I grew up on United Mileage Plus and so I admit it’s probably just familiarity that makes United’s ways of doing things ‘make sense’ to me, and other carriers’ practices seem odd.

Take prioritizing upgrades, there’s a seeming rationality to status, followed by fare basis, and then final tie-breaker of time added to the list.

In contrast, Delta will treat full fare passengers of any status above their top tier members on a discount fare. At Delta, you aren’t their loyal customer, you’re your fare on any given day. At least that’s how it strikes this United-centric flyer.

And Delta’s program really doesn’t work for me, being based in DC, since at my home airport there are so many folks flying on government fares. Those government fares, in spite of being heavily discounted, are treated as full fare tickets. A government fare flying Silver trumps a higher elite who may even have paid more for their non-full fare ticket.

(Update: [Slaps forehead!] I really shouldn’t have been so surprised last week to learn that Delta’s Diamond members (with 125,000 qualifying miles) ‘only’ clear their domestic upgrades 85% of the time given this rule…)

But what I really don’t understand is American’s different upgrade buckets.

American has two different buckets for domestic upgrades from coach to first class — one for ‘stickers’ and a separate one for miles. Elites using their earned 500 mile upgrades (or Executive Platinums with their unlimited complimentary upgrades) are upgraded out of ‘X’ inventory. Anyone, elites or general members, can upgrade out of separate ‘A’ inventory.

At United there’s one upgrade bucket, and a separate bucket for award first class. It’s almost always the case that upgrades are easier to get than awards, the airline would rather take a paid coach ticket and miles for the first class seat than more miles without the cash for that same seat. I get that. (A couple of years ago there were specific routes, like transcon flights, where that was temporarily reversed — it could be easier to get awards than confirmed upgrades in advance — but that anomaly is long gone).

At American, it’s much much easier to get mileage upgrades than elite upgrades. The mileage upgrade ‘A’ bucket is widely available, most of the time on most flights, even when the X bucket is empty. Looking for some elite upgrade space on a flight tomorrow, I’m seeing several flights with A seats left but nothing in X, and surprisingly seats available in ‘Z’ — award first class.

American would rather let a general member redeem their miles for a first class award seat than give it to an elite. American would rather let that general member spend their miles on any fare (plus a cash co-pay) than give it to an elite.

Perhaps because American only waives ‘close-in award booking fees’ for their elites, we have the answer why awards (for free tickets and mileage upgrades) would be easier than complimentary upgrades — American is picking up the cash co-pay and the close-in booking fee.

But coming from United it does seem odd that American favors its generally members willing to come out of pocket with more favorable inventory than its top tier elites.

I’m going to find it interest (or shocking?) to see how a future combined United/Continental prioritize upgrades since the Continental model has long privileges upgrades for full fare passengers, offering their elites buying full fare tickets the opportunity to confirm upgrades at booking (subject to availability). Because to me and my prejudices, built on my very first elite status experiences when I first started traveling for business lo those many eyars ago, United’s system will always be what makes sense and everything else an illogical abberation.

Lufthansa will reward doctors with 5000 miles for registering and agreeing to help out in a medical emergency.

In the past I’ve always seen offers of thanks to folks who have volunteered when needed (or handwringing about airlines that wouldn’t even bother with a thank you). This is the first I’ve seen of an airline proactively rewarding doctors in advance, before any help has been provided.

Perhaps the offer — of something that seems free, in exchange for a remote chance of help being needed — will get doctors to pre-commit. This makes sense if doctors are reluctant on the spot to speak up and volunteer. Perhaps the pre-commitment is cheap to buy but powerful in the rare event that it’s needed.

(Via @Airfarewatchdog)

On October 1 I wrote about American Airlines beginning to add fuel surcharges to awards redeemed on British Airways.

Previously, AAdvantage members couldn’t earn or redeem miles on British Airways between the US and the UK at all. So members would fly from Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean. And there was no restrictions on flights beyond London, such as to Africa. But there were no fuel surcharges.

