The Incredible American Airlines Award That Came & Went
American Airlines has recently started publishing some discounted Economy Class awards which it's calling "web specials". This is almost certainly as a result of Delta's ever more frequent flash sales but, up until now, American's web specials have only been offered on select domestic routes. Yesterday that changed....briefly.
United Caves – Basic Economy Fares Now Qualify For Elite Credits
Let's be honest and open about this - Basic Economy fares are a rip-off.
Airlines would love for us all to blindly believe that Basic Economy fares are just super-cheap, no-frills fares brought in to compete with the low-cost carriers...but they're nothing of the sort.
Basic Economy fares are no cheaper than the cheapest fares that were around before Basic Economy was even a thing - they just come with considerably fewer benefits. Remember that the next time you read about an airline CEO telling us all how Basic Economy is great news for the budget traveler.
You Can Now Upgrade Your Existing Delta Bookings Online
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Qatar Airways Has A New Route And It Has Potential To Be GREAT For...
Qatar Airways has today announced another new European route which it plans to start operating from Summer 2019 and it could mean a very nice haul of Tier Points if you're starting your travels in the UK.
Ordinarily, an announcement of a new Qatar Airways route is just good news - it's another route on which to earn and burn AAdvantage Miles or Avios - but the route announced today could signify a great opportunity for UK flyers looking to earn a lot of tier points in a single trip.
Was Earning BA Gold Status Cheaper Than Earning American Airlines Executive Platinum?
Late last year I wrote a post in which I concluded that simple mathematics suggested that I shouldn't credit my 2018 flights to the American Airlines AAdvantage program. Now, almost a year to the day since I wrote that post, I've finished my flying for 2018 and it's time to see how that decision played out.
Royal Air Maroc Is The Newest Oneworld Alliance Member – Here’s What You Need...
Yesterday, at a meeting of all the oneworld alliance members in New York, Royal Air Maroc was introduced as the newest full member of the oneworld alliance. Technically the airline is still a oneworld member designate but, short of a major catastrophe or change of heart, Royal Air Maroc will be fully integrated into oneworld by mid-2020.
American Airlines & China Southern Expand Partnership (Reciprocal Elite Benefits On The Way)
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Alaska Airlines May Soon Be A Oneworld Connect Partner….But What Does That Even Mean?
The oneworld alliance has scheduled a meeting for 5 December at which, it is said, that a new full member of the alliance will be unveiled (the first new member in over six years) and at which Alaska Airlines is rumored to be unveiled as the second airline to become a "oneworld connect" partner.
We don't know for sure which airline will be joining oneworld as a full partner (it looks like it will either be Royal Air Maroc or Philippine Airlines and neither see particularly exciting) but the more interesting story may be the one which suggests that Alaska Airlines will become a oneworld connect partner.
LifeMiles May Now Be An Amex Transfer Partner But I Really Don’t Care
During the first week of November LifeMiles (Avianca's loyalty program) was rolled out as the latest American Express transfer partner and I've just realised that I never wrote a blog post about it.
It wasn't a conscious decision not to write about the Amex/LifeMiles news at the time so the omission is almost certainly a result of the fact that the announcement wasn't actually something I cared about....and there's a very good reason why I didn't (and still don't) care.
Delta Silver Medallion Members Now Get An Extra Checked Bag On Virgin Atlantic
I hold absolutely no status with Delta or Virgin Atlantic but as I look to possibly change my airline allegiances going forward I'm paying a lot more attention to what the like of Delta and Virgin Atlantic offer....and that's why an update posted today caught my eye.
An alert I received today let me know of a change posted to the Skymiles News & Updates page today (15 November 2018) which suggests that Delta Silver Medallion members now get at least one checked bag on Virgin Atlantic operated flights.
ANA Will Soon Let You Book Premium Economy Seats With Points
ANA first started to introduce a Premium Economy cabin to its fleet in 2015 and the cabin is now fitted to 59 of its aircraft flying 30 international routes.
Up until now it hasn't been possible to book Premium Economy awards on ANA (a bit like the situation we currently face with American Airlines) but the airline is looking to change that in 2019.
American Airlines Simply Doesn’t Care About AAdvantage Or Its Members
There was a time when the American Airlines AAdvantage program was the clear leader in the airline loyalty sector and when the airline saw it as a genuine asset to its business. Nowadays all of that is rapidly becoming a distant memory as the current leadership team at American Airlines continues to dismantle AAdvantage and with it what little loyalty that is still felt towards the increasingly hard-to-like airline.
Significant Changes Coming To American Airlines AAdvantage In 2019
American Airlines has just announced a series of changes to the AAdvantage loyalty program that will come into effect on 1 January 2019. The changes affect how many Elite Qualifying Dollars are required to earn top-tier status, how many elite qualifying miles are earned with select partner airlines and more.
