American and Delta appear to be in a fare war that will not last long. These are not mistake fares, but deep discount business class fares that each airline is aiming at the others’ hub markets. They’re 21 day advance purchase fares require departure Tuesday through Saturday and return Saturday through Wednesday. The American and […]
The post FARE WAR: American and Delta Offering $1550 Business Class Roundtrips to Rio and Sao Paulo appeared first on View from the Wing.
Inaugural flights are always interesting on of a few levels. One thing I always find especially interesting is the effort different airlines put into making them "special." Some inaugural flights have more production value than an episode of Real Housewives, while others seem like any other flight.
In theory this seems like it would be a very special flight for Qatar Airways. Not only was it their inaugural commercial A350 flight, but it was the worldwide inaugural A350 commercial flight. A few months prior I had flown the Qatar Airways A380 inaugural flight, and wrote a bit about the gate party there.
Anyway, back to this inaugural. After a few hours of solid rest at The Airport Hotel Doha Hamad International Airport, and a Krug breakfast with friends at the Al Mourjan Lounge, it was off to the gate for us at around 6:30AM.
The post Review: Qatar Airways A350 Inaugural Flight Gate Party appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
New TopCashBack members (only) can buy any gift card priced at $1 or more and get $20 cash back. …purchase any gift card priced at $1 or more and within seven days $20 cashback will have posted in your TopCashback account. Shipping’s free. That’s effectively a $20 saving on anything you want at a retailer […]
The post TONIGHT ONLY: Buy a $1 Gift Card, Make $20, Plus How to Scale It and Make Even More appeared first on View from the Wing.
American has publicly stated that they will honor the business class mistake fares between Washington DC and both Shanghai and Beijing that were posted on Tuesday. We already knew they’d honor some of the tickets. They hadn’t made a public statement, but internally seemed to be saying they would honor the tickets that were ~ […]
The post American Will Honor $450 Business Class Tickets to China! appeared first on View from the Wing.
On Tuesday I posted about the amazing ~$450 roundtrip business class fares which American published between Washington and Beijing. The deal was available for several hours before it was pulled.
Not surprisingly, American has now confirmed on Twitter that they'll honor the fare for everyone that managed to ticket their reservations, presumably thanks in no small part to the DOT regulations saying they have to do so:
The post American Will Honor Ticketed ~$450 Business Class Fares To Asia appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
A man has been arrested for running an airport taxi scam at New York JFK. He would approach passengers, tell them that the Airtran wasn’t running, but that he’d drive them into the City. He also claimed to be a Super Shuttle driver and had Super Shuttle logo items in his vehicle, and a professionally […]
The post Taxi Scammer Was Charging Over $400 for Rides from New York JFK to Downtown. Here’s How You Can Avoid Getting Taken By Similar Scams Anywhere in the World. appeared first on View from the Wing.
One way of earning American Advantage miles that is often overlooked these days is through a checking account at BankDirect. Now let me state up front, this is nowhere near as sexy as the latest manufactured spend technique. But it's also a lot easier to understand, so easy in fact that you can probably explain it to your grandmother. It's also a passive technique meaning you can set it up once and more or less forget about it.
If you don't mind getting paid in miles, you can earn a very hefty return on your checking account balance with BankDirect.
Although BankDirect offers a couple of banking products that pay interest in miles, I'm going to focus on the Mileage Checking With Interest accounts.
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News and notes from around the interweb: Crowdfunding an airline ticket so you can monitor your girlfriend. What could possibly go wrong? Skyteam’s alliance-wide online award booking tool should be rolled out globally by the end of the year American official arrested for bringing a firearm through the Islamabad airport. If he hadn’t done so, […]
The post SkyTeam Award Improvements, a New Way to Bali, and What United Express Carriers Have to Agree To appeared first on View from the Wing.
A giant roadside beetle and RV park belie the world-class quality of this Colorado Springs bug museum's collection.
Turning off of Colorado Highway 115 at the oversized model of the Giant West Indian Hercules Beetle, and driving back through the recreational vehicle campgrounds, one could be forgiven for expecting a certain amount kitsch at the May Natural History Museum. But beyond the gift shop and the Tiki warrior gods lie case after case exhibiting nearly 8,000 specimens from the extraordinary collection of James May, a British second-generation collector who traveled the world searching for rare, exotic, and beautiful insects.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of species of butterfly, moth, beetle, centipede, spider, scorpion, and more, arranged tastefully, even elegantly, in an immersive serpentine maze of framed white cases. The scale of the collection is impressive on its own, but at each case one is impressed as well by the remarkable quality and condition of its specimens, and above all, its variety. The carefully-written labels indicate that the bugs were gathered from locations as far flung as Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and Papua New Guinea, and several varieties were discovered by May for the very first time.
The RV park and museum were opened by in 1947 by James' son John May and is run today by his grandchildren.
I have a confession to make -- my favorite part of mistakes fare is the adventure of it all, and not the actual fare.
A couple of nights ago American published a ~$450 roundtrip business class fare between Washington and Beijing. Most people probably surmised it was a mistake. But the DOT does have a prohibition on post-purchase price increases, which on the surface seems to protect consumers even in the case of mistake fares.
Is the spirit of the DOT regulation to "protect" consumers in the case of "obvious" mistake fares? Of course not. But in practice it seems to, at least as of now. Why? Because when you create laws, you have to draw a line somewhere, and that line can sometimes be very pro-consumer.
So what I enjoy the most about these mistake fares is the dialogue that comes out of them. And I think this fare has been an especially interesting one, because it was about as straightforward as we've ever seen. You went directly to the airline's website, and the fare displayed. There was no "trickery" involved.
The post Three Approaches To Mistake Fares, And Why They’re All Valid appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
With United’s new revenue-based frequent flyer program for earning miles from flying, you earn miles based on the price of your ticket and not based on the distance you fly when traveling on United. The ‘break-even’ price to earn the same miles in 2015 that you would have earned in 2014 is a ticket that […]
The post Where Should You Credit United Flights to Now That They’re Awarding Fewer Miles? appeared first on View from the Wing.
If you live in the US nowadays, the single best way to earn points is through credit cards. There are two components to maximizing the points you earn through credit card spend:
-- You want to maximize the points you earn for acquiring a new card
-- You want to maximize the points you earn for your everyday spend
While I often have rundowns of the best credit card sign-up bonuses, I figured I'd compile a list with the best bonuses you can earn on your credit card for everyday spend, based on the category in which you spend the most money.
Like all things in life, you have to crunch the numbers to see what makes sense for you. In other words, based on how much money you spend in each general "category" you have to decide how many cards it makes sense to acquire for the category bonuses they offer.
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On the second Wednesday third Thursday of the month, Kristin Addis from Be My Travel Muse writes a guest column featuring tips and advice on solo female travel. It’s a topic I can’t cover so I brought in an expert to share her advice. After a day of herding cattle in the South African bush, I collapsed on the couch in the farm cottage. I’d just snake-crawled under electric fences, body to ground so close I left an impression in […]
The post Discovering Purpose on a Farm in South Africa appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.
Several readers asked how they could have found out about the American Airlines mistake business class airfares to China from earlier this week. That one was on FlyerTalk first, I believe, but it was also posted at TheFlightDeal.com. They had the $1700 3-cabin first class deal to Seoul and the $178+ fares to Abu Dhabi, […]
The post For the Best Airfare Deals (Including Mistakes), Follow The Flight Deal appeared first on View from the Wing.
As some of you may remember, I flew Emirates first class from Los Angeles to Dubai last November with my dad.
The flight was amazing, though the one (minor) downside of the experience was that Emirates used the Korean Air Lounge at LAX, which is my least favorite major lounge in Tom Bradley International Terminal. Not only is it a small and boring lounge, but the food and alcohol selection is underwhelming.
The good news is that I knew Emirates was in the process of opening their own lounge at LAX. The Emirates Lounge Los Angeles Airport had a soft opening in mid-February, though they only had their "grand opening" yesterday, which I was invited to.
The post First Look: Emirates’ New Lounge At Los Angeles LAX Airport appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
Via Doctor of Credit, the US Airways MasterCard has disappeared from the Barclays website. As many readers know, with the merger of US Airways and American, Citibank becomes the exclusive issuer of new American AAdvantage cards Barclaycard will still be able to service existing cardmembers Last week American announced that the programs would be combined […]
The post US Airways Credit Card in the Process of Disappearing… appeared first on View from the Wing.
American and US Airways are well into their merger, and for a while now we've known that they plan to integrate the AAdvantage and Dividend Miles frequent flyer programs in the second quarter of 2015.
Then about a week ago we found out that the programs will combine within 30 days. Just yesterday, the Dividend Miles program stopped accepting new members.
We know that as part of the merger the US Airways Premier World MasterCard will be converted into a Barclaycard Aviator Card, which accrues AAdvantage miles.
So while those with a Barclaycard product will continue to be able to earn AAdvantage miles, the catch is that Barclaycard can no longer accept new applications for the card once the frequent flyer programs merge. At that point they can only retain existing members and not acquire new ones.
The post US Airways Credit Card Removed From Barclaycard Website appeared first on One Mile at a Time.