Alaska Airlines
As Washington policymakers continue to question the value of global airline alliances, Continental Airlines has shown them a benefit they most likely never suspected: increasing the transparency of sensitive data tightly held by many carriers.
That may not have been what Continental set out to do, but it’s a positive side effect. The very day it officially joined the Star Alliance last week, it uploaded on its Web site “award” seats made available by other alliance members, which its customers can book using Continental frequent-flier miles.
It took “nine months of planning and implementation” and “involved the creation of more than 1,100 new ‘reward’ codes and all the processes to make them work,” said Continental spokeswoman Mary Clark…
Do you rely on the media to tell you about changes in your preferred frequent-flier program? If you did that when American Airlines introduced its one-way “awards” last week, you missed the loss of a significant benefit — a free stopover previously offered on mileage tickets.
It was no surprise that American omitted that detail in its press release, but it was shocking to see how many mainstream-media reports parroted the corporate line. They apparently didn’t notice the discontinued stopovers — a sign of a successful public-relations campaign.
Given the recent rich history of “enhancements” in the airline industry, which has been hit hard by the global recession, one of the first questions I ask when I hear about new features is whether any old benefits are being taken away. That’s not necessarily meant as a criticism of the airlines — after all, they are businesses that need to keep an eye on the bottom line…
How public is the publicly available information about the limited seats airlines release for mileage redemption on their flights? Can anyone take that information from an airline without permission and publish it on their own Web site, even with the best of intentions?
A frequent flier from the San Francisco Bay Area tried to do just that last month, but he was forced to shut down his site in less than a week.
“Mystified by the inner workings of inventory management” at United Airlines, he created a model that searched and analyzed “award” availability on several routes served by United “on a nightly basis,” he wrote in a March 18 self-promoting post on FlyerTalk.com, one of the largest online travel communities…
Continue reading about Is ‘award’-seat data held by copyright?
Who is to blame for the recent series of frequent-flier-program “enhancements” that have made it increasingly difficult to redeem miles for “award” tickets and reduced membership benefits?
Many of us in the press and elsewhere have often attributed those changes to the troubles of the industry caused by fuel-price fluctuations and the global economic crisis.
However, a closer look at the activities of most major U.S. carriers’ loyalty schemes by airline experts suggests that the main reason for those programs’ need to tighten their belts is the way they have been run for years.
“Frequent-flier programs are major businesses, but unfortunately, in most cases, they haven’t been run as businesses,” said Jay Sorensen, president of IdeaWorks…
Continue reading about Frequent fliers question loyalty schemes
Next time an airline offers you 5,000 miles as a “good-will gesture” for something that went wrong on a flight, you might want to negotiate a bigger number.
Miles devaluation is here, and along with rising air fares, service cutbacks and various fees, it is likely to remain a prominent feature of the travel experience for a while. Some U.S. carriers have already increased the number of miles needed for an “award ticket,” and others, no doubt, will follow suit.
Airlines have awarded so many millions of miles in recent years, thanks to numerous credit card and other promotions, that they started to weigh on the carriers’ balance sheets. That weight is hurting them badly at a time of record jet fuel costs, so they are looking for ways to offload as many of those miles as possible…
