Alaska Airlines is offering a $50 discount certificate for new Mileage Plan members resident in California who sign up by October 26th, 2012. The discount code is valid for travel between September 5th and November 10th for travel from California.
While prices out of Newark on Alaska are generally not competitive with United for me, Alaska routinely has $168 one-way all-inclusive fares to and from Hawaii out of San Diego, Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento.
ANA sent out a survey yesterday valid between August 9th and August 16th. Even though United.com (prior to 3/3, Continental.com) has improved rather steadily over the past year for searching partner availability, ANA’s Star Alliance search is still quite valuable.
Until recently, American had a NYC-DUB fare priced at $51 (with $202 in additional fuel surcharges). While prices have gone up slightly (the base fare is now $151), sub-$500 roundtrips to Europe are nothing to scoff at.
My starting point for any itinerary like this one is to glance at ExpertFlyer.
The fare rules for the OKX7Q5G1 fare include a few interesting snippets:
| DAY/TIME | PERMITTED SUN THROUGH THU ON EACH TRANSATLANTIC SECTOR. |
| SEASONALITY | PERMITTED 26AUG12 THROUGH 23DEC12 OR 05JAN13 THROUGH 31MAR13 ON THE OUTBOUND TRANSATLANTIC SECTOR. SEASON IS BASED ON DATE OF ORIGIN. |
| MINIMUM STAY | TRAVEL FROM INBOUND TRANSATLANTIC SECTOR MUST COMMENCE NO EARLIER THAN THE FIRST SUN AFTER DEPARTURE OF THE OUTBOUND TRANSATLANTIC SECTOR. |
| MAXIMUM STAY | TRAVEL FROM LAST STOPOVER MUST COMMENCE NO LATER THAN MIDNIGHT 180 DAYS AFTER DEPARTURE FROM FARE ORIGIN. |
| STOPOVERS | STOPOVERS NOT PERMITTED ON THE FARE COMPONENT. |
American tends to use MPM-based routing rules for its international fares; this fare is no different:
/VIA THE ATLANTIC/ MPM 3811
MILEAGE SYSTEM APPLIES BETWEEN ORIGIN AND DESTINATION
MILEAGE SYSTEM APPLIES ORIGIN TO DESTINATION
TICKETED POINT DEDUCTION OF 550 MILES APPLIES
WHEN TRAVEL IS VIA CHI AND/OR DFW AND/OR RDU AND/OR
MIA
TICKETED POINT DEDUCTION OF 705 MILES APPLIES
WHEN TRAVEL IS VIA SUB AREA 21
American directly serves DUB via ORD, but this trip is 4413 miles:
The CHI ticketed point deduction provides an additional 550 miles beyond the 3811 base when we connect in ORD, so routing via O’Hare is permissible. With a base fare in-hand, we now want to try looking for itineraries that might work:
The “Advanced Routing Codes” have two components:
Unfortunately, since this fare has been around for about a week, the O inventory on AA metal has largely disappeared:
Rather than fly entirely AA metal, we can try flying to Europe, then connecting to Aer Lingus:
The “c:aa+ c:ei” routing code specifies that I want to fly one or more AA-coded flights then an Aer Lingus-coded flight. On the inbound leg, I need to reverse the order. This search yields some prospective dates:
Clicking through on the 18th yields a few options:
Examining the price breakdown, we see that our $151 base fare was applicable. (The variations in price are due to changes in government-imposed taxes.)
The next tricky part is trying to actually book this itinerary. Roundtrip quickly stops providing the relevant flights and even Multicity may fail. Generally, my complex revenue trips (including this one) have been booked by calling. Even if the phone booking fee could not be waived, spending $25 to book an itinerary substantially cheaper than the “obvious” trips offered on the airlines’ websites may be worth it.
One Mile at a Time reports that due to Singapore Airline’s computer system switchover, SQ award availability has suddenly opened up dramatically.
I’ve tried ticketing three itineraries and obtained three different outcomes.
Per the Singapore Airlines announcement about this switchover, their operations will “resume progressively from 2200 hours on July 8th Singapore Local Time.” That leaves about 11 hours for me to deploy the rest of my United miles towards further awards…
Last year, I picked up the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature card when they were running a 40k miles after first purchase promotion.
Alaska offers its members using the card a 1K mile bonus on each booking. At the time, I figured I would pick up Alaska-coded American Airlines flights occasionally when the AS-coded flights were cheaper or the same price as American’s own flight numbers. Since making Executive Platinum last year, I’ve stuck to American-marketed and operated flights for the sake of my complimentary upgrades, so this part of my plan didn’t quite work out. As of a few days ago, Alaska quietly inserted the note in July statements that the booking bonus was going to end August 1st.
As a further enticement of the card, Alaska offered a $110 companion ticket for cardholders annually good on any fare (for itineraries entirely on Alaska metal). Since Alaska offers rather cheap, fully-flexible first class fares from Newark to Hawaii, this can be quite a bargain. Consider a simple United fare to Kauai around Labor Day weekend:
This particular itinerary is far from ideal: The JFK-LAX and HNL-EWR flights aren’t eligible for complimentary upgrades (even if I do like p.s.). The same itinerary in Business or First Class on United runs about $2500 per person.
While American is a bit more expensive, I would almost certainly be assured complimentary upgrades as an Executive Platinum member (albeit at the cost of 20 500-mile stickers to upgrade a companion for the entire trip) or could easily burn 4 of my spare systemwides to upgrade:
In contrast, a first class itinerary on Alaska Airlines for a single traveler runs $1695. The companion ticket adds $167.50 to this ($110 for the ticket, $57.50 in excise taxes).
