LAN Airlines has an interesting special for those looking to travel in comfort from the US to South America, especially to Argentina, Chile, Peru, or Ecuador: They’re running a strong sale for business class, and throwing in a free (economy) domestic roundtrip ticket. The domestic roundtrip isn’t a connection: it’s a separate ticket that’s valid as long as the dates are embedded between the …  Read More →

This week, our household received three credit card offers from Citibank, all for American Airlines AAdvantage credit cards. Each came with a different sum of bonus miles: 30,000, 50,000, and 75,000 miles. (Two of the envelopes were addressed to my wife, one to me.) Talk about mixed messages! The 75K bonus (with $1,500 in purchases within 6 months) and a 100K bonus (with $10,000 in purchases within a year) first hit the inter-tubes about a month... 

Downgraded: Airtran Airtran has been slapped with a $500,000 fine for failing to assist disabled passengers and further failing to respond adequately to complaints between 2007 and 2009. Upgraded: Ubiquity of inflight wifi Aircell, which markets inflight wifi under the Gogo brand name, has installed hotspots in its 1000th plane . Delta is closest to the finish line, with 527 out of 549 planes installed. Upgraded: Bling For those who’ve... 

Business class fare sales are like clockwork, at least in the northern hemisphere: You’ll see one fare sale for mid-summer travel, and one for December. In both cases, business travel slows significantly as people take time off and spend it with family. In both cases, airlines respond (often proactively) by slashing business class fares. Take Continental’s latest fare sale to Europe, for example. It’s notable for being …  Read More →

What a whirlwind for Mexicana, and their passengers: The airline entered bankruptcy, got bought by an alliance of investors and pilots, and shut down completely, all in the space of a month. And while the subsidiaries Mexicana Click (a discount airline) and Mexicana Link (a regional airline affiliate) were spared at first, they’re down for the count too. Mexicana was once the largest airline in the country, so this is a major fall from... 

Southwest has agreed to lease 18 take-off/landing slot pairs at Newark Airport from United and Continental. The deal is a function of the CO-UA merger, which, if it were approved without conditions, would solidify Continental’s grip on Newark. Bringing Southwest into Newark is a big deal. Southwest hasn’t flown to a New York airport yet ( correction : they have had flights from LGA to Chicago…  Read More →

Airfare forecasting has never been an exact science, but at least economists are trying to make it more precise. From the Observer : An economist, Makoto Watanabe, has calculated that the optimum time to buy an airline ticket is eight weeks in advance of flying. His yet-to-be-published findings also suggests that airline tickets are cheaper when purchased in the afternoons, rather than the mornings, prompting him to speculate that airlines are... 

Reader Leslie writes in: Did you see the news about Google adding free phone calls to Gmail chat? Will this mean we’ll be listening to more conversations on flights with wifi? Google is indeed expanding its Google Voice product to the instant messenger built into Gmail . But will the rollout of voice chat mean that you’ll find dozens of passengers…  Read More →

For a limited time, InterContinental Hotels Group properties will reimburse some guests’ checked baggage fees . So a hotel chain — including InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Staybridge Suites, and Candlewood Suites — is indirectly subsidizing airlines. Interesting. Beginning Aug. 16, when travellers book two consecutive weekend nights at any one of the... 

Upgraded: In-flight magazine verité How about this headline for an inflight magazine: “Live Entertainment in Kabul: Dog Fighting.” Seriously. This is onboard Afghanistan’s Safi Airways , and as their recent WSJ profile makes clear, this is an airline run by realists. “In the seat pocket in front of you on Safi, you will find an article on Kabul heroin addicts, photos of bullet-pocked tourist sites and ads for mine-resistant... 

What better way to make the hours literally fly by on a Lufthansa flight from Tel Aviv to Frankfurt: Pillow fight!!!! Someone on board LH687 captured this video of rowdy French passengers getting frisky with the pillows. Even the flight attendant joins the fun! (I couldn’t imagine this kind of raucous behavior being tolerated on a US-bound flight, or God forbid, on a US-flagged airline. Except maybe Southwest… they do have toilet... 

American Airlines is adopting another fee, which they’re calling “ Express Seats .” If you’re willing to pony up $19 to $39, depending on length of flight, you too can sit in the front of the economy section, including bulkhead seats, without being an elite level frequent flier. The option is available only for U.S. domestic travel, and only from self-…  Read More →

Last week, Hilton announced that they would give their gold and diamond level HHonors program members a new perk: Free wi-fi. Umm, whoo-hoo? Other major chains have similar policies in place, but it’s only a nice elite perk because high-end hotels have such absurdly-priced internet access to begin with. My wife recently caved and paid $14.95 — plus taxes — for late-night slow-ish in-room access at a Westin in Atlanta . (Colleagues... 

Reader David sends in this post from the Atlantic, which contains an interesting chart (copied below), ranking dozens of airline frequent flier programs in terms of award availability. I appreciate what these kinds of rankings are trying to do, but this is unfortunately not an exact science. Let’s look at the methodology of the survey (pdf): IdeaWorks made 6,160 booking queries at the websites of 22 frequent flier programs during February... 

Delta has launched the “ Ticket Window ,” an interface for selling airline tickets via Facebook. It’s an interesting but possibly controversial move. As mentioned explicitly in the press release, the company is trying to position itself where the internet traffic is, rather than steering web traffic to their own site. It’s a smart move insofar as it piggybacks a widely adopted technology. But by setting up shop within...