You may have seen TV commercials featuring American Express or Capital One credit cards that promise points or miles with the clout to get you any seat on any airline without blackout dates. Those financial services companies try to distinguish their own loyalty schemes from airline programs, which restrict access to award seats.
Non-airline programs are not affected by award seat limits, because they don’t need award availability to book you on a flight. Instead, they sell you a regular revenue ticket, charge the ticket price on your credit card, then credit the cash amount back to your card and take miles or points out of your account, whose number is based on a standard formula.
Let’s say that you want to use your Capital One miles for a free ticket. The Capital One website performs a flight search and you choose a flight that costs $100. Once the ticket is issued, 10,000 miles will be deducted from your account.
While Capital One values $1 at 100 miles, the American Express Membership Rewards program converts $1 into about 80 points, though the precise number varies based on the type of card you have.
By any measure, that is a lot of points. If we assume that the average U.S. domestic round-trip ticket costs about $500, Capital One will charge you 50,000 miles and American Express 40,000 points. In comparison, you need only 25,000 miles from most airline programs — if there is award availability, which is a big if.
Of course, many airlines will also give you any open revenue seat on any flight, but for double the miles required for a “saver award” — they call it “standard” or “anytime” award. If you need a First or Business Class ticket, the airlines will actually give you a better rate even on a “standard award.” Such an award from North America to Europe in Business Class will be about 200,000 miles. Assuming that the average revenue ticket costs about $5,000, Capital One will charge you 500,000 miles and American Express 400,000 points.
It’s worth noting that the airline mantra about giving you the last available seat on a flight as a “standard award” is changing, and that privilege is no longer available to everyone. For example, it’s one of the benefits of United’s new Mileage Plus Explorer Visa card from Chase, which means that customers who don’t have the card — and are not elite fliers — won’t have access to that last seat.
The real advantage of the tickets purchased with non-airline miles or points is that they earn miles, because they are in effect revenue tickets — the airlines will never know that you didn’t pay money for them.
That same model is used by some hotel loyalty programs, including Starwood and Priority Club, which allow points to be redeemed for flights. Even some airlines offer such options, in addition to their regular award redemption opportunities. For example, United’s Mileage Plus Choices program is very similar to Capital One’s scheme, valuing $1 at 100 miles — only miles earned from Mileage Plus co-branded credit cards can be used for such tickets.
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The 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks this week reminded me of how much can go wrong in the airline industry to no fault of its own. Despite everything outside the airlines’ control, there are many reasons to criticize their performance. But how much slack should we cut them?
I’ve written several times about the increased scrutiny of the airlines by both the media and the public, compared to other industries, simply because of the nature of their business. A commercial carrier has more front-line employees than almost any other company, and it’s easier to complain about a person we see in front of us than about an invisible — and sometimes anonymous — representative.
In addition, the airline industry gets more media attention than other types of businesses by default, as many more people are believed to be interested in aviation than in the workings of a cable company or the food industry, for example — even though the latter two affect no fewer consumers than airlines do.
Let’s face it, an aircraft in any position — sitting on ground, soaring in the sky or, God forbid, engulfed in flames — makes for much better photos and video than a food-processing chain.
Bashing the airlines has been common for decades, but it has become even easier in recent years, thanks for social media and the travel blogs that have mushroomed on the Internet.
All that attention has improved customer service, as well as other parts of the airlines’ performance. I’m not talking about the on-board service, which no longer includes free drinks, meals, pillows, blankets, etc. I mean employees’ desire and ability to resolve problems. There are certainly still those who just shrug shoulders and pass you on to someone else, but the helpful ones seem to be more these days.
As my book, “Decoding Air Travel,” and all my columns can testify, I’m by no means an apologist for the airlines. I criticize them and expose their dishonest practices when they deserve it, but I also praise them when they do things right. I’ve also urged other consumer-oriented businesses to learn from the customer-friendly policies of many airlines.
So I’m more than willing to cut the airline industry some slack — not only in situations beyond its control, but also when honest mistakes have been made. For example, late last month, I had a schedule change on a future ticket, which had to be reissued. The agent I spoke with on the phone was supposed to send the reservation to a certain “queue,” but as I learned a few days later, she sent it to the refund queue. As a result, the entire itinerary was canceled, and of course no one notified me. Good thing I called back.
