View from the Wing

One of my miles and points New Years resolutions is to be sure to earn miles or cashback for all your online purchases, and I recommended EV Reward to search for earning opportunities.

For cash back sites, I used Fatwallet the most, followed by e-bates. Signing up blind for e-bates doesn’t come with any bonuses. Being referred by an existing member gets both the new member and referring member $5 most of the time (after the new member makes a qualifying purchase). Through the middle of February, though, e-bates is currently offering a $10 signup bonus (again, new members have to make a qualifying purchase — by February 14).

So this is a good time to sign up and start using e-bates. To be clear, using the link about does earn credit for me as the referrer, I pass it along only because not using a referral link won’t earn a new member any bonus.

Online Travel Review has a Christmas message for travelers: complaints aside, the world looks pretty good.

We can travel basically anywhere in the world on a whim. Average roundtrip airfares between New York and London were about $6500 (in today’s dollars) back in the 1950s. I could fly there for $500 in 2 weeks. Despite rising fixed costs, airfares continue (for the most part) to be incredibly affordable in ways that most other countries can only dream about. It’s changed the way we keep in touch with friends, go on vacation, and do business. We’re all better off because we can fly off to Michigan to visit friends for $150, when driving the same route would cost about $180 in gas.

Frequent flyer programs and the growing airline alliances have allowed us to visit roughly anywhere in the world for free — and it is truly free for many of us, as we accumulate those miles on our companies’ dime. 20 years ago Albania was closed off to the rest of the world. This summer, I called Continental, used 50,000 miles (thanks to work trips to Dallas, Chicago and Atlanta, mostly), and 10 days later was on a plane to Tirana on a Skyteam partner. If we can stop complaining for a moment, think about how insane that is. The world has become accessible in a way it never has before.

I wholeheartedly endorse all of the above — except the advisability of flying to Albania in coach. Egads.

Southwest is promoting its new San Francisco service (they used to serve the airport then stopped, offering flights only into the other Bay Area airports) with a new member promotion for its frequent flyer program, Rapid Rewards: start out with 8 credits (halfway to an award ticket) and earn double credits for all flights in and out of San Francisco through October 31.

The W Hotel Store 40% discount on beds is back through August 31 using discount code WH7G4.

This is an employee code, so it’s up to you whether you’re comfortable using it. It’ll work for online orders without difficulty, it certainly has in the past.

The W bed itself is the plush top with a featherbed (get the featherbed protector too so the feathers don’t poke you!). But you also have pillowtop for a softer effect.

A queen plush top bed with boxspring and frame is less than $750 delivered with this offer.

To show just what a dork I am, last night I went to see Weird Al in concert at the Warner Theatre, and was surprised at just how much it’s possible to enjoy something while remaining ironic and detached. On Jenni’s recommendation, I’ll go see Rocket Science this weekend, and really looking forward to it. Apparently it’s a better debate movie than the one my old coach consulted on. The Washington Post reviewed it today. Yoram Bauman, The Standup Economist has a new comedy routine up on YouTube. I loved his “Principles of Economics Translated”… 

American Express and American Airlines have announced a deal where Amex Platinum and Centurion cardholders can access American Admiral’s Club lounges (along with immediate family or up to 2 guests) prior to boarding American flights.

This adds American to Continental, Northwest, and Delta in the stable of airline lounges accessible with a U.S.-based Amex Platinum card.

With Continental, Northwest, and Delta all in the same alliance the Amex Plat was a slightly expensive way to get lounce access compared to buying a membership in one of those programs (which gets you access to all three programs’ lounges, without the limitation of flying on the carrier whose lounge youre using. So getting the card had to be justified by other benefits, such as the Fine Hotels and Resorts program… a valuable feature for those likely to make use of it. (Sure, benefits like the Amex Platinum concierge - Circles - is nice, but not orders of magnitude better than the useless folks at VIPdesk that come with less expensive cards.)

Now, with American’s lounge too, the card amounts to two separate lounge memberships for much less than it would cost to buy them separately. And that’s on top of the new benefit this year of up to four free domestic companion airline tickets in a calendar year (not to be confused with the international business class ticket that’s less useful to me as it requires a full fare on the paid ticket).

Way to go, Amex!

