(This is a Continuation of “Trip Report – A Private Jet Experience: Alone in First Class on ANA and Thai, Plus Singapore First, a Suite, a Villa, and Some Incredible Food Porn”)

The Intercontinental’s shuttle dropped us off at check-in for ANA and Lufthansa.

We quickly walked up to the red carpet, first class and Star Gold checkin. Bags were tagged all the way to Singapore, even though we were on separate tickets for the Tokyo – Singapore segment. It took the agents a little while to figure out how to do it, the biggest challenge being my explaining to them that the Chicago – Tokyo flight arrived the next day and so they needed to enter the Singapore – Tokyo flight for that day. They kept entering a same day departure and getting a response that the flight was already closed.

Once that was handled we walked through premium security, there was virtually no line, and the nude-o-scopes were even turned off. We went quickly down through the ORD tunnel to the C concourse, the first class lounge is behind the customer service counter near gate C18.

The lounge is peaceful enough, we had no problem finding seating, but it isn’t special in any way. It’s just a bit quieter than the Red Carpet Club next door.

There’s better food and drink, of course, though I wouldn’t call the food selection especially good or impressive.

Still, this is Unitedand even though this is the international first class lounge for their main hub, a lounge shared by international premium carriers like ANA (which we’d be flying, though admittedy ANA isn’t really known for its ground experience) and Lufthansa, the lounge was fine for our short time there. We didn’t get ourselves to the airport with the intention of spending time there, and that worked out perfectly.

Though I suppose it was five o’clock somewhere, I didn’t partake in the bar selection, which was self-service and well stocked.

Cloudy Bay is a decent enough Sauvignon Blanc though since it struck me as the best bottle available that hardly impressed.

Soon enough it was time to board and we walked over to the ANA gate, boarding already mostly complete, and found our way to the first class cabin. A couple of days earlier I had checked the inventory buckets and seat map and it appeared we were the only ones in the cabin. That was re-confirmed at check-in, though I did wonder whether there was some chance of an upgrade of someone in business. When we boarded the plane I asked and was told that indeed we would be the only ones in first class that day!

Seating on the ANA 777 is 1-2-1 in first class, and we had pre-reserved the two seats together in the middle in row 1. We were invited to take any seats we liked, or to start at a window seat and move later if we wanted the view as we took off. We just took our originally assigned seats which suited us just fine. It was going to be a good flight.

The seat itself was really remarkable when it was first introduced in 2002. It was 2006 before it finally rolled out completely across all routes, I still remember taking an old “SuperStyle” first class flight in April 2006 from Washington Dulles to Tokyo, and then seeing on the return that the NewStyle seats were operating every other day for the route — and I just missed it.

Now the seats are a bit dated, though in perfect condition. They’re just not as wide as I’d like, and there’s really no storage, but otherwise I still find them excellent.

There are many things I find a bit odd about ANA, that’s important to understand it’s how they do things and not a reflection on service. There are no pre-departure beverages per Japanese regulation. But there was still plenty of activity with us before we took off, in addition to the flight attendant duties of lightly tapping each overhead bin in a rather comical routine, I don’t think they’d be able to tell if each one is actually closed and latched with as lightly as they make contact. But it’s a well-rehearsed routine.

Service began with our amenity bag. I don’t like the blue drawstring bags as much as I used to like the zipper pouch bags, I still use those for a variety of purposes like carrying toiletries and medicines and power adapters. ANA gives you a bag and has a basket of amenities, you take what you wish from the basket. On my previous ANA first class flight and on this one, shortly after takeoff the amenity basket was left in front of the television of a vacant seat so that you could take more items if you wished. I stocked up on the lip balm mostly, and a couple of water mist spray bottles. The lotion has been downgraded to a single use tube and I didn’t take any of them. I did grab a couple of scents, though, I especially like the lavender card.

Menus were distributed and ANA really does still have the most extensive menu in the sky, and I’d argue the best food.

There have been some noticeable cutbacks compared to two and certainly four years ago, but they’re still legions ahead of anyone else that I’ve flown. It’s a true mix-and-match dining on demand whenever you’d like, whatever you’d like, and they have tons of options. I always go with the Japanese meal on ANA, even departing the US it is very good though it’s usually considered better departing Tokyo. The Western dishes look excellent but I figure that I don’t often get such an extensive Japanese meal as with ANA so I might as well take advantage of the opportunity. There are full Japanese and Western multi-course affairs, and several different snack menus as well as a final pre-arrival meal. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten the pre-arrival meal as-described, I’ve always just mixed-and-matched whatever snacks and dishes suited my fancy instead.

Hot towels, naturally, before and after each service.

And my pre-meal snack…

.. was greeted by a glass of Krug.

I began with the caviar from the Western menu

And I do have to say that ANA does a nice job with their caviar presentation. They’re the only airline that I can think of (though I may be wrong) that provides a separate utensil for the caviar. Now, it doesn’t make as much difference as is usually imagined, but it’s still a nice tough that they provide a (plastic, not mother-of-pearl) caviar spoon. The portions aren’t huge, a la Lufthansa, but they’re artfully presented.

I also tried the foie gras mousse with roast duck from the Western menu before switching to the Japanese.

The Japanese menu, copied from the website, was as follows: (Note that one of the things I do like about ANA is that they publish the menu for each first class flight on their website for the current and following month, makes trip reports easier!)

KAPPO
o Langoustine with tartare sauce Marinated octopus with Japanese green horseradish sauce Trio of Japanese delicacies
o Crabmeat fishcake
o Assorted of salmon, squid and hen clam
o Simmered chicken meat ball and vegetables in light soy sauce
o Smoked duck breast with sesame flavored sauce
o Cod and Chinese cabbage roulade

After this feast I was too full to have dessert, much to the disappointment of our flight attendants. I went into the restroom to change into my pajamas.

The pajamas have changed to a blue rather than prison grey, they’re quite substantial and I like them though one of the oddities about ANA is that they aren’t yours to keep. Flight attendants will collect them when you change back into your clothes, they’ll be washed and packaged for re-use. I have no problem with wearing them, they were completely clean, but it could be a bit of a surprise if you’ve flown first class on other carriers and become accustomed to taking home the PJs (and even wearing them on long haul flights on other carriers that don’t provide pajamas, cough, United, cough).

And as I left the restroom one of the flight attendants was standing there waiting to hang my clothes. I returned to my seat to find my bed already made. That’s one of the true joys of first class flying, not even having to ask.

Though I declined dessert, there were petit fours waiting for me to nibble on as I relaxed.

My wife did have some dessert and a cappuccino to accompany it, and since we were flying on Valentine’s Day they adorned it ever-so-appropriately.

I adjusted the seat slightly into relaxation mode and started watching some DVDs I had burned to my laptop. This flight I’d be watching some of the sixth season of The Shield. After a few episodes I decided to have a nap, I really hadn’t slept all that much the night before, and a couple of hours of sleep were more than comfortable.

