Spirit Airlines to Charge New Fees to Comply with Government Regulations

Spirit Airlines is announcing that they will charge a $2 fee per ticket to comply with new regulations of airline ticketing and reservation imposed by the government. More on this at CNN: Here's what I think of this: Tell me that SPIRIT Airlines has NEVER had to "bump" a single passenger off its flight till date and I will agree that the DOT regulation is BS. Because, as we all know, Spirit has always managed its reservation system so wonderfully that it sells ONLY the number of seats it has available../sarcasm/

Earn Miles Free

I just remembered some methods to earn airline miles without spending a penny (yes no money involved), except of course, your time on the internet!

www.e-miles.com

www.erewards.com (the sponsor list is here: Air France, Continental, Delta and US Airways are sponsors through whom you can get an invitation + Hilton honors, bmi - no link given here)

US Airways has all sorts of additional ways to earn miles, one which caught my was the Microsoft Live Search Club (under Get Miles > Even more ways to earn.)

If the links above do not work directly, I would suggest that you go to the 'Earn Miles" or Get Miles section of each mileage program webpage and search around a bit, usually erewards can be found under "other ways" or "Even other ways/Other partners".

Emiles typically makes you take surveys (5-10 miles/event) and then an option to buy products (100-500 miles earned depending on purchase size) from many different online retailers including names like Target, Flowers.com, Cruise lines etc.

ERewards is more of an online market survey group. You receive survey invitations by email and then respond to those within 1-2 days of email receipt. Even if you are invited by one partner, E-rewards also gives the flexibility to obtain any type of available reward, like amazon certs, any airline miles or gift certs for the rewards you earn.

For some airlines, www.Opinionplace.com works (AAdvantage)

Other airlines have their own promotions or dining miles program (eg UAL Dining)- register any credit card and when you naturally happen to eat out at selected restaurants (cheap to pricey) you end up earning miles quietly when you pay with the registered card.

Crazy Air Travel

I have nt written much on air travel or airline miles for a while now. Most of the blame goes to the roller coaster ride happening in the financial sector right now. Anyhow, I came across an article on about scariest runways on CNN's website. Bhutan's Paro airport and Honduras' Toncontìn Airport in Tegucigalpa (this was one place where I have been thinking of going recently, haha, should be fun!) both top the list of scary runways mainly due to the terrain surrounding the airport.
Even an airport like Washington DC's Reagan National feature on the list. Another notable mention was an airstrip in Lesotho, the story of which reminds of James Bond's flight in Golden Eye.
To quickly jump to the spot I am referring to, go to time 6:35 on video and watch from there.

So if you are out to earn more and more airmiles, but do not pay attention to the destination, you might be in for some roller coaster rides! Watch out.

Starwood points for no blackout date flights

Starwood introduced a new program called SPG Flights where one can redeem Starwood points for the cash value of any available airline ticket on required dates. While, it might seem a little pricier than the "so-called" free award ticket, it has the benefits of being free from blackout dates and capacity control restrictions. Additionally, it seems like you can redeem the points on several airlines.

I have not personally used this systerm yet, but I test drove the website and interface for multiple itineraries and compared with orbitz travel results side by side. I ran a weekend flight search from an obscure airport in Pennsylvania - State College (SCE) to San Francisco (SFO) on Sep 26 returning on Sep 29. Sidestep returned lowest cost flights in the range of $475.

Starwood returned lowest points flights at 40,000 points. Considering that 40,000 points converts to 50,000 miles with most airlines with Starwood redemptions, this deal is very close to the assumed value of Starwood points (1.25 c = 1 point).

In fact based on the prices on sidestep, we can see that Starwood seems to be pegging the value at 1.18 c/point. The biggest benefit in my opinion is that you can pick another airline apart from the one where you plan to add your miles and redeem free flights. So essentially you get a lot of flexibility in flight timing choices, hubs etc. Also according to the FAQ listed on the Starwood site, frequent flier miles can still be earned on the flights taken.

However, if you were to compare this to the United "choices" program you cannot do any partial redemptions. At least I was not able to figure out such an option. A complete chart of the points to money value as of early Sep 2008 was this:

Starwood's site mentions the following as the biggest benefits:

You still have the option to transfer Starpoints to an airline and receive miles with Starwood Preferred Guest transfer partners; however, SPG Flights allows you to skip the transfer step, expands your flight options to include more airlines, and eliminates blackout dates and other restrictions found with airline mile redemption programs.