A colleague writes*

I am on a Continental flight from Houston to Washington and — in the first class cabin — the majority language is Spanish. I am one of only four English speakers.



Forget taking our jobs — they’re taking our upgrades!

* for the uninitiated I suppose I must point out the tongue-in-cheeck nature of the missive.

The Southwest Rapid Rewards Visa
now has an offer of 16 credits with signup ($59 annual fee). The signup bonus is enough for a free roundtrip ticket.

The Small Business version of the card also offers 16 credits as a signup bonus and a $59 annual fee.

I believe — though have not verified this myself — that the Southwest Visa can be churned (along with the British Airways Visa, Marriott Visa, and Priority Club Visa). Used to be that all Chase products could be signed up for multiple times, earning the signup bonus each time. That’s no longer the case with the United co-branded cards. But I don’t believe a lockdown on this has taken place with the other Chase products such as this one.

Anyone with recent experience, please share in the comments.

(Thanks to Carol for the pointer.)

Via Upgrade: Travel Better, Bruce Schneier has a multi-part interview with TSA Director Kip Hawley that makes for a fascinating (though not in my view confidence-inspiring) read. Start with Part One then continue with Two and Three. I’ll be checking back tomorrow and Thursday for parts Four and Five.

Tyler Cowen points to what the cost of transportation used to be, from The Pursuit of Glory, Europe 1648-1815

In England it was calculated that one horse was needed for every mile of a journey on a well-maintained turnpike road. So, for the 185 miles from Manchester to London, 185 horses had to be kept stabled and fed to deal with the seventeen changes required by the stagecoaches which traveled the route. Those horses in turn required an army of coachmen, postillions, guards, grooms, ostlers and stable-boys to keep them running.

…

A journey from Augsburg to Innsbruck by stagecoach, although little more than 60 miles as the crow flies, would have cost an unskilled laborer more than a month’s wages just for the fare.

Kinda puts gripes about airfare in perspective.

This past weekend I cooked some more of the Thai food I learned to make in a cooking class earlier in the month in Khao Lak. This time, in addition to remaking the soup and chicken dishes previously mentioned, I made duck in red curry.

Gaeng Phet Ped Yang (Roasted Duck in Red Curry)

• roast duck
  
• red curry paste
  
• veggie oil
  
• coconut milk
  
• light coconut milk
  
• baby eggplant
  
• cherry tomato
  
• kaffir lime leaf
  
• lychee
  
• diced pineapple
  
• sugar palm
  
• fish sauce

Heat the oil, add chili paste, then add and saute thinly sliced duck.

Add coconut milk, light coconut milk, tomato, eggplant, kaffir lime leaf, sugar palm, salt, and fish sauce.

Serve with rice.

Yum!

I have a hard time understanding why Thai Airways runs their updated 3-class 747s with angled lay flat business seats and true flat first class seats on a short run like Bangkok-Phuket. Seems like poor fleet planning at first glance, though I haven’t looked at whether the planes also fly internationally and this is just a way to get a few extra hours’ of flying time out of them.

Asiana does something similar, flying 3-class planes sold as 2-class. (I flew Hong Kong-Seoul earlier this month, and an old style 747 was running the route on the day I traveled.)

Trick is just to request the first rows of the plane when traveling on a business class ticket. Worked no problem for me on both carriers.

Of course, American still does the same thing on certain domestic US routes (and sells two-cabin planes as all-coach on certain international routes) — a boon for American elites who can pre-reserve their upgrade while still unfortuantely receiving coach service.

Here’s the Thai Airways seat I had for less than 500 miles…

Cranky Flier used to work in revenue management for America West (which has since acquired USAirways and took their name). He points to the fare basis code for a USAirways one-way B fare codeshare from LAX to Sydney. Hint: it’s not family friendly.

He speculates that this one was inadvertant, though I do occasionally see fare basis codes designed to telegraph competitive intentions or otherwise send messages to competing carriers (the occasional ‘FU’ in the up to eight letter designation). In this case, the fare Cranky Flier refers to is likely not sending a message… just a funny confluence of designators.

