Kinglobjaw's Blog

Archive for May, 2009

Folks an update.

The flights are now loaded in the system for booking purposes. You can book via www2.usairways.com (The new USAirways.com Beta)

Beginning May 27, 2009, the flights will also display “J” and “X”/”I” inventory for upgrades and award bookings respectively.

For mileage/Chairman’s coupons type upgrades minimum fare requirement is $1400 round trip including all taxes and fees for the entire trip. If you choose to use miles, upgrade will cost 30,000 DM miles in each direction. The upgrade clears you on all US Airways operated flights with a First Class cabin from points of origin to the final destination.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

US Airways just posted on their website the date of the new Charlotte to Rio de Janeiro flights. Southbound services beings on December 2, 2009 while the northbound services beings the day after, December 3, 2009.

The information is now available on USAirways.com, however the flights haven’t been loaded into the reservation system.

I’ll be on the inaugural flight. It’s just a matter of securing Envoy seats which I’m focused on.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

Delta’s 4X a day Philly to Boston service ends on August 18, 2009 and personally I believe it was inevitable from the get go! Funny thing is, even AirTran held onto the route for a longer period of time than “Premier Global Airline”. Haha- I just had to say that!

With AirFrance soon putting the “cork on the wine bottle” on the Philly to Paris route, Delta takes over with a 757. I don’t see that lasting either…

About time Delta rolls back to their domestic ops and moves back to the domestic terminal at Philly. Enough trying to “Premier Global Airline” in Philly, Delta! Philly already has US Airways.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

At approximately 7:50PM local Philadelphia time, a US Airways Boeing 757 should begin boarding. The flight? A nonstop service to Oslo, Norway. US Airways press release here.
As with all the other US Airways transatlanic B757 services, there are 12 Envoy seats upfront and 164 in the back. Duration of the flight is approximately 8:00 hours and Great Circle Mapper tells us all it’s 3776 miles.

Philly to Oslo, Norway- 3776 miles, 8 hours in-flight on a US Airways B757

This is the third of four new transatlantic services US Airways launched since April:

• Charlotte, NC to Paris commenced April 21, 2009
• Philadelphia to Birmingham, UK commenced May 12, 2009
• Philadelphia to Oslo, Norway begins this evening

That leaves us Philadelphia to Tel Aviv which commences on July 2, 2009.

One last interesting tidbit. The flight (US788)  from Philly to Oslo is the continuation of the inbound flight from Ft. Lauderdale. That segment is operated with a B734.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

Off course you don’t find that out from the email that US Airways sends you. The email reads: “Tell US how we’re doing. We want to hear about your recent overnight flight. We know your time is valuable and we appreciate your feedback!”

I’m not sure if it’s targeted or not, but my recent overnight flight took place in late April from Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii to Phoenix. The survey really did take no more than five minutes of my time and it only focused on in-flight entertainment (IFE) during overnight flights. It asked me what things I do on board to make the time go by (read, sleep, listen to ipod- funny they didn’t mention take photos and chat with crew members). It then asked if I would enjoy IFE on all flights, later if I would pay $5 for IFE on all flights . Later, it asked me if I would do both on overnight flights specifically.

The final page offered me a text box to input comments. I shared with them how I would enjoy of real meal service on overnight transcon/Pacific flights.

I’m pretty sure this has to do with their ongoing seat back entertainment system trials. They’ve just completed the Lumexis trial and are in the midst of testing the LiveTV trial. Since those systems would be available anytime on any flight, they are trying to figure just how many people would watch them on overnight flights. It could also have something to do with the Pacific return flights which are all overnight flights and whether or o not people will pay for a movie on the ceiling TV display on the 757′s. Personally, I wouldn’t, but that’s just me.

Here’s some food for thought. Once installed on the entire fleet, would a Lumexis or LiveTV system be complimentary in First Class? I’m not 100% sure, but I think Delta comps it for First Class passengers. I know internet is for a fee regardless of whether you’re in First or on a premium ticket, so I’m sure US will follow that if & once they install internet capabilities on their planes.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

Good news today! In addition to Twitter updates, this blog is now available via RSS feeds for those who are interested.

