Tyler Cowen points to one of many news stories reporting that a group of cyclists “raced” the promotional JetBlue flight between Long Beach and Burbank and won.

In the great tradition of the land of reality television, Los Angeles created its own.

First came a clever marketing ploy from JetBlue Airways: $4 flights Saturday between Burbank and Long Beach airports.

A flurry of Twitter activity ensued, followed by tough talk from the Wolfpack Hustle, a local cycling club, that six of its best riders could beat the 150-seat Airbus A320 — including drive time to and from the airports, check-in and security screening.

In the end, the cyclists crushed it, cruising along the Los Angeles River to reach the final destination, the lighthouse in Shoreline Aquatic Park, in 1 hour and 34 minutes.

The plane had barely taken off. Cyclist Joe Anthony, on board as part of the challenge, said there was only one advantage to the airliner.

“It’s legal to drink beer and fly, whereas the cyclists have to follow all the rules,” he said.

Just a moment of thinking about this is going to give you the sense that it was a bit of a sham bet: JetBlue flights 405 and 1405 were 29 miles in the air. Can cyclists really outrace a plane, even over a short distance?

Of course, the cyclists only ‘beat’ the flight because it was a one-way proposition/bet.

This wasn’t exactly a fair test agreed-upon in advance by both parties. Instead, the cyclists defined the test as being between two locations they selected, and then adding in driving time between those locations and the airports. Between any two short distances it may well make more sense to even walk than fly. When the cyclists pick the spots, you already know it’s not going to be a fair find.

What’s more, the cyclists were ‘competing against’ a cyclist-as-passenger who decided how early to turn up at the airport for security and how much time to hang around the airport before the flight.

The giveaway is that the cyclists were crossing the finish line while “[t]he plane had barely taken off.” For a reasonable test it would not have been necessary to turn up especially early at one of the secondary Los Angeles vicinity airports.

Of course, JetBlue wasn’t offering the flights because it was the most efficient means to go up the 405 freeway. It was a publicity stunt, hence the one flight in each direction and tickets available for $4. But the cyclists are getting more than their share of the fame, it just seems like someone should call them out for the test that their media attention rests on being something of a put up job.

Frugal Travel Guy this morning offers clues about upcoming credit card bonuses.

1. He says that July 19 and July 26 are scheduled announcement dates.

2. He’s been “asked to remove ads for the United Mileage Plus Signature card and the Continental OnePass card by 4 PM on the 18th. Looking forward to sometime on the 19th”

First, a bit about how he’s hearing this. He’s got ‘referral links’ up on his site, when you use those links to sign up for a credit card he’ll earn a commission. (I don’t really play at this, but it seems fair to me, as long as you’re still signing up for the best-available bonus might as well let a friend grab a commission for your doing so, and it’s a wonderful thank you for the information he’s provided.)

There are representatives of the companies that are letting their affiliate marketing partners know what offers are coming, in order to prepare them to push those offers, and of course they let marketing partners know when existing offers need to be taken down.

Announcements are generally embargoed, but Frugal Travel Guy has shared the basic details which I imagine aren’t technically against the rules for him to do. His marketing contacts tell him new offers on specific dates, and what needs to be taken down, combine the two and you get a pretty good idea of what to expect.

In this Milepoint thread I connect some of the dots. I don’t do the credit card referral links, I’m not even a member of these services so I am not getting the same emails that Rick is, but what I expect is not a lot of huge surprises.

As with most United-Continental changes, first priority has been about aligning the differences in the programs. In this case, Chase has been the issuer of both the United and Continental credit cards. There’s at least one benefit they’re killing, double miles for online shopping through the Continental portal (the reason I’ve kept my Continental Mastercard!). That’s already been announced. But since they did announce killing that benefit, haven’t announced killing others, and are making an announcement shortly that they’re heavily promoting one would imagine that means (1) keeping benefits rather than killing them, and (2) rolling them out across the combined airline’s co-branded cards.

At least that’s my speculation. So, what does one airline’s card offer that the other doesn’t? I’d guess those will get harmonized — and in this case simply extended across to the other carriers’ card offerings. But it makes little sense to add anything to the Continental cards at this point, with the program itself months away from disappearing, the announcement must be about what benefits get added from the Continental side to the United side.

My pure speculation is that credit card harmonization issues follow the rest of the United-Continental changes, which is they figure out which elements of the program to keep as part of the combined entity and that takes up the majority of their attention before they’re really positioned to extend much in the way of new, earth-shattering benefits.

Here are the key things I’m watching. The Continental Presidential Plus Mastercard offers lounge membership (United has a card that does the same) and no foreign currency transaction fees. It comes with Avis Presidents Club and Hyatt Platinum status. Even the standard Continental Mastercard comes with primary rental car collision coverage, a rare benefit (I still use my Diners Club card for this). The Continental Presidential Plus card also offers bonus miles for elites flying Continental. It’s the most unified premium card product that either carrier offers, it’s a true signature product, and they need to reassure their most premium cardholders what their future holds.

I could be wrong of course and we will know within the next couple of days whether I need to eat these words. It’s not based on inside information, just taking the ‘clues’ that Rick is offering and pairing it with what we’ve seen about how the integration of the two frequent flyer programs has proceeded to date.

Personally, I do have both a United Visa and a Continental Mastercard. The nice thing about integration is that I’ll be willing to drop one, which will make it easier for me to get another Chase card when there’s a sufficiently lucrative bonus for doing so.

Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles, Frontier is offering double miles in September. (Registration required with promo code DBLER.)

You may have signed up recently for Frontier to take advantage of the 1000 mile signup bonus on offer through August 31. (You can no longer just sign up and immediately transfer out just 1000 points into other frequent flyer programs via Points.com, however.)

The Frontier program has basic partnerships… a few car rental companies, several but not comprehensive hotel coverage (though they don’t keep their website updated, they say they partner with goldpoints plus but that program doesn’t exist anymore and has been called Club Carlson since March 31)..

But what do you do with those miles you earn? To some extent Frontier Early Returns members suffer from what regular readers of this blog know that I have coined “the Greyhound Road Rewards problem” (where every ten bus trips earns you… another bus trip!). Frontier doesn’t have any really aspirational award options. There’s no transoceanic travel. They don’t have a luxury redemption of their own. And they no longer have airline partnerships. So if you fly Frontier, you can earn more trips with Frontier. And if that’s not enough to get your juices flowing, you can redeem your points for magazine subscriptions.

Elites though are treated well, not just assigned seats but stretch seating (extra legroom), free directv, and top elites get ‘premium beverages’ free (eg beer, wine, cocktails .. in this way I guess they’re the Intercontinental Royal Ambassador of the skies).

They do what they can with the routes and in-flight product that they offer, which is pretty good. While I do think they need some airline redemption partners to inspire their members and let them use their points beyond Mexico and Costa Rica, I’m always happy with double miles — it’s been awhile since we’ve seen an airline do non-targeted, systemwide double miles. So this is certainly welcome.

I wasn’t sure what to title this post when I started writing it, a member on Milepoint asked whether they should cash out their Hyatt Gold Passport points at the Park Hyatt Tokyo or the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris?

I wrote a brief reply that set me off on a 90 minute long journey through Youtube trailers, clips, and music of various kinds, only slightly connected to one another.

The PH Tokyo is one of my favorite hotels in the world. I’ll acknowledge it’s hardly tops in Tokyo. I disagree with those who make the fair point that the Grand Hyatt’s location makes it a superior property. It is a good property. But the Park Hyatt is special. Perhaps it’s emotional attachment, the same way that i will always love the Fairmont in San Francisco, such a classic hotel atop Nob Hill. Of course I’m not a huge Paris guy anyway…

Watch Lost in Translation and then tell me you don’t want to stay at the PH Tokyo.

There are some hotels that you just connect with on an emotional level, some places that you just want to be or go back to, and others that feel like home and I don’t have a unified theory as to why, there probably isn’t just a single reason.

Take the Fairmont San Francisco. It’s a nice hotel, a prestigious hotel that in some ways lives on its past grandeur. It’s grand but not even close to the nicest hotel in the city. And yet, to me at least, it’s special. It’s in many ways too big a hotel for my usual preferences, so why do I feel that it’s a special place? Maybe it’s because when I was still in high school Dylan talked about taking Kelly there on Beverly Hills 90210? Or because I first stayed there more than a dozen years ago and I still remember my great stay where I had the great fortune to meet the late Milton Friedman who lived down the street. The funny thing is that I’m actually afraid to go back, because I don’t want to ruin the special place that the Fairmont holds in my memory, since I know that my tastes and experiences have grown since then. In that way, the Fairmont is the exception.

The Park Hyatt Tokyo has such clean lines, it’s grand and somehow both friendly and impersonal. Very Japanese. Both The Points Guy and Matthew recently reviewed the property. Here’s my meal at Kozue, the hotel’s Japanese restaurant, though I really do need to fix some of my old archive photos. Is the hotel more special to me from the way that Lost in Translation affected me? Perhaps. I hate to acknowledge being so fickle as to be influenced by pop culture placements, commercial associations that attach me emotionally to a brand or product. And yet there’s a reason that the hotel worked for the movie, seeing some of yourself in the characters can make you feel as though you belong in the place those characters are set.

In much a different way, I’ve long been at home in several of my most frequently visited properties. You just know how they work, they’re utterly familiar, and you’re welcomed back (more or less). I’ve probably made more trips to South Florida than to anywhere else, largely due to family, and two of the hotels I’ve stayed at most frequently are the Westin Diplomat and the Renaissance Boca Raton.

The Diplomat is perhaps the very best property for Starwood Platinums of any in the world. To be sure, it’s not the best property in the world or even perhaps the best Starwood property in South Florida. But for Platinum recognition, they have something like 86 suites in the upgrade pool the most common of which has an ocean view and wraparound balcony, some have views as well of the intracoastal waterway. A Platinum upgrade is so much of a gimme here that the hotel has been known to send out emails to PLatinums during true peak demand periods like the week between Christmas and New Years letting them know that of course they are still going to be upgraded to a suite if it’s available but there’s a reasonable chance it won’t be, and since everyone so expects a suite here as an upgrade they ought to know in advance that they might need to take steps to confirm it rather than hope for it at checkin. Meanwhile, there’s such a lovely lounge space on the 33rd floor with both indoor and outdoor seating (two decks, one facing the ocean and the other the intracoastal) and breakfast is well-provisioned.