While it is not an ideal itinerary, the total all-in cost of airfare per person comes to $931.25 for first class. The class of service bonus (~5k RDM if crediting to American) and ability to save my RPUs and GPUs with United makes the small price increase very tolerable. (If combined with an easily available Avios award for 4.5k points per person on American for an early morning BOS-JFK segment, the inbound overnight in Seattle can be avoided by taking the SEA-BOS redeye operated by Alaska.)
Today, the companion ticket has been restricted to coach fares effective August 1st. To make matters worse, Alaska-operated flights in coach out of EWR tend to be expensive…
While $1400 or so ($1275 plus the companion fare and its excise taxes) is a bit cheaper than my sample United itinerary would be for two, the cost of an overnight in Seattle each way (or an overnight on the outbound and a BOS-JFK Avios award on the return) eats up most of the cost savings.
While I do not have nearly as much invested in Alaska as say American or United (I’ve only flown 6 Alaska-operated one-ways on the LAX-SEA route and I have the credit card), I’m still left to grumble about these “changes I’m going to like” that I had thought were confined to Jeff Smisek’s Continental Airlines d.b.a. United Airlines.
Outside of my hastily put together award trip to Australia and New Zealand and a very brief visit to Montreal, roughly 134k of the 144k miles I flew last year were domestic, primarily flying to Los Angeles and the Bay Area. This year is no different.
In the past, I’ve written extensively about United’s p.s. service from New York Kennedy to San Francisco and Los Angeles, ranging from the vast legroom of Row 9 to the first class experience. In December, I completed American Airlines’ Executive Platinum status match challenge from United. Unlike p.s., which is ineligible for complimentary premier upgrades, American offers its Executive Platinum members complimentary upgrades even on its Flagship Service on JFK-SFO/LAX.
As someone who has made 8 trips to Los Angeles and 6 trips to San Francisco this year, I’m one to appreciate upgrades when I can have them. Had I not directed the bulk of those trips to American (only 2 of the 14 trips were on United), I would have exhausted my 4 regional upgrades and 6 system wide upgrades that I earned last year with United in April if I used them only for the redeye flights I took. (Let’s not talk about what I would have done for the next 8 months of the year.)
Nonetheless, I’ve become somewhat complacent and deferred writing up a trip report of the service, so here goes.
American 17
New York Kennedy (JFK) – San Francisco (SFO)
Friday, April 20th
Depart: 7:30PM
Arrive: 10:09PM
Duration: 5 hours, 39 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 767-223ER (N335AA)
Seat: 11D (Business Class)
The menu read as follows:
I passed on the shrimp appetizer that came with the first course.
Conveniently, American has offered a vegetarian pasta dish with every JFK-LAX/SFO dinner flight I’ve had… I contrast with the choice of a “cold chicken salad” or a “cold chicken sandwich” that I’ve experienced all too often on United.
Switching to the nonstop to Honolulu meant I had an overnight to find myself accommodations for. At about $100/nt (plus the resort fee and taxes), I chose the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani again (I had last stayed here for my Honolulu overnight in September).
This time around, I actually had a city view room (rather than parking lot view) with a small balcony.
My stay served its purpose: To get a few hours of sleep before my flight. My only complaint? The front desk doesn’t sell stamps. Combined with the early departure from Honolulu, I had to wait to San Francisco to mail a postcard.
Since my upgrade did not clear for the island hopper, I was not looking forward to flying in coach for 24 hours on a 737. After a few calls to United (namely, to convince the agents that, yes, despite their location in North America, I was within 24 hours of the departure time of my flights), I moved to the nonstop, UA200.
Notably, my connection in Guam was the first time I’ve looked forward to encountering TSA. When I fly in the United States, the worst hassles I suffer are the lines and the opt-out pat down. In contrast, the security situation at Manila is a bit more involved. To enter the airport building, passengers had to have their bags X-rayed and pass through a metal detector. (I can live with that; I had to in Istanbul.) After picking up my boarding pass, paying the Terminal Fee, and passing through passport control, we had another security checkpoint, this one in a normal-looking, walk-through metal detector setup. Upon reaching the gate, my carry-on bags were opened and the contents throughly inspected (including the individual, blank sheets of paper in a folio I travel with), I was patted down, and then two guys needed to spend a minute looking at my shoes. To be clear, this wasn’t because I was randomly selected for enhanced screening: Everyone at the gate had to pass through this rigmarole.
United 200
Guam (GUM) – Honolulu (HNL)
Monday, May 28th
Depart: 6:35AM
Arrive: 5:56PM
Duration: 7 hours, 21 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 777-222
Seat: 17G (Economy Class)
For my stay in Manila, I chose the Hyatt Manila and used one of my Diamond member suite upgrades to confirm a better room for myself. I received a Regency Suite King room. At 74 square meters (per their website description), the suite was bigger than my Manhattan studio.
The bedroom:
The room had excellent views of the city from the 26th floor.
For the sake of completeness, I did take a few photos on my (comparatively) short hop to Manila. Coach just doesn’t merit quite as many words (or photos) as first class.
ANA 949
Tokyo (NRT) – Manila (MNL)
Friday, May 25th
Depart: 6:17PM
Arrive: 9:34PM
Duration: 4 hours, 17 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 767-381ER (JA603A)
Seat: 26B (Economy Class)
