British Airways Visa: up to 100,000 point signup bonus

The most lucrative current credit card signup bonus is scheduled to be pulled June 7.

The public offer is:

• 50,000 points after first purchase
  
• 25,000 points after spending $10,000 on the card within a year
  
• 25,000 additional points after spending the next $10,000 on the card within that year

There’s a $95 annual fee, spending earns 1.25 miles per dollar, and the card has no foreign currency transaction fees.

The unique selling proposition for putting high amounts of spend on the card is that after $30,000, they award a free companion award ticket – the second passenger travels on an award booked on British Airways flights for no additional miles (though both passengers are charged taxes and fuel surcharges).

(Some folks have luck making a mock booking on the BA.com website and getting an offer for 50,000 points now and 50,000 in a year – two annual fees but no minimum spend, and of course no companion award ticket if you don’t do the spend.)

The British Airways Visa leverages up by allowing multiple family members to sign up for the card and pool signup bonuses towards one person’s award, and for folks who put $30,000 spend on the card within a year to earn the companion award ticket, there’s the opportunity to use those miles twice (for two passengers on the same award itinerary). Given fuel surcharges, some folks think of it as buying a discounted, non-mileage earning coach ticket and having a confirmed upgrade. Since BA is a 4-class airline, in the case of a first class award, that’s a confirmed three-cabin upgrade.

But I make the point frequently that there are three different types of credit cards — those you get for the signup bonuses, those you get for the benefits of having the card, and those you get because they’re lucrative to actually put spending on.

The British Airways card is clearly a card you get for the signup bonus. At up to 100,000 points on offer, it’s the current most lucrative signup bonus on the market. And that goes away June 7, so worth jumping on now.

News and comment from elsewhere:

• Over at Conde’ Nast Daily Traveler I review the best credit cards that offer benefits for having the card as opposed to putting spending on that card.

• The Wall Street Journal today runs a piece on the challenges of the United-Continental integration.

  Everyone has their pet peeves (and I’ve found few fans). But we often conflate technical challenges or glitches and changes in policy.

  On the award redemption side, I love relaxed routing rules and the end of Starnet blocking, and hate no more free holds on awards when your miles are already in your account at time of reservation.

  I abhor the new policy where full fare tickets trump elite status level.

  And I hate that when you change a ticket you can’t pay the fee out of the residual value of the ticket, you have to use new cash (even if the new ticket is less expensive than the old one).

  To me it’s the policies more than the technical challenges that underscore this is really Continental, just like the tail livery, regardless of the name of the airline…

• Delta is adding several new flights from New York to the Caribbean. Point Me to the Plane surveys what Skypesos award availability looks like for the coming winter months.

  He finds that saver coach awards to Nassau and business class awards to Aruba are possible (and you might as well spring 60,000 point for business class to Aruba when medium level coach award space runs 50,000 points). New York to St. Maarten on Saturdays for 70,000 miles roundtrip in coach does not seem like much of a deal…

In yesterday’s post on United’s new 787 serving Denver – Tokyo, I noted that the schedule was live and thus a 787 seatmap was online that you could access when making a (dummy) booking.

But the seatmap looked odd, since it had more seats available than the announced configuration of the aircraft was supposed to hold, and the seatmap didn’t specifically flag economy plus.

Seth notes in the comments on that post that overnight United has updated the seatmap, and these problems appear fixed.

Here’s the new seatmap:

(Click on the seatmap above to enlarge)

It’s interesting that there’s no center section of seats in row 16, but that the center section of row 23 is economy plus (while the right and left sides are not), and that the row 27 exit seats are considered economy plus seats… also that the two final rows — 37 and 38 — are center seats only. Talk about exposure to lavatory traffic!

One of the banks I do business with gives away as a premium for opening a checking account a benefit where they’ll rebate you $10 per quarter in exchange for submitting grocery or gas receipts.

People usually think this is a way for a marketing company to understand your buying habits. The bank does nothing to dissuade that belief. But that’s not the idea at all.

You have to remember to request rebate forms, they don’t automatically send you more. You have to save your original receipts and mail them in. And then you have to hope they actually process it and mail you the check.

In other words, they get a top line benefit to market that they’re giving you $40. But most people never get anything, or if they do they get $10 per quarter for a couple of quarters and then forget or give up. I have to imagine that on average the benefit really costs them a couple of bucks per accountholder, there are a few people who get their $40 per year but most people get zero.

When making the decision to be a customer, though, people hear $40 rather than $0.

That’s part of the principle at work with the SkyGuide Executive Privilege Club which will reimburse $600 per calendar year for 12 airline lounge visits plus $300 per year for 12 gym visits. And since membership is on a 12-month cycle but reimbursement caps are per calendar year, you can actually get $1800 in reimbursements … for a $20 trial membership.

And the folks signing up for this program, highlighted on my blog and on forums like Milepoint, are much more likely than average to actually put in for their reimbursements. (It also helps that a club lounge pass is going to be $50, not $10, so the incentive to bother submitting the claim is higher.)

SkyGuide also sells their mailing list of high-end clients and makes quite of bit of coin that way as well.

Another similar program came to my attention yesterday, Feecation.

Here’s how it works:

• There’s a 1 month free trial, then it’s $14.97 a month. So about $180 per year.

• They will reimburse most any airline, hotel, rental car, and wireless internet access fee — up to $10 per instance.

• They will reimburse up to $500 in air fees, and $250 each in hotel, car, and wifi, in a year.

• It’s possible to get $1250 in reimbursements for the $180 in membership fees — doing so would take a minimum of 125 submissions.

• Break-even is 18 submissions during a year.

Clearly at $10 per submission, the incentive is lower than if they were reimbursing the full cost of fees. But it looks like reimbursement requests can at least be processed electronically rather than having to mail them in.

The company’s business model strikes me as similar to the grocery and gas reimbursement that my bank offers, most consumers will join and not use the benefit, maybe they’ll submit a couple of claims and then forget they’re signed up while they’re being billed $15 per month. They make money on a concept similar to breakage.

Feecation offered me a free one-year membership to try it out in hopes I’d review the site, that’s not my style, so I declined but asked whether I might give away a free one-year membership instead. They were game, though I’m not sure how appealing the concept is, I’d love feedback. Should I do a giveaway of a one-year membership to Feecation? It’s worth ‘up to’ $1250 in reimbursements, of course, and would save the $14.97 monthly fees for someone.

Here’s their FAQ, they do a 30 day free trial, the question folks need to figure out is whether they’re likely to have a minimum of 18 fee submissions per year to break even (and even then it’s not worth it, because you’re not recouping the value of your time to process the submissions). And whether you’re likely to stick to it. There’s a lot of potential here, even more than as I’ve outlined because you can presumably get reimbursements during your 30 day free trial and it doesn’t appear that you’re limited to a certain number of reimbursements per month, you could conceivably max out on your reimbursements long before a year is up and then cancel. But will you really have $250 in wireless access (e.g. Gogo) fees, $10 at a time? And 50 instances of airline fees, 25 instances of hotel extra fees, and 25 instances of car rental fees? Definitely ‘your mileage may vary’.