Unfortunately the lounge experience has eroded over time, they started handing out $0 checks to prompt staff tips and they’ve cut back on the evening hor dourves. They used to keep bringing out more as food was finished but they started rationing the food, when it’s gone it’s gone, and large families descend quickly like vultures when the food comes out, figuring they can save on dinner. Meanwhile, there used to be an amazing after dinner dessert presentation, they had the most delicious treats…

Meanwhile, the Renaissance is older, it’s gotten some renovations after hurricane damage but could still use investment. It has a nice pool area but the rooms are fairly generic. The hotel restaurant used to do a fabulous breakfast but now I find I don’t bother (and don’t mind not currently being a Marriot Gold one bit). The staff are exceptionally friendly, maybe not as remarkably as they were in the earlier part of the last decade but compared to most hotels they stand out. I’ve just been there so many times that like the Diplomat it feels a home away from home. I don’t worry about coming back here and ruining a memory because the place itself isn’t so fabulous or cherished to begin with, it’s just an old, reliable good friend. I know exactly what I’ll get.

And when a place becomes familiar it becomes an extension of you, and in a way an extension of your living room. It’s how I think I understand one of my close friends to mean when she talked about the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit in Bangkok. And though this post is really about hotels, it’s also how I feel whenever I hear “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Last month I had a meeting up in New York and met someone in advance to prep for it in the ‘library’ space of the Andaz 5th Avenue. I wasn’t a guest there, but both of us knew the hotel, I’ve stayed there many times and it was close by the meeting. I got there first, fired up their laptop which is available for guest use and took a water from the fridge. Andaz folks, if you’re reading this, I guess you can send me a bill if you’d like. Yet I felt it was perfectly ok, I’ve stayed here plenty and maybe just think of it as a bottled water I meant to take on one of those occasions?

It’s actually why I’ve really wished some hotel chain would pick up on the now-defunct “Our World, Your Lounge” benefit that Radisson’s Goldpoints Plus used to offer, all elite members were explicitly welcome to come into the hotel’s lobby, use the hotel’s internet, and have a complimentary cup of coffee. You’re regulars which means you’re important, you’re family, every time you walk in the door whether or not you are actually staying at the hotel on a given day. It was such a powerful message. They eliminated the benefit, I wonder if this was a well thought out decision based on data or it just struck someone as odd and couldn’t demonstrably show a positive cash flow.

I don’t know what it’s worth to a hotel to have my heart. I know that they frequently make offers of points (so real cash) for me just to like them on Facebook. I like plenty of things on Facebook, and what any given liked property posts rarely even pops to the top of my feed and I certainly don’t regularly check into the Facebook pages of hotels I’ve liked. There are hotels that I actually feel, deep inside. And watching a few clips from Lost in Translation is enough, on its own, to cause me to start contemplating a trip to Tokyo. Where I will almost necessarily have to book the Park Hyatt.

Where are your special places, where you feel most at home? And am I just a sucker for simulated hospitality, or is there something real here?

(Just don’t stop the video before 1:07.)

Via Ben:

KGB Deals (what a name!), which seems to be a Groupon-esque site, is offering 100 American AAdvantage miles to new members.

It’s 100 free miles at no cost, other than emails in your inbox of course.

Via Marginal Revolution, a man asked an Air Canada flight attendant for 7-UP in French and received Sprite, claimed his right to be fully served by Air Canada in French was denied, and he won a $12,000 judgment.

Here’s why he won.

In the latest case, the Thibodeaus initially complained of eight instances in 2009 in which they did not receive services in French at airports in Atlanta, Toronto and Ottawa and aboard three related Air Canada Jazz flights between Canada and the United States.

The Official Languages Act requires Air Canada to communicate and provide services in both official languages in the National Capital Region and elsewhere in Canada, “where there is significant demand for those services in the minority language and where it is warranted by the nature of the office or facility.”

For its part, Air Canada admitted to the court it is not always able to provide all services in French as required by the Act, but that breaches are occasional and do not reveal a systemic problem, as alleged by the Thibodeaus.

Air Canada actually admitted breaches of the law in four instances, such as:

No translation of an announcement made in English by the pilot concerning the arrival time and weather on flight AC8622 flying the Atlanta-Toronto route on Feb. 1, 2009: Air Canada acknowledges that the announcement should have been translated by the flight attendant (who was bilingual) because it was a flight on which there was significant demand for services in French.

Air Canada is actually trying to comply with rules requiring that they offer service in both English and French. It turns out that 47% of their flight attendants are bilingual (and an even greater percentage of call center agents).

Ultimately the man was awarded $1500 for each of 4 breaches plus expenses.

Back in 2000 he filed a similar lawsuit and won around $5000 (he had asked for ~ $500,000). He also sued Ottawa in 2007 for insufficient bilingual services on its buses.

It turns out the passenger speaks perfect English (see this interview). His insistence on the flight attendant speaking French to him somehow didn’t violate the flight attendant’s language rights.

I don’t speak French but somehow I’m tempted to insist on being served in French on Air Canada in the future. It could be more lucrative even than getting e-certs out of United.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled today (.pdf) that TSA implementation of nude-o-scopes was done in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.

Specifically, the Court ruled that the TSA’s policy that travelers must subject themselves to imaging machines or take a pat down was legally required to have gone through a public notice and comment period. Though the promulgation of this rule was done illegally, the Court isn’t requiring the TSA to stop use of the machines for primary screening. They’re just telling the TSA to go back and dot its I’s and cross its T’s.