Midflight I had the bar snacks, or sake accompaniments:

o Caramelized freshwater willow minnow in sweet soy sauce
o Deep-fried fishcakes
o Lotus root dumpling with rich soy based sauce

Followed by the ice cream (I finally had my dessert!)

While my wife had the opera cake.

Later in the flight my wife decided to really take advantage of the fact that we were completely alone in the cabin. No, not like that! Get your mind out of the gutter! She placed a blanket of the ground in the cabin and spent 45 minutes or an hour on her Yoga practice. Now that’s relaxation, in private jet style, even on a commercial flight! She got a couple of smiles from the flight attendants, one who talked to her afterwards about her own Yoga practice.

I talked with one of our other flight attendants about our planned time in Singapore, she was so disappointed we weren’t staying in Japan on this trip (especially because ANA flight attendants always seem genuinely impressed when Westerners take the full Japanese meal and seem to enjoy it). But she said her best friend lives in Singapore, and that they visit often. She proceeded to write out three pages of restaurant recommendations along with the usual tourist advice like the zoo and night safari. It was a genuinely appreciated touch, going out of her way to share her thoughts with us.

Watched some more of The Shield, napped a bit, and got myself up about an hour before arrival for one last shot at something to eat. I mixed and matched from the light dishes snack menu and the post-nap meal for my pre-arrival snack,

Traditional onion soup with cheese toast

Braised beef and eggs noodles with red wine sauce

I had these along with another cappuccino and an orange juice. This time there was no heart in the foam, perhaps because we had crossed the international date line and it was no longer Valentine’s Day. And the orange juice was a bit disappointing, wasn’t fresh squeezed like on Cathay (and like on Lufthansa for breakfast, though Lufthansa serves the cheaper stuff for a pre-departure beverage).

With about 30 minutes to go before landing I changed out of my pajamas. My bedding was removed and seat about 2/3rds of the way back to upright when I returned.

We had some pretty significant headwinds throughout the flight but arrived just 30 minutes late. After 14 hours onboard I was no worse for wear, time zone difference notwithstanding. I was well fed, well cared for, had a comfortable bed. I never used the inflight entertainment system, the content of which much improved a couple of years ago but didn’t have much of interest to me and doesn’t compare to Cathay Pacific to name one example.

On the whole the ANA seat is good, I haven’t flown their new First Square so can only compare this older product. But I’d take it over most airlines still, even if it’s not in league with Cathay’s seat which is much wider. ANA’s food is outstanding, the best really. ANA’s service is also outstanding. Usually the flight attendants are a bit more formal than on other carriers, but they were friendly and engaging on this flight. English can be a challenge but again wasn’t at all this go. I do think they ought to move to pajamas that you take with you, but that’s just a function of what I’m used to on other carriers. I like the ‘take what you like’ approach to amenities but higher-end branded amenities would be nice. Do I have any complaints at all about the flight, though? Certainly not! And having the cabin to ourselves was a real bonus, have you ever spent an hour doing yoga inflight and not felt weird about it?

But then this wouldn’t be the only flight where we were alone in the first class cabin on the trip…

Last week I wrote a fairly extensive analysisof Starwood Preferred Guest’s award category shifts. Every year the hotel chain moves some hotels up and other hotels down in reward category, changing the number of points required for redemption at each. When more hotels go up in category than down, it’s a devaluation in the program.

On the whole Starwood moved as many hotels down as up, in fact a handful more went down than went up. So really just tinkering at the margins with a fairly small percentage of hotels. They gave us a full list of the changes in advance, meaning astute readers of this blog could book hotels in advance if those hotels were going up, or wait until March 1 to book those hotels going down in price. A nice little window to maximize the use of Starwood points, and overall changes which aren’t of concern.

On the other hand, Marriott is making its own annual award category changes and the news isn’t nearly as good.

Marriott is raising the reward category for 350 hotels and lowering the category for 100 hotels on March 8.

Members can make reservations at the lower reward level for hotels moving up before March 8, but Marriott has only released the names of 50 hotel properties that are changing category — so in most cases members have no idea whether or not they need to do this.

The 50 hotels whose names have been released are in award categories 5 through 8. The other 300 hotels changing categories are in 1 through 4. Which is a big deal, because many of those will be going from 4 to 5 — Marriott’s “MegaBonus” offer of a free night certificate after two hotel stays only allows redemptions up to category 4, so those certificates become useless at hotels that go up to category 5. Same story for the free night certificates that come with new Marriott co-branded credit card signup.

It seems odd this year to so substantially increase the number of properties in higher reward categories, but that’s fair enough we expect a certain amount of devaluation. The real issue is no advance notice on 90% of the hotels that are going up in category. That’s how Marriott has played it in the past, and there’s no good reason for it. They know how many hotels are changing category, so they must know which ones are changing category. They’ve even shared 50 hotel names. And if for some reason they didn’t have a final list, there’s nothing written in stone that March 8 has to be the date on which the category changes take place — they could finalize the list, share it, and then implement the changes..

Loyalty Traveler offers an extensive analysis of the changes, what’s known and not known, and how this affects the value of the program.

Me, I just notice that a cluster of properties going up in category that we know about are in the Caribbean, and that there’s now a SpringHill Suites — in Virginia Beach of all places — that’s reached Category 7.

I admit, I understand the economics of the Starwood Preferred Guest program much better than Marriott Rewards, and have a hard time fathoming a SpringHill suites costing such stratospheric levels. I did once hear that whereas Starwood reimburses properties based on their average daily room rate, and actually paying the average rate on nights that those properties hit 90% occupancy, Marriott has a completely different formula and reimburses hotels increasingly more for each award stay. So the more award nights a property redeems, the more the property gets paid for each of those nights. I do not know if that’s correct.

Marriott — unlike Starwood, Hilton, and Hyatt — doesn’t have a ‘no capacity controls’ model of award redemption. The three aforementioned programs will give you any standard room available at a hotel on points (with the occasional glitch, but more or less). Marriott does not do this. They’ll let you spend additional points for additional availability. So their availability isn’t as generous and they’re increasing their award pricing and doing it in a non-transparent way. And yet members are incredibly loyal to this program….

Loyalty Traveler reviews the saga of the lifetime Fairmont Presidents Club offer that I posted the other day.

It does turn out that the lifetime status was included in the Presidential Suite and Penthouse Living Social packages in error. I’d be really curious to know how the error transpired, someone wrote the copy and presumably thought that’s what was intended.

They pulled the offer early, it was supposed to run until Tuesday. But though it was unclear for a bit how Fairmont was going to handle things, perhaps they would have cancelled the deal and refunded folks’ money? In the end they decided to honor the promotion.

Some folks got their status especially cheap, you could even go in on these things as a group and get a discount for referring people, so the cost went down as low as $1500. If you’re young, and you have a reasonable likelihood of staying at Fairmonts, and the status isn’t devalued too badly in the future, then it turned out to be a pretty darned good deal.

Barbara De Lollis does a wrapup on the offer, from inception to its getting honored by Fairmont, in her USA Today Hotel Check-in blog.

She quotes me offering kudos to Fairmont for stepping up:

He gives Fairmont kudos for “stepping up and honoring the offer and doing so quickly. Fairmont Platinum is a really nice status level, and permanent status should provide nice benefits well into the future.”

It’s important to commend travel providers for doing right by their customers, especially in situations like these, in addition to the usual griping after all!

(This is a Continuation of “Trip Report – A Private Jet Experience: Alone in First Class on ANA and Thai, Plus Singapore First, a Suite, a Villa, and Some Incredible Food Porn”)

I kept checking for a first class award seat on Washington Dulles – Chicago, my seat was booked in business and my wife was in first. It’s a short segment and doesn’t much matter, but why not try to upgrade to the international first class cabin on a 767? Unfortunately not only did another first class award not pop up, but the aircraft was downgraded. To an Airbus. Now we were together in the same cabin, at least. Though the whole reason for heading out to Dulles was blown to bits. I really do despise Dulles and will avoid it whenever possible. But on a US Airways award ticket, and without US Airways status, I decided against paying a change fee ($150 times 2) to grab a flight out of National instead.

We arrived at Dulles to find out flight oversold, looking for volunteers. What was once supposed to be a 767, downgraded to an Airbus A320, was now an A319. We had the whole afternoon, we were flying out the day before leaving the country because I didn’t want anything to get in the way of starting our trip but the weather turned out to be fine. A perfect day for a bump! And yet we decided to just fly, and took a pass on the denied boarding compensation.

Boarding was on time, the flight was naturally unremarkable except for the ways in which it lagged behind even the usual United domestic first class experience.

No pre-departure beverages. No assistance with coats. The flight was just a ‘light snack’ aka snack basket service, we got one pass of drinks and nothing more.

When we landed, passengers in row 1 pushed their way back past me to get their own coats, which they had hung themselves and hadn’t been returned to them prior to landing.

It was just a short hop to Chicago, but being gone for more than a week and a half we had checked bags. Headed down to baggage claim and I was confused at first, our flight wasn’t on the board with the baggage claim belts listed. It took a moment to realize that the flights were frozen in time from six days prior.

We collected our bags and went over to the hotel shuttle center at O’Hare, a real schlep. I had considered just booking the Hilton, it’s attached to the airport after all, but I couldn’t resist an $87 rate at the Intercontinental which I’d wanted to try for awhile. It certainly didn’t disappoint.

It began with the shuttle ride over. The Intercontinental must have the nicest hotel shuttle van I’ve ever been in, leather seats with that new car smell. All black, there’s a place for a bar setup (though the bar wasn’t set). The seats are actually comfortable for the short trip over to the hotel.

Walking in, I was immediately struck by the modern lobby with bright colors and high ceilings. It felt more like a Grand Hyatt in Asia than an O’Hare airport hotel.

The hotel has its own art gallery, and art is prominently featured throughout the hotel — from the lobby to murals on the wall by the elevators of the guest floors.

Checking in I was told we had been upgraded to a suite. The clerk checking us in wondered why we had been pre-assigned one without a view, so he tore up the assignment and found a room with a view out towards the city and directly in the landing path for O’Hare.

It was incredible to watch planes line up, more than a dozen deep in two rows, for arrival into the airport.

I was told I’d receive complimentary internet as a Royal Ambassador. The hotel has no club lounge, I’ve seen references to complimentary breakfast by other travelers but nothing was mentioned. So I asked. And the response I got was interesting, “Sure, we can do that. It’s not really a benefit but I’d be happy to do anything for you that you would like. I’ll deliver certificates to your room shortly.” And they did, not just breakfast coupons but also for free drinks that evening in the bar.

The room was beautiful and modern, a spacious living room with L-shaped couch and a separate bedroom, a half bath in the entryway and a giant master bathroom.

The living room, bedroom, and guest bath:

Here’s the master bath:

The Royal Ambassador amenity:

And the minibar, which I only flag of course because its liquid contents are of course free for Royal Ambassadors:

The hotel’s business center has a live departures board above their checkin computers. Those worked great, except that I separately checked in for my Singapore Airlines flight and Singapore produces boarding passes as .pdf files. I had to check-in again on my laptop, save the .pdf to a thumb drive, and then print it out on one of the business center computers — fortunately they provide 15 minutes of free computer time in the business center as well.

The hotel’s gym was nice enough, too, no complaints.

On either side of the property are a Capital Grille and a McCormick & Schmick’s. I still had some McCormick & Schmick discount cards that I’ve picked up in airline lounges, unfortunately they expired two days before our visit. We had a nice dinner and spent the evening at the hotel, went to bed early after a series of very hectic weeks.

It was just a relaxing stay. My wife even commented that we could “just stay here for 12 days and that could be our vacation!” And at $87 a night, with free breakfast and cocktails and internet and minibar, I could almost have seen us doing just that. Almost. If we didn’t have much better lying ahead of us.

We enjoyed a light breakfast in the morning, not wanting to overeat before beginning our journey

And then we took the hotel shuttle over to the airport, getting on our way to Asia.

Prologue: The decision-making and booking process

I’m just back from South Asia, where my wife and I had a nice pretty par for the course first class redemption. But there were some high points, and some lessons in award redemption that I hope to be able to share. Some things I’d do again, some things I’d do differently, so it seemed worth writing up a trip report and hopefully it’ll be worth reading and even helpful to a few folks.

I started out looking for first class transpacific award seats on Star Alliance, planning for a trip that was a little bit less than two weeks. The plan was a getaway towards the end of the cold winter season, maybe miss the final snow (we lucked out and did!) and to come back as DC was warming up (worked out perfectly).

I scanned first class award space on All Nippon and on Asiana, looking for dates that would match up. And I found two first class seats Chicago – Tokyo on ANA, and two first class seats for the return Tokyo – Washington Dulles. Now that’s something to plan the rest of an itinerary around!

I played around and found that Thai was offering just onefirst class award seat most days on Bangkok – Tokyo, both flights with first class, the Jet Airways 777 in the morning and the redeye 747. I decided to grab one for my wife, put myself in business on the assumption that I’d upgrade later. It seemed like additional first class inventory was opening up 17-18 days in advance, and I had several months to watch, I couldn’t imagine I wouldn’t wind up up front. I wound up sweating it out a lot more than I’d expected, which is a whole ‘nother story for later in the report.

Hadn’t really decided what else to do at this point, but I gave a call to US Airways. I’ve got way too many Dividend Miles from various promos like the 2009 holiday shopping Big Bonus and Track-it-back, might as well burn some of those. I put on hold IAD-ORD-NRT/BKK-NRT-IAD and they held it at 120,000 miles apiece, the US – North Asia price rather than the ‘correct’ 160,000 price for South Asia given that the return was from Bangkok.

I chose the Washington Dulles – Chicago flight on United because it was scheduled as an international 767, that seemed worth the trek out to Dulles for even though I live near National. One seat was available in first class, gave that to my wife, and one in coach which I took just like the Bangkok – Tokyo Thai flight.