Now, there are more available routes for redemption but all of those routes (including those which were previously available) are significantly more expensive. How much more? I find a US – Europe roundtrip in a premium cabin will often total nearly $600. Now the regular taxes are a bit over $200 anyway, that darned U.K. premium cabin departure luxury tax. But the fuel surcharges are a killer.

And when you do a bunch of British Airways flying, the fees can really stack up. A few days back I reserved the following with American Airlines miles:

Los Angeles – Chicago – London, American and British Airways First Class

London – Johannesburg, British Airways First Class

Johannesburg – London – Los Angeles, British Airways First Class

The taxes and fuel surcharges totaled over $1100 per ticket.

When I first wrote about the changes I thought they were on net positive, British Airways award availability between many cities in the US and London is really excellent… Phoenix, Houston, and Philadelphia in particular in my experience but even Chicago, Dallas, and New York especially in first class.

But now I’m not so sure, $1100 in taxes and fees for an award ticket really does make me choke. Oh, and this was an award for more than one person so those fees really add up.

Other US carriers don’t generally add fuel surcharges to awards. Alaska does on British Airways redemptions. And Delta egregiously adds an international-originating surcharge on tickets that start outside of North America. Asian and European carriers’ programs are no stranger to these fees, but to some extent even these are moving away from them. In December 2009 SAS Eurobonus eliminated fuel surcharges on award redemptions. Lufthansa has offered an option to redeem additional points to cover these fees. Hopefully we won’t see a spread, no doubt American will be looking at the extent their members balk at redemptions when the fees are in place and if they don’t they could choose to add them to other carrier redemptions as well. And if American does it… Certainly dangerous potential here.

Much discussion on Flyertalk apparently United’s one-way awards now include Star Alliance partners.

And the real concern — that roundtrip awards including stopovers would go away, as they did when American implemented similar one-way awards with partners — hasn’t happened, at least yet.

So far there are still roundtrip awards that allow a destination and a stopover, and one way awards that do not permit stopovers. So that just means more options, which is better.

One-way partner awards can only be booked by phone (so other than 1k members have to pay a telephone booking fee), the website only offers US Airways and Continental award availability anyway.

This is a huge improvement, a huge benefit, and one I’m looking forward to. Many United partners have much better availability than United does, especially for premium cabin international trips. And one-way awards are incredibly useful. For example, you might find availability using United miles one-way and American miles the other. Great, you now have a trip, whereas if neither airline offered one-way awards you’d be stuck.

What I’m looking forward to better understanding is what this means for changes mid-trip. United has up until this point either not allowed changes at all after departure of the first flight when booking with partners, or more recently only allowed changes if all the remaining flights were on United-only or could be changed to be United-only.

Now, with one-way awards, you can change your return trip after your journey has started because the one-way home would not have started.

The outstanding question is whether you have to book two one-ways in order to accomplish this, or if you’ll be able to change the return portion of a roundtrip after the trip has started as Continental has allowed for the year that it’s been a Star Alliance member? Rumor has had it that they’d become more flexible with such changes, I’d love to see confirmation!

Roadwarriorette culls together some TSA blog posts to update on changes to the War on Water.

• Deodorant. Stick deodorant is fine in any size and does not have to be in your Ziplock. Gel and aerosol deoderant mus be 3.4 oz or less and must be in the liquids bag. (Source: TSA blog)
• Makeup. Common size facial cosmetic and medicinal products in a tube, for example mascara, lip gloss, and lip balm are not required to be placed in the 1 qt. bag. May I just say, hallelujah. (Source: TSA blog)
• Contact solution. According to the TSA site:  You may bring all prescription and over-the-counter medications (liquids, gels, and aerosols) including petroleum jelly, eye drops, and saline solution for medical purposes. So, let’s just go with it. It still needs to be in a resealable bag, and it still needs to come out for screening. It just doesn’t have to take up room in your other liquids bag. (Source: TSA site)

Now, I haven’t actually taken my plastic Freedom Baggie out of my carryon in almost a year. Last year a line barker in Yakima sternly commanded everyone to take out their plastic baggies and screen them separately, so I did. Of course Yakima still had the full signage for family line, expert line, etc. even though they have only one line for the airport’s three daily Dash 8′s worth of traffic. And before that it had been a year still.