The TSA argued that they were just interpreting the statute directing the TSA to detect weapons that might be used by terrorists, and the general regulation that passengers have to do what the TSA says in order to get through security. The Court called them on this, if the analysis were true any broad statute could be passed, and an agency could adopt a broad regulation, and then anything falling underneath the broad heading of that regulation would be merely interpretive rather than a new regulation, thus circumventing the Administrative Procedures Act which is the general law governing how regulations are made by the US Federal Government.

The TSA also argued that because they don’t always use the machines, or use them at all airports, it’s basically just a tactic and not a rule. The Court scoffed at this, saying that any passenger showing up at an airport with the machines on a day the TSA is using them is given a choice to go through them or take a pat down. They don’t get out of the legal rules because they don’t always use the machines everywhere. Since the TSA contends its screening procedures are binding, not optional, it’s a rule.

The court ruled that the TSA must publish notice of its screening rule in the Federal Register, and then open it for public comment.

Now I’m not a lawyer, let alone an expert in Administrative Procedures law. So this is all just my casual read of the Court’s decision. But my pretty solid prediction is that the agency will take comments, they will write a response to those comments generally in order to appear to be taking them into account and not acting capriciously (they’ll paper their decision better this time) and then just do what they want.

Courts will overturn a regulation only if it’s arbitrary and an abuse of discretion, which it could be argued to be if they simply ignored al public comment. But Chevron deference basically says that an agency gets to decide what to do whenever there’s statuatory ambiguity. The TSA will do what it wants, they’ve been scolded for ignoring the law but aren’t being told to even stop their current procedures despite the fact that they were rolled out illegally.

At a minimum folks should take notice of the imperial way that decisions are being made, and be concerned.

(HT: Papers, Please!.)

Via Alan, Hyatt is acquiring 24 hotels.

Now, 16 of the properties will become Summerfield Suites, and that interests me not at all. Sure, I suppose more properties that earn Hyatt points is a good thing, and especially at the inexpensive end of the spectrum when one needs a mattress run to maintain elite status or during a faster free nights promotion when two (cheap) stays earns a free night (at an impossibly expensive high-end property). But Summerfield Suites doesn’t excite me.

What does interest me is that they’re picking up 4 Avia Hotels, the Napa property looks like where I’d probably stay when I’m in the area and it’s great that I’ll get status recognition when I do.

I don’t know that I’ll get out to their Savannah, Long Beach, or Texas properties but those are still a welcome addition to the Hyatt chain.

Small boutique properties are great additions always, I’m generally a fan of Hyatt’s progress with its Andaz brand, and quality properties in the U.S. are something that Hyatt could certainly use. I’m pleased with their offerings in Asia, and more often hit-or-miss with many Hyatt-branded hotels in North America.

And ultimately, of course, bringing on more options to earn and redeem points and where elite members get recognition is a good thing.

This piece does a ‘He Said, She Said’ on the value of frequent flyer programs.

The proponent of the programs says they’re like free money on the sidewalk, pick it up for things you’re doing anyway. The argument against is that you may not get what you want, and it takes effort to pay attention. Shockingly, coming from where I’m coming from, I think the proponent has the better end of the debate, in each case he lays out a reasonable answer — you may not fly a lot but can get miles from all sorts of things besides flying, the miles aren’t hard to track when you use a free online tool like Award Wallet, the seats you want may not be available on the airline attached to your mileage program but the seats may still be available on one of their partners.

But those answers do all underscore that the fundamental point against is: you have to pay attention. And some people can’t or won’t internalize that it’s actually worth paying attention. Now, my own guess is that most folks’ leisure time isn’t worth as much as they think it is and it’s far less complicated and time-consuming to pay attention than folks think it is. But it’s still a hurdle to overcome. And many people believe that ‘the game’ is a whole lot harder than it is, or more frequently even that it’s ‘for someone else’ and not really for them.

Years ago when I started flying mostly first class (i.e. understanding how upgrades work), and taking what to most folks seem like exotic and unattainable vacations, I would evangelize amongst my co-workers but there was very little uptake. The best I can figure, looking backwards, is that they all saw it as this crazy thing that Gary can do but not something that ‘the rest of us’ can leverage to our advantage. And from the outside it seems hard.

Michael Polanyi argued that you first had to have some felt unease or sense of breakdown in your premises before you’re willing to learn a new language that will help you understand the world in a different way (ok, that’s a complete bastardization of Polanyi, especially ironic given his critiques of reductionism). It wasn’t until I broke through with a couple of colleagues, they had built up stashes of miles and simply convinced them not to use them for weekend trips to Florida in the summertime and instead let me book first class awards to Asia for them that others saw people “more like them” taking advantage of these same sorts of trips that I was doing. And then the floodgates opened. Everyone wanted to know what credit cards we were using, how signup bonuses worked, what programs to credit their points to. Sure, the occasional mistake fare helped along the way but mostly it was seeing people that they could identify with reaping the benefits of the programs before they were willing to take the plunge themselves. And now we all travel the world in international first class despite the fact that most work for really quite modest pay.

Which is why despite the fact that the proponent gets the better of the argument here, I think, most people that read the piece won’t be spurred to action.