I verified this myself, pulling up one-way USAirways fares using the KVS Availability Tool:

[KVS Availability Tool 2.8.5/Platinum - Sabre: Fares/ZUJ/SG/USD]




LAX Los Angeles Int’l CA US [KLAX]

SYD Sydney Kingsford Smith NS AU [YSSY]

OW Jul-Jun




US LAX SYD 1038 USD BLOWQE

US LAX SYD 1199 USD BKOWQE

US LAX SYD 1389 USD BLOWHE

US LAX SYD 1576 USD BHOWQE

US LAX SYD 1599 USD BKOWHE

US LAX SYD 1641 USD BLOWME

US LAX SYD 1895 USD BKOWME

US LAX SYD 2030 USD BHOWHE

US LAX SYD 2082 USD BLOW

US LAX SYD 2305 USD BHOWME

US LAX SYD 2348 USD BKOW

US LAX SYD 2802 USD BHOW

US LAX SYD 3998 USD YOX

US LAX SYD 4186 USD Y

US LAX SYD 9141 USD COX

US LAX SYD 10491 USD C

US LAX SYD 12386 USD FOX

US LAX SYD 12851 USD F

We have to take off our shoes walking through TSA security checkpoints, because Richard Reid’s shoes had wires coming out of them and nobody noticed. And lighters were banned because if Richard Reid had had a lighter he might have been able to light his shoes on fire.

But even the TSA now admits the lighter part is silly. Lighters are safe. At least they will be on August 4th. But as Mike Boyd points out, until midnight on August 3rd they are apparently still dangerous.

At least at some point in the future shampoo may no longer be dangerous. But I won’t count on it.

Update: Upgrade: Travel Better points out just how surreal it is that lighters carrying fluid that’s flammable are ok.. but water is still somehow a security threat.

According to HotelChatter, when Priceline books rooms for out of town guests to its corporate headquarters, they reserve the nearby Doubletree… they don’t actually name their own price on Priceline.

For the second half of September the Shanghai Radisson is pricing at $17 instead of $117 at GTAHotels.com.

It’s an ‘on request’ booking, so far from guaranteed that it will be honored.

Ghana withdrew Lufthansa’s right to offer daily service from Accra to Frankfurt (via Lagos) because Lufthansa refused to pay royalties to the Ghana state airline. That meant that, by treaty, they retained the right to twice weekly service, which they have chosen not to offer — viewing it as a money loser (most of the fixed costs without many seats to amortize them over). And then Ghana goes ballistic over Lufthansa’s “bad faith” decision to pull out of Accra!

Ultimately the government was unsuccessful at blackmailing Lufthansa for US$4 million, refused to back down from its threats, and now has lost Lufthansa’s international service. Clearly the people of Ghana are not better off for the actions of its government.

Sad, really.

Consumerist says you should shop for airfare on Saturdays. Like the traditional story about Wednesday at midnight, the idea of a specific day of the week that you’ll get the lowest price is a myth.

They do, at least, helpfully point readers to ITA Software, a powerful search tool — but only marginally useful for novices.

The real usefulness of ITA Software comes into play when narrowing searching with their advanced route language.

Folks who don’t want to go crazy learning it might be best advised to start their airfare searches with Kayak.

I’m recently back from Khao Lak, Thailand among other destinations in Asia. The trip was prompted by the Ugandan Schillings rate at the Le Meridien. My wife had three nights booked in the Presidential Oceanfront Villa and I had three nights booked in the Royal Suite. That satisfied the requirement that they’d only honor one reservation per person, and together we had six consecutive nights at the resort. The Presidential Villa wasn’t showing up for all six nights when we booked, so we had to settle for the smaller Royal Suite for half the stay when making our booking. As I saw pictures from others who had stayed in both rooms, I was actually getting disappointed. While the Royal Suite looked fabulous, the Presidential Oceanfront Villa was just breathtaking — how I’d hate to move!

When we arrived in Khao Lak, the hotel car was waiting for us. At 1800 Baht for the 70 minute drive it’s more expensive than a cab (~ 1300 Baht) but the incremental expense seemed worthwhile. I do tend to prefer a hotel car.

Upon arrival we were seated, greeted with cold towels and drinks, and checked in. I showed them both reservations and they noted that the Royal Suite had already been upgraded to the smaller oceanfront villa. Nice! But that still meant changing rooms, and I asked if we could just stay in the Presidential villa for both nights. (Both rooms are now referred to as oceanfront residences, but the internal code for the Presidential Villa remains unchanged, “PY“.) After checking in back I was told that wouldn’t be a problem. Nice!