Via Notiflyer, between May 21 and June 18 Aeroplan is offering up to 40,000 bonus miles for transferring points in from other programs (excluding the U.S. American Express Membership Rewards program).

The bonus isn’t per transaction or per partner, it’s cumulative — the more points you transfer in from various sources, the more total bonus points you earn.

Eligible partners are:

• Credit card programs: CIBC Aventura World MasterCard Card, CIBC Aventura Gold Visa, CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite, CIBC Aventura MasterCard Card, American Express Membership Rewards – Canada, BankAmericard Power Rewards credit card, Diners Club Club Rewards

• Hotel programs: Starwood Preferred Guest, Hilton HHonors, Marriott Rewards, Wyndham Rewards, Best Western Rewards, Choice Privileges, Coast Rewards, Club Carlson, Le Club Accorhotels, Shangri-La Golden Circle Award

• Car rental: Hertz Gold Plus Rewards

• Other: Points.com

The highest yield points transfer partner with most programs is usually Starwood. Every 20,000 miles transferred into an airline account generates a 5000 mile bonus. So 80,000 Starwood points yields 100,000 Aeroplan miles. With this bonus, 80,000 Starwood points would mean 125,000 Aeroplan miles.

Of course this offer would have been far more valuable a year ago, before Aeroplan gutted their reward chart and before they began adding fuel surcharges to most partner awards.

Still, 125,000 Aeroplan points is enough for a first class award from North America to parts of Europe or enough or business class to most of Asia (as far south as Singapore).

Bonus points should be added 7-10 days after the requisite miles have been received in an Aeroplan account.

The initial schedule for American’s incoming Boeing 777-300 aircraft, featuring their new first class and new business class products, has been announced.

Beginning December 13 they’ll run it Dallas – Sao Paulo, and in February it’ll start on Dallas and New York – London.

Time to start looking at airfares and flights with confirmable upgrade space, I’d love to be among the first to fly in the new business class seats.

According to Expertflyer there appears to be reasonably good confirmable upgrade space on the 777-300 for Dallas – Sao Paulo service. Executive Platinum eVIP upgrades are valid from any fare and book into C inventory. I just got back from Sao Paulo on Sunday but this is tempting…

(HT: AAdvantageGeek)

Whenever I’m doing any sort of online shopping, I search EV Reward to find the best deal. Most online shopping sites offer some sort of rebates, for instance if I’m going to buy something at Target.com I search Target.com at EV Reward and find that I can get 3% cash back through Ebates (which offers a $5 bonus after your first purchase), 3 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, 3 American miles per dollar, or several other options.

Given this information, I’d probably choose 3 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar at Target.com.

EV Reward is a useful tool, but it isn’t updated in real time and offers from the various cash back and mileage sites change all the time. So what they list as currently-available offers may vary from the offer you see when you click through.

And the site isn’t totally comprehensive, not every single cash back site and mileage mall is listed. One that isn’t, for instance, is the new Top Cash Back.

In fact, the site has only been up in the U.S. for about 6 months, and I had just heard of it when reading up on the Radisson/Club Carlson monster promotion, Top Cash Back was providing a 5% rebate on Radisson bookings — and given the excitement around the Club Carlson 55,000 bonus point promotion they upped their cash back offer to 10%.

After I posted about Top Cash Back and the Radisson promo, the Top Cash Back folks reached out to me. They explained they are a 100% commission rate cash back site — a contrast to the usual model for these things which is that merchants pay a commission on sales driven to their site, and cash back websites generate volume by offering to rebate some of their commission to the consumer.

For instance, instead of pocketing the full 3% they might get paid by a merchant, most sites might keep 1% and pay 2% to the consumer. They get less on each transaction, but encourage a whole lot more transactions. And the mileage malls operate on a similar principle, buying miles from airlines or points from hotels and crediting those to consumers rather than cash, but in any case effectively paying out a portion of the commission they’ve received.

I’ve written in some detail about how these mileage portals work, how poor customer service they usually offer, and how little transparency there usually is.

But since they effectively offer you something for nothing — miles or cash rebates for things you are going to buy anyway — it makes sense to click through the links and hope for the best, but not get too exorcised if you don’t get the mileage or cash back credit you’re hoping for.

Since the margins on any given transaction are low, and since the site only wants to pay out once it gets paid — there’s a long trail of things that have to happen, and lots of opportunity for technical glitches along the way — customer service tends to be quite bad. Once a site starts providing customer service, it becomes more costly to service a transaction than the site will make off that transaction. (At the same time, a site with a reputation for poor service will lose customers or undermine the brand of the mileage program they’re associated with, so there’s still some pressure for customer service).

Top Cash Back claims to change all of this.

• They promise to rebate 100% of the commissions they receive, and make money off of display ads on their website. If they offer more cash back than anyone else, they’ll drive traffic and serve up more ads. They claim to offer the most cash back of any rebate site for 90%+ of the stores they cover, with oversights accounting for those stores where they aren’t.

  It does strike me as strange that their rebates would be lower any time if they’re rebating 100% of commissions, unless they’re getting lower commissions than some other sites, and also seems strange that they could double cash back on Radisson bookings if they were already paying out 100% of what they were receiving, unless they’re losing money on each booking in exchange for some buzz. But that’s what they say they’re doing, and that as a matter of policy they do things like 101% on their U.K. site. So there ya go!

• They promise better customer service. I’m told they intend to respond to all inquiries within 24 hours (outside of weekends and holidays).

• There’s no minimum to cash out. Some sites only pay you quarterly. Others require you to make a certain amount of purchases first. For instance, ebates won’t give you your referral bonuses for signing up members unless you also have a minimum of cash back earned from purchases yourself. Top Cash Back says there’s no minimum to cash out, and no wait, you can request funds whenever you wish.

Looking back at the Target.com example, they’re paying 3% on electronics, books, entertainment and home office .. 2% on baby care… and 9.5% on everything else (gift cards excluded).

Referring a new member earns the existing member $10 after the new member earns $10 in rebates. (Up until yesterday the website said the bonus was $5, I had heard that through beginning of July it was supposed to be $10… so I emailed them and they had this fixed within a day, most impressive.)

You can sign up with my link. If you sign up, feel free also to leave your own referral link in the comments, and readers are welcome of course to use signup links they find there.

Here are some travel provider cashback highlights:

• 16% on Intercontinental Hotels Group (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Intercontinental, etc) bookings
  
• 12% on bookings made at HotelClub.com
  
• 3% on Starwood hotel reservations (Sheraton, Westin, W, Four Points, Le Meridien, etc)
  
• 3% on Choice Hotels
  
• 5% on Fairmont
  
• 10% on Radisson and Country Inns
  
• 5% on Best Western
  
• 2.1% on Marriott and Renaissance, 3.5% on Marriott Courtyard, 4.5% on Fairfield Inn
  
• 1.2% on Air France, 2.6% on Virgin Atlantic, 2% on Qantas
  
• 8% on Sixt car rentals, 5.5% on Avis, and 4.5% on Budget

Now that United has loaded its first 787 into the schedule, Denver-Tokyo beginning March 31, you can see the seatmap for the aircraft by walking through a dummy booking on the website:

There are 36 business class seats, 63 economy plus seats (presumably rows 16-22, not highlighted on the seatmap), coach has been announced as 120 seats though the seatmap would appear to show 135 seats — presumably some of the blocked/unavailable seats aren’t. They clearly haven’t put the finishing touches on the seatmap since economy plus isn’t so-flagged.

