecturally reminds me in many ways of the Park Hyatt Tokyo (though not as remotely located, and busier in the lobby).

The Hyatt is smack dab in the center of the action, not off in sleepy Coloane. It’s near the Venetian, which the Westin runs a complimentary shuttle to:

Here’s the lobby of the Grand Hyatt.

Off the lobby is a little café with amazing looking pastries.

I was absolutely impressed by SanDiego1K’s suite, a corner room overlooking the Macau airport with a sleek, modern, minimalist design. The club lounge in the hotel was on the ground floor and huge, and though apparently many guests have access it was empty when we visited (albeit not at a designated service time).

They had pre-ordered for us Peking Duck, which was wonderfully prepared.

After lunch we roamed the City of Dreams complex, which includes a casino, food court, the Hard Rock hotel, varios entertainment venues..

We got tickets from the Hyatt concierge for a complimentary laser light show, “The Bubble.” The name just described physically where the show was, not anything about the show, and I didn’t quite follow the plot. But it still looked impressive.

Despite my strong criticisms yesterday of United blocking partner award inventory (and in general United agents telling customers that it’s the partner that isn’t offering seats), now is actually a pretty good time to book Mileage Plus awards.

In my experience, blocking ‘loosens’ up at the beginning of February, May, August, and November.

A week ago it was pretty much impossible to get Lufthansa or Swiss transatlantic award seats, despite those carriers offering award inventory to their partners.

This morning every Lufthansa flight that was showing award seats on the All Nippon Airways Star Alliance award search website was also available via United.

As I understand it, United sets a ‘budget’ for booking awards on each partner by quarter. They may start off a quarter tight, afraid of running up against their budget by the end of that quarter. But if award bookings are below projection (because blocking is too ‘tight’), they’ll loosen up midway through the quarter. And then come the end of the quarter when they’ve ‘spent their budget’ they will tighten things back up.

In any case, blocking comes and goes and follows what I believe is a fairly predictable pattern, at least with certain carriers. I’ve been telling several of the folks that wanted me to help them with award bookings last week using their United miles to give it a week and we’d try again with likely better results. So around 5 a.m. this morning I started working on those and stacking up successful award after successful award.

If you’ve been thinking of booking an award using Mileage Plus miles, and especially if you’re looking for premium class transatlantic, now is a good time to ring up!

On Saturday, in advance of the announced merger of United and Continental, I offered my thoughts and predictions on what would result.

My bottom-line was quoted in Monday’s Chicago Tribune:

“It’s too early to know whether Continental (will) run the joint effort the way they’ve run their own shop,” said airline blogger Gary Leff. “If they do, it will be a boon to customers.”

Regular readers know that my biggest question or concern is whether the combined entity will continue United’s practice of ‘starnet blocking’, preventing members from redeeming miles for award seats that partners are offering.

Nonetheless, having talked to several reporters over the past few days, I thought in broad strokes I’d offer some additional take on the challenges nad issues ahead for the two carriers.

The United-Continental merger will not reduce costs. Despite PR claims about $200 million in savings (an excrutiatingly small percentage of the overall costs of the two carriers combined, rounding error almost), labor costs will rise with the combination of workforce and senior lists. Those costs will be locked in right away. Integration costs will be substantial and upfront. On the whole there’s the chance for cost reductions but those should be heavily discounted as less certain and in the future.

The revenue gains will be modest. United and Continental say $800 million but certainly this double counts gains that would accrue anyway as a result of their Star Alliance partnership, anti-trust immunity, and joint ventures. Surely reduced capacity could translate into some higher fares, but the revenue gains will be modest.

The real gain is an improvement in United culture, and a risk to Continental’s. The merger gets ride of Glenn Tilton (and cashes him out, don’t think that wasn’t a huge driver in why this happened). It helps re-set labor relations at United. Continental has a much better and stronger culture, one that will be tested by integrating United’s employees with Continental’s. But the Contiental management team running the shop, at the same time that employees on the whole will be making incrementally more will be good for labor relations overall, even if some Continental employees will be less enamored with the joint entity than with what they started with.

The merger should sail through government approvals. The combined market share of the two airlines, while creating the largest carrier, will still be smaller than American’s market share just a few years ago. Delta-Northwest created the largest carrier and went through. Contientnal and United just successfully received anti-trust immunity through a similar process of scrutiny. It’s hard to imagine any problems except at the margins, government may have to ask for something to prove they’re doing their jobs but nothing that should scuttle the deal. Now, I don’t discount the possibility of govenment doing stupid things, but by all rights this should be approved.

United wanted a merger. Tilton in particular really wanted a emrger. Tilton and company get paid handsomely for doing a deal. They would have been willing to merge with US Airways if need be, but in opening those talks they brought Continental back to the table if only to prevent United from doing a US Airways deal.

Smisek and Company get to run the world’s biggest airline. Tilton gets his payout and to have made his mark in creating the world’s biggest airline. There won’t be nearly the promised synergies, cost savings,or revenue growth that the public relations folks spin out. But on net the combination isn’t terrible.

It was a quick 10 minute cab ride over to the Westin Resort in Coloane. The hotel does offer a complimentary shuttle to the Venetian and ferry dock, but a cab was inexpensive so we didn’t wait for it.

The Westin is a grand older hotel on the beach, far away from the action of Macau but not really more than 10 minutes away. The property reminds me a bit of the Westin Puerto Vallarta, each floor set back slightly from the one below it and all rooms offering balconies.

It’s a beautiful, old, quiet property and seemed fairly unoccupied throughout our three day stay.

We were assigned a suite looking out on the beach on the top guest floor, I didn’t ask how many suites they had but there didn’t seem much competition for upgrades. They extended complimentary internet and various discounts at the hotel, though I didn’t take advantage of the discounts.

The hotel doesn’t have a lounge, but they offer complimentary buffet breakfast to Platinms. Only this caused a bit of confusion because we went down to the hotel restaurant and found that they didn’t have a buffet! English wasn’t well-spoken in the restaurant while we were there but we managed to sort out that the buffet wasn’t being offered due to the hotel’s occupancy, but that we could order anything we wished and as much as we wished off the restaurant menu. Service was very good, language challenges aside, and the food was all high quality. But I was surprised to find relatively little Asian fare on offer, mostly just a varity of Western options. I did have some pork buns with my eggs, et al but those were somewhat disappointing.

The gym was downstairs and perfectly nice, large, and new.

Weather was overcast for most of our stay, wasn’t really lay out weather, but it was a retreat from the hustle and bustle that Macau has become. My overall impression of the ‘strip’ area of the city is that it’s Vegas if Vegas were brand new and with a more Japanese obsession for technology. The Westin on the other hand was away from the action, much more old school.

Since the property was mostly empty, it wasn’t overly staffed. If I wanted something from the gift shop, I had to ask the front desk to open it. But I like my hotels quiet.

I was absolutely thrilled with the hotel on a value proposition basis, a large suite overlooking the beach with free breakfast and internet can’t be beat.

But then I did head into Macao proper, the next installment of this trip report, and was rather blown away by the brand new Grand Hyatt which made me reconsider whether I’d made the right choice in staying at the Westin. Ultimately I was more than happy (and also very much so because it was right next to Fernando’s for pork (also coming in a subsequent installment) but staying in Macau I’d probably opt to be more central next time.

Nicholas Kralev echos my major concern about a United-Continental merger in his Washington Times column this week: Starnet blocking.

United is the only Star Alliance carrier known to block otherwise available partner “award” seats. When Continental joined the 26-member group in October, it not only vowed not to filter other airlines’ inventory, but it also helped make United’s blocking more transparent by showing actual availability on its website, though it doesn’t have all Star carriers yet.

But will a merged United-Continental continue to block partner award seats that are being offered, more often than not falsely blaming the partner for not offering the seats?

Indeed, Continental specifically promised not to block partner award seats — a practice engaged in only by United and no other Star airline — and to have a ‘realistic’ award chart such that it made sense to offer all partner seats that were available. And then they rolled out an award chart that looked very much like United’s!

While the Continental folks will be in charge at the very top of the combined airline, it’s likely that (1) the Mileage Plus architecture will remain in place and (2) that the top senior executives aren’t focused on this issue in any case (regardless of whether they would want to continue blocking or not).

If United continues blocking, United members are no worse off than present. But Continental members are significantly worse off as a result of the merger.  My experience a couple weeks back was that pretty much every available Lufthnasa or Swiss transatlantic flight, every day, was being blocked by United.  (Blocking comes and goes during a quarter based on United’s redemptions on each partner relative to budget, I’ve never personally seen any blocking of Turkish, EgyptAir, Air Canada, Continental, or US Airway for instance.)

My own hope is that at a minimum, if we can’t get a public pledge from the combined entity not to block award seats, that once the merger closes they follow past practice of Delta-Northwest and US Airways-America West and allow members to transfer their miles back and forth on their own between the two programs until the mileage balances are combined into a single account by the programs themselves. That would allow United members access to the full set of Star Alliance award inventory, simply by transferring their points on their own to Continental Onepass.

As Kralev observes, there are some advantages that United has over Continental for frequent flyers — more confirmed at booking upgrade instruments for top tier elites, one-way awards (though currently online only and on United metal only), for instance.

On the other hand in addition to not blocking partner award inventory, Continental’s award routing rules are much more generous than United’s. They allow both a stopover and an open jaw on an international award for instance, compared to United’s one or the other.

Ultimately Kralev asks how United can continue to justify blocking partner awards to save money (when their awad chart really isn’t more generous than other programs that don’t block…) when it’s claiming an additional $64 million in revenue per quarter than they had even expected from expiring miles. And when miles are made artificially harder to use by this practice.

It’s also “making an improvement to the accounting model for Mileage Plus,” which “will result in the recognition of approximately $64 million of incremental passenger revenue in the first quarter of 2010, reducing the net amount of revenue that we otherwise would have deferred to future periods. The company expects a similar incremental impact in the remaining quarters of the year,” it said.