But I do still pack my freedom baggie with liquids, and have them easily accessible. And I’ve certainly taken to traveling with far less liquid than ever before, even things that the TSA considers to be liquid that science does not. But anything that both liberalizes the official rules, even though rarely enforced, is a good thing. It points out the stupidity of the rules previously in place. And it removes discretion for an ill-informed power-tripping screener (though your mileage always may vary in taking perfectly permissable items through the checkpoint, where the screeners rule supreme and you have few if any rights).

Keep the incremental changes coming until the day that water bottles are once again permitted through the checkpoint instead of tossed into a bin next to the checkpoint, and all good procedure suggests that dangerous substances should be!

Both the StarMegaDO and the Frequent Traveler Awards will be live-blogged here on Boarding Area.

Bookmark or subscribe to an RSS feed for http://boardingarea.com/blogs/starmegado2/ .. because it’ll be interesting to follow for sure.

What’s the MegaDO all about? Well, last year’s

started in Chicago—gave the road warriors an education in how airlines work. At each stop, airline executives greeted them with singers and dancers, mechanics and pilots, ample food and drink and tours of engine shops, training facilities, airplanes and hangars.

Like kids on a school field trip, they filed through crew briefing rooms at UAL Corp.’s United Airlines in Chicago, quizzed maintenance experts at Continental’s engine shop in Newark, practiced flight-attendant skills at Lufthansa’s training center in Frankfurt and were photographed sitting in various aircraft cockpits opened for them at hangars.

They asked airline workers about snow plows at O’Hare, bird-strikes in engines, access to airport clubs and the environmental impact of deicing fluid. They learned how airlines cycle engines and airplanes through scheduled maintenance, how company workers assign gates and direct aircraft movement around terminals, how pilots prepare for long journeys and how Airbus puts together its giant double-deck plane.

And they’ll be sharing the blow-by-blow of that online.

Alright, great, I’m a miles and points junkie and not so much an airline operations aficionado, I’m not going on the MegaDO (though I’ll check in occasionally with the liveblogging). I will be in Houston while the MegaDO folks are there, though, for the Frequent Traveler Awards. And that will be live blogged, as well, while awards are given out you’ll be able to see who wins right away (c’mon, you know you can’t wait for the awards’ website to be updated with full results).

The awards are also expected to be streamed live online, I’m looking forward to sharing that link as well.

Back in June I highlighted ten indispensable websites to improve your travel life.

Now Wendy Perrin has a column in the November Conde Nast Traveler on Magic tools to save you money and time.

And her list is actually better than mine. First because I said my list was a top ten, but only actually gave nine. And second because hers is more than ten.

There’s actually much overlap between our lists, she highlights sites like ITA Software, Autoslash, Awardwallet, and EVReward, all of which I use almost every day.

And I’m especially flattered that her list includes one of my sites, not this blog unfortunately (!) but my fee-based award booking service:

BookYourAward.com
Tearing your hair out trying to use your frequent-flier miles or credit-card points for international flights in first or business class? Here’s the help you didn’t think existed. Gary Leff, the mileage magician behind Book­YourAward, knows all the tricks for getting you where you want to go for as few miles as possible, and he’ll find and book your flights for you. For example, when a Condé Nast Traveler colleague wanted to apply her American Airlines miles to a flight to Bali in business class, it was going to cost her 210,000 miles. Leff found her the seats she wanted for only 122,500 miles, with the return portion from Hong Kong to JFK in Cathay Pacific’s first class. His fee is $250 for two tickets traveling on the same itinerary.