Nine across in coach seems tight to me, considering that All Nippon and Japan Airlines are doing eight across with their 787s.

It’s notable that Denver – Tokyo is announced as the first 787 route for United, they had previously indicated they’d inaugurate the 787 on Houston – Auckland. But United claims that would no longer be viable if Southwest gets permission to fly internationally out of Houston-Hobby. That’s a silly claim of course. United doesn’t want the competition, and wants the government to keep that competition illegal. But Southwest certainly isn’t going to fly to New Zealand. Their proposed international flying won’t affect the viability of an Auckland flight. Certainly Southwest’s international flying out of Hobby won’t be a detriment to United’s domestic flights at Houston Intercontinental that would feed the Auckland flight. But as part of the posturing, and at least for now, Denver – Tokyo goes first.

Priority Club’s new PointBreaks list is out.

This is the deepest discount in award travel across any hotel brand, a handful of properties are offered at any given time for just 5000 Priority Club points per night, even properties that may cost 40,000 points per night normally.

I usually look for Intercontinental properties, which offer the steepest discounts when they’re participating, but there are other interesting options as well such as the Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown and the Hotel Indigo Shanghai on the Bund.

Intercontinentals participating this summer are Cleveland, Houston-Galleria, Cyprus, Bucharest, Mauritius, Cairo, Nairobi, Lusaka, Fiji, Wuxi, Kuala Lumpur, Puebla, Buenos Aires, Tegucigalpa.

That’s a more extensive, richer list than I’ve seen in a long time.

(HT: Milepoint)

Lots of Loose Ends and Little Things:

• Is Hilton playing games with the cash portion of their cash and points awards?

• Loyalty Lobby details AviancaTaca’s 100% bonus on purchased miles which is running through the end of the month.

  If you don’t already have a LifeMiles account you won’t be able to take advantage of it this time around, but may want to open for the next go-round of the offer which seems to come around with some frequency.

  The airline is expected to join Star Alliance this year, making the miles potentially more useful.

• Accor is selling Motel 6 to Blackstone. I’m guessing not, but it would be interesting to see whether that portfolio is added to the Hilton HHonors program. For a limited time last year, Accor’s A|Club (now Le Club Accorhotels) allowed points redemption for Motel 6 stays, which led me to dub that an “anti-aspirational” award choice. Generally such a lower-end of the hotel market isn’t driven by rewards earning.

• As an update on the British Airways acquisition of bmi, I noted that British Airways is granting equivalent elite status to bmi Diamond Club members.

  I waited until May 10 to request he match figuring that would get me an extra month’s status from British Airways (I do not intend to requalify, but BA Gold status will get me into American Airlines Flagship Lounges when I’m traveling domestically on AA). The match processed sometime between 6am and 11am Eastern time this morning, 12 days later.

  As i noted earlier, “Folks who are British Airways flyers already, note that when you process a status match from bmi your membership year resets and your current elite status credits reset to zero.”

  Currently my account displays Gold status, a membership year ending March 8, 2013, and a card expiration date of April 30, 2014.

  

1. American to Miami in First, then Business Class to Sao Paulo
   
2. Gol Smiles VIP Lounge and Domestic Service to Foz de Iguassu
   
3. Sheraton Iguazú Falls Resort
   
4. The Wonder of the Falls
   
5. Gol Domestic Back to Sao Paulo and the Admiral’s Club Sao Paolo
   
6. American’s Business Class to Miami and on to DC

With just a weekend in South America, and a goal of visiting one of the places I’ve wanted to see for years, I decided on convenience and time savings — I picked the Sheraton because it’s actually in the National Park, on the Argentina side.

The Sheraton is on the pricey side, rooms were over $250++ and suites around $575++ during my stay. It’s a Starwood category 5 — so delivers a bit over 2 cents a point without any high season points supplement. The rooms are small and so I decided I wanted to have a suite guaranteed. That’s double the points, and a little bit better than 2 cents a point in redemption value. Not the highest value award on a cents per point basis but I knew that I would enjoy the stay most if I had a little bit more space and a view of the Falls (which the suite would provide), but I didn’t want to pay $1200+ for the privilege over two nights.

In order to get there we walked straight through the airport, past baggage claim and the small arrivals hall, taxis queue up right outside. It’s no problem to get a cab at the airport in Brazil ad head to Argentina.

We told the driver we were headed to the Sheraton and he mentioned that we had to pay an entrance fee to get into the National Park before reaching the Sheraton, which I already knew. He mentioned the fee had to be paid in Argentine Pesos (130 ARS per person, about $29), something I also knew — he commented that on the Brazil side the park will take all forms of currency, but not to enter via Argentina, and he offered to stop for us to change money along the way. I already knew this requirement, and it’s on the hotel’s website, so I already had the cash.

A very helpful fellow, our cab driver also noted for us that we might need a Visa to return to Brazil, since we were Americans, and were we planning to come back to fly out of the Brazil airport in Iguassu? He wanted to let us know before we left the country, in case we’d have trouble getting back in. (Of course, if we hadn’t had such a visa we wouldn’t have been able to enter in the first place, but the concern was noted and appreciated). The driver also offered to stop for sightseeing of the Brazilian side of the falls on the way to the hotel, since we were already on that side and would save an immigration check later to come back, but after a day’s flying we were looking forward to making it to the hotel.

The driver incidentally was happy to take either Brazilian Real or Argentine pesos for the ride, which cost about US$58 on the way to the Sheraton and US$50 on the way back. (Fixed quoted price, not meters, and I did not attempt to negotiate.)

When we reached the checkpoint to exit Brazil, our driver took our passports inside to an office, surrendered our arrival slips which we had received on the way into Brazil (noted that if we were staying on the Argentina side less than a day we wouldn’t have to do that), and brought us back fresh slips to complete prior to arrival at Brazilian immigration on the way back. We drove on, and shortly reached the checkpoint to enter Argentina where we pulled up to a booth, handed over our passports, and were quickly admitted.

A short drive onward and we reached the entrance to the National Park, because of the lateness of the day the cab driver thought we had to buy passage directly at the gate, but when we got to the gate we were directed to turn around and go back to the ticket booth, apparently a new change. So he got out, we gave the driver our 130 Argentine pesos apiece, and he brought back the tickets which he presented at the park entrance gate. Then it was a mere minute or two farther to reach the Sheraton’s entrance.

All-in, the trip took about 45 minutes, but I imagine that backups at immigration could make it take a bit longer.