Once again, I cast my vote in favor of the Starwood American Express credit card as the only rewards card worth the annual fee! So if you are looking for a single rewards credit card that you plan to pay off on a monthly basis, one that offers a good buyer's protection program and an excellent car rental insurance program and other hotel related benefits, then I can shamelessly say that the Starwood Amex wins hands down.

Airlines removing lifevests

Just heard that Air Canada's regional carrier Jazz is removing life vests from the planes in order to reduce loads carried. Since Jazz is an airline that does not fly over the oceans, it is reasonable safe. However, they do fly over the Great Lakes, which are not your backyard ponds. So just relying on the seat cushions as flotation aids if your plane is forced to land on water in Lake Superior may not be fun. Life vests add about a pounds of weight per piece, so the regional planes are expected to reduce their loads by about 50 lbs each. But then, the probability of water landings is fairly low, so it is a reasonable decision. However, this still adds a question marks against the safety guarantee on Jazz planes. It remains to be seen if other airlines also follow suit on domestic-over land only- flights with this type of policy. Airline safety is one of the best established industry practices and fairly well regulated compared to many industries. Air Canada, the larger airline group, however will retain life vests on its planes which fly over the oceans of the world to different continents.
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Magsformiles update 2008

Info on getting magazines for Airline frequent flier miles can be found in this post. If you are looking for paid subscriptions (from a trusted vendor), please use this referral link:

Magazine Subscriptions From Amazon

Partial List of Airlines sites that allow redemption of award miles to magazines

American Airlines: https://americanairlines.mpmvp.com/magazine/
In my personal opinion, issues like The Wall Street Journal - 230 and Conde Nast are good deals. But then I like that stuff!

• Barrons, Conde Nast Traveler, Fast Company, New York Magazine, Wine Spectator and several others are great choices for leisure or useful (read as "forming money making ideas") reading.

Continental Airlines (link fixed now): http://www.continental.com/web/en-us/content/onepass/rewards/other/default.aspx

• Seems to have magazines as well as some kind of discount deal (50% off) on merchandise. Check the prices, do the math and then use it. I have not reviewed this as I have never earned Onepass in my life. ( I can't believe none of the 30-40 people who clicked the above link told me it was pointing to American airlines, oh Geez!)
  

Delta Airlines (may need to log in): https://delta.mpmvp.com/magazine/choose.asp

• Comparable to the deal you get with AA miles (probably same provider)
  

HAWAIIAN AIRLINES
http://www.magsformiles.com/hawaiian


Northwest Airlines: https://nwa.mpmvp.com/magazine/choose.asp

• Same deal as AA or Delta miles (plus it is going to merge with Delta soon, yes? New website is pretty "fancy")
  

United Airlines (zip code needed) http://www.newspaper-miles.com/readermiles.asp

• Penn State (only WSJ newspaper -but the deal is sweet) http://www.newspaper-miles.com/n_p_list_readermiles.asp?fzip=16801&source=ual
  
  
• On the west coast, in Santa Barbara you get LA times or WSJ (no comment on deal) http://www.newspaper-miles.com/n_p_list_readermiles.asp?fzip=93117&source=ual

US Airways
For US Airways, one needs to visit this link:
http://www.usairways.com/awa/content/dividendmiles/usemiles.aspx
You will see two listings under

Subscriptions for miles

Newspapers (via Points.com only)
Magazines (via US Airways itself)
(NOTE: A window will pop up so turn off your pop up blocker on US Airways website)
Points.com (portal to manage airline miles and points and swap):

• By the far, the steepest conversion losses will be incurred here. BUT, you have some additional flexibility. For one, you can convert miles at rates ranging from 0.8 cent/mile, which is lower than my threshold of 1c/mile to as low as 0.4 cent/mile (bad).
  
  The approximate conversion rate to amazon.com gift certificate value* is discussed here. Currently points.com sign up seems to be free.
  
  I converted some about to expire 13,000 US airways miles from my mom's Dividend miles account to some my Amazon cash. Of course I gave her some gold jewelry as a gift so it evens out.

Reference "Something for Nothing" is from the US Today Article located online at: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/miles/2004-09-03-askrandy_x.htm

* This is equal to getting "store credit" at Amazon.com, you need to have an amazon.com account or need to create one for this purpose.

Value of Airline miles and credit cards

While going through yahoo finance and looking at Mastercard's stock price, I came across this article on mileage credit cards. This article several points that have always been running through my head and a few more, so I decided to 'repost' a small portion of it here. I will not be posting the entire article as you can see it on Yahoo or in New York Times. (log in might be required on NYT site).