Singapore Airlines Improves Its HighFlyer Program – Partners Added
Singapore Airlines launched its HighFlyer program for SMEs back in the summer of 2017 with the aim of giving small businesses an incentive to book with the airline without taking away mileage earning from the people actually doing the flying. The program has only been valid on Singapore Airlines operated flights up until now but, as of 2 April 2018, two of Singapore Airlines' Star Alliance partners have been added.
British Airways Avios Changes On The Way … But To Whom Will They Matter?
Yesterday morning Head For Points ran a post quoting an interview Alex Cruz (BA's CEO) had with the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. In the interview Cruz gave the SCMP an insight into how he sees the airline's loyalty program evolving and what we changes we can expect to start seeing later this year (or possibly in 2019). The changes Alex Cruz is describing are not in the slightest bit surprising but how they're perceived will depend on what group of flyer someone falls into and how the implementation actually works.
Qatar Airway Introduces Oryx Kids Club – A New Loyalty Program For Kids
Qatar Airways' loyalty/rewards program is called "Privilege Club" but, to be a member, a traveler has to be at least 12 years of age. Now, however, in what appears to be an attempt to fill the age gap leading up to when a child can join the Privilege Club, Qatar Airways has introduced a new loyalty program for kids - the Oryx Kids Club
Emirates Skywards Reaches 20 Million Member Mark
Emirates says that its Skywards loyalty program now attracts, on average, 220,000 new members every month and that last week the total Skywards membership crossed the 20 million mark.
Qatar Airways Makes Negative Changes To Upgraded Tickets
I've always considered Qatar Airways to be the better of the 3 big Middle Eastern carriers - less "bling" than Emirates, less penny-pinching than Etihad and offering a better Business Class product than both. But now the airline has gone and done something that cheapens the brand and, frankly, doesn't make much sense.
Singapore Airlines Changes Fare Types, Miles Earning Rates & More
Singapore Airlines has announced that it will be introducing new fare types, changing its fees surrounding award redemptions and tweaking the number of miles its flyers earn from 20 January 2018.
Unusually for an airline making these kinds of changes not all the news is bad and how you view these changes will definitely depend on what type fares you book and how often you incur fees on award bookings.
The Math Tells Me Not To Credit Flights To American Airlines
I've been trying my hardest not to be one of those travelers who complains incessantly about an airline devaluing its frequent flyer program only to keep handing that same airline his/her cash on an ongoing and frequent basis.
American Airlines has destroyed the AAdvantage program for travelers like me (for a very small minority it may have improved) so my plan has been to avoid flying American Airlines as much as possible...but it's been quite hard.
Lufthansa’s Miles & More Program Goes Revenue Based
Yesterday Lufthansa announced that its Miles & More rewards program would be going "revenue based" from 12 March 2018 but, rather unhelpfully, we weren't given any more information than that. Today Lufthansa has finally provided the information that a lot of people have been anxiously awaiting.
Air France Clarifies My Flying Blue Status Question
Last week I wrote about something which appeared to be an anomaly with the way some Flying Blue members will see their Level Miles converted to Experience Points (XP) when the revamped Flying Blue program takes effect from 1 April 2018.
A reader, Alex, had got in touch with me to point out that, if you access details of the new Flying Blue program while in France, the conversion rate for Level Miles to XPs shows as being lower than it does for other countries.
Are Flying Blue Members In France About To Get A Raw Deal?
One of the great things about having people interested and engaged in the miles and points world is that we have eyes everywhere. Where one of us may miss something that an airline or hotel chain has said, posted or done someone else will see it and flag it up.
TFM reader Alex left a comment on my post about how Flying Blue status will be earned from 1 April 2018 saying that Flying Blue had already changed one of the details of the new program before it has even launched.
How To Earn Flying Blue Status From 1 April 2018
Earlier today Flying Blue (the loyalty program for Air France/KLM) announced a raft of changes to its scheme, one of which included a whole new way of attaining Flying Blue status. I covered all the details of the Flying Blue announcement earlier but, as I've had so many questions about the new way of earning Flying Blue status, I thought I'd address that in a little more detail.
Flying Blue Goes Revenue Based – Full Details Here
At the beginning of October a mistakenly published mileage calculator combined with an eagle-eyed traveler alerted us to the fact that the Flying Blue rewards program (the program for Air France/KLM) would almost certainly be moving to a revenue-based system. Today that is exactly what Flying Blue has announced.
I Booked A British Airways Tier Point Run – 520 Tier Points For $1,407
I don't normally cover Tier Point runs as, to be frank, they're not really my forte (I'm still learning all I need to know about earning Tier Points easily) but one of the fantastic transatlantic Business Class fares I wrote about last week seemed like a good opportunity to help out a friend of mine who was looking to earn some BA Tier Points.
Another Devaluation? Is Air France/KLM’s Flying Blue Going Revenue Based?
In what appears to be a bid to offer fewer and fewer redeemable miles to customers, airlines around the world have slowly been moving to a revenue-based system for mileage accrual. In a nutshell this means that the number of miles you earn for a trip is now linked to how much you pay for your fare so, unsurprisingly, this isn't a popular development for flyers like me who like to pay as little as possible.
