As I posted on the MegaDO blog, we got a sneak preview today of the new cabins and services that American is rolling out, especially on their 777-300.
Here’s the new aircraft entrance
The first class seat
The business class, especially, is a huge leap forward
Right now I believe the biggest investment that American needs to make in its onboard product is in its business class, they need fully flat seats but here they go a step farther offering a flat bed product which offers plenty of personal space.
Coach gets an update as well (though of course remains… coach)
There’ll be a premium economy section, though I don’t have a slide of those.
We were told they ‘wanted to’ (hah) but will not be installing this in the 773s.
We also got a summary of premium product enhancements.
Via One Mile at a Time, the Westin Charlotte’s Facebook Page is giving away 250 Starwood points for signing up for their Insiders eClub newsletter by February 1.
Of course the offer could get pulled earlier. And the signup page doesn’t ask for your Starwood Preferred Guest number, one has to guess they’ll email you for it later (I hope!).
But it’s quick free points, if they post of course..
Over on the oneworld MegaDO blog, I posted about last night’s opening reception at the Hyatt Regency DFW. Jeff Zidell, who runs the Gold Passport program, gave a great talk with trivia and prizes.. and dropped some advance news. Their winter promo details.
He also broke the news about their first quarter promotion which offers up to 55,000 bonus points, more than enough points for 2 nights at the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris or Park Hyatt Maldives (with 11,000 points to spare).
We started off guessing Charlie Sheen’s favorite promo…
#Winning
And then the new promo was revealed!
For every 4 nights between February 1 and April 30, members will earn progressively more bonus points and Hyatt Visa cardholders will earn an extra 25% bonus on top. Registration for the promo is required by March 31.
- 4 nights earns 4000 points (+1000 for Hyatt Visa cardholders)
- 8 nights earns an additional 8000 points (+2000 for Hyatt Visa cardholders)
- 12 nights earns an additional 12,000 points (+3000 for Hyatt Visa cardholders)
- 16 nights earns an additional 20,000 points (+5000 for Hyatt Visa cardholders)
Members staying 16 nights during the three months of the promotion, who also have a Hyatt Visa, will earn 55,000 bonus points in addition to their regular earning.
Lucky argues that this is the most generous promotion currently in the market. It’s certainly going to yield more points after more nights than what anyone else is offering, so especially if you’re going to have a few Hyatt nights you’ll want to have more for the incremental bonuses.
Several readers have sent me a Los Angeles Times piece about Citibank’s reporting of mileage signup bonuses for bank (not credit card accounts) beings reported to the IRS on 1099 forms. I’ve written about this sisue several times in the past, and I have a new post up on Conde Nast‘s Daily Traveler.
I make the point that just because something is reported to the IRS doesn’t mean you have to agree that it is taxable or agree with the valuation of the entity sending you that tax form. The IRS has said in the past that not paying taxes on miles wouldn’t generate an enforcement action, and I argue that the value of the miles is likely lower than that being reported by Citi. In the Daily Traveler post, I share how to dispute the valuation and reduce your tax liability, though of course I know better than to offer specific tax advice for individual situations that I don’t know about fully (and I am not a CPA< just someone who doesn't want to pay taxes on his miles!)
The dream is just to straight up buy that luxury. I’ll probably be disappointed, and I know I would be at full price. Which is fortunate then that JetSetter has $800 in credit for $450 prepaid, a 43.75% discount. Other really nice properties too like the Park Hyatt Chicago from $182. (If you use my link to sign up with JetSetter we each receive a $25 site credit, I’m also happy to see anyone put their own referral links in the comments of this post.)
The oneworld MegaDO so far, posts on the MegaDO Blog over the last 24 hours:
Over the next week I’ll be blogging over at the Mega DO website.
That’s where I’ll have extended posts about all of the activities, experiences, and insights that are going on during the ultimate frequent flyer once in a lifetime experience that starts in New York, heads over to London then Dallas on American Airlines with a visit with oneworld European carriers.. then visits with American Airlines execs in Dallas, there will be flight simulator time for participants and even a real simulated water evacuation of an aircraft and folks get to go down the emergency slide. We all hop on a chartered 757 party plane (I’m told, quadruple catered with liquor) up to Seattle for tours of private parts of Boeing and a cocktail reception with industry execs as well, and then take the chartered plane to Los Angeles where the days activities will involve a Cathay Pacific 777 and a Qantas A380. Be sure to check that out, bookmark it, subscribe to the RSS feed.
