United Airlines today announced a double elite qualifying mile offer for California and Illinois residents only. Details are as follows and I deliberately cut & pasted this from United’s website in the interest of time (and my employer’s pardon)! Registration is required here. For what it’s worth, the cheapest W-fare roundtrip LAX-ORD is $339.40 all-in…
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Involuntary Denied Boarding compensation explained
On August 23, 2011, new passenger protections were introduced, one of which increased the amount of involuntary denied boarding (IDB) compensation. A question was posed during last weekend’s Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars as to the exact calculation, so I thought I’d go through two examples. First, the new rules are as follows: Domestic flights within…
Vintage Airline Seat Map: Eastern Airlines Airbus A300 B2 (Air-Shuttle)
Eastern Airlines pioneered the air shuttle concept in 1961 with hourly service from New York’s La Guardia airport to both Washington National and Boston. It was operated with Lockheed Constellations way back then and eventually included widebodies at peak times in the 1980s. In 1989, Donald Trump bought the Air-Shuttle service and operated it for…
Video: LOT Boeing 767 textbook belly landing – Perfect!
In case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a video of the LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 767 making a textbook belly landing today at Warsaw Airport. Now THAT is how to land without gear! Well done, LOT pilots.
Upgraded, downgraded and well compensated yesterday flying United Airlines
I flew back to Los Angeles from the Chicago Seminars yesterday and encountered what ended up being a fun screw up on United Airlines’ part. The agent working the first flight began boarding as usual and I was about the sixth or seventh person scanned and made my way onto the jetway. The flight attendant…
Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars: Day three summary – Sunday 10/30/11
The 2011 Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars concluded yesterday and it was an incredible weekend filled with an amazing amount of mileage and point tips that one could never process on their own. Airline miles I have pretty down pat, but I did learn a few great hotel point and credit card maximization techniques. Yesterday started…
Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars: Day two summary – Saturday 10/29/2011
If there’s only one day you can attend a future Frequent Flyer Seminar series, it’s definitely the Saturday session. Yesterday was packed at the 2011 Chicago Seminars and featured an incredible amount of concurrent discussions on all things airlines, credit cards, hotels, miles and points. When booking your ticket for the event you select your…
Qantas shuts down, third quarter airline financials, inflight food, premium traffic growth slows, Google adds OTAs to Flight Search and café diversions
In other airline, hotel and travel industry news this week… [Edited last minute to include:] Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has taken severe action and cancelled all flights in response to continued pressure by three union groups at the airline. He states, ”They are trashing our strategy and our brand. They are deliberately destabilising the company…
Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars: Night 1 – 10/28/2011
The 2011 Frequent Flyer Chicago Seminars are already off to a great start and I just finished the “Tech Travel Skills†session hosted by Flyertalk’s Dlouise37 (Cliff). He went over some great tools & tips to help you get the most out of your online experience when searching for the best travel deals. Topics covered…
The 2011 Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars have arrived!
It’s officially here! Tonight begins the 2011 Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars and I’ll be in attendance for the entire weekend. The event has sold-out and it promises to bring an uncompromised amount of education to all areas we mile and point fanatics care about. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone and am certain I’ll pick…