?? To Keep an Airline Credit Card or Not ?? Ask yourself these questions (Bullet points modified a little from RON LIEBER's article in New York Times.

DO YOU CARRY A BALANCE? If you don’t pay your bill in full each month, you’re excused from this discussion. No credit cards for you actually. Well maybe you can try to snag a 0% APR, but remember you do have to pay back at sometime.

DO YOU HAVE ELITE STATUS? Some airlines — like American, Northwest, United and Continental — carve out additional inventory of free seats at their lower mileage levels for some or all customers with elite status. That inventory, plus the bonus miles that most airlines still offer to elite members, make a mileage credit card more attractive.

ARE YOU A BIG SPENDER? If you’re wealthy, or can run business expenses through your card, you can earn six figures in miles from card spending alone each year. A huge mileage balance gives you the ability to exchange those miles for premium-class overseas tickets, which could cost $10,000 or more if you bought them with cash. Miles are worth a lot more if you redeem them for this sort of travel.

ARE YOUR CHILDREN IN SCHOOL? If they are, you’ll be fighting everyone else who wants to travel at the same time. The airlines, knowing your desperation to get out of town, may make fewer free seats available during school vacations, since the airline will probably sell all the seats on those flights anyway. EXCEPTION: Some cards like United MP Visa, American express with membership rewards and Delta American Express might have some benefit even in blackout date travel because they let you pay for your airline ticket by using the miles/points you earned on the credit card. United calls this " CHOICES", Amex just uses points and DELTA - they have some name, but the concept it similar. Typical cost sonversion is 1 cent per mile (point), not the usual 25000 mile/ticket shill Delta's program is complicated because conversion starts to become profitable only for tickets costing above $100 or better yet, over $250 [not hard nowadays huh?]. So if your ticket costs $350 and you want to apply 25000 miles/points, it will reduce your cost by $250 (in most cases). Amex charges an extra $7 service fee, take note.

The article covers cards that let you earn miles (like United Mileage Plus Visa card, Delta American Express Card, US Airways Dividend Mastercard etc), hotel cards like Starwood American Express ($45 fee but woth it, especially because of Amex's insurance products that come with the card), Hilton Honors Citicard (fee) or Hilton Honors American Express (no annual fee), and general points cards that come from other banks.
I have personally given up on the Citi AAdvantage card because of the high spend requirements and the absence of an AA flight from my area.
Anyway I just thought of this:

Starwood is still good
Amex Hilton is right on
Hilton Citi, please have some pity
With Capital one, I waste time on phone

Ok, the last one is just for a finish, I have never had a Cap one no hassles card so I should not put them down much.

Good luck flying, but keep making sure you pay your bills fully month to month on the credit cards you have!

Airlines' Goodwill Gestures towards Active Duty Personnel

Several airlines are waiving the third bag checked fee which was being levied on active duty service personnel. This is clearly a sincere attempt by the major airlines to curtail the negative PR generated by recent news articles. Continental and Northwest, Airtran, United both announced fee waivers on Friday. While this is a generous gesture, (as a potential shareholder in airlines I feel) essentially this amounts to a subsidy to the DOD (Department of Defense of the taxpayers of United States of America). So one important thing that airlines and their individual retail shareholders could do is to write to the DOD to make sure that the DOD reimburse the airlines in some form. One solution would be for airlines to collect vouchers from the soldiers and then forward the same to DOD, which could them reimburse them on a quarterly basis.

American Airlines Fined for Safety Violations

The FAA has proposed a fine against American Airlines (NYSE: AMR) up to $7.1 million for deferring much necessary safety and maintenance actions on two of its planes. The fine also covers some other violations relating to substance abuse, etc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp (NYSE:AMR - News), knowingly flew planes that needed safety repairs, the U.S. government charged on Thursday in a letter that proposed a $7.1 million fine against the carrier.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the fine, one of the biggest ever, also covered accusations of deficiencies in American's drug and alcohol testing programs and alleged violations of inspection procedures for aircraft exit lighting. Earlier this year FAA had fined Southwest (LUV) about $10 million.
Click Here for More (takes you to an external site).

This action did not seem to have much of an impact on the stock price however because oil prices have been on a downtrend lately. In somewhat unrelated news, but in a bid to bolster public relations, American Airlines announced that it is waiving the third bag fee which was imposed on active duty military members. Although the fee was reimbursable, the effort the military members had to spend to recoup the charges were recognized as substantial by AA and hence they are removing the fee as a goodwill gesture. You can read about it here in a St. Louis newspaper.
American is a member of the Oneworld Airline Alliance.