We got out of the cab, paid our driver, and a Sheraton employee immediately appeared to assist with bags. We each had just a 20″ rollaboard, so no need, but he insisted. He clearly wasn’t insisting in the way hotel employees often do for the purpose of extracting a tip — he genuinely appeared to believe it was his duty, and said “I will leave it right by the desk where you’ll check in, but please allow me, this is the Sheraton after all!” and he said it with pride. (Across the board, and without exception, every hotel employee we interacted with was extremely friendly and service-oriented. They were far from perfect but everyone was certainly trying.)

Walking into the hotel I was struck by the huge glass walls highlighting views of the Falls. I had been under the impression that “you can’t really see the Falls” from the hotel, and that you only get the obscured top of the Falls. And while it’s true you see just the top, it’s still magnificent.

Check-in was quick, they had our pre-reserved suite ready. It was room 346. There are six floors of the hotel — a bottom floor with gym and spa that opens onto the pool, a floor with the breakfast restaurant and a lounge area of sorts by the glass looking out over the property, that I never saw used, and then the reception level with a bar area, followed by floors 1-3 which are guest room floors. Since you can see the top of the Falls from the lobby level, any Falls view room should have that. Though of course the higher the better and we were on the top floor.

They issued us two keys, one needs to be inserted in a slot near the door in order to activate power in the room. Immediately upon entry you were in the living room, which featured a desk and a couch.

It was’t really even two separate rooms, so it was more of a junior suite, and in fact the two rooms share a television set that will swivel around so you can watch it in either room (similar to the junior suites at the Parker Meridien in New York that are a standard SPG Platinum upgrade).

The ‘next room’ was a bedroom which had two closets, a bed, and two nightstands. The bed was hard — certainly not the standard Sweet Sleeper mattress or bedding — but it was still comfortable and conducive of sleep.

The bathroom was reasonably large with separate tub, shower room, and toilet room (though none of those were themselves especially large). Only one sink, though.

There was a balcony spanning the entire room, and you could walk out onto the balcony from either the bedroom or living room. It was furnished with two chairs, and overlooked the pool and the Falls.

When I arrived in the room there were 3 bottles of water – two in the entryway and one in the bathroom. Additional bottles of water were brought with evening turndown service.

The room was only 538 square feet in total, but since a standard room is only half that size (!) I felt like I made the right choice for myself.

The hotel website’s announcements currently warn,

FIRST FLOOR REFURBISHMENT: MAY 2012 – SEPTEMBER 2012
From May 1 to September 3, 2012, we will be refurbishing the first floor of the hotel and there might be some noise from 8am-6pm. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

But ‘might’ and ‘some’ were hardly my experience. Throughout most of the workday (with no siesta) there was loud jackhammering going on.

It wasn’t a sleep disturbance, I was up long before it started. And some would say “who cares, you’ll be out at te Falls all day.” Though I do prefer to relax a little bit, at least part of the time, with a cocktail in the bar outside overlooking he rainforest and the Falls. Strangely, I quickly got used to the noise and it didn’t especially irritate me.

One thing I noted when I arrived in the room was the South Pacific-style electric outlets, I don’t know why but I expected European outlets. There was one outlet which accepted any plug in the room, though, reducing the challenge (it was by the door).

Internet access costs 70 pesos (~ US$15.70) per day, they will take it off the bill at the end of stay for elites.

Breakfast here is free for all guests, regardless of status. Some folks area big fans of the breakfast, there’s decent variety with 7 separate stations. I wasn’t a fan, I didn’t think most of the items were especially high quality (such as runny scrambled eggs from a carton) though I did love the peach juice and the fried potato balls.

Overall food options at the hotel were limited, and not especially good, but the property is geared for tourists making short stays so a wide variety on the menu may not be necessary. The property is relatively remote, which is to say it isn’t located in one of the major metropolitan areas of South America. And they’re catering to a wide variety of tastes. So it’s about what you’d expect from a hotel whose main purpose is to serve as a base for exploring the Falls rather than as a culinary retreat. No one comes here for the food, better food is unlikely to draw additional business, and it’s inconvenient to go off property during a short stay. So with fairly captive guests, with guests who are coming from reasons independent of the food, without a ton of culinary competition, and where it’s unclear they’d earn an even bigger price premium with better food offerings, it’s fairly well-expected that the food would rise no higher than you can eat it, you won’t go hungry, but it isn’t great.

Most of the time at the hotel was spent looking out at the Falls. Much of the time there was spent walking around the park and checking out the Falls. But I also spent about an hour in the early afternoon by the pool, when things were at their hottest and I wanted a respite from walking around. We were the only ones making use of the pool during that time.

The park itself is open from 8am to 5pm, though staying at the Sheraton you’re already in the park so there’s little question of access. I didn’t see anyone kicking visitors out before opening or after close, though I’ve heard of folks running into officials asking why guests were in the park, with varying levels of concern (from “please leave” to “oh, ok”).

In the late afternoon I sat out on the deck of the hotel’s bar, located on the lobby level.

I made a 6pm spa appointment on my second day. There was a bit of a language barrier with the spa, so I didn’t get great descriptions of the treatments, and the spa menu listed names but not descriptions. Rather than going with the Swedish massage, I opted for what sounded like the most local choice, a native massage that lasted an hour and turned out to involve having mud plastered on me which I showered off at the end, cost was about US$85 all-in.

The treatment was good. There are separate men’s and women’s locker rooms, they give you a key for a locker to disrobe and leave your personal items, there’s a wrapped comb in the locker, a bath robe, and slippers. Everything was clean, I wouldn’t rate the spa with the best of Asia but I was happier with the experience than what I might have gotten locally home in the States.

It really is all about the Falls, and while some will prefer to take the location and not the view, since they’ll see the Falls closer up and are only about a 10-15 minute walk from the nearest waterfall, I really did value the view from the room. Here’s what I woke up to:

If I were going to return to Iguazu Falls, I would stay here again — for the location, if it’s a quick trip, it’s wonderful not to have to add the time and hassle of travel (though it’s only convenient to the Argentina side, of course! And if you fancy a helicopter ride you can only do that across in Brazil) — but recognize that’s what you’re paying for. The hotel is recently renovated, the physical plant is fine. The service is excellent. But I wouldn’t want to eat here for more than a couple of days.

Last week, Club Carlson’s giant promotion launched for two of its brands, where you effectively can buy a cheap hotel night and earn enough points for a stay at any of their hotels in the world.

The most famous and historically lucrative hotel promotion has been Hyatt’s Faster Free Nights, every two stays is a free night, and you could do a couple of cheap airport stays and redeem for, say, the Park Hyatts in Paris or Tokyo. (We haven’t seen that offer in a couple of years and it is missed by many.)

This takes things a step further, it’s effectively buy one get one free but since it’s points you don’t have a short timeframe within which you have to redeem your stay (as long as you keep your account active) and you can split up the points to yield several lower category hotel nights.

Registration went live on the 15th for the Radisson 50,000 point offer and the Country Inns & Suites 44,000 point offer.