Since the thing priced at 120,000 miles I decided not to press my luck and add anything from Tokyo to South Asia. I just ticketed it as-is, and went about piecing together the rest of the itinerary. Using Singapore miles I grabbed two first class one-way award seats Tokyo – Singapore on Singapore, to line up with our Tokyo arrival. Sweet, now I had ANA first and Singapore first. I didn’t have that many Singapore miles in my account, this was a great opportunity to burn them. Booking online I got the 15% discount, which I needed. I didn’t have enough for the two tickets without the online discount, which meant that I couldn’t book Singapore as a stopover and Bangkok as the destination, I would have needed to call to do that. So I closed out the award with a one-way cash and points award with bmi miles, Singapore – Bangkok in business class on Thai. That was just 7500 bmi miles apiece.

Then I went about picking hotels. I had booked DC – Chicago with an overnight in Chicago rather than taking a 6am flight out of DC to connect to our international flight because I figured that the middle of February could present real weather challenges, I wanted to position myself early especially flying on a US Airways award. I held off booking a hotel for the Chicago overnight hoping to see a Hyatt promo. After all, I neededa one-night stay, probably an airport stay, which would have made Hyatt just perfect if they brought back Faster Free Nights. They didn’t, and I wound up booking an $87 rate at the Intercontinental O’Hare and I’m glad I did, the best airport hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

For Singapore I contacted the hotel to ask about their Royal Ambassador treatment and decided to book a Shophouse Suite which they promised would be upgraded to an Ambassador Suite.

And for Thailand we decided against flying anywhere, and booked the Sheraton Hua Hin since it’s drivable from Bangkok. Shortly after booking, though, the hotel let me know that they’d be hosting a wedding that would take up almost the entire hotel during the bulk of our stay and that we might not enjoy ourselves. I actually appreciated knowing that, I wouldn’t have wanted to travel all that way and find the place noisy and overrun. So I posted on Flyertalk asking for advice about what other property to consider. On the whole reaction there was really strong, feeling that the hotel was out of line in saying they couldn’t meet their own minimum standards and that they probably just wanted my room back to give to the wedding party. I hadn’t asked for anything, but the hotel proactively reached out to me (having seen the discussion thread) and offered to make sure that I had a stay somewhere that met my goals and expectations for the trip. The Intercontinental Hua Hin was sold out of their better room categories during my planned dates, and the Hyatt is an older property, I ultimately agreed to fly to Phuket and they arranged to confirm in advance a Sala Pool Villa at the new Westin Siray Bay. Sounded great, I’d check out a new property and the room was a standalone structure with its own pool overlooking the bay, I figured how could I go wrong?

Now that we were flying to Phuket I rang up bmi to change the one-way Singapore – Bangkok award to Singapore – Bangkok – Phuket. And then I’d just need to buy the Phuket – Bangkok segment.

Shortly after ticketing the US Airways award, a seat opened in business class for Dulles – Chicago and I rang Dividend Miles and had them upgrade me. So now I was just looking for a first class award seat on that segment and on Bangkok – Tokyo.

But the trip was basically all set…

Via Whitedoor on Milepoint, there’s a Living Social daily deal that will give you lifetime Platinum status in the Fairmont Presidents Club program and a one-night stay in the Presidential Suite at the Fairmont San Francisco for $2000.

Platinum is the top tier in the program, it gets you suite upgrades and free nights plus bonus miles and early check-in and late check-out. Since it’s being offered on a permanent basis it could even be worthwhile just for the status, at least for those with plenty of years ahead and a likelihood of staying with Fairmont regularly in the future.

Fly Gracefully describes the usefulness of the free tool, dropbox.com.

It’s not new, but some folks may not be aware of it, it’s like having a hard drive full of data anywhere you go. The young’ins call

Dropbox shows up as a folder on my desktop. I place a file in there. It uploads it to dropbox land. I go to dropbox on my phone or nook and download the file and transfer it where I need it.

Dropbox will let you alone have access to files, or let you share files as well which is great for passing along powerpoint presentations that are too large to email. It’s also a handy place to keep travel documents like copies of passports. I’ve long kept scanned copies on my laptop, but this is great because my laptop could die mid-trip. Alright, the odds of that happening on the same trip as my passport is lost are stolen are low. But what if my passport and laptop are stolen?

Fly Gracefully outlines the ways you can earn additional storage for free, on top of the basic account level.

•Sign up via a referral link (extra 250 MB) – Here’s Mine http://db.tt/YLtSueV
•Complete steps such as the tour to become a “Dropbox guru” (extra 250MB)
•Connect Dropbox to social media (up to 640MB) – http://www.dropbox.com/free
•Register .edu email address (extra 500MB) http://www.dropbox.com/edu
•Refer other users (extra 250MB each)
•Refer fellow students (extra 500MB each) – dropbox.com/edu

You can also use my referral link if you’d like, but no worries if not! Nice that referring and being referred both earn extra storage.

Contra Grace, I think that if you register a .edu address then anyone you refer – not just students – will earn you 500 megs of storage apiece rather than the standard 250 megs.

As a travel junkie and someone who booked not just travel for myself but for all sorts of friends and colleagues, I like the American Epxress Premier Rewards Gold card which earns triple Membership Rewards points on airfare purchases.

And I do like my Membership Rewards points, especially for transfers:

• To Continental, which will hold Star Alliance awards when you don’t have enough miles in your account. Points transfer instantly, as well. This partnership ends September 30.
  
• To Aeroplan, because of their favorable award chart (e.g. 80,000 miles for business class from the US to much of Europe, or 120,000 miles for first class from the US to as far South in Asia as Singapore. Points transfer instantly.
  
• To British Airways, because of their 100,000 mile business class awards on Cathay Pacific from the US to Asia and the current 40% transfer bonus through March 31.

But I’m equally intrigued by the Travelocity American Express card (the offer on the left hand side of the linked page, as discussed in this Milepoint thread).

• The first thing to know is that Travelocity points are worth 2 cents apiece when redeemed 20,000 at a time (20,000 points is a $400 credit to spend on Travelocity).

• Spending with the card on Travelocity earns 5 points per dollar, so that’s a 10% cash rebate to spend on travel.

• Spending in your chosen category (choose restaurants, gas, groceries) earns 2 points per dollar, a 4% cash rebate to spend on travel.

• Spending in all other categories earn 1 point per dollar, a 2% cash rebate to spend on travel.

So in the worst case, it’s a 2% cash rebate card where the funds can be spent on travel. So at the bottom end it’s like a Capital One Venture card that they pump on TV. But I wouldn’t use it for regular spend.

The card comes with an annual fee of $39 (folks have reported getting it waived for the second year) and a signup bonus of 7,500 points (worth uo to $150) after first purchase. They say it’s a $75 value but you’ll save the points for a higher value redemption…

Not a bad card for sure for travel spend, especially if you can stomach using Travelocity for your bookings. I’m not a huge fan of the booking engine myself but that’s just an aesthetic preference. Though I think I could get over that!