Now, Conde Nast has been very good to me and overly generous. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it here at View from the Wing but back in August they listed me as one of their world’s top 135 travel specialists.

Now, they’re probably wrong about that. But they did give me a nifty logo to use…

While I don’t actually think I belong in a list that includes Google Earth, I do hope I help folks here and I suppose the fact that they included me in that August issue and I never mentioned it here suggests I’m not a very good businessman, far more interested in helping my readers for free than I am charging. Hah.

Delta is offering several bonuses (registration required) for transferring points into a Skymiles account.

• 50% bonus for transfers between Skymiles accounts through November 30. It costs about a penny a point to transfer (plus $30 transaction fee), so with a 50% bonus you’re buying miles at about two cents apiece. Not worth it just to add more miles but if you’re topping off an account towards a specific award could be helpful.

• 35% bonus on transfers from Diners Club through January 15. Bonuses are always good but I value the flexibility of my Diners Club points, I wouldn’t transfer them into Skymiles just for the bonus. But if you’re doing the transfer anyway, getting more miles for doing so is of course better.

• 25% bonus on transfers from hotel programs through December 31. Most hotel partners qualify, oddly Hyatt is left off the list in the terms and conditions. Usual advice here on whether or not to do it applies.

Oddly, though the whole offer requires registration the Diners Club offer terms and conditions say that registration isn’t required, I assume it’s just Diners Club running the promo and sending over additional points as is their usual practice.

The transfer between accounts bonus posts quickly, the bonuses for transferring miles in from hotel programs should take awhile to post per the terms and conditions. Perhaps these will be useful to some.

Tommy passes along an article on Southwest’s plans for Atlanta, which suggests that Atlanta could become the carrier’s biggest city.

His note with the link? “The end of bag fees.” Intriguing argument, one not made in the piece. But Southwest merger partner has over 200 flights daily in Atlanta, Southwest has only about 10% more than that in its biggest city, Las Vegas.

If Southwest goes to war in Atlanta, and maintains its baggage fee stance, and if that shifts customers away from Delta then one possible competitive response is for Delta to drop baggage fees. Hard to imagine they could do so just in Atlanta. If they did it systemwide other majors would surely have to follow.

So far, so good. And I’ve long suspected that while baggage fees have added some revenue to airline bottom-lines through greater price discrimination, that overall it isn’t nearly as lucrative as most reports claim. Simply totaling bag revenue and saying that’s the total effect on revenue misleads, it just draws a circle around total trip cost and pretends it’s marginal revenue. The logic of bag fees seem flawed as well, because most of baggage transfer is a fixed cost so bundling it with ticket price should be a revenue maximize.

But more likely I’d see Delta’s response as matching fares to Southwest destinations, assuming folks won’t decide carrier based on baggage, and leveraging their miles program to reward business travelers and frequent flyers. That’s the United playbook against Southwest in Denver and against Independence Air at Washington Dulles before that, and made for some really great offers. While baggage fees may be a real differentiator for Southwest, and while I’m not a huge fan of the Skymiles program, Southwest is widely expected to gut their own Rapid Rewards program next year (likely moving to a more revenue-based model) and thus further differentiating themselves from Delta on the downside. So it makes sense for Delta to leverage that difference between the two when they do battle.

Airtran wasn’t able to kill Delta, and their costs were lower than Southwest’s. So I really don’t expect Delta to go down to the new marketing team in the neighborhood, regardless of the brand or paintjobs on the aircraft. And I doubt that Southwest’s move into Atlanta will signal the end of bag fees. But it’s an interesting thought exercise nonetheless.

Outsourced to Lucky:

Accor’s annual 50% off sale is back for the next few days. Bookings must be made between October 27 and November 1 for A-Club members, and between October 29 and November 1 for non-members. The promotion is valid for stays between December 12 and February 12.

This is about as gimmick-free of a promotion as you’ll find. They take the best flexible rate and charge you half of it. The only catch is that the rate is non-refundable.