I’ll be live tweeting from @OWMegaDO. Follow that twitter feed for all the live updates, including insights gleaned from airline execs and aircraft manufacturers over the course of the trip. If you’re going to be on the trip, or want to follow others that are, use or search the hash tag #OWMegaDO.
A big thanks in advance to American Airlines and the whole of oneworld, and also to Mega DO sponsor Hyatt hotels.
Three times now a group of frequent flyers have gotten together and built an experience like no other, convinced the airlines that they patronize that their excited, loyal, and excitable customers were worth spending time with — perhaps they thought anyone crazy enough to get together and out of their own pocket charter the plane for the experience must be crazy enough to be worth talking to. A year ago I love how Randy Petersen put it to me, Tommy Danielsen the lead organizer is someone who “makes a bad idea work out well.” And certainly going on the hook for a six-figure aircraft charter on the belief that 150 friends and strangers would want to come along for the wild ride was a very bad idea, made good.
The first three events were held over the course of three different years in conjunction with members of the Star Alliance. After seeing the success, the attention, and the overall excitement, American Airlines actually approached Tommy about putting something together with oneworld. And you just know it was going to come out as something special, no need to cajole the airlines and convince them to play host. American was on board, and with their help for the introductions airlines like British Airways, Finnair, Qantas, and Cathay Pacific would be as well.
Of course, American gets a charter fee out of this, and that’s not cheap. But they’ve dedicated tremendous time and thinking and generosity and goodwill to playing host. And they’ve helped put together an amazing set of fundraisers along the way. The events are all done out of the pockets of the participants, with the idea only to cover costs, the charter price is determined based on an expectation of what things are going to have to come out of pocket, with a few percent overage for contingency, and anything left over at the end goes to charity.
Well, American and the other sponsors have come up with prizes and participants in the event have responded in kind, everyone will have to wait until the end for the final events but it will be tens of thousands of dollars to charity as well, such as American’s charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Hyatt’s Hands on Education Services. At the same time as lifetime memories are being creative, everyone is doing something good.
Not just American, and their oneworld partners, either. American has made a valiant play for the attention and loyalty of the participants, I know that their Executive Platinum challenge has meant a lot for my own flying, I expect to end January with over 60,000 elite qualifying miles showing in my AAdvantage account. But Hyatt hotels and the Hyatt Gold Passport program has been an amazing partner.
Hyatt has made everyone on the trip a Diamond member, we all get our checkin amenities and Diamond breakfast throughout the trip, they’re not just hosting the breakfasts but receptions and giveaways as well and they have executives joining us on the trip. Everyone was able to participate in a challenge to retain Diamond status, and earn bonus points for stays. The Hyatt Churchill in London, Hyatt Regency Dallas, Hyatt Regency Bellevue (mmm — soup dumplings next door!), and Hyatt Regency Century City will be our homes along the way when we’re not up in the air on an American Airlines 757.
Kickoff dinner in New York tonight, events at JFK and then a flight from New York to London. I won’t be joining in the transatlantic portion but I’m promised photos and updates along the way to share. I’ll turn up in Dallas for the launch of the domestic portion of the trip.
Sit back, relax, and follow things over at the Mega DO blog and on Twitter. It’s going to be a fantastic ride!
You can get 1000 Free Hilton HHonors points by registering a mobile phone number and a Visa card. You’re basically agreeing to receive “special offers” via text. They promise to only send you two messages and you can opt out at any time.
You can earn an additional 4000 Hilton Honors points by spending at least $100 at a US Hilton hotel or resort with your registered Visa card.
You must register by June 30, 2012 to receive the sign up bonus and must spend $100 by then to receive the additional 4000.