Registration is now live for the Park Inn promo as well, the first 20,000 people to register and stay by July 22 will receive 44,000 bonus points. (Later registrants receive only 15,000 bonus points.)

There are fewer Park Inn properties in the U.S. than there are outposts of the other two brands, so this won’t work out for everyone, but I’d still recommend getting in on registration in case plans work out to wind up at a Park Inn property (or near one, such that checking in and out makes sense regardless of whether you actually stay there).

1. American to Miami in First, then Business Class to Sao Paulo
   
2. Gol Smiles VIP Lounge and Domestic Service to Foz de Iguassu
   
3. Sheraton Iguazú Falls Resort & Spa
   
4. The Wonder of the Falls
   
5. Gol Domestic Back to Sao Paulo and the Admiral’s Club Sao Paolo
   
6. American’s Business Class to Miami and on to DC

I walked over to the transit check-in desk for Gol, it had a long line but I decided since I was there anyway I might as well grab my boarding pass rather than going upstairs, not knowing what the economy check-in line might look like there.

I had booked an aisle and middle in row 5, the whole plane is coach. Seat assignments secured by emailing contactus@golnaweb.com.br.

Brazilian domestic flights have a maximum weight for carryons of 5kg but the agent wasn’t the least bit worried, he just asked if I had any checked bags, I said no, and he handed me my boarding pass. Actually he printed two of the same pass, rather than one for each of us, so I’m glad I looked at them. That was quickly corrected.

Now it was off to find a lounge and a shower. I went upstairs and right by the domestic security queue found the Smiles VIP lounge. It’s Gol’s lounge, and I’m not an elite with them, but the lounge offers access via Diners Club and Priority Pass as well.

Inside I had to wait a few minutes for use of a shower, but the attendant said he’d page when one opened up. Internet access was via a code, you have to log in with personal information (name, ID number, but nothing whatsoever checks the validity of the data you enter to register). The coffee machine looked like it made good coffee, but the lounge had no milk or cream of any kind. The food didn’t look especially appetizing. It was crowded, the seating wasn’t all that comfortable, but my real purpose there was a shower.

There are two shower rooms and the attendant at the front desk gives you a real key, for which he’ll take a boarding pass or other ID as a deposit. The shower room to the left is small, to the right much larger. They’re not especially well lit, light enough to shower but I wouldn’t want to be a woman doing makeup in there. They give you a medium-sized towel for drying off, a small hand towel, and a small bath mat. There’s no shower kit per se, just a liquid soap dispenser on the wall. But the shower room was clean, the water pressure good, the water hot, and I was thrilled to refresh after the overnight flight.

Once through I caught up on email for about 20 minutes before it was time to go through security. No shoes of, no liquids out, no laptops out. It was just an x-ray and a metal detector. Through in a matter of seconds. I first proceeded to gate 15, just beyond security, where my boarding pass said my gate would be. But since this is Sao Paulo, the gate had changed to 23 (something the airport is well known for).

Queuing for the domestic flight was interesting. Everyone lined up. There were two lines, one was priority and one was regular. But there was no rhyme or reason to who went into the priority line, except that most people did not. The gate agent came through the line checking boarding passes and IDs, and ripping off a piece of the boarding pass. Anyone who had waited to get into line until after she had done this might have boarded without a ticket or ID check, and taken any open seat, though one presumes they did a head count to match actual load to the flight manifest (though I didn’t see them do this).

I don’t really understand the rush to board this flight, it didn’t much matter what order you got on. It’s a one-cabin coach domestic flight with plenty of overhead space since few people carry on rollaboards, most folks seemed to check large amounts of luggage and to respect the 5kg rule for carryons. I did not, of course, my 20″ Tumi was likely 30+ pounds.

The flight was uneventful. Buy on board drinks and snacks were offered, very few people took anything. I did see a large bottle of water from which plastic cups could be filled, so guessed that water was free, but I didn’t see anyone taking water. Everything else was charged. Since I hadn’t eaten since breakfast on the flight, I was hungry and bought a small sandwich which served the purpose of delaying my hunger until I could reach the Sheraton. (I had looked at food options in the domestic terminal but everything was unappetizing.)

Landing was to a remote position. For everyone at Foz de Iguassu — there are no jetways. Covered stairs are brought to the plane and you walk over into the terminal.

Michelle Higgins has a great piece in the New York Times on how to save money renting cars.

Her list, my comments.

1. Let go of name brands. Certainly Fox, Payless, and others will often have lower rates than Avis and Hertz. The question is whether the lower rate is worth the extra hassle, and that’s a personal tradeoffs question. The lesser known brands may be off-airport in several cities, so more of a hassle to get to the car. And they don’t all have the streamlined checkout and checkin processes that you can at least sign up for with Hertz, Avis, Thrifty, and National — I hate a long trek to the car, or taking more than one bus, and I don’t ever want to stand in line at a rental counter if I can avoid it. Do take the advice though of checking out Sixt which is just getting going in the U.S. but is a common brand in Europe, and offers some high end vehicles at a lower price due to less consumer knowledge of their brand.

2. Dig for virtual discounts. Coupon codes can be found online and drop price, or throw in a tank of gas for free. This is definitely part of the repertoire. As well, most corporate discount codes can be used by anyone without ID, but be careful of certain codes like those for rental company employees which will more often be checked. One nice thing with rental agencies is that most reservations aren’t pre-paid, so worst case scenario if you are denied a discount you’ve reserved you aren’t usually ‘stuck’ at a higher priced rental since you can always walk away and over to another agency to get a car.

3. Track rates through Autoslash.com. This excellent site will take your car rental reservation and check it daily for lower rates. Rental prices change all the time, most people just book and call it done but often as travel dates approach prices will drop (when there are more cars left on the lot than expected). This site automates the process of checking on prices, set it and forget it and let them do the work for you. It used to be a great site for making the initial booking as well, but the major car companies didn’t like the money they were saving for consumers and banned Autoslash from making initial bookings. But they can still track bookings you make elsewhere. After you reserve your car, go to the Autoslash website and enter your confirmation number and email address and they’ll do the rest.

4. Avoid the airport. You can often get lower rates off-airport, especially during the week, because rental companies price discriminate — business travelers need cars and will pay more for them, especially since they’re on a corporate dime and the upside of the travels will often justify spending more to accomplish meetings. So if you can get off airport you can save. Plus airport rentals are often loaded up with taxes, sometimes adding as much as 50% to the cost of the rental — taxes on out of towners are often palatable to locals, taxes to recoup the costs of shared rental faciltieis, shared buses, etc. Another tip for a longer rental is to rent at the airport on day 1 and then return the car to an off-airport location, swapping cars for the rest of the trip — combining the convenience of the initial airport rental with lower rates and taxes for subsequent days.

5. Reserve the car for longer than you need to. A few extra hours on the back end of the rental may drop the daily rate, then just return it early to avoid extra hours charges. This can work, but it strikes me as a less commonly useful ‘trick’ than the rest on the list. Although it’s worth noting that you should often vary the check in and check out times by a half an hour or an hour before and after your intended rental times, changing the time can vary the price.