And of course whenever you book your travel through a site like Travelocity (or Expedia or Orbitz) you should start at a cash back site like Big Crumbs or e-Bates for additional cash back for your purchases on top.

Delta has finally published their award charts.

Yep, you read that right. Previously how many miles they were supposed to charge you for travel that didn’t begin or end in North America was a secret. They didn’t actually publish an award chart. You had no idea how many points you were supposed to need for an award, and had no way to know if an agent was prciing something correctly or not.

After many years of haranguing (by me, though of course by others) they’ve gone ahead and actually published their award pricing. And they’ve taken the opportunity at the same time to bump up the price of several of their awards.

TM Travel World points out that they’ve increased the cost of awards from US to North Asia from 60,000 miles in coach to 70,000 miles. (Compare to US Airways who charges 90,000 miles for business class.) And they’ve increased the cost of coach awards to South Asia to 80,000 — an increase of one-third. They’ve increased the cost of award travel to Southern Africa from 80,000 in coach to 100,000 (United and Continental charge 125,000 miles for business class).

Business class between North and South Asia runs 70,000 miles roundtrip. Just three years ago these awards represented a fantastic value at just 30,000 miles roundtrip. Sad to see these great values go away.

Delta spins the need to separate North Asia from South Asia as separate zones and increase the price of several awards as being because of the distance traveled:

Example: previously all flights between US and Asia were the same award level, as were intra-Asia levels, despite being very different in terms of length of haul and market. Both NRT-ICN and NRT-SIN flights were previously priced at 20,000 miles for our low roundtrip award, even though the SIN flight is several times the distance of ICN.

The new zoning will price NRT-ICN at 15,000 miles for a low roundtrip award, and NRT-SIN at 45,000 miles. When you consider that NRT-SIN is about the same distance as a flight from JFK-LHR priced at 60,000 miles low roundtrip for a similar product, it makes sense.

But of course this doesn’t make sense. They cherrypick about the shortest transatlantic route, New York JFK – London. They don’t point out that Los Angeles – London (and elsewhere in Europe) is supposed to be the same price and much longer. And that’s precisely how it works with a zone-based award chart.

Some programs have distance-based charts. That’s how All Nippon works. It’s how Asiana works. It’s how BA’s and American’s multipartner oneworld awards work. The distance traveled determines how many miles you’re charged. Fair enough. But Delta hasn’t adopted a distance-based chart. They have a zone-based chart. Some travel winds up comparatively cheap and other travel comparatively more expensive. That’s fine, it’s of Delta’s choosing. But don’t then say “longer travel should cost more.”

Though it is a doubly strange explanation, the idea that longer awards cost more, considering that we now know that Sydney – Seoul is 110,000 miles roundtrip in business class, while Sydney – Vietnam is more expensive at 120,000 miles in business class.

Of course, US to Australia is now 100,000 miles in coach. Air Canada Aeroplan, and American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner, charges 100,000 miles to travel on their partners from the US to Australia in business.

Oddly, they have gone to a distance-based chart for flights within China, and business class is a very modest premium (5000 miles more roundtrip for a flight that’s under 3000 miles each way).

And what good would a post like this be without critiquing their sense of geography? Though I’ll be the first to say it’s not entirely fair. Few airlines get this right, and it really doesn’t matter as long as they’re up front about their award pricing, which at least Delta now (finally) is. Hong Kong is in North Asia. Macau is in South Asia. Not that you’d fly between the two cities, you’d take a ferry… I suppose they have to draw the (very zig zagging) line somewhere! I don’t really have a problem with this, and I’m just happy they’re getting more transparent even as they’re getting more expensive.

Charles points out that the award charts are basically the old Northwest Airlines web maps and charts (with new, higher mileage requirements), and they’re hosted on the Delta Minnesota server, i.e. the old Northwest system. So what in the world have they been waiting so many years to publish their award prices for?

Of course, this is all aside from Delta’s “international origination surcharge” and the fuel surcharges they also add to many of their partner awards, their award chart isn’t just more expensive than most of their US competitors but on the whole their fees are as well.

Via Ben, American Airlines will give between 100 and 100,000 miles to everyone who likes them on Facebook. Most, including me, will get 100 miles.

Go here, hit Like, and then the next screen will ask you for your AAdvantage number.

The Hampton Inn Boston Raynham has an offer on their Facebook page

Text HAMPTON to 40491
Earn 10,000 Hilton Honors points for joining!!!

Apparently if you give them permission to text you, they’ll give you 10,000 Hilton HHonors points.

Slickdeals says that you’ll get a text back with a phone number to call and provide your HHonors number to receive the points. Apparently, though, “the voicemail is full, so you can email your info to renee.snoke@hilton.com and she will take care of it.”

The number is 401-608-3516 but it’s probably easier to email.

Personally I work off a blackberry and I never text, I’m such a luddite I don’t have an unlimited texting plan. They’ll text you room deals and deals on dinners and the like, apparently. Not sure how often so my inclination is to pass on this myself but this will be useful for most.

(HT: Keri)

Update: Offer is dead.

Yesterday I wrote on Milepoint that Starwood should be coming out with their revised award categories for 2011. The list of changes has been made public and my predictions were all wrong.

In the past I’ve given Starwood a hard time over their annual re-categorization of properties. A very hard time, and I think it’s well-deserved. They say their categories are based on the average room rates for a hotel property, but on the hotel categories seem to go up even when room rates stay constant. Starwood introduced category 6 and category 7 and certainly hotels in that category cost more in points even when the rooms themselves don’t cost more.

And I’m especially exercised over Starwood charging double points for ‘all suite’ properties at the highest award categories. A hotel earns its room rates because of the room quality it offers. So it may be a category 6 based on how expensive a night there is. But since all of its rooms are considered suites, they charge double points for it. In other words, they couldcount the room type against the member twice — it’s a category 6 in the first place because it offers suites, and then they charge double the category 6 price because they only offer suites.

All of this still drives me nuts. But I have to say, now that they’ve announced the new hotel categories for 2011 I really don’t have a problem with the re-categorizations over all, at all. So far we know of about 177 properties moving up or down a category. Starwood had 1,041 hotels at the end of 2010. So 17% change categories, and 83% remain in the same category. What’s more, about as many hotels drop in category as go up. I dumped the numbers into a spreadsheet and counting each category drop or gain (dropping 2 categories is -2, gaining 1 is +1) I come out at -11. On the whole categories are dropping more than they are going up.