Announced last night on Milepoint:
After the huge success of the inaugural FT University in NYC last April, the FT University is coming back again this year with a brand new format!This year you can enjoy:
– Complimentary cocktail party on Friday night sponsored by milepoint.com
– On Saturday you will be able to learn from the best in the biz from exclusive speakers you won’t be able to hear anywhere else, including the miles guru himself, Randy Petersen and popular blogger Gary Leff!
– On Sunday, interact with the largest frequent flyer and hotel programs in the world, including Mileage Plus, AAdvantage, SPG and Hyatt Gold Passport
– The introduction of the best credit card learning program “Credit Card Lions Den”. The credit card programs will present their most popular cards in front of everyone, then watch the worlds biggest experts on travel credit cards bloggers critique the credit cards and make the right recommendation for you!
– Complimentary, exclusive access to the 23rd Freddie Awards on April 26th will be raffled off for those attending. That’s right! 15 spots to this years prestigious awards will be drawn on March 1st, the only thing you have to do, is sign up for the FT University before this day. The Freddies is not open to the public, this will be one of very few chances to get access!
Get ready for a weekend of fun — and for an unbeatable price!
Registration opens February 10th at 4PM Mountain time. I will post a link to the reservation site here on milepoint.
Details and registration link will be forthcoming, it’ll be priced to cover cost of event room, etc. It’s an opportunity for frequent flyers to get together and swap ideas and experiences, and learn the best tricks and techniques.
Last year’s event in New York was a smashing success, I’m sure this one will be as well, so mark your calendars and more information to come!
Lucky notes that effective March 1, Emirates will become a mileage accrual partner of Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan — and that later in the year you’ll be able to burn miles for Emirates flights.
That’s great, I noted yesterday that Emirates was in desperate need of a US airline partner having lost United and Continental (I had expected that partner to be American until American hooked up with Etihad). Sure, Emirates promoted its interline agreement with JetBlue, and there’s probably some non-zero benefit they get feeding their New York flights from that. But the cupboard is pretty bare. I expected them to cozy up to Delta, and for sure they still may, but it seemed interesting that concomitant with the launch of their Seattle service they’re hooking up with Alaska. Good move for Emirates, and also for Alaska — but great news for frequent flyers.
Sure, it’s great to have a program to credit Emirates flying to. But I’m most interested in it from the redemption side. We don’t have any details yet — United used to allow redemption all the way up to first class, Continental only offered redemptions in business. Alaska often allows first class redemptions on many of its partners, I’d love to see that here and also at a reasonable price point (most Alaska awards are at least ‘in the ballpark’ if not a direct value).
Currently Emirates only partners with Japan Airlines, and the JAL frequent flyer award chart is frequently better than the Emirates Skywards one for redemption. Emirates makes quite a bit of first class award space available, including on the Airbus A380 (showers in first class on that baby!). The seats are probably relatively easy to get in part because there’s little competition for them. No American or United members clamoring to scoop them up. Certainly for the median North American member the most likely way to do it is via a Starwood points transfer.
Alaska, on the other hand, presents an interesting alternative. Their Bank of America-issued credit card is churnable, in my experience (and a great deal for the $99 companion ticket valid on any fare, any seat, including first class to Hawaii). They’re a transfer partner of several hotel programs including Starwood, and also a Diners Club Rewards transfer partner in North America. You can credit American and Delta flying to them. So their points are obtainable.
Alaska has some really interesting features to their program:
Not everything is perfect. My chief beefs are:
I’m excited for the addition of Emirates to the stable of Alaska Mileage Plan partners. It offers the glimmer of possibility that I might finally get off my duff and redeem a first class award on their A380, something which to date I’ve decided has just been too expensive points-wise to justify.
Update: Worth noting that Emirates flying counts as elite qualifying with Alaska Mileage Plan. I admit that bit surprised me, hat tip to Rick R.
Advice on Choosing the Best Credit Card
Analysis of Specific Top Credit Card Choices
Credit Card Churning: Making the Most of Signup Bonuses
There’s three possible models for service and cost in the airline industry.
The problem with being somewhere in between is that consumers usually think of air travel as a commodity product, there are some carriers with brand value but mostly travelers see the airlines as equal — so if you invest in amenities it’s a nicer experience for the passenger but the bet has for many years been that it doesn’t earn incremental business, it just erods margins.