6. Negotiate. Higgins says you can go to the counter and ask for a better car. This is certainly true, as she observes, if the lot is full of a type of car you want that’s in a higher category than you’ve rented. I’ve also found it possible to walk up to the counter of a competitor company and ask them to beat the deal or vehicle that you already have reserved, another reason it can be helpful not to have a pre-paid reservation. And of course status matters here as well, if you have that extra juice it’s a reason why the rental counter agent might be more willing to give you the better car rather than someone else that would ask. The key in these interactions is to be nice, to be friendly. Don’t act entitled, I usually start with a smile and a hello, ask them how their day is, maybe sympathize with their frustrations over a previous customer in line (in a positive way, always).

7. Prepay. There are several reasons not to prepay, some listed above, but you can sometimes get a better price by making non-refundable reservations. The rental car world would love to the prepaid models the airlines have gone to or at least the hotel model where reservations are charged if not cancelled in advance. And some offer a discount to entice more customers into that world. But that precludes the option of dropping your price later, of course.

My additional tips:

• Hotwire. This is a more extreme version of the prepaid model. You don’t know which rental company you’re booking with in advance, but you know it’s one of the majors. They show you the price up front so you can compare to what’s otherwise available, I’ve seen savings greater than 50% at times but other times it’s not meaningfully better than booking direct. Since rentals are prepaid you can’t drop price later, I only like this option when the savings is big. And prepaid Hotwire rentals may not offer the same additional insurance coverage through a credit card that renting direct does, so there are tradeoffs, but the savings can often be worthwhile. (Priceline has a similar prepaid model, and can be a couple bucks cheaper, they don’t display the price up front — you might try searching Hotwire and then bidding about 10% lower at Priceline.)

• Sign up for frequent renter programs. The obvious benefit is expedited check-out, having your information on file gets your name and car space number up on a board with major brands like Avis and Hertz where you go straight to the vehicle and drive away. At National there’s the ‘emerald aisle’ where you pick your own car at many locations from the standard car class, you don’t have to negotiate at the counter if you don’t like the specific vehicle you’ve been assigned to. But the additional benefit can be free rentals — rental points with Hertz, credit towards free rentals with National.

• Earning miles from rentals. Again not a discount, but can serve as a rebate, I claim 1000 Virgin Atlantic miles per 1-day rental at Avis and 3000 US Airways miles per 3-day Avis rental.

• Make your booking through a cash back or mileage portal. Ebates offers 3% cash back at Avis and the Chase Ultimate Rewards mall offers 3 points per dollar. Similar rewards are available for booking direct at the other rental car company sites, as well as booking through an online agency like Expedia or Travelocity. Search EV Reward to find mileage or cash back offers for the sites you plan to book through.

What have been your experience with these ideas? What additional tips would you add to the list?

1. American to Miami in First, then Business Class to Sao Paulo
   
2. Gol Smiles VIP Lounge and Domestic Service to Foz de Iguassu
   
3. Sheraton Iguazú Falls Resort & Spa
   
4. The Wonder of the Falls
   
5. Gol Domestic Back to Sao Paulo and the Admiral’s Club Sao Paolo
   
6. American’s Business Class to Miami and on to DC

Standing in line at TSA an inquisitive fellow (perhaps a wannabe Behavior Detection Officer) was asking me where I was headed. I told him Iguassu Falls. He asked where that was. I told him I was going for the weekend. “Gotta do something this weekend.”

Coupled with top tier elite status on American and some extra systemwide upgrades, along with a bonus promotion meant to incentive additional flying by passengers from the oneworld Mega DO in January, I could fly business class and earn. I started looking around for confirmable upgrade seats. There were plenty of South America via Miami.

One of the places on my ‘list’ that I’ve always wanted to see has been Iguassu Falls, and since I could get confirmable upgrades to and from South America, why not? I’m not especially keen on American’s old angled business class seats, I’m really looking forward to the rollout of their new business hard product, but for a South America flight departing in Miami I’m really just in the air a bit over 7 hours, eminently doable.

There are several routes to fly and an airport both on the Argentina side and on the Brazil side. As an American, I need a visa for Brazil and they charge a higher fee because the U.S. government is extortionate to foreigners, it’s their way of striking back at the American people, but since we individually have little say in the matter it doesn’t change U.S. policy, it just deters tourism. And yet I’m sympathetic.

If I were to enter via Buenos Aires or Rio I wouldn’t need a visa to fly to the Argentina side of the Falls, but I would have to pay a similar reciprocity fee.

The only way to visit the Falls without that $140+ tax as an American would be to arrive on the Argentina side but not via the two major Argentinian gateways. I dismissed that entirely since I didn’t want a land transfer or a longer flight than necessary in intra-South American economy. Besides, I wanted the option of visiting the Brazilian side of the Falls in any case. I booked flights with confirmable upgrades via Sao Paolo.

Of course that meant I had to get a Visa. And Brazil doesn’t make that process easy. Naturally you need a couple of passport photos, those are easy enough to come by. And you’ll mail in your passport. The fee, though, is payable only by US Postal Money Order. And they will only mail back your passport in a US Postal Service pre-paid Express Mail envelope.

I went to get the postal money order but hadn’t realized that they required an Express Mail envelope, so it was back to the post office. I genuinely don’t recall the last time I was in a post office, we don’t keep Express Mail envelopes at the office, they tell me no one has asked for one of those for as long as can be remembered. (Folks who are self-employed have another hurdle, the requirement to submit a bank statement showing sufficient funds for the intended stay.) It also wasn’t obvious where to mail the package to, the website referenced a physical location based on a street corner rather than a street address. So that took some extra research.

I sent the passports off and hoped for the best. In theory you’re able to track progress online, and after a few days the package showed up as having been received. No further progress was checked off until the passports were actually completed with Visas. The whole process took about two weeks.

A couple of months passed and I hadn’t thought much about the trip beyond booking a hotel. I did a bit of research on lounges in Sao Paulo, but otherwise figured I would just show up and figure out how I wanted to approach the park.

Last Wednesday towards the end of the work day it was time to head out to National airport, the usual $20 cab ride.. much faster than changing trains on the metro and cheaper than parking. I couldn’t check in online for the trip and couldn’t check in at the kiosk, so I walked over to the premium line. It was several people deep, the woman in front of me was traveling to school for 2.5 years and had about 8 pieces of oversized luggage which the AAgent didn’t charge extra for.

After about 10 minutes I was up to the podium, the inbound aircraft for my flight to Miami was delayed, it was coming out of Miami and doing a straight turnaround but weather in South Florida was bad. The flight was already showing an hour’s delay but looked to increase a bit from there, my 2 hour connection was no longer looking as comfortable. I was confident I’d still make it but the system had flagged me for rebooking, to the agent moved me to the late Miami – Sao Paulo flight. I’d increase my layover in Miami by two hours but I’d still make my flight to Iguassu Falls with plenty of cushion.

