What does the Delta and Northwest merger mean for me, the one with the frequent flier miles?

by Jamie Rhein on

As Grant reported, today the Justice Department has cleared the way for the merger between Northwest Airlines and Delta. Here’s a brief blurb from the Wall Street Journal that my friend at WalletPop, Tom Barlow E-mailed me.

Back in April, Grant wrote a post about why to be happy about the merger. Hmmm. I’m not sure about that given my future plans. Grant wasn’t too sure either.

I’m wondering if this merger will affect my trip to Denmark in a month. I have a Northwest flight to Copenhagen through Memphis and Amsterdam on December 2nd. My ticket (actually two of them) is thanks to 100,000 frequent flier miles (50,000 each). If my trip is messed up–the one I am taking with my daughter, I’m going to be sad. I actually have a stronger word in mind, but I’m being polite. From what I’ve read, we may not be affected. We’ll see.

As for the other Northwest frequent flier miles I have, I’ve a strong urge to book tickets now just in case. On the other hand, there are places that Delta flies that Northwest doesn’t, so perhaps I’ll hedge my bets. Frequent flier programs seem more and more like gambling ventures–or the stock market.

The time that it has taken for the Justice Department to decide if the merger is kosher or not has probably cut down the number of decisions the airlines might have to make. For example, perhaps with fewer amenities, Delta and Northwest won’t have to figure out which snacks to merge –or which type of pillows to use.

Watch a quick Bose video for 150 free American Airlines miles

by Grant Martin on

A few miles short on that dream vacation to Djbouti that you’ve been planning for the last 5 years? Afraid that your mileage account is going to expire due to inactivity? Force yourself to watch a video about the Bose QuietComfort headphones and they’ll give you 150 miles American Airlines just for your time.

I’ll bet you can even turn the video on, alt+tab over to failblog and return in a few minutes to get your reward.

If you’re really interested in milking the system, you can also go to the Bose store to check out the headphones in person, try them on and collect a voucher for an additional 350 miles. Once you get that you can return to the website, drop in your code and collect your miles in a few weeks.

You might laugh at the prospect of jumping through hoops to earn a paltry 150 or 350 miles (you would have to do a silly 150 point excursion 167 times before you earned enough for a ticket) but many of us have been saving for years and are just at the cusp of an award redemption. This bump could put you over the top.

You’ve got until the end of the month to sign up for the promotion and it’ll take 6-8 weeks for the miles to show up. Pull the trigger now, forget about it and you’ll get a surprise just in time for Thanksgiving.

Whose miles are worth what where?

by Grant Martin on

The FrugalTravelGuy, a man that spends far more time in airplanes and is a member of far more frequent flyer programs than myself, recently spent some time musing about airline miles and what they’re now worth. With carriers making it more difficult to spend miles across the board, it’s becoming an increasingly valid question — nobody wants to get pinched out of their miles nor wants them to expire out from under them.

What Rick has done is taken a personal look at many of the airlines and ranked their quality as far as value of the current mile. Things like how many miles it takes to get status, book a ticket or redeem other goodies played into the equation and the results are fairly interesting.

His best value frequent flyer mile program? BMI’s mileage program. Who? British Midland Airways is based in the UK and has limited long haul service into the United States. More importantly, they’re also a member of Star Alliance, which means you can be a member of their program and earn miles flying domestically on United or US Airways.

Benefits of BMI’s program include 58k top tier elite qualification (versus 75k for most domestic carriers), access to airport lounges and other generous earnings.

FrugalTravelGuy’s top Domestic program? American Airlines‘ AAdvantage program. You can bore into the details in his article, but for now we’ll round out his top domestic carriers list:

2. United
3. Continental
4. Deltwest
5. US Airways

Note, his list isn’t compresensive across all carriers or nations and you do have to admit that he is one man compiling a lot of data so can be biased. But his arguments are largely on point and his reflections well thought out.

If you’re interested in entering the mileage game or making your miles last, give the article a read.

Delta to raise award ticket fees, passengers to give up on award tickets

by Grant Martin on

One of the most sensitive places that airlines have been pandering for extra money in has been in their frequent flyer programs. We’re well past the “I thought award tickets were supposed to be be free” argument in the airline circles — at this point, many travelers are just in hand-on-the-forehead mode, waiting to see how high fees will go.

Award tickets have always incurred a few fees. Taxes, most obviously, are always tacked on top of “free tickets” because the airline has no control over their imposition. But recently, “fuel charges” have started to appear, ranging in prices from 25$ for domestic tickets well into the hundreds for international fares.

While booking fees for award tickets have been around on some airlines (not all of them) for a while now, Delta just decided to up the ante and take an extra gouge out of frequent flyer’s pockets starting today:

  • For Award Tickets issued 21 days or more before departure date, no fee is applied.
  • For Award Tickets issued 8 to 20 days before departure date, a $75 fee is applied.
  • For Award Tickets issued 4 to 7 days before departure date, a $100 fee is applied.
  • For Award Tickets issued 3 days or less prior to departure date, a $150 fee is applied.
  • The fee is waived for Award Tickets issued from a Platinum Medallion® members’ account

For example, someone needs to fly to Milwaukee this Sunday from Atlanta because his or her mother is sick. Market price? 258$ Book an award ticket on Delta? “Free” plus 150$ in taxes. Net saved, 158$ 108$. You tell me if it was worth saving up that 25,000 miles.

Top off that United frequent flyer account with Award Accelerator

by Grant Martin on

United Airlines just fired up a tool on their website called Award Accelerator, a tool that essentially lets you pay to double or triple earned miles on any of your flights. Basically, you pay a sliding fee on check-in that effectively equates to three cents per mile, then at the end of your flight the airline dumps the bonus into your account.

So say you’re flying 500 miles from Detroit to New York City. Pay fifteen bucks and you can earn 1000 miles for the trip, or pay thirty and you can earn 1500.

So when is this useful?

Well, if you divide the cost of a regular domestic award ticket, 25,000 miles, by 0.03 cents/mile, you get a total of 750$ spent for those miles. In other words, if you bought all of your miles for an award ticket this way you would be paying 750$ for that ticket — too much for any old domestic ticket. So it doesn’t make sense to double or triple your miles on every flight.

The instance in which this tool might be handy, however, is when you need just a few extra miles to reach that award tier from which you can book. You’re at 24,000 miles, you’ll earn 500 on your next trip and want to push that to 25,000, for example. In this case, it makes sense.

Just try not to make a habit out of it.