Good News: Oneworld “Not Looking To Add A Formal Additional Tier”
With airlines like American offering up to 5 elite status levels (if you include the invitation only "Concierge Key" level) and British Airways offering 3 official levels and possibly even a 4th and 5th (if you separate out Gold Guest List flyers and Premier card holders) some have been questioning whether or not the oneworld alliance needs to add an additional tier.
Etihad Aligns Benefits Across All Its Partners & A Possible Way To Make The...
Etihad doesn't belong to an airline alliance but, thanks to its investment in a number of other airlines, it does have what it calls "a partnership". The partnership is made up of 8 airlines contains Alitalia and, more surprisingly, airberlin which is a member of the oneworld alliance. Up until now, from a flyer benefits perspective, the partnership hasn't been that well coordinated...but Etihad has just changed all of that.
British Airways Status May Be About To Become Much Harder To Earn (For Some)
I was sitting in an airport lounge idly browsing through my Twitter feed when I noticed two tweets, one after the other, which made me sit up and pay attention...literally. They weren't tweets from an official source but they were from someone who's got a pretty decent track record of getting information before it has been released and, if I understand these tweets correctly, some BA flyers are about to find that earning status is going to get a lot harder.
British Airways Doesn’t Understand Its Own Promotion
British Airways launched a Triple Avios promotion last week but, what should have been a simple enough promotion to understand, turned out to be confusing and contradictory. The blame for the mess lies squarely at the feet of whoever drafted the promotion details and whoever gave the go ahead to post those details to the British Airways website.
American Airlines Guts The AAdvantage Program – Elite Qualifying Dollars & New Status Level...
American Airlines has just released details of what the AAdvantage program is going to look like going forward and it's almost universally bad news for miles & points collectors and those of us who've enjoyed what used to be the best airline loyalty program out there. The Delta-isation of AAdvantage is upon us so those with a weak disposition should probably stop reading now.
Good News! Delta Upgrade Priority To Change
Delta is not an airline I write about a lot because it doesn't come up in my travels very much and, to be frank, I really don't know enough about it to make too many useful or insightful comments. But I do know just how badly the airline has been squeezing its frequent flyers over the years (my commiserations if you're one of them) and I do know that the way Delta has peen prioritising upgrades for those flying with companions has been a big issue for Delta flyers. But things are about to change.
Singapore Airlines Premium Economy Awards & Upgrades
Singapore Airlines is one of the latest airlines to add a Premium Economy cabin to its aircraft and, while the addition of the new cabins has been anything but smooth, the airline is on track to have the all of the refits completed by the end of 2016.
Now that Singapore Airlines is actually flying aircraft with their new Premium Economy product (e.g. A350 service between Singapore and Amsterdam) the airline has decided to upgrade its award chards to reflect the new product.
Singapore Airlines Increases Award Costs To/From Europe
Singapore Airlines appears to have performed a bit of sleight of hand over the past few days and used an old magicians trick of focusing everyone's attention where it wants it to be while subtly doing something else over where no one is really looking.
American Airlines Still Won’t Tell Us When Mileage Earning Will Change
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Booking Premium Award Travel From Europe Instead Of The UK
In this post I’m going to walk you through my search for an ultra-premium cabin award and I’ll show you the steps I go though when trying to spend as little cash as possible on an award ticket.
American Airlines AAdvantage Devaluation: How The Earning Rate Changes Will Affect Me
One of the better ways to see just what effect the devaluations to a program will have is to compare what you earned under the existing policies and earning structure to what you would have earned if the new, devalued, policies and earning rates had been in place instead. So that's exactly what I've done with my AAdvantage earnings here.
Purchasing Avianca LifeMiles – Why I’m Wary
Avianca's LifeMiles program has been selling miles in ever increasing quantities recently and, while its very tempting to snap up miles at a cheap rate when you can, there's a reason why I'm not ready to dive in just yet.
American Airlines AAdvantage Changes – Effect on Redeemable Miles
A couple of days ago I published a post discussing how the recently announced changes to the AAdvantage Program would affect award redemptions by European based AAdvantage members (American Airlines AAdvantage Award Chart Devaluations – Euro Travelers’ Viewpoint) and it wasn't pretty. In this post I'm going to show how the changes to how we earn redeemable miles, being introduced from late 2016, makes everything doubly bad. Yep, I'm full of good news this week!
American Airlines AAdvantage Award Chart Devaluations – Euro Travelers’ Viewpoint
Sometimes I can't catch a break - I take two days out to do something other than watching what the various loyalty programs, airlines and hotel chains are doing and then Marriott goes and buys Starwood and American Airlines announces an enormous award chart devaluation. That last one was the worst because the announcement came while I was at 34,000ft somewhere over Europe (and without WiFi access) and I only saw the news when I landed back at Heathrow (very late at night). Airlines really don't consider miles & points bloggers when they release their news! :)
Cathay Pacific Reiterates Wish For A Revenue-Based Loyalty Program
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