Two seats were issued in the middle section of business class for the 777, and I was told nothing else was available.

On the plus side, the tickets were re-issued in J class rather than C which is what’s used for business class upgrades. I got it into my head that I might be able to upgrade the J ticket to first class, an on the way through security rang the Executive Platinum desk which told me that seats in A (first class upgrade) were available. Once through security I went straight into the elevator and up a level to the Admiral’s Club where I asked about an upgrade. The agent took one look at the reservation and said that I couldn’t be upgraded further since I was already upgraded to business. Rats! It was that obvious? I had hoped the J re-booking would obscure that but no such luck. I had further hopes that I would earn bonus miles for a business booking on the segment, but didn’t have any luck with that either.

The agent did, however, offer to see if she could get row 8 seats unblocked, the row only exists on the right side of the aircraft, so two seats in the row instead of 6. It’s near the lavatory but it’s the most private, and it’s a window and aisle rather than 3 seats in the middle, there would be no stranger to sit next to. She had to make a phone call, and brought me new boarding passes in the lounge.

A short while later it was time to board, we were further delayed than it appeared on arrival to the airport, we wound up closing the aircraft doors a bit after 6pm rather than the planned 4:40pm departure time. My connection in Miami would have been down to 40 minutes, still doable but I had no reason not to accept the re-booking so there would be no rush on arrival.

It was a standard domestic first class flight, short-haul dinner was served, I had the chicken. The 737 had both Gogo wireless internet and seat power. And the flight attendant providing most of the service up front continually acknowledged each passenger by name without looking at his manifest. That’s really all I could possibly ask for out of a 2.5 hour domestic hop!

Arrival into Miami was extremely choppy, the weather that delayed our aircraft in the first place was still sitting there. I watched as we approached the weather through online flight tracking, it was a massive storm. Though pretty well shaken, we were no worse for wear on arrival.

Since I had about 3 hours to kill before departure of the flight to Brazil, I stepped outside for some fresh (i.e. humid) Miami air. That necessitated going back through security, and the lines were atrocious. The premium line took about 30 minutes to get through. There was only one checkpoint open for the D terminal, and pre-check was closed for the evening.

Nude-o-scopes were in use, I opted out as per usual. I’m not so much concerned about my privacy, I have no shame about my manhood. I really just object to being asked to ‘assume the position’ though have considered going through and flipping the bird, that would be consistent with the required stance in the machine. I had perhaps the most thorough full body rub/screening that I’ve experienced to date, but was finally through and headed to the Admiral’s Club near D30.

The place was deserted. There was no problem grabbing seats, of course. I had internet. And I decided to grab a snack from the café’, unlike many other Admiral’s Clubs where there’s a menu and you might order a sandwich from the bar this one has a small room with a food display behind glass, you go there to order and pick up your food and the choices are more extensive. I had a salad.

Around 35 minutes prior to departure I headed out to the gate, the 7 gate trek can actually be done via the airport’s monorail system but I decided to walk. The terminal was deserted.

By the time I approached the gate, boarding was already about two-thirds complete. I walked straight on through the premium boarding lane, had a few minutes’ wait on the jetway, and found my seat in row 8.

There at the seat was a blanket and pillow in plastic wrap, and a bottle of water in the seat’s cubby hole. There was no amenity kit, which didn’t seem odd until I saw others in the cabin with one. I asked a flight attendant who seemed shocked, “A coach passenger must have taken it! That happens all the time, you have no idea. I’ll have to see if we can find one for you.” Another flight attendant came over and they had a discussion about it. Again, agreement that it must have been taken by a coach passenger on their way to the back. There was no discussion of the possibility that it might have been forgotten, the two seats in row 8 had no amenity kits and of course that’s the ‘hidden’ row in the- cabin. After this discussion one of the flight attendants came by with amenity kits. Not that I especially needed the contents, I come prepared most of the time.

Menus were also at the seat and I was pleased to see that there would be one of the Richard Sandoval entrees on offer, the halibut which I’ve had before (on the MegaDO) and enjoyed. Also pleased that one of the breakfast options would be the Sandoval eggs over biscuits, which I tried on the ground at American’s premium services media event the week before.

We sat on the ground for awhile, about half an hour past scheduled departure, with no word from the captain or crew, but once airborne the pilot announced a flight time of 7 hours 26 minutes, and that we would have an on-time arrival.

Shortly after takeoff I decided to change. One thing I’ve learned in my travels is that pajamas are not just a gimmick. They’re not just a first class extravagance. I actually feel much more comfortable, relaxed, and sleep better if I change into them for the flight. So even though I was flying business, I brought a couple of pairs with me (one for each international business class leg of the trip). On the outbound I put on the American first class PJs which I had picked up in Dallas the week before. For the return I had a pair of Singapore Airlines first class (Givenchy) pajamas.

Meal service began shortly thereafter. I skipped the soup. The salad and entrée were served on a single tray. As expected the Sandoval entrée was good, it was certainly a ginormous piece of fish! Though the halibut was a bit overcooked which was disappointing.

After I’d had my fill, really mostly the side dishes and a few bites of the fish, a flight attendant took my tray and asked for my choice of cheese or ice cream. I chose the ice cream.

I started watching The Iron Lady but began dozing off about halfway through. Some people find the seat I had annoying because of its proximity to the lavatory, other passengers passing by during flight. But I really didn’t notice it, and since there’s no one across the aisle from me it felt more private, more conducive to sleep (my spiffy AA pj’s didn’t hurt, either).

I woke up just before breakfast, naturally I went with the eggs.

Boarding cards were distributed prior to landing, I filled my out on the way down, touchdown was smooth but then we had about a 20 minute wait for a gate. Once we’d disembarked I was out quickly to the immigration queue which was less than a minute, Brazilian citizens were lining up but there were few non-citizens waiting.

Reader Joe C. sends me to a Flyertalk thread where someone listened to United CFO John Rainey’s talk at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference on Thursday, and reported back that Rainey referred to some members of the United MileagePlus program as “over-entitled.”

Audio of the talk is on the UnitedContinentalHoldings.com Investor Relations page.

The Flyertalk thread apparently went to nearly 200 posts within 4 hours before a moderator decided to shut it down (where it remains as of this writing, but it may be re-opened).

I listened to the audio, and what he said about Mileage Plus members was

We had certain groups in this program that were over-entitled if you will. And now we’ve re-aligned the benefits of that program with what the customers and program participants are actually providing to the program, it’s a good change going forward.

In August 2002, when Ben Baldanza (now running Spirit Airlines) was Vice President of US Airways, he said that customers buying inexpensive tickets (that the airline was offering for sale) didn’t represent the kind of loyalty the airline was looking for, that was a shocking statement and gave birth to the “cockroach” movement.

But this statement from United shouldn’t be surprising at all. A full year ago Randy Petersen Travel Executive Summit I reported that MileagePlus President Jeff Foland made “clear that they value high revenue flyers over simply folks with elite status.”

