Are frequent flyer programs dying?

by Grant Martin on

With all of the recent cutbacks in the airline industry, frequent flyer programs are taking a beating. While passenger loyalty rewards are a great perk to air travel, any freebies given away by the carriers cut into the bottom line — a mark that has fallen under intense scrutiny over the last six months.

To mitigate some of the loss from award mileage and ticket redemptions, airlines are making it harder and more expensive to use to earn and use your miles. Just last month, Delta Airlines instituted a fuel surcharge for booking an award flight; now in addition to taxes that you pay for that ticket you’ll have to pony up up to fifty dollars for the privilege of booking it. Others, like American Airlines, are increasing the number of miles that you have to redeem for certain tickets and charging an additional fee to upgrade your seats into a higher class.

All of these changes are provoking industry analysts to worry about the future of frequent flier programs. George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog.com, points out that some alternative reward credit cards are now more beneficial then keeping a miles card. Others, like Clark Howard point to the devaluing mile and wonder if it’s even worth accruing miles at all, saying “Don’t waste any effort chasing frequent flyer miles, which are like fool’s gold.”

Is the situation really this dire?For the casual traveler, it may be. Those of you who only fly once in a while and slowly earn miles up to a free ticket every five or ten years may see their award programs changed or their miles devalued from under their feet — such is the nature of business in a tight, evolving industry.

But for the acute traveler, there are many many reasons to still keep banking miles. Elite status, the key to getting upgrades, better seats and more miles is still a huge part of any mileage program and is still worth attaining. And there are still many uses for your miles — even if those avenues are harder to approach. Patience, timing and strategy play a critical role in making the correct award booking and with the right perspective it’s still possible — if not easy — to find award tickets.

If you want to bore down into the nitty gritty of making your miles work for you, here’s a tip: think about how much you travel and think about how much time you want to devote to working the system. If mile accrual is an every-so-often occurrence and you’re having a hard enough time finding a chance to cook dinner, you might want to relax, have a couple of bottles of wine and ask your neighborhood geek to look into your miles situation.

Alternatively, if you’re a 150k mile/year earner with some time at the airport lounge, orient yourself with Flyertalk, Airfarewatchdog and your local airline’s website. You’ll quickly learn how to best apply your miles.

Just don’t stop plugging your frequent flyer number into your reservations — trust me, it’s worth it.

Parents forget baby at airport and fly to destination

by Abha Malpani on

I’m still trying to get my head around how this was possible: a couple and two grandparents FORGOT their 2-year old whilst trying to catch a flight from Vancouver to Winniepeg in Canada.

With only 10-minutes left for boarding, the family was running towards the gate, and apparently each of the 4 adults thought that the baby was with one of the other three.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? Were they running so far from each other not to notice the absence a child? Also, their child is 2-years old, if you are adults running to catch a flight, surely you’d take him in your arms — couldn’t they see that no-one was running with a baby!? AND, even if you are not sitting together on the flight, how can you not realize that one of you is missing!? What world are you in!? This stuff is only allowed to happen in movies!

Anyway, the good news is that Air Canada took control of the situation well: they found the child, figured out who he belonged to, and put him onto another flight to regroup him with his family.

I think this is inexcusable and such families shouldn’t have children at all.

Part of U.S. Airways plane breaks and falls to the ground somewhere in Maryland

by Justin Glow on

Do you live in Maryland? Did you find an unknown piece of metal in your backyard this afternoon?

If so, U.S Airways and the FAA, no doubt, would like to have a word with you, as it most likely fell off the wing of one of their planes. A local ABC affiliate reports,

“The company notified local fire departments that a 17-square-inch piece of wing fell off and may be somewhere in Anne Arundel or Prince George’s County, or even somewhere near Kent Island.”

U.S. Airways officials are confident it fell off somewhere over Maryland, but they’re not quite sure exactly where. Help them out, please.

[Via Consumerist]

From London to Australia in 5 hours? Way cool.

by Iva Skoch on

A UK company, Reaction Engines, introduced exploratory plans for a hypersonic, eco-friendly passenger jet that would make it possible to fly from the UK to Australia in as little as 5 hours, reports The Guardian today. With funding from the European Space Agency, a team of engineers and scientists has come up with the A2, a plane they believe could carry 300 passengers at a top speed of more than 3,000mph.

Reaction Engines has designed an engine that would run on liquid hydrogen, rather than producing vast amounts of carbon emissions it gives off water vapor and nitrous oxide. Another advantage of the design is that while the 132 meter-long A2 is much bigger than conventional jets it would be lighter than a Boeing 747 and could land on current airport runways. There are some drawbacks, too, such as the possibility of damaging the atmosphere, because the plane would fly at around the height of the ozone layer. Also, it won’t be great for anyone who suffers from claustrophobia, as it does not have any windows.

Who needs windows if surfing in sunny Bondi Beach becomes a day trip, though?

Lightning strikes twice on Irish flights

by Martha Edwards on

Fliers arriving at the Shannon Airport in Ireland on Saturday morning were greeted by a powerful force from Mother Nature — two Aer Lingus planes were hit by lightning as they landed, according to reports. No one was injured, but both aircrafts had minor damage that prevented them from continuing on to the Irish capital, Dublin.

Needless to say, it’s pretty rare for two flights to get struck by lightning on the same day. But if you’re worried about the possibility of your flight being struck, don’t be — planes regularly get hit by lightning, and it’s not a big deal if it happens. In fact, it hasn’t caused any crashes in over 40 years. For more info on lightning and flights, click here.
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