I also think that framing the discussion as “25,000 miles will get you a free domestic coach ticket maybe” doesn’t do enough to motivate. The real value proposition is in the aspirational award. It makes sense to do a calculation, “is it really worth my paying attention to all of this to maybe get a ticket that I could buy for $350? Sure seems like a lot of work!” Which is why the more pedestrian programs plod along, but the real profitability accrues to those which capture the imagination of their members. The promise isn’t a flight to Des Moines, it’s “a better life” and things you couldn’t achieve on your own. Of course those things have to be realistic as well, they have to be within reach, so 10 million miles to go into space won’t cut it since it’s too much of a stretch for nearly all members. Instead, “90,000 miles for business class to Hong Kong” (US Airways pricing) seems to capture excitement when I talk to people about it. That’s less than the miles for four trips to Florida, and it gets them past the curtain into a forward cabin of the plane to an exotic destination. Aspirational yet still realistic.

And then I show them how many miles they get from their credit card signup and from credit card spend within a year. And that their spouse or significant other can do the same thing. Then there’s at least a non-zero success rate in getting people engaged.

Some commenters here will argue with me, right? If you’re reading this post you’re probably already engaged. And you don’t want the competition for seats!

(How) do you try to convince people that programs are worth it? And do they listen?

Via Jerry, the July issue of Estate Planning Developments for Texas Professionals (exciting reading!) has a piece on transferring frequent flyer miles at death.

It’s a nice companion to the classic April 2004 Inside Flyer article that explains in broad terms how programs treat miles in death, that piece is especially useful for understanding the extent to which miles are an asset of the estate vs. forfeited when the member is no longer alive to use them (and covers the similar case of divorce).

The newer article provides updated details on a series of programs, domestic and international and even proprietary credit card programs, outlining ability to transfer at death, cost to do so, and procedure.

If you’re planning your estate and are a significant accumulator of miles and points, this is useful reading. Although, legalities aside, it’s often simplest to just make a list of your account numbers and passwords and have your spouse book awards out of your account. Some programs require that folks besides the accountholder that are eligible for award tickets be designated in advance, that can often be done online or at least can be done in writing. British Airways, for instance, says they’ll only speak directly to the member — so the spouse (assuming not same-sex) may need to have someone call for them acting as though they were the member, or better yet fill out the forms in advance to designate your spouse to speak to the program on your behalf and then it’ll be far less sketchy.

Bottom-line is it’s often easiest to just use the miles in an account rather than transfer miles at death, but many programs do permit such transfers and miles are sometimes treated as de facto assets when it comes to transferring the fruits of loyalty from one member to another when they pass away, even when at other times the programs maintain that the miles are not assets of the member to be transferred at will and the IRS generally doesn’t view miles earned from personal travel or personal credit card spend to be income for taxation purposes. It’s a fine line to walk, but many programs find a way to thread the needle to offer some modicum of compassion and the possibility of future travel.

Reader Stephen M. emails to point out that transfers of points from Starwood to Singapore Airlines Krisflyer are back to 1:1.

They had previously been less valuable in transfers, requiring 2 Starpoints for a single Singapore miles (which also means that Starwood’s transfer bonuses were less valuable, with 1:1 transfer partners a 20,000 Starpoint transfer yields 25,000 miles… with 2:1 partners it takes twice as many Starpoints to generate the bonus).

This leaves United/Continental and Varig as the only airlines where transfers are not 1:1 or better (LAN is 1:2). Of course, there used to be plenty of programs where the transfer rates were 1:2, like Qantas which prior to that program’s award chart devaluation was a uniquely useful option. Plenty of people bought Inside Flyer subscriptions just for the bonus Starpoints, transferred them to Qantas and redeemed on British Airways for Concorde one way transatlantic and first class the other direction. Sadly those days are long gone.

With Continental/United, Chase bank clearly doesn’t like another card – in this case the Starwood American Express card – being a better way to earn miles than their own co-branded Visa/Mastercard products.

The return to 1:1 transfers from Starwood to Singapore is useful, there are times when actually flying Singapore on an award is desirable and there are plenty of routes where Singapore offers better availability to their own members than they do to Star Alliance partners. Singapore offers one-way awards and 15% (or better) discounts for online booking, and for some flights their award chart can be relatively reasonable. Of course, Starwood points don’t transfer instantly so you can’t set up an award and do the transfer in real-time, there’s always risk that availability disappears while you’re waiting for points to show up. And at the same time you don’t want to transfer points and let them sit — Singapore miles expire after three years regardless of additional activity in an account.

Still, improvements in the value of points are always welcome!

Scott Mayerowitz runs an interview with B. Ben Baldanza, CEO of Spirit Airlines and it’s a nice complement to Cranky Flier’s interview with their marketing chief.

What comes across is an airline that unabashedly promotes its business model. Rather than apologize for carryon bag (and other) fees, they proudly say it’s about choice and letting the customer get the best deal customized to their needs. I think that’s great, and Baldanza makes a fascinating point:

But I actually think we annoy people who don’t fly us more than we annoy people who fly us.

What I think is going on isn’t so much that they annoy people that don’t fly them but rather there’s a stark difference between flying Spirit and flying other airlines, their product isn’t for everyone. They are profitable, and in a difficult industry that speaks volumes to the extent that they are meeting true customer demand and not just hoodwinking customers.

