Fare Alert! Another secret sale to Buenos Aires

by Grant Martin on

United just posted a secret sale to Buenos Aires, Argentina last night that has lasted well into today, slurpee day (7/11), from several corners from the country.

From departure points such as Los Angeles, Washington DC (Dulles), and New York City you can get to Buenos Aires LATER THIS MONTH for only about 600$ total. For high tourist season in the United States, that’s a downright steal. So if you haven’t got plans for the kids’ summer vacation, now is the time to strike.

Check your local airport to see if there are similar deals or cheap connections to a target city.

And don’t forget — it’s winter down in Argentina right now, so you might want to consider a trip over to the Andes for some skiing or maybe some time down in Patagonia watching some glaciers fight. You also might want to pick up a couple kilos of some of that delicious Mendozan wine and that Argentine steak while you’re down there.

If you’re worried about visas, American’s don’t need any pre-departure paperwork for immigration.

To book the ticket, use a flex search on Kayak over the next few weeks to find availability. You shouldn’t have a problem finding seats for flights later this month.

Happy Trails!

Annoyance Alert: United resurrecting “Saturday night stay required”

by Iva Skoch on

This is not the first time I have complained on gadling about the uber-stupid Saturday night rule.

For those of you young enough not to remember the rule: airlines used to require passengers to stay Saturday night, in order for them to take advantage of the cheapest tickets.

Sometime in the last decade, more and more airlines stopped imposing minimum stays, because, well – how does one put it – it didn’t make any sense. Once those low cost carries started popping up, traditional airlines needed to be competitive.

Now, the Saturday night monster is back!

USA Today reports that United is not only raising fares, it’s also bringing back those minimum-stay rules that used to be the norm. The minimum-stay requirements will depend on an itinerary’s route and fare. For example travelers booking the cheapest seats between Chicago and Minneapolis or Boston and San Diego will now be forced to stay three nights or the entire weekend.

In other words, business travelers are the ones who’ll suffer the most. Hotels, on the other hand, must love it.

Start planning those long weekends, folks. The changes will go into effect for flights beginning October 6.

Continental Airlines to join Star Alliance

by Grant Martin on

Continental just issued a press release saying that they’re entering a cooperative agreement with United Airlines, saying the two airlines will “cooperate extensively, linking their networks and services worldwide to the benefit of customers, and creating revenue opportunities and cost savings and other efficiencies.” This means that Continental will also join United in the Star Alliance.

For those of you who follow airline alliances, this means that CO will be dropping Skyteam, whose partners include Delta, KLM and Northwest, and picking up partners such as Lufthansa and US Airways.

Basically, Continental Onepass members won’t be able to accrue or spend miles on Skyteam anymore (similarly, partner airlines can’t spend miles on CO), but they can on Star.

It does not, however, mean that the airlines are merging — only that they’ll be collaborating on many routes, codeshares and other logistics.

In the current airline industry, this change was almost inevitable. Carriers are looking at ways to collaborate on operations and cut costs, just like Northwest and Delta announced earlier this year. With the two airlines’ combined routes and networks, a stronger entity will now exist that can better compete with the soon to be uber Delta Airlines.

No word yet on when exactly the alliance changes will take place and a schedule for the official divorce from Skyteam airlines. But if you were thinking about booking a ticket with your Skyteam miles on CO, now might be a good time to do it.

United calls off merger talks with U.S. Airways

by Jeffrey White on

United and U.S. Airways formally put an end to their merger talks yesterday, citing rising oil prices that are making it difficult for airlines across the board to be profitable.

Both airlines announced the end of talks in messages to their employees.

According to the Associated Press, United CEO Glenn Tilton said: “After a considered review by our board of directors, United has determined that it will not be pursuing a merger at this time due to issues that could significantly dilute benefits from a transaction. We are evaluating other options, and will do what is right for United.”

United “will take the additional steps to size the business appropriately, leverage our capacity discipline to pass on commodity costs to customers and accelerate development of new revenue sources,” Tilton added.

The merger would have formed the world’s largest airline, but industry experts say it would have almost certainly increased ticket prices and reduced travel routes as well.

United has not closed the door on forming an alliance with another airline, a move that offers many of the benefits of a merger but stops short of total consolidation. Right now, United and Continental are in alliance talks.

Airlines are slowing down to save on fuel costs

by Jeffrey White on

How much can an airline save on fuel costs just flying a little slower?

JetBlue reckons that by adding two minutes to each of its flights, it saves $13.6 million a year. Southwest is now extending most flights from 1 to 3 minutes, and says it will save more than $40 million. Northwest says it saved about $530 by flying 532 mph instead of 542 mph on one recent Paris-Minneapolis flight (that added eight minutes to the journey).

The Associated Press mentions these figures in a piece about how some carriers are choosing to go it a little slower in this era of insane fuel costs. With jet fuel prices up some 73 percent, to $3.54 a gallon, adding a few extra minutes to normal flight schedules is just one of the ways airlines are coping, along with levying higher fuel surcharges and, of course, increasing fare prices.

United is looking at special software to help pilots choose better routes and speeds and says the software could save the company $20 million a year.

Not all airlines say they have adopted a slowdown approach in order to save on fuel costs. American Airlines, for instance, says it wants to maintain the integrity of its schedules, whatever that means.

It doesn’t seem that customers mind too much. Many are surprised to find out that their flight was a tad longer, and they usually agree that a few minutes is not really that big of a deal. Besides, these slight increases in flight times are built into the advertised schedule, along with taxi time and the like, so we probably wouldn’t know it anyway.