Hyatt’s More Possibilites promotion is now open for registration.
It’s not the most exciting promotion, but it’s a slightly stronger rebate than Starwood’s current promotion (2k points per 4 nights).
The Dallas Morning News reports that the merger between US Airways and American Airlines will be announced tomorrow morning at 7:30AM CST:
The plan is to announce the deal in the pre-dawn hours Thursday, followed by a 7:30 a.m. CST call with the analyst community, a Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport press conference in mid-morning, a 1 p.m. Dallas/Fort Worth Airport presentation to AA employees, with the video and audio broadcast to other locations.
Doug Parker will run the combined airline.
Online Travel Review reminds us that consolidation is inevitable. View from the Wing has some guesses for how AAdvantage might end up. AA’s systemwide upgrade policy was not long for this world as it was.
As seems to be the tradition at American’s LAX station, boarding started several minutes ahead of schedule. When I made it to the gate at the scheduled boarding time, boarding for group 3 had already been called.
American 253
Los Angeles (LAX) – Kahului (OGG)
Saturday, January 19th, 2013
Depart: 9:00AM
Arrive: 12:55PM
Duration: 5 hours, 55 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 757-223 (N609AA)
Seat: 5B (First Class)
The menu read as follows:
AA generally (with rare exception) takes meal orders from front to back on even flight numbers and from back to front on odd numbers, so I was one of the first to make a meal choice. As I had not ordered a vegetarian/vegan meal in advance, I chose the four cheese ravoli.
Our arrival gate put us next to two Thomas Cook 757’s a bit far from their homes. WestJet leases them for the winter season.
For my 9 hour layover, I once again stayed at the Westin LAX. As I came down to the lobby to see the first shuttle to LAX pulling away, I had 15 minutes to kill.
Rather convieniently, the hotel has trackers for the two shuttles servicing it:
It doesn’t indicate whether the shuttle is on the arrivals or departures level of the loop, but it’s better than nothing.
A few minutes after I booked this trip, I called the Executive Platinum desk to apply one of my systemwide upgrades expiring at the end of February 2013 to my reservation to upgrade my OGG-DFW-LGA segments. At the time, the agent suggested I upgrade my JFK-LAX-OGG segments as well, as there was upgrade space available. At the time, I tempted fate and observed that my upgrade success rate on AA185 was 100% (since making EXP).
As Friday approached, my upgrade hadn’t cleared. At check-in, I was number 5 on the upgrade list with 2 seats left. I overlooked two key points:
Since AA added Admirals Club access with all business and first class tickets on JFK-LAX/SFO in September (aligning the product with United’s p.s. offering), I’ve kicked around dropping my American Express Platinum card as I mostly fly this particular route on AA and my upgrades generally would clear… until now. Between this and having access to the Admirals Club during Sandy’s IRROPs, I’ve found it invaluable. As I entered the club, I inquired as to whether there was an C (three-cabin business class upgrade space) inventory available. There was, so the agent went about confirming my upgrade and called me back a few minutes later.
While I’ve written about AA’s Flagship Service on JFK-LAX/SFO before, I couldn’t help but notice that even the cheese plates have been upgraded.
American 185
New York Kennedy (JFK) – Los Angeles (LAX)
Friday, January 18th, 2013
Depart: 9:45PM
Arrive: 12:17AM
Duration: 5 hours, 32 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 767-223ER (N339AA)
Seat: 10D (Business Class)
I noticed in New Girl in the Air’s point purchases recap that Amtrak is once again offering a 30% bonus on purchased points, up to 10k per year. This brings the cost to 2.12 cpm
This brings the total cost of a Northeast Regional coach one-way to $84.80. I’ve discussed the value for last-minute redemptions before.
Since Hawaiian Airlines entered the New York market, there have been a number of fare wars for flights to Hawaii. As I got to January 8th without any particular plans for MLK weekend, I decided to go to Maui.
While there were other cheaper fares to Hawaii, I ultimately picked a $555.80 roundtrip to Maui on American for two reasons:
Thanks to some systemwide upgrades and AA’s generous elite upgrade success rates for Executive Platinum members, the entire trip was in premium cabins.
This trip’s title stems from the conversation I had with my seatmate from Los Angeles after he asked me why I was going to Maui. After explaining my “hobby,” a thought occured to me: This trip to Hawaii would be the furthest I traveled in a three-day weekend. Traditionally, I’ve taken 5 day weekends to go to Hawaii or the Phillipines. Europe’s a bit closer, but even I’ve taken 4 days to journey there.
Last night, I was pondering what I should do with my US Airways miles, particularly as the merger with AA approaches near certainty. A few days ago, there had been off-peak busines class availability to Europe for this weekend, I scrapped the idea in light of this weekend’s Nor’easter. Looking again to see if any availability opened up later in February, I noticed that the blue off-peak label just… wasn’t there anymore.
FlyerTalk picked up a change to the award chart. I’m inclined to agree with Gary: The change’s timing defies logic. Wandering Aramean has the two charts side-by-side, but the practical impact seems to be that off-peak business class awards to Europe are dead. (First class awards to Hawaii and the medium/high buckets to the Middle East and Alaska went up, but these were not the highlights of the award chart.)
The saving graces? Lucky points out that the 90k mile business class award from North America to Asia (via Europe) has been spared… for now. In the meantime, I’m continuing to not look forward to the merger.
Back in December, I had a quick one-night stay at the Westin Washington D.C. City Center.
US Airways is once again offering a 100% bonus on purchased miles, targeted for Dividend Miles members who purchased or gifted miles in 2012. This brings the total cost approximately $19 per thousand miles.
These sorts of promotions are quite common.