Baldanza thinks that most of the time that customers are unhappy or surprised by fees, they’re customers who buy Spirit tickets through booking sources other than the Spirit website where disclosures abound. They find the cheapest price on an Orbitz, Expedia, or Travelocity and don’t realize all of the fees they’ll face. Certainly booking services aren’t great on the whole at comparing apples-to-apples total trip cost, and some consumers may come out surprised. It’s certainly fair for Baldanza to shoot some of the blame at those booking engines.

On the other hand, consumers often face information overload and just because it’s disclosed it’s not obvious that customers ought to internalize fees and an overall understanding that “Spirit is different.” Barry Biffle acknowledges this point in his Cranky Flier interview. And Spirit’s website requires an opt out for travel insurance, the option is pre-checked, and that’s not how consumers are used to dealing with add-ons most of the time. So it’s also true that Spirit’s behaviors aren’t all “it’s the other guys’ fault, not us” that their forward face would have you believe. Still, on the whole the problem is more that Spirit is different and small and consumers don’t always understand that going in, and it’s not entirely Spirit’s fault that consumers assume that all airline experiences will be alike and so just go with cheapest price. Although Spirit certainly does benefit from that.

In the end, Spirit doesn’t annoy me, as Baldanza might expect. They very much amuse me. The thirteen year old boy in me loves their advertising. I just wouldn’t want to fly them, they aren’t for me, and I wouldn’t (and haven’t) recommend them to friends either. And I wish them continued profits, while I continue to shout from the rooftops how Spirit is different and that people need to understand that when making their booking decisions. If you take Baldanza at face value in that interview, he should be more than fine with that!

“The Octomom”, whom some would say has had more than her allotted 15 minutes of fame, had a kerfuffle with a TV actress on Friday evening while flying back from New York to Los Angeles.

The actress spoke up at the unruliness of Nadya Suleman’s kids during a delay prior to takeoff, wound up exiting the aircraft, and presumably the actresses’ spokespeople are the ones who contacted TMZ to meet the flight on arrival in Los Angeles.

1. I cannot even fathom eight two year olds in business class on a transcon. Thank goodness I wasn’t on that flight.

2. It could have been a publicity stunt staged by Malaysian to drum up support for their ‘no kids in first class’ policy. Alright, that’s probably a long shot.

3. What is the Octomom doing flying business class, when her home has faced foreclosure?

4. I wouldn’t have known who actress Kristen Johnston was either.

5. Sadly, she probably didn’t open frequent flyer accounts for all her kids… preferably with a program that allows family accounts for mileage pooling.

I don’t generally read TMZ, but fortunately Milepoint member jmrich1432 does.

Lots of stories the last several days like this one leading up to a true milestone for frequent flyers, Tom Stuker’s flight yesterday from Los Angeles to Chicago where he flew his 10 millionth mile on United.

The comparisons to George Clooney in Up in the Air are everywhere, but Clooney was earning his miles from all sources (and in the book, which I read on a transcon flight in 2001 and which bore no relationship whatsoever to the movie, he was only after 1 million miles). I’ve earned that many myself. But Stuker’s 10 million are actual flight miles, logged with a single airline over the past 30 years. His first 5 million miles took 20 years, his second 5 million took only 10 years (so he was averaging 500,000 flight miles a year — take that United 1Ks and American Executive Platinums!).

For me, that’s a daunting amount of travel. Especially on United. While I realize many of those first class flights to Australia were likely upgrades, not all of them were, and flying international first means paying at least for business. If I were buying paid premium cabin international fares to the Asia Pacific region, I certainly wouldn’t be flying United, I’d consider Qantas and Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines. Stuker was incredibly gracious, thanking all of the United employees who make his travels so great and who are so wonderful at customer service, but even as a Global Services member it’s hard to imagine he’s better off than if he were a Singapore PPS Solitaire member.

Here’s a video of the ceremony, I watched the whole 20 minutes and though it was really special.

United presented Stuker with a Titanium Mileage Plus card, a framed commemorative on an original stock certificate, a book listing all of his flights with United, a model of a 787 in United livery (United’s CEO joked about the plane’s delivery delays) and… they named a 747 after him, which was parked right outside the window where the ceremony was being held.

It was also near to see many familiar friends and faces in the audience, Captain Denny, Art, Marty, Randy Petersen..

Congratulations, Tom, it’s thrilling to see the well-deserved recognition for your milestone. And I’m looking forward to your upcoming SpikeTV reality show, “Car Boss”…!

I’ve long advocated, nay, begged people to sign up for frequent flyer programs even when they don’t fly very much or when they’re flying a carrier that they don’t normally travel with. I tell them that they might eventually get something from the simple act of joining and submitting their account number, if not right away then it’ll eventually accumulate. Goodness knows I don’t stay with Marriott often but surprisingly enough registering for their current stay twice get a free night promo meant that I received a free night, which I’ve already redeemed for an upcoming stay…

… on a trip where I find myself questioning the very lesson of “always claim the miles.”

I need to buy a flight from Bangkok to Koh Samui. Sure, I could fly Thai Airways and earn miles on another Star Alliance carrier, but Bangkok Airways is cheaper and has many more flights and so more convenient flight times.

Despite my mental model of Bangkok Airways, they’re really not a low cost carrier in the model of Air Asia. They describe themselves as a ’boutique’ airline and they offer a ‘lounge’ for coach passengers even at the Bangkok airport. Business class is about $30 more each way for my journey, so I don’t mind so much not flying Thai where I’d avail myself of Star Alliance Gold check-in, lounge, and baggage benefits.