We were taken to our room and we were floored. Even seeing the pictures in advance, it was still absolutely stunning. A 2-bedrrom, 2.5 bath room, 3100 square feet, full kitchen. Each bedroom had a large bathroom with two vanities and with a separate shower and tub. Each shower opened up into an enclosed, private outdoor rainshower. I just assumed the outdoor rainshower I had heard about was to was off from the beach before re-entering the room. Oh, there was that too — but these were really just outdoor private showers. The room had a private pool, its own stretch of beach, and a direct view towards the ocean. Plenty of pool chairs and a couple private beach chairs, as well as two outdoor tables perfect for enjoying room service.

Since it’s low season (ostensibly rainy season, though it rained only one night and briefly one afternoon in our six day stay) the resort was nearly empty, I’d guess 15% occupancy. As a result, all spa treatments were 25% off, and food & beverages 20% off in the restaurants. Of course, breakfast was included in our rate. And with the Thai Baht at an all-time high against the dollar, an hour long massage at the spa still came to less than US$40. We had three treatments apiece.

Service was fine, English-speaking was prevalent, but I suspect that was all a function of being low-season so they’ve retained only their preferred staffers and those folks were far from overwhelmed with guests. Spa was lovely, though spa reception was a big lacking (only provided with drinks and cold towels 1 of 3 times before entering treatment room, where of course we received them).

With the private pool and my own stretch of oceanfront we never did venture to any of the main pools or the main beach area.

We enjoyed the Thai cooking class, given to us privately by the chef of the hotel’s Thai restaurant. She was a marvelous grandmotherly lady who explained things well enough that I’ve already had some success preparing Thai dishes myself now that I’m back in the States. She’s traveled abroad with the Le Meridien chain, spending a month at the Le Meridien Picadilly in London in elsewhere. An outstanding couple of hours, though not inexpensive for Thailand at 2000 Baht apiece — still, a value for an activity like that at a nice resort.

That’s one of the /reasons why I love South Asia so much. Of course there are many others. But even at prime resorts things are sufficiently inexpensive compared to resorts elsewhere that I can enjoy myself without worrying too much about cost.

Food was ‘okay’ … nice breakfast buffet .. Most restaurants were closed, only the open air Bangsak restaurant (where breakfast is served) and Thai restaurant were open daily for dinner. Kukkuk, the nightclub just off the reception area, was open over the weekend but I didn’t visit it. The Thai restaurant was good, but menu options fairly limited. Room service quality was excellent and inexpensive.

While in Khao Lak we had some suits made. Visited Monty the Tailor, picked out style and material and had measurements taken. Then they came to us for the first and second fittings, and delivered the clothes as well. All for less than the price of off the rack.

If I were returning to Khao Lak and paying a regular rate for my room I’d probably choose the Sarojin over the Le Meridien, upgrades aside. And recent word is that getting upgrades at the Le Meridien is somewhat difficult. Starwood platinum members might obtain a suite in the main building, but generally won’t be given an upgrade from a standard room to a Villa of any sort. And it’s the room that made the property and stay extraordinary.

Service wasn’t as amazing as at the Sheraton Pattaya, one of the places I stayed during my trip to Thailand last year. But this may well have been my best hotel room … ever. And that takes into account the Diplomatic Suite at the Intercontinental Bangkok; a Terrace Suite at the Mark Hopkins; one of the preferred Overwater Bungalows at Bora Bora Nui; an Atlantic Suite at the former Westin Rio Mar in San Juan; and of course others that I’ve blogged about here over time.

Well worth the trip!

More photos after the jump…
Read the rest of this entry »

… from the Senate and applies for a job in revenue management and route planning for Delta.

(Okay, not really.)

Online Travel Review notes, though, the business advice that he’s been dispensing to Delta in response to their pulling out of the Binghamton-New York and Binghamton-Atlanta markets.

“Delta’s move is premature and poorly thought out. The New York City service had a solid start, and Delta needs to give it time to take root and let it prosper, while the Atlanta route has consistently carried a high volume of passengers.”

And since Chuck Schumer has extensive experience running profitable businesses in general, and airlines in particular, Delta should of course heed his advice and seek to lure him away from the Senate with a lucrative offer.

Or not.