Combined with this Flyertalk discussion on how to get free Platinum status in their loyalty program, this is an exceptionally interesting promo.

Back in June I recommended a new car rental booking website, AutoSlash. And it’s really great — they search not just published rates like every other website, but they also search, test, and apply publicly available coupons and discount codes in order to get the best price. And that’s not all, they keep tracking your reservation to see if they can find a lower price and they email you if they do for permission to make the change.

However, the site does have limitations, they don’t cover all of the major booking agencies. So they haven’t been the true killer app — until now.

They’ve added a new feature, Track a Rental You’ve Already Booked.

If you book your car rental on another website (like Expedia or the Avis website), you can either enter your rental booking details on their site or email your confirmation to track@autoslash.com and they will start tracking the price.

If they find a price reduction, they’ll email you. Price reductions aren’t automatic if you don’t book through them, with this service they’re doing for rental cars what Yapta tries to do for airfares. But it’s an even better fit for cars, since those reservations are usually much more modifiable.

Last week I prompted y’all with the answer to the ‘Priority Club Challenge’ — guessing a location based on clues to earn 2000 points.

And now the Challenge is back for its final week. And the Flyertalk consensus answer seems to be Paphos, Cyprus.

(Hat tip to jb831 in the comments.)

The National Federation for the Blind has initiated a class action lawsuit against United Airlines because United’s check-in kiosks cannot be used by blind passengers.

The complaint itself was shot over to me via Twitter.

The lawsuit alleges violations of California law and I’m not familiar with the nuances of the California Disabled Persons Act or California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. So I can’t speak to this as a matter of law.

But this seems rather frivolous to me. To wit, Mr. Easy Check-in as I’ve long called him is really not all that useful to passengers to begin with. In fact, I don’t recall the last time I used him, and I am fully capable of seeing and using his screens. I use united.bomb and their airport personnel. Who are fully available to assist blind persons.

Ultimately it does not appear that the lawsuit even alleges that a single blind person has been denied transportation on United Airlines as a result inaccessible kiosks.

Instead, what’s the inconvenience? According to the press release,

Michael Hingson, a blind motivational speaker and president and owner of a technology sales company, said: “I have traveled throughout the United States and the world for my public speaking engagements and as a technology sales representative, yet I cannot independently check in at the airport.

Independently. At the airport.

So the passenger can check in. They can even check in on their own through the website.

They just cannot check in without the assistance of a United agent at the airport.

Meanwhile, this claim in the press release seems just wrong:

Instead of enjoying the features and convenience of these kiosks, including a quicker and more convenient check-in process, blind passengers must wait in long lines at the ticket counter, even when they have already purchased their tickets and checked in online.

Since when do passengers have to wait at a ticket counter when they’ve checked in online? Perhaps if they’ve checked bags, but then they have to wait even if they’re using a kiosk, unless of course they use curbside baggage drop.

Now don’t get me wrong, perhaps United could and should roll out more advanced kiosks in future releases that incorporate “audio interface, a tactile keyboard, or interactive screen reader technology.”

It just seems far-fetched that their failure to do so to date justifies a class action lawsuit.

(HT: @pyyhkala)

US Airways is offering 1000 miles to new members for joining by December 31 using promo code NMCB.

Members who join under this promotion and book a ticket within 60 days using a Mastercard will earn an additional 2000 miles.

VegasChatter has the news that the Venetian and Palazzo in Las Vegas have entered into a 10-year agreement with Intercontinental Hotels Group.

The property will be bookable on the Intercontinental website and will be eligible for earning and burning Priority Club points.

Otherwise, the hotels will maintain their own identities. Which tells me they won’t become Intercontinental properties (no stellar Royal Ambassador upgrade benefits and free minibar!). More generally, while time will tell whether they honor any Priority Club elite benefits at all, Priority Club’s platinum level isn’t especially rewarding to begin with so this won’t be a major driver for the elite-status crowd.