And the very idea that cutting costs is the only way to be profitable in a capital-intensive low margin business like aviation is ingrained in the soul of American Airlines. When Bob Crandall was the CEO he told the story of removing an olive from first class salads to save $40,000 and often emphasized the point and shaving costs by claiming to have replaced a night watchman with a sign about a guard dog.
Which is why it’s sort of surprising to see American adding back complimentary alcoholic beverages to coach on their transatlantic and transpacific flights and some of their South America flights.
I’m not sure I understand the value proposition here, beyond a better customer experience. (That should be enough, right? But remember it would fly against the theory that customers still see you as offering a commodity product even when you make incremental investments in comfort, so unless you go to true extremes you shouldn’t earn enough incremental business to cover costs through amenities in coach).
In the meantime, I think it’s a really great move by American, though I don’t know how many passengers will make the decision to fly American over a competitor on the basis of free drinks in economy, I do know that if I were flying economy long haul I probably wouldn’t want to be sober either…
Via Lucky, Continental and Virgin Atlantic will no longer be frequent flyer partners after February 13.
There’ll be no reciprocal mileage accrual after that date, and no redemptions either. Any awards on Virgin using Continental miles must be ticketed by February 13 (and vice versa). Any changes to awards after that date will require switching carriers, you won’t be able to book an award with Continental miles now to fly Virgin and change the date later, since Continental will no longer have access to Virgin reward inventory after that date.
This is completely and utterly expected. United wasn’t a Virgin partner. Virgin isn’t a Star Alliance member. It was a holdover of an old relationship. And the two airlines have shed other non-alliance partners like Etihad over the past year.
The value to Virgin from the relationship was clear, they got a US partner to feed traffic to its long-haul flights. Sure, Continental got the same from Virgin, long haul passengers mostly from London who would transfer to its US domestic flights. But Continental has its own London flights, so does United, and Virgin doesn’t have much of a regional feeder network. Now Virgin is without a US partner, much as Emirates is after both United and Continental dropped that relationship. (I actually expected Emirates to have picked up a new US partner by now, and spotted an Emirates Skywards exec meeting with a counterpart from American AAdvantage about 9 months ago, but American subsequently announced a partnership with U.A.E. carrier Etihad instead — which then took a stake in soon-to-be oneworld member AIr Berlin.)
The nice thing about the Continental – Virgin relationship is that Continental actually allowed combining Virgin with other partners in an award ticket. So you could fly from the US to London on Virgin and connect to Thai, for instance to Bangkok or to South African Airways to Johannesburg. Virgin has an excellent business class, and Continental redemptions didn’t incur fuel surcharges. Virgin availability out of many US gateways tended to be quite good. So this partnership will be sorely missed.
American is in a joint venture with British Airways, so they’re out as a US partner. Virgin has often been rumored as a possible member of the Star Alliance, but the severing of this relationship would seem to suggest that such a move isn’t close. So among major US airlines that leaves Delta, which already closely partners with Air France but is perhaps Virgin’s best bet for its US dance card. Which would make Delta miles a whole lot more valuable as well, though I’d be willing to bet that Virgin Atlantic awards would be assessed fuel surcharges on Skymiles redemptions.
Very sad to see this one go!
A couple of months ago I laid out the strengths and weaknesses of each of the major hotel loyalty programs.
At the time I said there were two major drawbacks to the Hilton HHonors program:
No suite upgrades. Diamond isn’t much better than Gold. There is no suite upgrade benefit in HHonors. Not confirmed, or at check-in based on availability. For a chain their size, too few aspirational properties. Once you get past the list of top-end award values, they’re surprisingly thin on luxury vacation destinations.
Earlier on I would have said another major drawback was that in addition to no suite upgrades (as part of the terms and conditions of the program), there was also no way to redeem additional points to get a better room either. But Hilton earlier this year introduced both oremium room awards — better rooms for additional points — and a cash and points option to stretch points farther.
Now, some have criticized the premium room awards, there are a few properties that seem now to make fewer of them available and so awards become pricier. Many of the premium room awards are also a substantial increment in points. But it’s now at least possible to secure a better than standard room with points.