I was hungry for Thai food when I read that the airline is promoting top-end chef/restaurant tie-ins (HT: Milepoint), even on the short Bangkok-Samui route.

Bangkok Airways has joined hands with the Four Seasons Resort in Chiang Mai, the Pavilions at Phuket Relais & Chateaux and Greyhound Cafe to create “carte du mois” for “blue ribbon class” passengers over a six-month period starting next month.

… For instance, between July and August business-class passengers will be treated to the choice of: minced pork and smoked bacon balls served with steamed rice, fusili Phad Thai, shrimp-fried rice with old style chili paste, and grilled chicken with green curry sauce and steamed rice. All hail from Greyhound Cafe.

Now, some of the worst airline food I’ve eaten in years has been in Thai Airways domestic business class so my hopes for Bangkok Airways business class meals on a one hour flight are quite low. Still, the description sounded great.

But my real question is, if I’m to fly Bangkok Airways, what do I do about the miles? I could credit to their own program, but I’m really not likely to add to my stash. After a cursory look it appears I could credit the miles to Air Berlin topbonus or to Etihad Guest. But as far as I can tell miles in both of those programs expire after three years, regardless of additional activity, and I don’t even have accounts with them, will I ever get close to an award within three years?

So the question is, do I even bother with the miles? In the end I’m sure I’m credit somewhere even though I doubt that decision will ultimately pay off. But where: should I credit to Air Berlin, Etihad, or to Bangkok Airways’ own program?

AutoSlash points to a deal from Advantage, rental cars in Chicago from $62 per week all-in, from July 24 through the end of August. As they note, a 28-day rental is only $250, so less than many lease payments without the ongoing obligation.

Book here. Once you get results to come up you can change the search to your preferred dates and preferred Chicago-area airport.

(HT: Milepoint.)

Update: The deal is also available in Louisville.

In light of my recent four hour ordeal getting Expedia to fix a ticket that their ‘elite’ agent screwed up during re-issue, I thought it would be worth explaining why (and when) I continue using third party booking services like Expedia and Orbitz.

First, cash rebates. Sites like Big Crumbs will give me a cash rebate for my Expedia purchases, regardless of the airline I’m ticketing. They used to offer 1% but are now offering a flat $3.20, great for cheap itineraries and less rewarding for expensive ones, but multiplied out by tons of itineraries especially ones I book for family and friends, it adds up.

Second, Expedia’s own rewards program adds an additional 1% to 2% rebate for use on Expedia-booked travel. The more points you redeem at one time, the more they’re worth. The program launched just over three months ago and already I’ve booked about $25,000 of air travel through them. When I hit $50,000 I’ll redeem for a $1000 hotel stay. (I still book much American Airlines travel through the AA.com website and take advantage of Business ExtrAA points, I have enough of those for free AAdvantage Gold status and a free lounge membership for a year, even after gifting a friend a gold membership earlier in the year.)

Third, booking for others is easy. Their system will save a ton of different travelers’ info from date of birth for TSA requirements to frequent flyer numbers making it quick and easy, it saves a bunch of payment methods as well so I don’t have to re-type credit cards.

Fourth, and probably most important, I can mix and match carriers. Sometimes a codeshare flight will be cheaper and though I usually advise against booking codeshares I can substitute another carrier’s flight number instead of the airline’s own flight number and bring down price. Or I can combine multiple airlines in the same trip. It’s much easier to do on a third-party website than on the median airline site.

I actually like Orbitz’s ability to mix and match flights best, it will display multi-airline complete itineraries and let you grab a single segment and then give you all other choices (and their respective prices) that include the segment(s) you’ve already grabbed. I don’t like the rest of the Orbitz booking experience, they’ve only recently even made it possible to assign a frequent flyer number from a program different than the one belonging to the airline operating a flight for instance. And I’ve never much been a fan of the booking interface on Travelocity. I like the Expedia booking interface the best, even though I sometimes need to book via Orbitz for its more powerful pricing and flight selection egine.

Finally, price variance. Different booking engines are pulling availability from different computer reservation systems, and they may not all be in synch perfectly at all times, one booking engine may have availability in a cheaper booking class for a short while than another engine will. So the same flight may price differently on a different site.

On Thursday I booked a trip out to Seattle, I have to give a couple of talks at a conference, then meet my wife down in Florida, and if I did the whole thing on one ticket I could get the Florida piece in for very little extra money, so it made sense to ticket everything together.

I needed a US Airways flight back for the return to travel with my wife. I sure wasn’t flying US Airways for the whole trip to the West Coast. United for the outbound to use a confirmed upgrade instrument, but unfortunately the South Florida market I needed for the return has been taken over by Continental metal. I didn’t want to do Seattle – Denver on United and then Denver – Florida on Continental. And managing to stay on United would’ve meant a nasty long layover in Chicago. So I went with Continental all the way through from Seattle. I’m not confident of upgrades on Continental metal yet, especially during blocks of heavy business travel time, so I actually spent Continental miles to confirm the upgrade. I didn’t want a non-economy plus coach seat across the country for sure.

Three airlines, one ticket for price and it was no problem to upgrade the United outbound online at united.com, the Continental flight at continental.com, and then assign seats for the final segment at usairways.com (I’ll do the 899 miles in coach). After the upgrades the reservation appeared somewhat out of synch on the Continental site, but a quick call fixed that. I’m paranoid and do tend to check on my reservations after making any chance and then occasionally between booking and time of travel.