Still, the opportunity for points earn and burn at better properties in Vegas is certainly welcomed, as the Wynn and Bellagio for instance offer no such conventional chain loyalty opportunities. Traditionally one imagines that hotels haven’t had to look to the bigger programs to drive business since gambling was such a big part of their revenue and elite status or points-collecting didn’t especially signal big gambling business. But Vegas has very much changed, gambling makes up a smaller portion of revenue, and the hard last couple of years and have left them looking for incremental revenue sources in places they haven’t in the past. No doubt that drove the soon-to-open Cosmopolitan to link up with Marriott Rewards, as well.

More points options are certainly better, but what I really want is a program with a top-end elite offering to link up with more high-end luxury properties, to move beyond points earn and burn to the real benefits that used to be open only to high rollers. But that’s just selfish, since I’m not one…

(HT: S…)

Yesterday I posted links to notes on presentations by Delta Executives to members of Flyertalk. Since I’m not really much of a Delta flyer, the specifics weren’t hugely engaging for me, but I passed them along for those of you out there hub-captive to Delta for whom the nitty gritty of the Delta experience matters a great deal.

Flyertalk member ND76 has posted notes of a couple more presentations, and these are much more up my alley.

Bob Kupbens is Vice President of e-commerce and offered significant feedback on the airline’s IT priorities. I was most interested in the following comment:

16. When award calendar showed up on the screen, the house almost came down. There will be a new look to the award calendar by end of first quarter 2011, with emphasis on accuracy of what inventory is available; close to implementation of world wide SkyMiles Award Chart; new cleaner look to coordinate with site wide redesign

It’s nice to see Delta at least acknowledge that their award booking website is broken. Six months ago I posted a step-by-step on what it actually takes to find the award seats that are really available using the Delta website.

Frequently it’ll misprice awards that are out there, quoting higher mileage prices than are required for a given seat. And it’ll mislead members, showing dates available at the ‘low’ level when no flights actually are.

The best way to search using the Delta site is to always search one-way at a time, even though Delta doesn’t allow one-way redemptions for fewer miles than roundtrip. That way return flight availability doesn’t confuse the pricing issue for a given flight.

And it’s even worthwhile searching one-way coach availability, and sorting by mileage required, and business seats will usually come up when available at the ‘low’ level. If that doesn’t work, search one-way business class.

And always search segment-by-segment (transoceanic first, not from your departure city, as the flights fom the departure city to the international gateway can screw up display of available low level seats).

Meanwhile, what’s to me an equally important — maybe more important — issue is that Delta does not publish an award chart for flights originating outside of North America.

It’s a bigger deal than the online award search because I can search Delta’s partners in other ways. Their website only shows Air France, KLM, and Alaska anyway.

But the airline won’t even tell customers how many miles they want if the award doesn’t fly from or to North America. So when I was asked a week ago how many miles it would cost from Australia to Vietnam (I found availability on Vietnam Airlines) I honestly didn’t know until I called Delta. And I had no idea whether or not I was being quoted the correct mileage amount.

I was also recently asked how many miles for intra-Asia business class. It used to be 30,000. I guessed that Delta would charge 40,000 now. But that’s just a guess. Because it’s nowhere to be found on the Delta website. But now they say they’re ‘close’ to implementing a worldwide award chart, which is something that every other airline I can think of offers. And how hard is it to implement? You just upload a .pdf and call it good. Which is why I’ve long suspected it’s been something Delta would rather not share.

Still, it’s good for execs to acknowledge the deficiencies. Improving the website would help find seats that actually are available — a huge boon for members, and something that merger partner Northwest used to accomplish with ease — and publishing a full award price list is frankly only fair to set member expectations, and reveal if and when the airline raises award pricing.

Meanwhile, the most interesting presentation (to me, at least) was naturally Jeff Robertson’s… he Delta’s Vice President of Loyalty Programs.