My own view is that non-transparent business practices are hard to sustain over the long-term without damaging profitability, that as more customers understand the practice they’ll tend to favor other programs and that Mileage Plus will lose revenue as a result. So it’s ultiamtely to their detriment to engage in award seat blocking. But we’ll see if the combined entity adopts that view!

On May 3, American Express’ Discover America Daily Getaways offered Starwood Starpoints for purchase at 1.45 cents apiece. The offer was snapped up and gone in minutes.

On May 11, Hyatt points will be on sale.

There will be:

• (100) 24,000 Gold Passport points for $225
• (35) 30,000 GP points for $300
• (15) 36,000 GP points for $375
• (15) 69,000 GP points for $700

There’s a maximum of one of each package per purchase. These will be available at 10am Eastern on Tuesday and likely to go very quickly.

MilesQuest points to a Delta offer for 100% bonus on purchased miles when you use a Delta Skymiles American Express card to make the purchase by June 30.

One Mile at a Time says that the 1.4 cent per point purchase price under the promo is worthwhile if you’re topping off for a Singapore Airlines award before the May 15 deadline.

But otherwise it’s hard to endorse such a purchase.

And in related news, half a dozen people have emailed me about the ‘news’ that Delta American Express cardholders would receive a first bag fee waiver beginning June 1.

This is hardly a big deal, it’s becoming a common co-branded credit card benefit, something that Continental already offers for its Mastercard holders for instance. The card isn’t free, if you spend money on it you’re earning Skymiles which already strikes me as suboptimal. So I wouldn’t run out and get this card and fly Delta so that your bags can fly fee-free. There are of course other options. And for elite frequent flyers this is of course no new benefit.

Update: As Gary Steiger so correctly points out in the comments — and why I shouldn’t post so early in the morning — is that American Express does offer Delta co-branded cards fee-free the first year.  And Gary has links to such offers at his freefrequentflyermiles.com website.

Bing travel wants to get your (and my) attention.

I’ll admit, I hadn’t paid them much mind before, I’m used to searching with ITA Software and with Kayak, booking directly through an airline site or with Expedia or Orbitz if need be. I often find that Orbitz is good for putting together complex multi-carrier itienraries, and depending on the carrier they may be updating inventory at a lag from other sites, so Expedia or Orbitz might be cheaper on any given itinerary on occasion.

So I was surprised to find that Bing seemed very much in the tradition of Kayak, the site I’ve recommended most often to non-experts for search for travel. Very good to know!

So how did they get my attention and now yours?

They’ve laid out their summer travel forecast and have quite an offer to promote it.

Here’s what they say about overall air and hotel pricing:

The average airfare to domestic destinations is up 22% from 2009 and 4% higher than 2008 fares, averaging $303 per ticket. But don’t kill the messenger – you can still save big with your hotel stay!

On average, premium hotel rates in domestic destinations are down 10% over 2009, averaging $166 per night. Choosing the right destination this summer could allow you to make up for higher airfares. Some destinations we recommend considering are Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco, Honolulu, San Diego, and New York City, where hotel rates are down considerably and can help reduce your overall trip cost.

So what are they offering exactly? Money. Serioously. Bing-branded prepaid Mastercards. They’ve sent me 100 $15 cards. I’m going to package them as (20) prizes of 5 cards apiece. Which means there will be (20) winners receiving $75 each.

These prepaid Mastercards say “15 Dollars / Bag Fee on Bing.com” but I know many of my readers are elites whose baggage fees are waived. Use the cash for whatever you’d like.

Personally, I love keeping low-dollar prepaid cards around, for (1) free trial signup offers that require a credit card and (2) for testing out bidding on Priceline when I don’t want to play the incorrect security code trick. And I’ve also been known link debit cards to my Paypal account and shoot the balance over to my wife. Or just load up my Starbucks card.

There are (2) ways to enter:

• Visit Bing’s summer travel forecast and post a comment here on this blog post answering the question where will you go this summer?. 15 winners will be chosen at random from these entries. Only one entry per person.

• Follow @garyleff and @Fareologist on twitter and tweet
  RT this and follow @garyleff and @fareologist to win actual CA$H http://tinyurl.com/vftw-bing

  5 winners will be chosen at random from these entries. Only one entry per person.

Enter once using either or both methods no later than Tuesday, May 11 at noon Eastern time.

Very generous of the folks at Bing Travel, and as always I pass the goodies on to you!

According to the Dividend Miles Member Guide, the fee for award ticket changes and for ticket cancellation/mileage redeposit is $150.

Up until a few days ago it was a stratospheric $250 per passenger on international itineraries ($150 domestic).

This change brings US Airways in line with American and United.

It’s still not inexpensive, but it’s a meaningful reduction of $100 per passenger, without explanation or fanfare. I’ll take it!

Starwood’s free weekend night every three stays promo, which runs through July 31, just got a little bit better.

CaroL just let me know that they are stacking that with 1000 bonus American Airlines miles for each Sheraton stay. (Even if you’ve already registered for Starwood’s free night offer, you need to register again if you also want the American miles – this link asks for your American Airlines frequent flyer number.)

So if you’re making one-night stays, this offer could be quite valuable, and certainly more valuable than last summer when Starwood partnered with Northwest and Delta.