I do use Expedia, to a lesser extent Orbitz, despite of time-consuming outsourced customer service even when calling their ‘elite’ phone number. It’s far from perfect but it’s a necessary part of my arsenal.

USA Today ran a piece on hotel concierges, the upshot is that they’re extremely useful but that some travelers don’t take full advantage of their services because they’re intimidated or unfamiliar with them.

On the whole that hasn’t been quite my experience, I’m neither unfamiliar nor intimidated and yet I find most concierges to be of limited usefulness.

There are truly connected concierges, on rare occasion I had heard of the lead concierge at the Hotel Arts Barcelona getting guests into El Bulli when there was a same-day cancellation. But on the whole, I’ve rarely found concierges who could get me in somewhere that I couldn’t get into on my own.

I do use concierges for simple restaurant reservations outside of the United States, I find that their English is better than I’ll find at most restaurants and so it may make sense to communicate with them instead of with the restaurant directly, so I’ll have them make the call and confirm (and re-confirm when necessary) my booking.

Most times though a concierge just adds a middle step, potentially creating a game of telephone with two cups and a string where something is lost in translation.

When I was staying at the Prince de Galles in Paris I communicated with the hotel in advance by emailing to make several restaurant bookings, which they confirmed for me. One afternoon I showed up at the appointed time only to find the restaurant wasn’t even open! Now, I had a terrible time discerning what actually happened, and even if the restaurant took the booking without realizing they’d be closed I still fault the hotel — which purports to be a luxury property even if it pales next to the George V next door — for not calling to re-confirm the booking before we departed the hotel to head to the restaurant.

The toughest booking I made on that Paris trip, Joel Robuchon, I made myself.

The concierge in my building will make restaurant reservations (and water your plants or feed your cat, though I do not have a cat) but I can’t imagine ever using them to make such a booking, if I can’t do it myself online at Opentable I’ll pick up the phone, it’s usually just as simple to call the restaurant as it is to call the concierge. It’s nice to have someone receiving packages for me, though.

I have several different concierge services through various credit cards, from Diners Club to Visa Signature (VIPdesk), to Amex Platinum (Circles). Occasionally I’ve tested them for various things like tickets to sold out events, and they come back with an offer, but it’s usually for more money than if I’d just go to a broker online directly – and that would be handled much more quickly, rather than hoping they remember to call me back.

Of course there are higher end services. The only one I’ve dealt with, and they’re hardly the top end, is Quintessentially, whose services are made available to British Airways first class customers, but my impression is that they can barely book a cabana in the Concorde Room at Heathrow let alone be counted on for more extensive arrangements.

There are of course the pricey $20,000+ services that promise to get you into the best events and be at your beck and call, I haven’t worked with any of those and no doubt if you can afford their services and the pricetag for the events they promise to arrange for you like attendance at the Oscars or TV premiers then you might also consider the services of a true personal assistant (or a personal assistant and a concierge service to work together!).

Neither of those are me, and I’m limited to the credit card services which I rarely use, and the hotel concierges which I rarely use.

I do much like my Hyatt private line concierge, however, but I’ve never asked her to do anything besides dealing with hotel and Gold passport issues for me. Starwood’s Platinum representatives have long been referred to as concierges, though my sense is it was more urban legend than fact that they could meaningfully do much more for you than a hotel booking or simple tasks like those a credit card paid-for concierge might.

That said, I wouldn’t hesitate to walk into a hotel, especially one I frequent or at least affiliated with a chain that I frequent, and ask for assistance from the concierge even if not a guest in the hotel. I imagine that I’d be most inclined to feel like I needed that assistance in a foreign country, as that’s the only time I tend to use a concierge. But then I also feel no compunction about walking into a hotel I frequent and borrowing their lobby to meet with folks even when not a registered guest (and at some hotel properties that’ll mean complimentary internet and complimentary soft drinks, I have long wished more chains would copy the now-defunct Radisson benefit ‘Our World, Your Lounge’ where all elites were officially welcome to this).

How do you make use of concierges? I figure I genuinely must be missing something.

“A Few Bad Apples”

Police have arrested a Transportation Security Administration employee who stole about $50,000 worth of electronics from travelers’ luggage at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Nelson Santiago, 30, of Hollywood, was arrested after an employee with Continental Airlines saw him slip an I-Pad computer out of a suitcase and into his pants on Monday, said Dani Moschella, spokeswoman for Broward Sheriff’s Office.

Every time these stories come out, whether for thefts or child porn, we’re told that the rest of TSA’s employees are great, they’re all thoroughly ‘screened’, and that there are just a few bad apples..

(HT: Alan)

In June (and many months previous) US Airways offered a 100% bonus on purchased miles.

This month, through July 31, US Airways is offering a 50% bonus on transferring miles from one account to another. The maximum bonus under the offer is 25,000 miles.

They’ve offered a 100% bonus on shared miles in the past, so I won’t be jumping on this 50% bonus without a specific award to top off for. But I do appreciate the bonuses, the best bonus offer is the one that’s running at the time you need one for an award. So certainly one for the arsenal if you’re putting something together during July. You just need to know someone with a few miles you can have, or have family members whose accounts you can raid.