"Up Front" Blog Entries

Following are some of Tim's recent blog posts:

• American Defends Boston Flights With Discounts, Bonus Miles
  Where can you find cheap tickets and triple miles? Boston!
• The Top Five Award Destinations for March
  Best bets include L.A., Mexico, London, and Washington, D.C.
• Choice Hotels Offers Instant Elite Perks
  New members receive elite perks immediately.
• Make Travel Better, Win a 'Round-the-World Trip
  Wanted: good ideas. Reward: 'round-the-world tickets.

The FrequentFlier Forum - Hot Topics

As always, there's plenty of activity on the FrequentFlier Forum.

In the "Airline Programs" Forum, the "Ryanair may charge for toilet use on planes" thread elicited the following from Max Bialystock: "Pay to use the toilet? I saw that on MSNBC the other night, and for that idea, O'Leary [Ryanair's chief] won the nightly 'worst person in the world award.' On top of THAT, there are to be no check-in desks? You MUST check-in online? I'd ask him, if I had the chance, whether he'd just rather take my seat and I'll just PRETEND to fly onboard. That would be fitting, since O'Leary wants to run a pretend-airline."

Also in the "Airline Programs" Forum, traiviet added this to the "Something's fishy at Delta" thread: "No matter how flexible I am with date, time, connections..., I have never been able to get a SkySaver award ticket with Delta only. If you're lucky enough, you'll get a SkySaver award ticket with Delta using a combination of Delta and/or partners. In this case, Delta charges a 'using partner fees' extra."

Questions, answers, opinions? Post them to the Forum!

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New Elite Awards for Flying Blue Members

Effective April 1, elite members of Flying Blue, the frequent-flyer program of Air France and KLM, will have access to a new category of award, with better availability than the current restricted Classic awards but less availability than unrestricted Flex awards.

The new Special Elite awards are priced at a 15% premium over Classic awards -- a nice savings if the only alternative is paying twice as many miles for a Flex award.

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Qantas Makes More Award Seats Available

In the spirit of making lemonade from lemons, Qantas is making more seats available to members of its Frequent Flyer program while the falloff in travel demand continues.

In what they've dubbed the Great Qantas Classic Award Seat Release, the airline has increased international coach award seats by 50%, and added 1 million seats to its intra-Australia coach and business-class award inventory.

The increase applies to award bookings made between February 26 and March 31, for travel between May 1 and June 30.

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Virgin Atlantic Bonus for Full-Fare Tickets

Between February 24 and April 9, members of Virgin's Flying Club can earn up to 100,000 bonus miles when traveling on full-fare tickets on flights originating in the U.S. or U.K.

For Premium Economy (W or S booking classes) or Economy (Y, B, M, or L booking classes) tickets, members earn 10,000 bonus miles for two round-trips, 20,000 for three round-trips, and 40,000 bonus miles for four or more round-trips.

For Upper Class (J or D booking classes) tickets, members earn 20,000 bonus miles for two round-trips, 40,000 for three round-trips, and 100,000 bonus miles for four or more round-trips.

Be sure to double-check eligibility -- "full fare" is a significant restriction.

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Bonus + Free 3rd Night at China Westins

Through April 30, Starwood Preferred Guest members will earn double points and receive a free third night at six participating Westin hotels in China, including the Westin Beijing Chaoyang, the Westin Beijing Financial Street, the Westin Guangzhou, the Westin Bund Center Shanghai, the Westin Resort Macau, and the Westin Taipei.

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Deal Alert from SmarterTravel.com

1) Europe Sale on United From $442

United has launched a new sale featuring competitive prices for spring travel to Europe. Destinations include London, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, and Prague.

Travel is valid Mondays through Thursdays from March 4 through April 2. Book by March 26, 11:59 PM ET.

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2) Denver $39 Each Way From Southwest

From north to south, east to west, and everywhere in between, Southwest is linking Denver to the rest of the U.S. with this sale. Featured destinations include Albuquerque, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D. C., and prices start at $39 one-way or $78 round-trip.

Travel is valid Mondays through Thursdays and Saturdays from March 4 through May 20. Southwest has not listed a book-by-date but this sale may drop off when Frontier's similar sale does-Friday, March 6. Book tickets at least 14 days in advance.

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Win a Virgin Island Cruise for 4

Enter Islands Magazine's "Nature's Little Secrets" sweepstakes by October 31 for a chance to win a seven-day Virgin Island cruise for four people, including air.

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[Visit FrequentFlier.com for more travel sweepstakes.]

Feedback from the Frontlines of Travel

We welcome reader feedback on issues related to travel generally and frequent flyer programs in particular. Please use this link to submit comments.

Change to Northwest Airport Lounge Policy

"Man, am I ticked off and I'm not sure where to send this to get the word out for your newsletter.

"A deciding factor for my husband & I to upgrade to a lifetime membership with NWA World Clubs (and spending thousands of $$$$$) was the ability to get a security pass to get to the club without having to have an actual boarding pass. There were MANY times he or I conducted business in those clubs (MSP) -- one to one, two to one, etc... small business meetings with people that were waiting for connecting flights, or in my case, interviewing potential employees. There was no charge for this. Today I called to arrange for a gate pass for Monday to meet an out of town client at the World Club and was told that the only way that was now possible was to rent a conference room for $45/hour! I don't need a conference room -- I just need to sit face-to-face with my client over a cup of coffee at a table to discuss our project. This is after many reassurances from NWA and Delta that our club privileges wouldn't change after the merger. This is a BIG CHANGE.

"I would like to urge any other members that use their membership this way to contact NWA and Delta to express dissatisfaction at this most recent turn of events." [Deb N.]

United Business-Class Meals

"I recently flew out to LAX from Dulles airport. I flew Business and the flight left Dulles about 5:30. Our meal offerings were a shrimp salad or a cold roast beef sandwich. That was it. Nothing hot.

"On my return we left LAX around 7:30, and this time the choices were a fruit plate or a sparse deli plate which consisted of fruit, a slice of ham and slice of cheese and a hard boiled egg. When the lady next to me asked if there was something hot the flight attendant said they'd discontinued hot food 8 months ago.

"Have your other readers mentioned this deteriorating food situation on United? I'd have been better off buying one of their little boxes than what they served in Business Class. A real disappointment." [K @ AOL.com]

Hotel Promotions (or Making Hay While the Sun Shines)

"I wanted to take time to express my gratitude for the advice on current hotel bonuses.

"In spite of the recession, I continue traveling for my job. I'm switching back and forth between Starwood and Priority Club properties and expect to accumulate a considerable number of extra points by this summer. Then, assuming travel still hasn't rebounded, my plan is to cash in airline miles and hotel points to take the family on a deluxe vacation.

"Thanks again and keep up the good work." [Julian M.]

Until next week...