I hadn’t known, for instance, that Delta’s international upgrade certificates are now valid on Air France. Delta has the toughest and least consumer friendly international upgrade benefit of any US carrier, requiring the purchase of a nearly full fare ticket and not offering any lower fare upgrade options even to their top tier elites. (American provides their 100,000-mile flyers with upgrade certificates valid on any fare, most carriers at least offer cash buy-ups in addition to miles to upgrade lowest fares.) Delta believes this policy is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to them, so it’s unlikely to change. Fair enough, but if you care about international upgradess when traveling out of pocket then Skymiles probably isn’t the program for you.

Robertson also added that mileage upgrades are coming on Air France:

Mileage upgrades for DL people on AF happening next year, making it “metal neutral”.

I guess I haven’t kept up with the Delta program, since I assumed this was already possible, I know I’ve redeemed Delta miles for Air France confirmed upgrades in the past albeit several years ago.

They’re working to better integrate with Alaska Airlines, in terms of upgrades and baggage and lounge access rules. I sure hope that doesn’t presage the end of other agreements that Alaska has in place with oneworld carriers. I love my Alaska miles because I redeem on Cathay and British Airways, and because they’re useful for creditng both Delta and American flights to. Losing that flexibility would be a real downer for the Mileage Plan program.

Delta does block more coach seats than any other airline in my experience, a benefit for Delta elites no doubt and often makes it difficult for non-elites to get advance seat assignments. Of course those reserveed seats aren’t necessarily really better in the way that United’s economy plus seats offer extra legroom. And I do value the legroom, though in fairness to the Delta inflight product they offer better entertainment and widespread wireless internet.

Several more fascinating and insightful comments.

24. JR admitted that they were too darn tight on saver rewards. He claimed that DL always wanted to get rid of the redemption fee. Miles redeemed are considered as revenue; DL gets credit (presumably from their accountants) immediately for 1.5 cents per mile as revenue; the other 1 cent goes on the balance sheet as a liability. JR thinks that more miles will be redeemed than earned. When a 25000 mile reward is cashed, DL can book $250 as revenue.

This is important to understand. I don’t blame Skymiles at all for terrible award availability. Skymiles does want their members to redeem, which is when they recognize outstanding miles as revenue rather than liability. The problem is that Delta’s revenue management doesn’t offer up the premium cabin international seats for low level redemption. And Delta’s partners tend to be among the stingiest as well (though Vietnam Airlines and V Australia would be excepted from this claim, and at times of the year Air France transatlantic can be more than reasonable including on the A380 from New York to Paris).

The effect for the member is the same, Skymiles just aren’t as useful for premium cabin international redemptions as miles from other programs. The the locus of the program is in inventory managmeent, not a cabal on the part of the management of the Skymiles program!

25. Present mileage levels for international BE is not giving them enough revenue to book.

Uh oh. Expect award chart inflation.

Delta’s award chart is already expensive. Business class to Australia is 150,000 miles. Compare to 115,000 with US Airways. And yet Delta feels their awards are too cheap to justify making seats available, presumably because Delta’s revenue folks want more money for those seats.

Ultimately if Delta’s revenue and inventory folks are inflexible, we’ll see higher mileage pricing, but that simply makes Delta even more uncompetitive. Still, I’d probably settle for that as ‘better’ than the status quo, an improvement for Skymiles even if it underscores how much more other currencies are worth.

26. Redemption seats open over time. DM and PM according to JR get better award availability than others, but not as big internationally as domestically.

True enough, and an important point. I’ve often seen and heard that Delta makes award seats available closer to departure, whereas other programs are likely to make award seats available earlier. This is presumably because Delta is more cautious — they wait until they’re sure a seat will go unsold before letting members claim the seat with miles. They must expect that earlier release of seats will likely mean more mistakes, more seats given as awards that they might have sold and thus revenue foregone.

27. JR can give out better availability, but it will come at a price—hinted at ending bonus miles for elites or 50% bonus for YBM. DL is only airline giving out bonus at YBM. JR indicated that he is struggling with this issue.