Overall, here’s a breakdown of the number of properties moving categories:

• Four properties drop two categories
  
• Eighty nine drop one category
  
• Eighty two go up one category
  
• Two go up two categories

And here’s a breakdown of how they are moving:

• Eleven category 1 properties become category 2
  
• One category 2 property becomes category 1
  
• Eighteen category 2 properties become category 3
  
• One category 3 property becomes category 1
  
• Thirty seven category 3 properties become category 2
  
• Thirty one category 3 properties become category 4
  
• One category 4 property becomes category 2
  
• Twenty six category 4 properties become category 3
  
• Fifteen category 4 properties become category 5
  
• One category 4 property becomes category 6
  
• One category 5 property becomes category 3
  
• Eighteen category 5 properties become category 4
  
• Six category 5 properties become category 6
  
• One category 6 property becomes category 4
  
• Six category 6 properties become category 5
  
• Two category 6 properties become category 7
  
• One category 7 property becomes category 6

Ric Garrido has a rundown of Starwood hotels financial performance in 2010, based on occupancy and average daily room rates. On the whole rates are flat although some regions like Asia did especially well. On the whole my read is that Starwood thinks that rates have come close to returning to their 2008 levels or at least will be returning to them in 2011. They’ve kept categories flat over the past couple of years, in my view not giving members the benefit of falling room rates, but they aren’t penalizing members now that rates are returning to their earlier levels. I would have liked to see different decision-making in 2010 and 2009. But I’m good with where they are in 2011, based on the limited date I have access to (Starwood keeps it pretty proprietary so I’m looking at overall trends here).

For the past two years, Starwood Preferred Guest has ‘suspended’ peak season award pricing for their highest category hotels. A category 5 property is 12,000 points most of the year, but designated peak season dates rises to 16,000. (A category 6 goes from 20,000 to 25,000.) They’ve brought back this feature of the program’s award pricing in 2011. Frankly that’s fair. Hotel rates and occupancy aren’t off as they were the past two years, they said it was a temporary enhancement and they were true to their word. Such is life, and I can’t fault them here.

My prediction was that Japanese hotels would go up in price because of the appreciation of the yen against the dollar, which is to say the dollar cost of the rooms is higher holding everything else constant. That doesn’t look to be the case.

Some of the changes that stood out to me:

• Lots of Chinese properties going up a category.
  
• Le Meridien Chiang Rai goes down to category 2. I love that place!
  
• Westin Macau drops to category 3. It’s been overtaken by the great ‘strip’ casino tech properties, but it’s a nice respite from the glitter of the new Macau and right on the beach. It could use a refurbish but it’s down the sand from Fernando’s restaurant and they treat platinums well.
  
• Westin Puerto Vallarta is back down to Category 3, at that price it’s a reasonable booking and they treat platinums well also, at least they used to.
  
• Westin Langkawi, W Seoul, and Westin Sydney are all up to Category 5. That’s probably reasonable but I wish it wasn’t so.
  
• Sheraton Saigon and Le Royal Meridien Shanghai drop to category 4, I love the former hotel and the latter is generally well-regarded but presumably being overtaken by the newest properties in Shanghai.
  
• W San Diego drops to category 4, even that seems hopeful to me. Really needs a facelift, way too ‘old W’ and no longer hip.
  
• W Retreat Koh Samui bumps up to category 7! Even category 6 seemed aggressive to me based on its opening rates, and this is the classic property where the rates drive the category and then they charge you double because they’re all suites. I can’t imagine redeeming 70,000 points per night here in high season when a room is often available for less than $500 per night.

Remember, you have until February 28 to book hotels at the old 2010 points rate. So if you are even considering a stay at a property which is going up in points, book it now, awards are cancellable (as long as you abide by cancellation rules). And if a property you are considering a stay at is going down, you may want to wait a few days (of course you could lock in availability now for your dates and if it’s still available, re-price later).

TM Travel World reports that Delta has apparently increased the price of a whole bunch of awards.

It’s always something that’s really difficult to verify, much of Delta award pricing is shrouded in mystery. They do not publish an actual award chart for flight redemptions that don’t start or end in North America.

But Troy says that they’ve broken Asia into two separate regions. I remember when Asia was all just one region, and business class within Asia was 30,000 miles roundtrip. Now it’s apparently 25,000 miles just for economy within North Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan) and 45,000 miles for business class.

With a new separate region for North Asia and South Asia, instead of just a single region for Asia, flights between the two regions — or even just within South Asia — are 45,000 miles roundtrip in Economy and 70,000 miles roundtrip in business class. That just seems insane to me, Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City which is less than 500 miles each way would be 45,000 miles. Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, which is generally under $100 roundtrip is coach, would be that same 45,000 miles. Are they kidding? Of course I don’t know this for sure, since Delta doesn’t publish an award chart for the region. It’s a secret.

Troy expects changes to awards involving Africa, and wonders quite reasonably whether the two Asia regions will lead to separate pricing from North America as well (with South Asia becoming more expensive than North Asia).

I can deal with whatever pricing they offer, even when that pricing seems completely out of whack with their competitors. I’d just like a little bit of transparency from Skymiles on international awards.

Update: Delta has confirmed changes but is still very short on specifics, promises to actually publish award charts soon.

As a result of a recent review process, some adjustments were made on transpacific routes, intra-Asia markets and flights to/from South Africa. Some markets saw award increases, some decreases.

Example: previously all flights between US and Asia were the same award level, as were intra-Asia levels, despite being very different in terms of length of haul and market. Both NRT-ICN and NRT-SIN flights were previously priced at 20,000 miles for our low roundtrip award, even though the SIN flight is several times the distance of ICN.

The new zoning will price NRT-ICN at 15,000 miles for a low roundtrip award, and NRT-SIN at 45,000 miles.

…Customers will also see some decreases on premium high level awards between US and Europe, Middle East, Southern South America and Northern Asia because, frankly, we felt some of the levels were getting too high.

Watch for the new international award charts that will be released on delta.com next week under SkyMiles Award Mileage Charts.

Scott O’Leary posted on Milepoint (and, I’m guessing, on Flyertalk as well) that United will be keeping Economy Plus and will be adding it to the Continental fleet ‘beginning in 2012′.

This is a big sigh of relief, though not unexpected. While it was certainly going to be a ground up review, and Continental’s management was going to make a decision based on whether they thought economy plus would drive incremental revenue compared to having the additional seats in coach to sell, United has gotten quite adept at upselling passengers for these seats and economy plus unquestionably drives product differentiation and consumer choice at the low and mid-tier elite levels. A United Premier flying 25,000 miles a year doesn’t see the front cabin very often, but is better off in back on United with extra legroom than on other carriers.

Now, it should be said that they haven’t decided whether Premiers (and Continental Silvers) will keep advance access to economy plus going forward.

Currently, all United and Continetal elites get economy plus access on United. Continental only gives Golds (and Premier Executives) and above access to preferred coach seating in advance, which isn’t as meaningful a benefit as economy plus. For Premiers and Silvers it’s catch as catch can at the airport. They’ll take one method or the other going forward, and seem not to have made that decision yet.

They’ve also not decided yet whether to remove a row of coach or a row of first class in order to get the extra legroom on the Continental planes, it’ll probably come from coach on some aircraft and first class on others, and the particulars remain to be announced. Of course I’m always disappointed to see any first class seats go (and with them, chances of upgrades) but on the whole still think this is a good decision for customers and for elites.