Things happen, so I didn’t get angry in this case. This week, however, I did get mad at US Airways for its failure to invest in a modern website — not a new issue, about which I’ve also written before. That site is probably one of the worst in the industry.
I tried to check in online for a flight from Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA) to New York’s LaGuardia (LGA). Before that, I had attempted to get a seat assignment, but that’s not allowed on shuttle flights until check-in, even in First Class. I did see on the seat map, however, that my preferred 2F was available. So I began the check-in process, but the seat map didn’t open. I tried several times, to no avail. I finally exited, only to find out that the system had automatically assigned me seat 1F.
I didn’t want the bulkhead, but there was no way to change the seat I had. Web support couldn’t help, either, telling me it could only be done at the airport. Of course, by the time I got there the next day, all other seats were gone.
Why is it so difficult for US Airways to offer a working seat map during online check-in? Why is it so hard to allow changes to seat assignments? Why can the websites of United, American and many other airlines provide that service? Is it really rocket science? Almost every airline website has its problems, but US Airways’ beats them all. Its CEO, Doug Parker, needs to realize that it’s 2011.
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In my 18 years in journalism, I always believed that the media’s role is to inform, entertain and educate. These days, the education part seems to be missing in many cases, and one area where that’s quite evident is air travel. With the airline system being so complex and frustrating, should the media be more helpful in guiding travelers through the maze?
I asked myself that question as I was preparing for an interview about my book, “Decoding Air Travel,” on NPR’s Weekend Edition last week. The overwhelming positive response to the interview and the sales numbers — more than 500 books sold in two days — show that the public badly needs help in navigating the airline universe.
But does the media have a responsibility to provide such help? When it reported recently that a frequent flier had flown 10 million miles on United Airlines, should it have used the opportunity — or news peg, as we call it — to tell readers or viewers how they can achieve elite status and accumulate a lot of miles? When it covers various problems passengers experience during a trip, should it offer advice on how to avoid those problems?
That was exactly my intention when I began writing my “On the Fly” Column in the Washington Times three years ago. The newspaper format required me to cover news at times — and not quite “news you can use” — but I did my best to produce columns that educated travelers, based mostly on my own experience and the extensive knowledge I’d acquired while flying around the world for a decade.
I also started paying more attention to other travel writers, which I hadn’t done before because my primary job was covering diplomacy and foreign affairs. I was astonished how little many writers knew about the airline system — and even more astonished that they didn’t realize it.
I later learned that the main reason for that is their limited experience as normal travelers — people like you and me who travel for work or leisure. Those writers get lots of free trips from the industry, and many call in favors during personal travel as well. Most of them have never had top-tier elite status, haven’t had to strategize how to get upgrades or figure out how airfares work.
I keep reading stories that don’t make a difference between nonstop and direct flights, as well as statements that a certain airline will begin to fly to a new destination when it has simply signed a code-sharing agreement with another carrier to put its own number on already existing flights.
The airline system is dysfunctional enough for the media to be adding to the confusion and just entertain the public instead of educating it.
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Air India’s entrenched corporate culture and internal Indian politics cost the carrier membership in the global Star Alliance. Although Star’s leadership went out of its way to help the airline meet the group’s more than 200 requirements, it finally gave up the futile effort last week and suspended accession talks.
Not surprisingly, Air India has been trying to assign blame to anyone but itself, pointing a finger at Lufthansa and accusing it of sabotaging the Indian carrier’s potential membership. Regrettably, it appears the airline has learned little from the nearly four-year experience. It needs to do some serious soul-searching if it wants to survive.
Star showed remarkable patience and continued to hope against hope that Air India would live up to its promise and achieve the necessary standards in safety, customer service, on-board experience, operations, etc. The alliance makes decisions based on consensus, and all its members voted to invite Air India in late 2007. The accession process is rather costly for both the candidate and the alliance, so no member voted lightly and fully expected the invitee to become to join the group.