Visit http://kinglobjaw.com/blog/feed/ directly to sign up or use the link with your favorite RSS application.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

Today was the grand opening of Best Buy’s newest Chicagoland location- John Hancock Center. I didn’t go for the same reason I didn’t blog for the last few days and wouldn’t fly even if I had a confirmed First Class ticket for today or yesterday! What? I was worried it could have been the swine flu. Luckily, it wasn’t. Seriously, I haven’t been this sick in a long time- but it’s better now, hence the blog entry.

So while I didn’t go today due to my illness, I don’t think I’d go even if I was fit to fly. The reason? The pre-grand opening event that took place last Thursday. As a Silver Premier shopper at Best Buy I was invited to a private event. First fifty Silver Premier members received a $50 Best Buy gift card- I was # 53. For those who don’t know Silver premier is like an elite level of the Reward Zone program, kind of like US Airways Silver Preferred.

The doors opened at 6:02PM and I swear, I haven’t seen this many Best Buy employees at all stores combined as I saw that night. All of them introduced themselves to the customers and shook our hands. Within seconds, I had three or four “personal shoppers” following me around offering tasteful suggestions and doing zero product hawking. I can’t believe I spent almost two hours at Best Buy just chatting with the employees and shopping around. It was that much fun! I ended up with three large bags of purchases and additional products on the way in the mail. While the prices were not reduced, the offers and incentives were plentiful. Turns, out they had a similar event the previous night for building residents and offered cheese, crackers and wine. I never thought Best Buy would pull it off in such a classy manner.

That same evening I was approved for the Best Buy store charge card offering 0% interest for 18 months on purchases over $499. Expected, but still a nice surprise.

In addition, I had a chance to chat with the store manager about the Reward Zone program. It was probably the only thing that was unpleasant that evening. Not the chat itself, she was wonderful, but it turns out they’ve actually put Premier Black member level on hold. Premier Black was supposed to be a higher level, like Chairman’s at US Airways (by that I mean a prestigious level) where members who spend $7,500 or more in a year at Best Buy get additional benefits.

A funny tidbit. As I was chatting with the manager, another employee started taking shots of me and my overloaded Best Buy bags. Maybe I’ll be featured in an ad booklet come next Sunday?

I was very impressed with the event and Best Buy handled this very well. Maybe I’m being a bit too optimistic, but any troubles I’ve had with Best Buy in the past few months are water under the bridge at this point.

That said, I wish I brought my camera to take some pictures. Oh yeah, and what happened with the Best Buy yellow logo? Nowhere to be found at this location!

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

This was posted on FlyerTalk a few hours ago. A grad school student is conducting a survey for passengers who fly US Airways and/or Southwest been Southern California and Phoenix or Las Vegas. You can learn more about the survey here. Mr. Victor Farn’s contact information is also there.

There is a $100 gift certificate incentive, but I recommend helping the guy out anyway! Aside from your name and email address, no personal information is requested.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

As of right now, US Airways flight US726 has just under two hours left until it arrives in Birmingham. Water salute on arrival? Maybe!

Anyway, the flight which is a seasonal service operated by an ETOPS 757 seems to have to gone out with two empty Envoy seats and a rather light load in coach.

The flight is operated five times per week (doesn’t operate outbound on Mondays and Wednesday, thus no returns on Tuesdays & Thursdays). We all know what the means, right? It means tonight’s crew gets an extra night in Birmingham!

Personally, Birmingham, UK sounds interesting as it might be getting some heavy “action” in the upcoming months with an A380 service planned to/from the Middle East and a Greek airline possibly starting 747 service into the airport. When it comes to North American nonstop services, the only other airline- Continental, flies year round from Newark.

Hope US does well on the route.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

This is an update to the post on getting 10K Northwest miles the cheapest way.

Merchant #6 is FootLocker. You can search for keyword “sport bands” or look at item directly here.

The cost is $0.99+ tax and shipping is free. While checking out, they will inform you that shipping is $4.99, but select “Standard” and on the final page (before confirmation/purchase) you will see that the shipping becomes $0.00.

So that’s 6 merchants, 4 to go and I’ve confirmed with NWA that all 6 are pending and will post since I’m not returning anything.

How to make this US Airways related? Following the completion of the NWA promotion and Delta promotion I will dedicate an entire post to comparing online shopping malls for major US carriers and Marriott.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark