More free miles for Delta passengers

by Grant Martin on

If you’re a member of the Delta mileage program, this year has been good to you. From double miles promotions to generous partner rewards to easy status

Their latest promotion gives members up to 150% bonus on activity (on and off the ground) through year’s end. Rewards are tiered as such:

  • Earn 0-5k miles, get a 50% bonus
  • Earn 5-10k miles, get a 100% bonus
  • Earn 10k or more miles, get a 150% bonus

So you could fly to Europe once (8000 miles) then, say, fly a transcon (4000 miles) and bang, you’ve got 12,000 miles plus a 18,000 bonus, or 30k miles, more than a free domestic ticket. That’s downright generous.

Why would you do this? Conspiracy theorists among the Northwest crowd (who will soon be assimilated into the Delta ranks) claim that this is some sort of underhanded way to sleight the NW crowd and make the DL frequent flyers stronger.

Personally, I think that Delta have figured out that miles are starting to turn into a profit maker. With inherent fuel surcharges and checked bag fees on every itinerary, no flight is free anymore and the airline will still make a few dollars. And all of the time that we spend earning miles and digging around for nearly impossible-to-find award tickets? More time indoctrinating ourselves with the Delta brand. Is that worth a seat on a plane that isn’t even full? You bet.

What to do after your flight gets canceled

by Jerry Guo on

My weekend sucked. On Friday, I was suppose to fly out to Pittsburgh to visit my girlfriend, but my flight was inexplicably canceled. Well, Continental did offer a reason–Newark was too windy to take-off. But the funny thing was US Airways had a flight that departed 50 minutes later, with no problems.

Isn’t that wind fickle, I tell you. I should probably kick myself, considering my long-time policy to actively avoid flying on US Airways. As my girlfriends says, there honestly should be a rule that if US Airways flies, then everyone else should be forced to. I would call it the “bare-bottoms rule.”

I did invoke Rule 240 at the ticket counter, which I wrote about a couple weeks ago–this little-known rule requires the major carriers to put you on another airline’s flight, at no charge. But aside from this small victory, which got me nowhere because the US Airways flight was already booked full, I’m out over $100 for my troubles getting to and from the airport.

I did get a refund of the ticket, but I still feel miffed. What are my options? An executive e-mail bomb may be in order, but first, I’m going to try the “senior” customer service line. Last time I did that with US Airways, they gave me a $250 voucher on top of my flight refund.

Two Qantas jets collide, but were not carrying passengers

by Jeffrey White on

Late last month I wrote a post questioning whether Gadling had it in for Qantas airlines, the national carrier of Australia. It seems that we have posted a lot of negative stuff about the airline this year (well, not a lot of negative stuff, but a fair amount, I guess).

I don’t think we’re being unfair to the Down Under carrier, but it’s just that…things keep happening to it.

Take yesterday, for example, when two Qantas jets collided on a runway outside Melbourne. Luckily, there were no passenger on board. The jets were being towed to a maintenance hangar at Melbourne’s small Avalon Airport. The nose of one plane hit the left wing of the other, says the Associated Press.

One of the planes involved in this collision was damaged in July in a midair explosion.

Alas, I guess it’s just one of those years for Qantas.

Why are these the world’s best airports?



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Southwest moves in on New York City

by Grant Martin on

Southwest Airlines (WN) just announced that they’re moving in on New York City‘s LaGuardia through the purchase of bankrupt ATA‘s slots. The purchased slots would be enough for seven round trip flights out of New York City per day. Says spokesperson Paula Berg:

“Through a stock purchase acquisition, Southwest would get several assets of the reorganized ATA Airlines, including the rights to 14 LaGuardia
slots, and various other assets including training materials and
trademarks, etc. No aircraft, facilities, or employees are included.“

Bankruptcy courts and the legal hodgepodge still have to approve reorganization of the defunct ATA and the subsequent purchase of slots by WN, but at this point, the airline is pretty confident that they’re headed for the Big Apple.

So what does this mean for the New York traveler? As the best-hedged and one of the few profitable airlines in operation today, Southwest has the advantage of undercutting the competition’s fares, effectively forcing other airlines to compete and drop their prices out of the city. So even if you aren’t a big fan of WN, you should be happy that they’re driving down the price of tickets across the bar.

It should take a few months for details to develop on when WN will move in (they’re being tight lipped about any schedule.) We’ll let you know when the plan comes together.

“Is anyone sitting here?” Five steps to picking up the cute girl (or guy) on your flight

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Let’s face it: there’s not much to do on flights. Once you’ve browsed the absurdities in SkyMall, watched the first ten minutes of the in-flight screening of Norbit, and listened to all your mp3’s three times each– forwards and backwards– you sooner or later find yourself face-to-face with the chair in front of you. What to do?

Well, if you’re an unattached person on the prowl who’s smart enough to plan ahead, you chat up the cute girl or guy sitting next to you. Here are five not-so-easy steps for discovering inflight romance.

1. It all starts at the gate. The single most important choice you can make is where to sit in that mass of chairs at the airport gate. The unthinking person will simply plop down in the first available seat, but the would-be casanova knows better than that. Out of the dozens or even hundreds of passengers waiting to board their flight in this area, you can usually count on two or three to stand out from the rest. In order to have a chance, you’ll most likely need to sit by them and chat them up at the gate. But how?

2. Choose your seat wisely. If she’s the only one in six rows of chairs, walking up and sitting right next to her is just about the creepiest thing you can do. Instead, sit one or two seats down, putting your carry-on items on the seats between you. This keeps anyone from sitting between you two, and also allows her to see just how expensive your luggage is. (Note: Does not work with cheap luggage.)

3. Establish some common ground. Uh-oh, the talking part– but this doesn’t have to be scary. Take out a pack of gum nonchalantly, and offer her a piece. (If I know one thing about women, it’s that they love gum.) Then ask, for example, “So, where are you headed?” or if you have an especially dry sense of humor, “Excuse me, do you know if this is a non-smoking flight?” Please say this line with at least a half-smile, or she will think you’ve been in a coma since 1950. Ask what she’s reading. Tell her you liked that book but there weren’t enough pictures. Again, say this with a slight smile, or she’ll take you for an overgrown nine-year-old.

4. Try to sit near him/her on the flight. If the conversation allows it, ask where she’s sitting on the plane. If the gods are smiling down on you– as they were in a recent flight of mine– you’ll find yourself next to each other. But more often than not, she’s in 12J and you’re in 28A. Not exactly good flirting proximity. So you’ve got to make your own luck. Walk up to the airline counter– asking your new friend to watch your bags– and ask if it’s possible for you to switch seats to sit next to your friend. If the ticket agent says “no,” or “we’ll see,” by all means take that as a yes. Sit in the wrong seat– what’re they gonna do, arrest you?– until someone tells you to move. Yes, this takes a certain amount of guts, but the saying is not, “No guts, glory anyway.”

5. Look through, ugh, Skymall, then set up something for later. Sure, SkyMall contains a bunch of useless crap– though not all Gadling bloggers agree— but I will give the magazine credit for this: it is a great conversation starter. When the conversation eventually hits a lull, as is bound to happen with a complete stranger on a four-hour flight, grab SkyMall from the seat pocket in front of you. From pets to home and garden to sports and everything in between, SkyMall will help you learn more about a person than you ever wanted to know.

If the conversation goes well, mention to her that you’ve got a several hour layover, and wouldn’t it be nice if you could grab dinner or drinks at one of the airport’s “charming and reasonably-priced” establishments? (Note: Referring indirectly to the fact that you’ll be paying will increase her chances of acceptance considerably.)

If she says thanks-but-no-thanks to your date offer, what have you lost? You’ve merely been rejected by someone you’ll never see again, and as a bonus, you’ve made the flight go by a whole lot faster. To paraphrase Einstein, “Sit next to a smelly guy on a plane for ten minutes and it feels like four hours. Sit next to a pretty girl on a plane for four hours and it feels like ten minutes. That’s relativity.”