These sorta seem like separate issues to me — overall availability of awards for Skymiles members as a whole and the cost of the elite program. Surely elite bonus miles aren’t the driver of ‘too many miles chasing too few seats’ when there are more miles being ‘printed’ by American Express than by elite flight bonuses.

Still, this gets at the fundamental problem. Delta miles are easier to earn than at most airlines, though not monumentally easier than American or especially US Airways miles. And so of course awards either need to cost more or will suffer from scarcity.

So if you collect Skymiles when they’re uber-cheap, such as 10,000 miles from a one-day weekend car rental, the economics of the program work out for the consumer. But if you think that a SKymile is worth as much as a similar unit of another currency you wind up disappointed. Easier to earn and takes more to redeem and the value proposition of the program works out a bit better. To make more seats available, you’d have to tighten up on the earning side somehow. It seems odd to focus on elite bonuses when those are something other programs do as well, but it gets reasonably close to understanding the problem.

30. The percentages of domestic upgrade success according to JR:
85% DM , 75% PM, 55% GM, 40%.

I just share the above as interesting information. It wouldn’t work out for my home market of Washington DC where there’s usch a preponderance of government fares, those fares are treated as full fare, and full fare trumps status at Delta.

I’m also surprised that their 125,000-mile flyers ‘only’ clear 85% of the time. And that Silvers clear 40% of the time. Still, fascinating data points.

Delta hosted an event for Flyertalkers, and ND76 took notes of some of the presentations and posted them in Flyertalk’s Delta forum.

I’m not a big Delta guy as regular readers know, but those who are may find these presentation notes interesting:

• Richard Anderson, CEO

• Tim Mapes, Sr. Vice President of Marketing

• Sandy Gordon, Vice President of Inflight Services

• Neil Stronach, Vice-President of Operations, Planning, Control and Reliability

In the neverending saga of US Airways award zone adjustments, after just last week definitively moving Thailand to their North Asia region (thus reducing the cost of US-Thailand awards in business class by 30,000 miles and in first class by 40,000 miles!), they’ve once again updated their partner award chart (.pdf) and it’s now back in South Asia.

In the first iteration they moved Russia from North Asia to Europe. Ok, no more Moscow – Frankfurt – Seoul first class roundtrips for 40,000 miles. Fair enough. And they listed Thailand and the Philippines under both North Asia and South Asia, instead of just South Asia where they had previously resided.

Then US Airways corrected the double listing mistake, moving Thailand and the Philippines to North Asia only.

And now they’ve moved both countries back to South Asia.

Now, admittedly, listing them in North Asia was weird. Or at least listing Thailand there seems weird. And not just because of the exceptional award value (90,000 miles in business class!) but because countries to the North of Thailand, like Burma, remained in South Asia.

So I get why they’d ‘fix’ this issue, but what I wish I knew the behind-the-scenes on is why they moved these countries to North Asia in the first place, only to move them back.

Oh well, at least 10% of the time US Airways agents price Thailand awards as North Asia anyway. Heh. (Though when they ask me what region Thailand is in — and how much travel to that region is supposed to cost — I always answer honestly.)

(HT: Dave via Keri)

American Airlines is offering a gift card for travel purchases made via Mastercard at AA.com by December 15 for travel through March 31. Registration required.

• Purchase air-only and receive a $10 Mastercard gift card
  
• Purchase air + another travel item (car, hotel, or activity) and receive a $25 Mastercard gift card
  
• Purchase air + 2 other travel items (car, hotel, or activity) and receive a $50 Mastercard gift card

For folks who’d be booking American flights anyway it’s free money. Sadly they’ll only award one gift card per person.

Via MileQuest, you can Register any American Express card by December 31 and use that card to set up automatic bill pay with your wireless provider and you’ll receive a $10 Costco Cash Card.

The offer does not appear to be targeted, or exclude folks that are already using automatic bill pay to charge their American Express card with their monthly wireless bill.