We’ll also still need to see what happens to the international three-cabin first class product, that hasn’t been announced yet, I still assume they’ll keep it on a limited set of routes. Continetnal offers coach and business class, United offers coach and business and first. They certainly won’t go three-cabin on all flights. Continental employs a strategy of flying low density routes from its Newark hub using 757s. They’re not going to fly Newark – Manchester offering an international first class product. And there are certainly some United routes where selling three-cabin first probably doesn’t make business sense, such as San Francisco – Osaka and Seattle – Tokyo. United’s international first is also really a business class product with a better seat anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it offered on fewer routes but with somewhat upgraded amentiies — it makes sense to offer, I think, on the Sydney and Hong Kong routes for instance.

On March 31, Radisson Goldpoints Plus is being replaced with a new program, Club Carlson.

I haven’t paid a great deal of attention to the Goldpoints program. Back in December 2001 I was hugely engrossed in their shopping portal, they were offering a holiday shopping promotion that allowed me to earn points that transferred into miles in any number of programs and purchased those points (through shopping transactions with Valumags) at less than a penny apiece. That was the high point.

It wasn’t long after that when the points-to-miles transfer ratio got cut in half. And the shopping portal itself is no more. In fact, Goldpoints itself was a shared loyalty program between Radisson hotels and of all things TGI Fridays. You could earn points from stays or by eating out, and redeem your points for things like free appetizers. Bizarre. And even more complicated, depending on whether you signed up for Goldpoints through TGI Fridays or through Radisson, the value of those points was different.

Then they got a little bit of clarity, the original Goldpoints program is no more and Radisson introduced its own “Goldpoints Plus” program which was distinct from casual dining. Now they have a new offering.

Details on Club Carlson remain limited. The thing that’s gotten a decent amount of play is that all loyalty program members receive free internet. Currently free internet is a Radisson brand standard, and the lower end chains will retain that, but full service Radisson properties will only offer internet to loyalty program members. That seems reasonable to me, an incentive to join.

There will be a small business program, this is much more common on the airline side where businesses can earn points from employee travels on top of the points earned by the travelers themselves. Starwood has an offering like this. Details on earn and redemption aren’t available yet.

The elite tier offering sounds like it may be more fleshed out than what Radisson currrently offers, though of course we don’t have all of the info yet to really know.

•The new Concierge elite tier provides members with complimentary room upgrades and continental breakfast, early check in and late check out, a 75 percent point bonus on stays, and starting by mid-year, access to a special Concierge Service line for theater and sports tickets, and reservations at top-rated restaurants anywhere in the world;

Taking a play from Marriott’s book, they’ll offer rollover nights towards qualification.

They’ll have Club Med and vacation ownership redemption options, and retail redemption options as well, including at – you guessed it — TGI Friday’s…

I just hope that they retain “Our World, Your Lounge” which to me was one of the most innovative benefits of any hotel program, anywhere. Elite members in Europe, Middle East, and Africa can drop into any participating hotel and use free internet and have a complimentary cofee, even when not staying as a guest. They are a loyal guest, important whenever they walk in the door, and that’s a huge statement to make. I’d like to see the concept expand.

Via Milepoint, US Airways is back with their 100% bonus on purchased miles through March 31.

Except it’s not a straightforward double miles offer. Instead, you get a 75% bonus immediately when you purchase miles. Then in order to get the remaining 25% bonus you need to use the Dividend Miles toolbar by March 31.

Now, when you download and install the toolbar and make three searches with it or an online purchase, you get 500 bonus miles (1000 bonus miles for US Airways elite members and co-branded credit card holders, only US-based members of the Dividend Miles program are eligible for the first use bonus).

Making three searches with the toolbar is required to earn the 25% bonus on purchased miles, and the 25% will post 5-10 days after having made the miles purchase and after completing the three searches with the Dividend Miles toolbar.

Accounts that don’t have an address in the 50 U.S. states or Puerto Rico aren’t eligible for this 25% bonus, and changing your address won’t help because your address as of February 1 had to be eligible.

Only the first 50,000 miles you purchase are eligible for the 75% and 25% bonuses.

And as usual, Dividend Miles accounts less than 12 days old are not permitted to buy miles, you need to open an account and wait — they don’t want people signing up just to cash in miles immediately for high value awards.

Last month US Airways made a targeted offer to folks who had purchased miles before to do so again and get a bonus.

Clearly Dividend Miles is playing around will all kinds of things to see who will take them up on their offers and what they can make members do in order to get the offer. In this case there’s the modest pain of downloading their search toolbar, though I don’t see any reason you can’t just uninstall it after receiving your 25% mileage purchase bonus.

Don and Matthew send along the news that Delta is eliminating expiration of Skymiles.

This is a consumer-friendly move to be sure, and deserves to be lauded.

And I admit it’s a move that surprises me.

Mileage programs hold unredeemed miles on their books as a liability until those miles expire or are redeemed. Expiring miles mean recognizing revenue without associated cost. That’s why programs have shorted expiration periods in recent years, with most programs going from three years to 18 months (Delta’s miles expired after two years).

Mileage expiration is big business. United Mileage Plus booked an extra $64 million of revenue in the first quarter of 2010 just by tweaking their model for mileage expiration.

So real applause here, but at the same time I don’t value the move myself and anyone who pays attention should lament it just a little bit. It’s incredibly easy to keep miles active. Most activity in an account every couple of years is enough, an online shopping purchase or a points transfer from another program or crediting a rental car does the trick. And with an ever-increasing array of mileage management tools out there (I use AwardWallet myself) that track not just frequent flyer balances but miles expiration as well, it’s hard to miss expiration deadlines.

This spends a great deal of program dollars on folks who aren’t paying attention to the program. On the other hand, I’d much prefer the dollars spent on additional award seat availability for those who are paying attention. If there’s one part of the program where Delta is uncompetitive relative to their competitors, it’s the availability of award seats. That’s where I’d be investing.

It seems they’ve chosen to invest in the unengaged, once every few years flyer so that those members keep on the treadmill and keep earning points. And that’s instead of investing in making the points themselves more useful.

Funny thing is, they can always expire the miles later if they want. Should we even believe them when they promise that we can earn miles and they won’t expire them alter? After all, we’ve been down this road before with Delta.

Miles in the original Delta Frequent Flyer program didn’t expire. They even ran a Super Bowl ad with no fine print promising their miles wouldn’t ever expire. When they ended the Delta Frequent Flyer program and launched Skymiles, with expiring miles, they promised that miles earned under the old program would never expire. But then they decided that old miles would be merged into Skymiles, and those old miles would therefore.. expire. (Delta had also committed that any elite member who continued to maintain their status could always redeem their old Frequent Flyer miles under the original program’s award chart, that promise went poof as well.) Delta’s explanation? The terms and conditions of the program said they could change the rules.

Memories are long, different people were in charge of the program back then, but I take such unequivocal statements as made with this announcement — “no asterisk, no fine print, no ifs, ands or buts” — with a grain of salt. We’ll see. But I’d say keep those Delta marketing emails, in case they ever decide to change their mind!