This is a program, after all, that seriously considered setting minimum revenue thresholds for elite tiers. United issued a non-denial denial (that was almost a confirmation), and I went to great lengths to explain why wallet share is more important than revenue totals for a frequent flyer program. Programs want to generate incremental revenue, not ‘reward’ high revenue. But not everyone understands this distinction.

United didn’t go with the minimum thresholds for elite status, but United’s CFO did seem to say that the changes they have made have effectively been geared towards ending generosity towards the ‘over-entitled.’ And here he may mean changes to upgrade priority — full fare tickets now trump status for elite upgrades, a full fare Premier Silver trumps a discount fare Premier 1K. And a government employee with silver status on a YCA fare trumps that 1K — something that’s a big deal in my home market of DC.

Rainey may not understand the nuance of the MileagePlus upgrade priority such that he’s specifically referring to that change, but he certainly reflects a viewpoint — previously expressed by the head of the MileagePlus program — that they want to make changes to focus on high revenue flyers. They’ve made no secret of that, so folks shouldn’t be so surprised to hear it.

It goes without saying that I disagree with Rainey, since the MileagePlus program has long been the most profitable part of the airline, it seems odd to want to upend that winning formula. And because it’s often the lower priced tickets which are purchased ‘at the margin’ and don’t displace other revenue, that influencing buying decisions on those tickets may be the most profitable investments a program can make for the airline.

But this is also someone who believes that reservation system migration has been a boon to the airline, has worked, and is already enhancing their bottom-line (rather than representing a fundamentally broken cash register for the airline). His example is that Shares has allowed dynamic pricing for Economy Plus, allowing United to charge more for window and aisle economy plus seats than middle seats.

He notes that there are more members of MileagePlus than citizens of France. Lets just hope they don’t govern the mileage program in the manner of the Vichy regime.

Alitalia is offering 20% off all flights in economy or business class (not in premium economy) network-wide through noon local time on May 21, for travel through April 15, 2013.

Details thanks to translation skills of The Google:

USE THE CODE: SPECIAL20IT

This week you reserve an offer not to be missed. Buy online between 12:00 on 18 May at 12:00 on May 21, 2012. For you a special discount of 20% of all destinations of the Alitalia network. Discount of 20% applies on the total ticket price (taxes, surcharges and service sales included), all of the destinations of Alitalia network purchased in Classic classes of service – Economy, Great and Magnificent – Business, Premium Economy with the exception of – Classic Plus Offer ‘valid for flying from May 22, 2012 April 15, 2013.

I’m impressed that the discount isn’t just off of base fare, but also off fuel surcharges and taxes.

Prior to merging with United, Continental Onepass awards booked on Star Alliance partner Asiana would sometimes disappear. It was rare, but occasionally Asiana segments would drop out of a reservation. Continental wouldn’t notify customers. They’d either check online and see the segment gone, or they’d go check in and they wouldn’t have a reservation.

Continental was already pretty good about fixing the situation, to the extent they could. They wouldn’t be able to get the Asiana flights back if there was no award availability on those flights. But they’d go to great lengths, generally, opening up seats on their own aircraft to use instead. Sometimes it would take a call or two to get someone who was helpful and would escalate this to the level necessary. But in the end things usually worked out, albeit differently than the passenger had planned.

This isn’t something that’s been a problem with Star Alliance award flights booked by Continental on other partner airlines. And it isn’t a general problem I’ve seen with other Star Alliance airlines making award bookings on Asiana, either. United awards issued prior to the March 3 reservations system integration with Continental never seemed to have this problem. (Perhaps 18 months ago there was an issue with United-issued awards on Lufthansa, and United solved the problem during an interim period while getting the glitch corrected by refusing instant ticketing of awards on Lufthansa, as long as a customer waited 24 hours before ticketed they’d know for sure that the reservation really was confirmed.)

Since the March 3 integration, however, it’s been happening more frequently. The new United now has this problem, again with Asiana. It seems to be happening more frequently than it was with Continental prior to March 3.

United does know about the problem, at least specific United folks I’ve spoken with do. They generally blame Asiana’s systems, but that makes little sense since it’s only been an issue with Continental (now United)-issued awards. What seems to be happening is that when United issues an award ticket on Asiana, the ticket information isn’t getting pushed properly to Asiana’s systems, so Asiana sees a reservation but no ticket. And when the system shows an unticketed reservation beyond the permissible hold period, it cancels that reservation.

The thing to do, if you’re going to book an award ticket on Asiana with United miles, is to call up Asiana after ticketing. Confirm with them that they not only see your reservation but also your ticket, and that the ticket number is linked properly to the reservation. If it isn’t you’re going to want to call up United, likely conferencing in Asiana (so that they do not simply point fingers at each other, and you also don’t want to accept a promise of a call back from United either, fixing this issue is time-sensitive so the segment doesn’t get cancelled).

The agents can certainly make sure that Asiana’s system properly shows the United-issued ticket, and once it does nothing should be cancelled.

A bit of attention is necessary to make sure that a confirmed and ticketed reservation made by United doesn’t disappear!

With all of the IT issues that United still has, two months after their systems integration, I’m hopefully that they’ll at least move this one up the queue to fix it soon. In the meantime it’s important to remain vigilant.

Starwood cash and points discounts the point cost of a room, and has you make a cash payment directly to the hotel. The awards are capacity-controlled — a hotel will make cash and points awards available only when it doesn’t expect to be sold out. That’s because in sold out situations (actually > 90% occupancy), Starwood will reimburse the hotel its average daily room rate. But not on a cash and points booking. So they don’t want cash and points to displace a paying guest.

Priority Club, though, introduced its cash and points feature as essentially discounted points purchase. Instead of using, say, 25000 points for a room when the benefit was introduced you could use 20,000 points + $30 or 15,000 points and $60. The nice thing about that is it’s not capacity controlled (any award night that can be purchased on points can generally be booked as cash and points).

That meant whether you were using cash instead of 5000 points or instead of 10,000 points you were making up the difference at $0.006 per point.

Priority Club upped the cost of the 5000 point option to $40, but left the 10,000 point option at $60 meaning it was a much better deal to buy 10,000 points with the reservation. (Since that meant buying points at $0.006 instead of $0.008).

Now, as flagged by Lucky, Priority Club has increased the cost of the 10,000 point option to $70, or $0.007 per point. Not the end of the world, but frustrating that it was done with no notice whatsoever (as past changes have often been made with this program, unfortunately).

It’s been written several times in the past, so not divulging secrets (and I even wrote about it three years ago, that when you make a cash and points reservation and then cancel it, you don’t get the cash back. Instead, since you’ve effectively bought the points at a discount to the usual ~ penny a point they’re sold at, you get the full points back into your account. Which makes booking and cancelling cash and points reservations a back door way to buy points from Priority Club at a discount, provided you have enough points in your account to start with (5000) to make the minimum-required cash and points reservation. The price of this ‘backdoor points purchase’ has thus gone up from $0.006 to $0.007 per point.

Starwood is giving away 100 free points on Facebook (with a chance to win 100,000).

(HT: Joey M.)