They all underestimated the problems they would encounter. Air India was initially supposed to come on board in March 2009, but Star agreed to extend the qualification period. It really wanted its carriers to gain broader access to the large Indian market.
Star CEO Jaan Albrecht, about whom I’ve written several times, has been saying for years that one of his top priorities is filling the three major “white spots” in the alliance’s network: Brazil, India and Russia. Brazil’s TAM joined in 2010, though its merger with Chile’s LAN has created uncertainty about the new airline’s future allegiance. There is no obvious Russian carrier to be seriously considered at this time.
So it was very important for Star to full the big South Asia “white spot.” Albrecht himself made repeated trips to India in the last year in a tortuous effort to save Air India’s faltering bid.
However, the reality is that Air India never truly had a chance with the oldest and largest global alliance. I felt several times during this process that having Air India as a member anytime soon was more wishful thinking than a realistic expectation. In fact, many frequent travelers feared that Star might lower its standards to accommodate India’s national carrier.
To the alliance’s credit, that didn’t happen. Rejecting Air India’s application was the right decision, no matter how the carrier tries to spin the outcome. The group’s attention in India is now focused on Jet Airways, which is already a code-share partner of several Star carrier, and possibly Kingfisher Airlines — they both have a much stellar reputation than Air India’s.
Star was founded by United Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Scandinavian (SAS) and Thai Airways. Today, it has 27 members from 25 countries, which have more than 4,000 aircraft in their fleets and fly over 600 million passengers a year on 21,000 daily flights to 1,160 airports in 181 countries.
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United Airlines, already one of the biggest abusers of fake “direct” flights before its merger with Continental, has increased further the number of those flights in its schedule. Its oddest decision was to introduce fictitious “direct” flights, which consist of two or more segments with nothing in common but their number, between its hubs.
If you are shopping for a ticket from Chicago (ORD) to Denver (DEN), be very careful which flight you book. In addition to 10 daily nonstops with flying time of about 2 hours, United currently has three “direct” flights on that route, but they make a “stop” in Minneapolis (MSP), Des Moines, Iowa, (DSM) and Kansas City, Mo., (MCI), respectively.
Watch out for any indication of that, as obscure as it may be. In most cases, those are not just “stops” — the two “legs” are operated by different aircraft, so they are simply connecting flights. For example, the first “leg” of flight 817 yesterday arrived in Minneapolis at gate E6, but the “continuation” departed from gate E10.
As I’ve written before, most flights labelled “direct” by U.S. carriers are fictitious — they don’t exist in real life. They are meant to make more money for the airlines by tricking customers and perverting a practice that was actually started to help travelers. In fact, they spell nothing but trouble for passengers.
Historically, United and Delta have had more fake “direct” flights in their schedules than any other U.S. carriers, though all airlines engage in that practice.
For years, United has focused on adding at least one domestic tag to most of its international flights. For instance, flight 917 from Frankfurt (FRA) to Washington (IAD) “continues” on to Seattle (SEA), though the second flight has nothing in common with the fist. Yesterday, the flight from FRA was operated by a three-cabin Boeing 777, as usual, and arrived at IAD at gate C1. The flight to SEA was operated by a two-cabin Boeing 757 and departed from gate D4.
In the last several months, United has significantly stepped up the questionable practice on purely domestic flights. Currently, there are very few flights with only one segment. Most flights between Washington National (DCA) and Chicago (ORD) used to be one-leg flights. Now, most are part of fake “direct” flights with two or three segments.
It’s clear why the airline is selling “direct” flights from DCA to San Francisco (SFO) — it wants you to think that you can go all the way to the West coast from DCA with no hassle.
But why on earth is it selling fake “direct” flights from IAD to SFO, given that there are nine nonstops on that hub-to-hub route on most days? In its upcoming winter schedule, it has four “direct” flights between those cities. Two of them have two segments — one “stopping” in Dallas (DFW) and one in SEA. The other two have three segments each — one “stopping” in DEN and Las Vegas (LAS), and the other one in ORD and San Diego (SAN).
Is it possible that United has run out of flight numbers because of the merger? That may be the case with three-digit numbers, but what’s wrong with four-digit ones?
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