… or why international first class is worth it, domestic coach usually is not. There’s been a bit of a blogosphere debate running over the best use of miles, and I wasn’t going to chime in. But since Rick called international first class his worst use of miles, and since it appears that my comments to the post didn’t get approved, I thought it worthwhile sharing my thinking. Here’s Rick’s take: International First Class redemption is a waste of miles, in my mind. I am being held captive in an aluminum tube for eight to 14 hours and just want to get to my destination after sleeping as much as possible… I don’t know or care about meeting “Dom” or any of his fancy drinking buddies. Caviar taste like too fishy to me and the…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for November 2011.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Each Major Hotel Program, in a Nutshell
These aren’t all the pluses and minuses of each, but they’re the major drivers of value for a traveler who shares similar perspectives with me — an elite member who wants to use their points at the best and best value properties when vacationing on my own account. I’ve ordered them from best to worst according to my own subjective scale. Small but important items like 4pm late checkout likely feed into that scale, but don’t warrant bullets on their own. Hyatt Gold Passport The Good: Confirmed suite upgrades. This to me is the killer app, the feature that makes the Gold Passport program tops of any major hotel chain. Four times a year, Diamond members can reserve suites (for up to 7 nights at a time) from the lowest rate, confirmed at booking. No…
Clues on Sunday’s Expedia Rewards Redemption Chart Devaluation
On November 8, I posted that Expedia was reducing earning rates in their program and increase redemption prices as well. We learned the reduced earning rates, key for me is that airfare earns only 1 point every two dollars spent instead of one point per dollar. But on the redemption side we only were told that new reward redemption rates go into effect on November 22, but no clues as to what those would be. When loyalty programs tell you changes to an award chart are coming, but refuse to give details, you can usually guess those changes won’t be good. (In the recent case of British Airways, even the things they did say such as that 97% of routes would remain the same or become less expensive were highly misleading, as they were referring…
In Which I Actually DEFEND Spirit Airlines!
I’ve been a frequent critic of Spirit Airlines. This screed of an editorial from Sunshine State News even closes with my admonition about the airline, Can you blame Gary Leff, who runs the popular frequent flier blog View From the Wing for saying of Spirit, “This is the airline that’s famous for hating their customers”? But I think it’s possible to take things too far. Spirit goes gonzo with marketing antics positioning itself as a low cost carrier, driving down price. It should come as no surprise that you get less for paying less, and Spirit has even trumpeted the fact that they charge for carryon bags above a certain size rather than hiding it. You get what’s often (though not always) low cost transportation, and you pay for every conceivable ‘extra’ like water. But…
What Should the Occupy Movement Think About Premium Cabin Air Travel?
In the opening of Jerry Maguire, Renée Zellweger’s son asks her whqt’s wrong. They’re on a plane, sitting back in coach. She answers, First class is what’s wrong. It used to be a better meal. Now it’s a better life. Except they’re on a domestic flight, and it used to be that the meals were pretty good up there. Now it’s just a bigger seat. The quote struck me as so odd because it seemed so backward, it used to be a better life, now it’s just a meal (sometimes) and a seat. Internationally, of course, is a whole different story. I recently blogged a CNN.com story based on my thoughts about the best international airline lounges, for instance. Scott Mayerowitz writes a piece for the Associated Press on the current state of international premium…
Improving Delta Award Itineraries When Schedules Change
As a followup to my post on how to successfully book premium cabin international awards with Delta miles, I’d like to welcome deltagoldflyer to blogging, his first contribution at the new Delta Points blog is about using schedule changes to your advantage. Probably more than any other airline I’ve worked with, Delta is accomodating when schedule changes happen in advance even on award tickets. United will sometimes open up seats on their own flights, but only when there are no other reward options, if something happens to your flights and any alternative using award inventory exists, they’ll expect you to use it. Continental has always been pretty good when an award ticket falls apart, enough perseverence and on more than once occasion I’ve seen them open up reward seats on their own aircraft when only…
Hyatt’s New Room Service Burger
A week and a half ago the head of Hyatt Gold Passport did an online chat with Milepoint members. One of the lighter subjects was the new Hyatt burger that was launching. I admit, burgers are a bit of a staple of room service, they’re usually one of the cheaper items on most menu and they tend to be pretty reliable, even when they aren’t great they usually aren’t bad so you know what to expect. A brand standard burger only reinforces that, and when it’s good that’s a real selling point. So as trivial an item it may seem, it actually matters. Here’s the description of the new burger from the chat: [T]he wheat oat bun has been replaced with a brioche bun – much softer and richer. The meat ~7 ounces of all…
500 Free Miles for Joining American AAdvantage
This was buried in my earlier post on American giving away 2 seats on the oneworld MegaDO, thought it made sense to pull out separately. American AAdvantage is giving out 500 miles to new members who enroll using promo code OWMGD. I’m not sure who out there reads this blog that doesn’t already have an American AAdvantage account, but presumably some of you have friends, neighbors, family members, or random strangers at the supermarket who don’t yet have accounts.
The 11 Most Useful Travel Websites
Ok, these are the travel websites that I find most useful, and your needs may vary. But these are the ones I come back to over and over, I’ve written about most of them before, but thought this list would be useful in one place. Awardwallet. The free version suffices for most anyone’s needs, it’s a great tool for tracking all of your miles and points in one place, and it lets you have one-click login to your accounts as well. They offer some social and trip organizing features as well, though I don’t use those. It’s just my favorite mileage tracking site. The premium version ($5 every 6 months) tracks expiration of your points as well. AwardNexus, Expertflyer, and KVS Tool. These are all paid services, the three most useful tools for searching award…
How to Earn Miles for Amazon Purchases, and What it Reveals About Online Shopping Portals
A subset of the frequent flyer blogiverse has been lit up over the new US Airways shopping mall, and the changes that it’s implied – the Dividend Miles shopping toolbar no longer works to award frequent flyer miles (for online purchases or for internet searches), Amazon.com shopping no longer earns US Airways miles. Here’s one typically take from Flyalog, “US Airways Drops Amazon.com as a Partner” … only that’s not exactly right. US Airways hasn’t dropped Amazon.com because despite the shopping portal’s use of the US Airways name, it wasn’t before and isn’t now actually run by US Airways and neither US Airways nor the Dividend Miles program selects which merchants are going to generate frequent flyer miles. Instead, US Airways works with Skymall who contracts out to a technology provider. Previously that vendor was…