In the meantime, I do have to acknowledge that this move represents an improvement for the program over what it offered previously. I just lament that it’s not nearly as big an improvement as the hype around it wlll suggest, and that it’s frankly just not the main area where the program needs to improve.

Update: I’ve continued to mull this change, it really is quite a big deal.  I wish I had more information, I’m wondering whether they’ve adopted a change in their revenue recognition policies to accompany it.  I’ve never looked up Delta’s 10Q but imagine that if they have it would be disclosed in their next filing.  Meanwhile, it’s worth pointing out that there’s a real difference between accounting rules on revenue recognition (the financial statements show that miles Delta has sold are a liability) and real business decision-making, even if public companies often behave as though GAAP rules are the more important.  It doesn’t really cost Delta anything to leave miles on their books unredeemed unless those miles eventually turn into award bookings, and customers who bootstrap towards their awards will likely be more negaged in the program in the future.  So it could be a good business decision not to expire the miles, even if accounting rules encourage an airline to pretend they’ve made a bunch of money at the point the miles expire even though they took in the revenue much earlier and they generate customer resentment by doing so.  As a result, it’s conceivable that Delta is either changing the accounting rules or ignoring them in favor of good business here, and my thinking about choosing to spend their dollars on the areas of the program in least need of improvement are misplaced.  This boils down to how they think of revenue recognition, accounting rules, versus real decision-making.  And I’d be really surprised if my more generous view were true.  But it is possible!

Troy points to US Airways’ new offer to let members buy elite qualifying miles or segments towards their status.

Now, the status lasts only through February 2012. So it’s current-year status, not earning credits this year for status through February 2013.

But what really sets the US Airways offer apart is that the offer runs all year, and you can buy all the way up to top tier status even if you’ve never had a single segment or qualifying mile credited to a US Airways Dividend Miles account.

For the first five months of the year, you can choose to top off the elite qualifying miles you earned in your account in your choice of 2010 or year-to-date 2011. So you get more months of status and at a lower cost.

For the last seven months of the year, you can top off your 2011 elite qualifying miles towards a new level of status at any time to have the higher status through the end of the program year.

If you flew even one qualifying mile in 2010, or so far in 2011, you can spend a flat $3000 to have top tier Chairmans Preferred status. For someone that’s going to fly 100,000 miles in 2011, that could well be worth it.

The full buy-up schedule is as follows:

Through April 24, British Airways is offering (registration required) double miles on Iberia between the UK and Spain, between Madrid and South and Central America (excluding Mexico and San Juan.. odd), and also on all British Airways flights to and from South America.

(HT: Milepoint)

This morning I described United’s increasingly generous rules for routing frequent flyer award travel.

The rest of this post doesn’t need to make sense to you, everything you need to know is in this morning’s post.

But a friend sends along the actual profile for the new United routing rules which confirms my earlier description of the changes. For the routing rules junkies it’s worth looking at, but not something the majority need to even read further on.

UPDATED: 10FEB11

S*R.A PERMITTED ITINERARY TYPES (RT/OW/LEGAL SOJ/RTW)
S*R.B STEPS TO VALIDATE ROUTING FOR ONE AWARD
S*R.C STOPOVERS

—PERMITTED ITINERARY TYPES—————————
THE FOLLOWING ITINERARY TYPES ARE PERMITTED FOR ONE
AWARD:
– ROUND TRIP (RT)
– ONE WAY (OW)
– SINGLE OPEN JAW (SOJ)
– DOUBLE OPEN JAW (DOJ)

- AWARD TRAVEL DOES NOT NEED TO FOLLOW LEGAL OPEN JAW LOGIC.
– GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS MAY REQUIRE TRAVEL TO START / END
IN THE SAME COUNTRY (CHECK TIMATIC).
– ROUND-THE-WORLD (RTW):
– RTW ROUTING IS DEFINED AS ONE PACIFIC AND ONE ATLANTIC
CROSSING.
– SEE S*MPI/STAR RTW

THE FOLLOWING ITINERARY TYPES REQUIRE MULTIPLE AWARDS:
– CIRCLE PACIFIC (ONE NORTH PACIFIC AND ONE SOUTH
PACIFIC CROSSING)
– SIDE ROUND TRIP (CONNECTING THROUGH SAME CITY TWICE
IN ONE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL)

—STEPS TO VALIDATE ROUTING FOR ONE AWARD————-
– OUTBOUND AND RETURN ROUTINGS MUST BE VALIDATED.
– MPM PLUS 15 PERCENT IS ALLOWED ON ALL AWARDS.

STEPS TO VALIDATE ROUTING:
– ACCESS -MILEAGE INFORMATION- MENU
– ENTER ALL CITIES IN ONE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL FROM
ORIGIN TO DESTINATION. INCLUDE ALL CONNECTION/
STOPOVER POINTS. DO *NOT* ACTIVATE -SHORT DISPLAY-.

– REVIEW MILEAGE INFORMATION TABLE COMPARING
CUM (CUMULATIVE TICKETED POINT MILES) TO MPM (MAXIMUM
PERMITTED MILES). CHECK BOTTOM OF -LVL- (LEVEL)
COLUMN TO DETERMINE IF CUM IS GREATER THAN MPM:
M CUM DOES NOT EXCEED MPM
5M CUM EXCEEDS MPM BY 5 PERCENT
10M CUM EXCEEDS MPM BY 10 PERCENT
15M CUM EXCEEDS MPM BY 15 PERCENT
20M CUM EXCEEDS MPM BY 20 PERCENT
25M CUM EXCEEDS MPM BY 25 PERCENT
EXC CUM EXCEEDS MPM BY OVER 25 PERCENT

*AWARD TRAVEL IS VALID UP TO 15M.

—STOPOVERS——————————————
– ONE ENROUTE STOPOVER PERMITTED ON ROUNDTRIP OR OPEN JAW
ITINERARY BETWEEN TWO AWARD REGIONS
– STOPOVER NOT PERMITTED ON ONE-WAY AWARD OR WHEN TRAVEL
IS WHOLLY WITHIN THE SAME GEOGRAPHIC REGION.
– STOPOVER CAN BE IN THIRD REGION IF IT*S NOT OVER THE
MPM PLUS 15 PERCENT. *MUST USE HIGHEST MILEAGE* AWARD
IF OVER THE ALLOWED MPM.

– TRAVEL WITHIN U.S. 50 STATES / CANADA / PUERTO RICO / U.S.
VIRGIN ISLANDS: TRANSFER BETWEEN TWO FLIGHTS MUST BE
WIHTIN 4 HOURS. TRANSFER EXCEEDING 4 HOURS IS A STOPOVER.
– ALL OTHER INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL: TRANSFER BETWEEN TWO
FLIGHTS MUST BE WITHIN 24 HOURS. TRANSFER EXCEEDING
24 HOURS IS A STOPOVER.
– STOPOVER NOT PERMITTED FOR THE FOLLOWING:
– ONE-WAY
– TRAVEL WITHIN ONE AWARD REGION

———————————————————-
DELETE: N/A OWNER: WHQRZ UPDATE: S*H