Kinglobjaw's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘american airlines’

A recent discussion on Airliners.net about US Airways’ presence at Chicago- O’Hare got me thinking; how will the airlines and airport authority handle Delta’s move to Terminal 2 to join merger partner Northwest.

I know that Continental will be moving to Terminal 1 to join United, so the the lounge operated together by Northwest and Continental will become a Delta SkyClub. I assume, Delta will prefer to pick up additional ‘E’ gates instead of moving to the F councourse . This makes sense due to the proximity of the lounge.

Since US Airways uses two (at times three) ‘E’ gates, this will surely cause trouble and limitations for Delta. The combined US Airways and America West need more gate space than what pre-merger US Airways had. I’m also sure US Airways would welcome an opportunity to consolidate gates into one specific concourse as walking from ‘E’ to ‘F’ or vice versa is a bit of a schleep!

I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks and I think it would be best for Air Canada to move to the E concourse, so United Express can operate out of Air Canada’s gates. That would free up F6 and F12 so US could use it permanently instead of sharing it with United Express.

Also, what would happen with Delta’s ‘L’ gates? From what I’ve heard, American Airlines would try to pick up most of them, but couldn’t JetBlue relocate from ‘E’ to the ‘L’ area to make room for Delta?

With the O’Hare’s largest carriers cutting back on flights, it does make sense to consolidate gate space and allow for those who are still operating at maximum capacity to ‘move about freely’. No pun intended.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

Just as US’ double elite qualifying miles promotion is about to come to a close, other airlines are announcing their own versions of double eqms for Summer 2009.

Last year it was all about AA patching things up after their MD 80 fleet mishap, but this year it’s about getting more people on board planes. US is to be commended for leading the big six (soon to be five) into double eqms promotion which everyone matching, though Delta being the most restrictive.

But, I do wonder: could it end up hurting US Airways during the busy Summer travel season? Will they extend their promotion to last past March 31, 2009 to match the other airlines during the summer. Maybe! Probably not, though. Nice promotion given that US Airways rarely does flying related promotions. I am seeing however that for their new transatlantic routes such as TLV and OSL, they are offering 5,000 bonus miles for Envoy bookings, and 2,500 for certain Economy fares.

One final thought. These 2X EQM promotions have one pesky rule requiring that tickets be booked after the promotion commences, thus previous booking are immedaitely disqualified. Tricky, tricky!\

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

If you are not a RewardTV member, now is the time to join. Free of charge, of course! You get tons of valuable points for just watching your favorite TV shows, even if you don’t really watch them at all. You end up earning lots of points since you earn them in bunches of thousands. What can you do with your points? You spend them on shopping sprees. There are two each week and they announce the guaranteed prizes ahead of time. This is no silly sweepstakes.

An upcoming shopping spree on Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 2:30PM Eastern Time is offering 1,000 AADVANTAGE miles for 300,000 RewardTV points (if you sign up for today, you can still earn in time- yes, you really earn them that fast). RewardTV very rarely offers miles as a reward, as it’s usually a gift card to places like BestBuy, Staples or Amazon.com (my favorites).

Besides American Airlines they partner with other airlines, but those miles are offered even more scarcely than the AA miles. Here are the airlines:

• Delta
• Northwest

They also partner with Marriott, but since I’ve never seen them offer it, I have no clue whether it’s a $10 Marriott gift card or Marriott Rewards points.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

Because I fly only with US Airways, does it mean I only carry a Dividend Miles account? Of course not, and folks should learn to do the same.

You have to be on the lookout for various partner promos from the other airlines. Sometimes they’ll let you earn miles so easily and quickly and you’d be crazy not to. And I’m not talking about flying here! Take a look at a section of an email from Northwest that I got this morning.

Dear Mark,

Never shopped WorldPerks Mall before? Now’s a perfect time to try!
Savvy WorldPerks members know they can earn miles every day by shopping WorldPerks Mall. Now, you’re in the know! Plus, through March 31, 2009, make a purchase on WorldPerks Mall from Ann Taylor®, Lands’End®, homedepot.com, or more than 200 other favorite online stores, and you’ll earn 1,000 Bonus Miles in addition to the miles you always earn. Shopping the Mall is easy, fun and habit-forming. You’ll see.

Register today for this one-time offer.
 

1,000 miles for one (any) purchase. That’s great! The cheapest way to nail this is to buy an iTune for 0.99 cents. That will earn you 2 miles + 1,000 bonus miles. Full details on the promotion can be found here.

Some may ask if keeping a 1,000 miles is good for anything if you’re not going to fly with that airline?

Well, for starters, that 1,000  miles would normally cost you $50 + tax if bought directly from that airline. Also, you can be sure there will be other promos in the future to get you to try new products or the airline credit card will carry a no free promotion where you can score a huge 20,000+ mile welcome bonus. If you earn E-Rewards you can usually transfer to your frequent flyer account to get more miles. Last but not least, you can try redeeming those miles for a magazine delivered to your home free of charge. Subscriptions for certain magazines start from only 600 miles in cost.

I’ve been doing this with a couple of frequent flyer programs just to score enough miles that I will keep as emergency miles. I already have 50,000 miles with United and will have about 35,000 miles with the merged Delta frequent flyer program. I”m also going for American Airlines since I already have about 8,000 miles in my AAdvantage account. I’m also thinking of signing up for the BMI program since they have low redemptions levels for UK and Channel flights. All these are not from flying, but from partner promotions and no annual fee credit card offers from the airlines.

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark

“Welcome aboard American Airlines. We’d like to direct your attention to a lucky passenger seated in 3A. He’s flying on a special promotion where he bought 1 First Class ticket free and got a whole week of vacation at the Ritz Cancun for free!”

or “For every 3 Delta coach tickets that you buy in the next 30 minutes, 2 of them get an instant upgrade to First Class.”

Doesn’t each one of the above mentioned sound neat? Airlines should create a “Black Friday” type event that stores are offering today. Heck, I wouldn’t mind getting up at 2 A.M. to “score” an additional 2,500 EQMs for a ticket I was going to purchase anyway, but just a few weeks later. Folks without Club memberships could be convinced with 3 free entrance passes. An airline “Black Friday” event could be done just before a quarter closes to bump up sales, not necessarily the day after Thanksgiving.

Air travelers, think about it! Airlines, consider it!

Have a nice clicK life,

-Mark