It also now looks likely to be possible for top tier Diamond members to secure a better room on paid nights, as well — Lucky has already blogged that Hilton HHonors appears to be rolling out suite upgrades for Diamond members.
Sure, some Diamonds would occasionally get suites. But up until now it was explicitly not a benefit of the program. Starwood pioneered offering suites to their top tier members subject to availability at check-in. Hyatt trumped that by offering four confirmed suite upgrades a year, their Diamond members decide which stays they want a suite and it’s confirmed at booking. But Priority Club, Marriott, and Hilton specifically do not offer suites as a benefit of the program. Any suites were always based on the good fortune and graces of the individual hotel property.
Hilton appears to be improving both the redemption side (though it can take a lot of points for those better rooms, but a 20% premium or so for a Harbour View at the Conrad Hong Kong is probably worth it…) and also on the elite recognition side.
In fact, Hilton used to make their Diamond members choose between a paltry 1000 bonus points, an upgrade, or free internet. The fact that Diamonds chose the upgrade (with breakfast) used to be used as ‘proof’ that they didn’t really want free internet. Now they get free internet and their choice of an upgrade or 1000 points. Supposedly the points checkin amenity will be included, and no choice will have to be made, which is similar to the other major chains.
This ultimately means, and though I have beefs about some of the expensive points redemptions, that Hilton has joined the ranks of better programs. I’ll still make my choices on the basis of properties themselves, I think that on the whole Starwood and then Hyatt both have better, most aspirational properties that I want to stay at, but I’m working my way through the best Hilton ones and I do have several to go. It’s making the $40,000 in spending on the Hilton Surpass American Express for Diamond that I mentioned in my credit card spending for 2012 strategy post look better and better.
The question, then, is what sort of competitive response can we expect?
I’m still surprised that no one has learned a lesson from the old (pre-Club Carlson) Radisson program which offered their Europe, Middle East, and Africa elite members a warm welcome in their hotels any time, whether a guest or not. The benefit was free internet and a cup of coffee, which frankly is something I’ve availed myself of in hotels just not telling them that I’m not a guest when I’m meeting folks in another city. The lobby of hotels I know well double as offices or coffee shops sometimes. But Radisson said to their members that they are valued guests, any time, whether registered with the hotel on a given night or not. That’s the epitome of loyalty, and it wouldn’t cost much.
What do you think of the expected Hilton HHonors changes? And what does it mean for the competitive response of other programs?
The Washington Post runs a piece implying that Ron Paul wastes taxpayer dollars on his own travel.
And I agree that taxpayers ought not to be on the hook to fly Members back and forth to their districts at will, that’s the standard practice.
The crux of the piece turns on Paul buying flexible government fares which are eligible for confirmed upgrades based on Paul’s status in the Continental Onepass program, so they lead with Ron Paul “flying first class on dozens of taxpayer-funded flights to his home state.”
What they don’t say, of course, is Ron Paul was buying first class airfare, because he wasn’t. And they acknowledge at the end that Members of Congress buying flexible tickets is fairly standard.
The Post contends that by buying government fares rather than searching on his own for cheaper tickets, that Paul was wasting money. But the analysis seems more an indictment of government fares generally than about any particular member’s travel habits. I won’t pass judgment in this post on the need for flexible, refundable tickets, but rather pass this on as another example of either media that doesn’t ‘get’ travel or of media using the complicated world of travel to mislead a public that doesn’t ‘get’ travel.
Seems like there’s no story here, at least not the story that the Post wants to tell. What would be interesting is a broader analysis of government fares, whether the government saves money paying a premium for flexible tickets (albeit still at a discount relative to what those tickets would cost the average consumer) versus buying cheaper tickets without that flexibility and incurring change fees.
It would also be an interesting story, to go from there to the question of government perks, whether those setting the rules are in fact gaming the system to make their travel more comfortable while not having to be transparent about that. Ted Kennedy famously saved two jobs at US Airways several years ago, the individuals working ‘special services’ at Washington’s National airport, responsible for giving him special attention. Delta comps elite status to favored politicians (the Governor of Georgia gets Diamond status, the Lt. Governor only gets Platinum). And Members of Congress get their own free close-in parking at National airport as well.
But Ron Paul’s use of government fares is simply an example of how most of Congress travels, and much of the government, though the Speaker of the House gets a military aircraft rather than flying commercial. How this squares with Congressman Paul’s spurning of congressional pensions and various other perks is, of course, left to the reader to decide.
(HT: Dan R.)
In my post on Credit Card Usage Strategy for Someone Who Isn’t a High Spender, commenter Bob noted:
Not sure if everyone realizes that the Chase Shapphire card can be either a Visa or MasterCard. They normally send you a Visa but since since Sam’s Club only takes MC or Discover we called Chase and they reissued the card as a MasterCard.
And then with the claim from Chase that the 50,000 point signup bonus for Sapphire Preferred is now a limited time offer, several commenters asked whether the card was churnable, whether they could get in on the bonus again before it could (maybe, possibly, potentially) be changed.
I don’t have personal experience but Dan’s Deals says that you can have more than one Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Dan posts photos of his Sapphire Preferred Visa and his Mastercard side-by-side.
Dan suggests you should be able to get two signup bonuses, he says he did. You just have to get approved twice, which likely means making an argument to the reconsideration line why they should give you the second card but that’s actually an easy argument to make.
You can only apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa. But you can have the Visa converted to a Mastercard. The Mastercard isn’t as beautiful (it’s not the same heavy material) but is otherwise similar.
But as commenter Bob notes, Mastercard can be useful for places like Sam’s Club which doesn’t accept Visa. And because their rental car insurance coverage is different, Dan’s Deals points out that coverage in Israel is excluded generally by Visa but not Mastercard.
If you’re actually going to use the card for collision damage waiver coverage in Israel it seems to me you’re best off asking MasterRental to email you a letter of coverage to show at the rental agency in order to avoid being required to buy coverage.
Has anyone else tried this? Considering that Chase Ultimate Rewards points are among the most valuable out there (due to the ability to transfer to a variety of programs including United/Continental, Hyatt, and several other airlines and hotel programs) and the 50,000 point signup bonus is about as good as it gets out there currently, this is really tempting. Does anyone have more than one Chase Sapphire Preferred? Both Visa and Mastercard? Did you get two signup bonuses?
(For what it’s worth, I do normally receive a referral credit when you use my link for the Sapphire Preferred card, I have no idea whether that would still be true if they approved you for a Mastercard, I always appreciate you using my link but of course there’s no obligation to do so.)
Update: the signup bonus is now 40,000 points.
Thanks to American Airlines’ generosity, participants in the upcoming Oneworld MegaDO were able to participate in a fee-free status challenge. Normally, American charges for challenges and offers them only up to Platinum. MegaDO participants had reduced flying requirements and could match existing status with other airlines up to the top-tier Executive Platinum level.
And I’m now an Executive Platinum. The requirement was 20,000 flown miles on American within three months, which isn’t bad, except that the flying had to be completed by January 13 and it was mid-December before I decided to jump in and do it. American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion meant that any of the flying I did in January would could double towards re-qualifying for Executive Platinum, making it easy to keep the status for two years based largely on my flights in January.
With that, I held back and waited for a Virgin America sale which American matched, and I grabbed four roundtrips to the West Coast and a Florida roundtrip, all but one of the West Coast trips to be done in an 8 day period in January. Add in another trip I need to take later in the month, positioning flights for the MegaDO and the MegaDO itself, and I’m not just an Executive Platinum but also will end the month with over 60,000 qualifying miles.
The travel has been interesting to say the least, running into Billy Crystal last weekend (he followed behind me through security, was the only person not asked to go through the nude-o-scope, and then waited behind me to get into the AAdmiral’s Club while musing over what it would take to get Concierge Key status). On my last flight I followed American Idol judge Randy Jackson being escorted by American’s Five Star service. In the lounge he wound up talking to Reba McEntire. He wound up on my flight across the aisle in first class. Ahead of me was a pre- or early teen female aspiring pop star (accompanied by a handler) that I didn’t recognize but that Mr. Jackson stopped by several times to talk to during the flight. She practiced her signing inflight, it wasn’t very good, but fortunately my noise cancelling headphones did the trick.
While I had some minor quibbles with service along the way, like the inconsistency with which pre-departure beverages are served in first class and that my ice cream sundae was freezer burned on one flight, overall I was extremely happy. In fact, other than that one sundae the rest of the food has been quite decent compared to what I’m used to in domestic first class, and on transcons there’s even a printed menu still. Everyone has been friendly. And inflight wifi has changed my life.
I purchased a GoGo monthly pass. A majority of my flights have had wireless internet, the MD80s all do and many of the 737s do, I only wish they all did and especially wish the 737s with wifi had seat power, and that those with seat power had wifi, a frustration magnified by my need for a laptop with better battery life. As it stands, I power my screen down nearly all the way and at times have to bring it up close to my face to read the screen, if I want it to last much fo the flight.
There’s no question I got great value out of the $34.95 monthly pass, especially when a transcon is $14.95 and I had internet on at least three of those plus on several mid-con flights as well. Frustratingly, GoGo now requires you to cancel the service at least 7 days before the end of the month to avoid being charged for that next month. Since that’s a new requirement, it’s not something driven by technology or system limitations, it’s presumably a way to eek out an extra month’s revenue from customers intending to leave the service. Still, even though I’ll fly with wifi less in February than in January, the service will still pay off and I’ll likely keep it.
I never really knew what I Was missing with the service so regularly. A five hour flight taken during the business day can be stressful because by the time I land I’m hopelessly behind and it can take hours to catch up. Now I land more rested and relaxed because I’ve been able to plod along during the flight. Ironically, I’m better rested because I’ve been working, and certainly my productivity is increased tremendously thanks to GoGo’s wifi. And I love their tagline as you log in, “Can’t wait for 10,000 feet!”
My first flight had pretty slow wireless connectivity, all of my subsequent flights were better (wonder why?), and I admit I don’t really understand the low levels of adoption. Surely this is the future.
I’m no longer a Starwood Platinum, but the Sheraton LAX remains the best airport property. Not missing a ton without Platinum status there, they do give Platinums bigger rooms but mine were still comfortable and with free large bottles of water which is nice. I also didn’t miss the club lounge, where I’ve found evening spreads to be among the weakest I’ve seen, and I generally wasn’t around for breakfast except to take advantage of the Starbucks in the lobby (which always seems to open a few minutes late, though admittedly 5:30am is early).
Thanks to the nearby Avis I had a 55 mile Infiniti M37 and an 800 mile Volvo S60. Those facilitated seeking out some good Mexican food, and of course the obligatory In N Out run.
Of course, I could have avoided the car entirely and just hopped the Parking Spot (Sepulveda location) bus from the airport, the In N Out is right next door, then taken that bus back to the airport for the Sheraton bus. (I wrote about this back in 2008.) Not really what I wanted to do though, but a common tactic during extended LAX layovers for sure.
Wonderful thing about the In N Out isn’t just the good fast food burger, and for some the animal fries, but sitting outside watching landings of strange foreign aircraft at LAX.
Great thing as an Executive Platinum is that – in contrast to, for instance, United’s 1K level – it’s actually top tier status. United has Global Services, that program started outside of Mileage Plus and there used to be even Global Services members who weren’t 1Ks as well. But it’s become the new invitation-only top tier, and 1K is more like what Premier Executive used to be back in the day. American’s revenue-based recognition program, Concierge Key, is really a service program and doesn’t’ impinge on the AAdvantage elite program.
Upgrades generally clear. American holds back more first class seats until the airport which means it’s often possible to change flights at the last minute and still get an upgrade.
And their 8 ‘systemwide’ international upgrades are valid from any fare, rather than requiring a higher fare buyup which often equates to buying a lottery ticket, you spend money for the chance at upgrading but of course if your upgrade doesn’t clear the extra cost of the higher fare isn’t refunded to you. (Delta’s minimum fare requirement – M fares are nearly full fare – is particularly heinous here.)
I’m excited to continue getting to know an airline that I haven’t flown a ton in the past, despite 3 million miler (and lifetime Platinum) status with them. And especially because their miles have become increasingly valuable for aspirational first class awards.
