For a limited time only you can save on award travel. The time frame is limited as you need to book between July 15 - July 24, 2009 and fly between August 18 - November 18, 2009. I played with a few options as I was looking at a flight to Barcelona in late August but wasn’t able to find anything available using award travel. These airline offerings are typically a mixed blessing. The airline hopes to get rid of excess seat inventory due to poor demand planning, but the popular routes are not available because…well they are popular. The promotion is structured to target as many folks as possible by giving the impression of high availability and big savings.
Unfortunately, the outcome usually results in potential customers NOT finding anything worth flying because the routes are terrible, the timing isn’t right, or the destination is undesirable. We end up wasting our time playing with arrival / departures dates. It’s like taking your garbage, wrapping it in a shiny box, and offering it to your best customers. It produces the opposite affect as we don’t feel like we’re getting a special promotion – we feel like United doesn’t really value us as a customer so much as just a revenue stream (i.e. dumping ground) with little intelligence. It should be painfully obvious the target demographic travels a lot, values their time, and doesn’t have much flexibility. This promotion totally ignores all those key factors. United needs to take a step back, look at their customers, then tailor their promotions for the right target audience.
Hey United, how about figuring a way to immediately communicate which routes have excess capacity in the time frame given so we don’t waste our time when you already know. Our time is just as important as yours.
Here’s hoping you’ll find the promotion plays into a trip you were planning anyways…
A recently released Senate report estimates that flight delays in 2007 cost passengers, airlines and the broader US economy more than $40 Billion. Take a moment to absorb that figure. $40 Billion from lost productivity, added operational costs to support delays, increased jet fuel consumption, and impact to other industries.
Here are a few key findings from the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee Report
- The total cost of domestic air traffic delays to the U.S. economy was as much as $41 billion for 2007 including higher airline operating costs, lost passenger productivity and time, and losses to other industries.
- Delayed flights consumed about 740 million additional gallons of jet fuel totaling $1.6 billion extra in fuel bills.
- Passengers were delayed by a total of 320 million hours, when accounting for padding in airline schedules. Almost 20 percent of total domestic flight time in 2007 was wasted in delay.
- Flight delays were longest during summer vacation months. Flight delays during the months of June, July and August averaged approximately 414,000 total hours of delay per month. Flights during December – the height of holiday traveling – totaled almost 438,000 hours of delay.
- 78% of flight delays in 2007 occurred before take-off, with 58 percent at the gate, and 20 percent during the taxi to the runway.
- 94 percent of all flight delays were caused by other flights arriving late, national system delays, or air carrier delays (less than six percent of delays were due to security or extreme weather)
The three largest airports in the New York City area, JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark airports had a total of over 40 million passengers last year. The New York City area airports combine for more than 27 million hours of passenger delays.And the average per-passenger delay at these three airports is nearly 28 minutes – among the highest in the nation.
The full report and the technical appendix can be found here
In advance of your next trip, keep an eye on whether your connection takes you through any of ’America’s Most Time-Draining Airports’. Maybe you’ll seek a new route to your destination
Can you imagine what you’d do with that extra 20% of time spent currently in airport delays?
The Travel Industry Association commissioned a recent study on the state of the travel industry. Roger Dow, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based association, said the research "should be a wake-up call to America’s policy leaders that the time for meaningful air system reform is now." "The air travel crisis has hit a tipping point – more than 100,000 travelers each day are voting with their wallets by choosing to avoid trips," Dow said in a statement.
From this study, we gleaned some very interesting nuggets worth sharing
- Nearly half of American air travelers would fly more if it were easier, and more than one-fourth said they skipped at least one air trip in the past 12 months because of the hassles involved.
- The 41 million forgone trips cost the travel industry $18.1 billion – including $9.4 billion to airlines and $5.6 billion to hotels.
- The lost tax revenue to federal, state and local authorities equals $4.2 billion in the past 12 months.
- When 28% of air travelers avoided an average of 1.3 trips each, that resulted in 29 million leisure trips and 12 million business trips not being taken
- 44% of the air travelers surveyed said they would take more air trips each year if airport hassles could be reduced or eliminated
- People who flew more than five times in the past 12 months were more likely to describe air travel as frustrating, at 52 percent, compared with 33 percent of infrequent travelers, defined as people who flew one or two round trips in 12 months, according to the survey.
- More than half of respondents said either efficiency or reliability is getting worse, 60 percent said the system is deteriorating, and 56 percent said flying is the "bad" or "worst" part of travel – though 62 percent said air travel security is improving
I’m surprised that only half of flyers find air travel frustrating. When was the last time you ran into someone who enjoyed their flight?
A reader pointed me to a site which may be useful for international travelers. The purpose of the site is mainly focused on unlocking phones for use across different phone carriers, but they also provide free tools and guides (http://www.uniquephones.com/Phone-Travel-Guides.html).
One tool, checks phone compatibility for a specific country given a make and model. For many of the cases, it is just checking if GSM is supported in the country since a GSM phone will work in any country as long as you have a SIM card (pre-paid or belonging to a supported carrier) installed in the phone. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of every combination, but it’s worth a check if you’re planning to make a trip into another country and want to make sure your phone will work. You can also go to many of the GSM-related sites and just look up the country you plan to visit. If you have a GSM-compatible phone, you’re good to go.
I’d stay away from another tool which allows you to estimate expected roaming charges when using your phone in another country based on your current carrier. I punched in a few values and it doesn’t appear to calculate the dollar amount very accurately. In fact, I tested 0 for all the input values but it still gave a high cost due to roaming. Looks like a ploy to get to you to signup with one of the SIM card providers.
Looks like mixed reviews for the unlocking services so user beware.
Thanks, Vikki.
Lifehacker.com has a decent article which captures a pre-flight checklist. In a nutshell it is broken down in the following categories:
- How to get cheap fares
- How to select the best seats
- How to pack
- Miscellaneous
As a frequent traveler, it provides limited value as several things didn’t apply (e.g. How to get cheap fares, how to pack, etc.) Our working schedules dictate our flights and we pack without giving it a second thought (or let our dry-cleaners do the packing for us). The best way to use it is to verify your current weekly process and look for improvements. If I authored the article, I would have titled the article “Pack like a Power Traveler”.
Nevertheless, it is well-written so I recommend giving it a quick read.
The Consumerist.com website has neatly summarized some analysis done using Farecast.com. I’m the first to stand on the shoulders of giants so use this information as you will.
Key Points:
- Best deals Aug 22-Sept 15
- Last year fare sales in many markets started mid-Sept
- Nov 21-25 Will be the most expensive, with an average national price of $414.
- Extend your trip to Monday or Tuesday after Thanksgiving to save $60-$100
- Departure date affects price less than return date. (For example, leaving on Monday before Thanksgiving will only save around $30)
If you’re a frequent flyer with miles to spend, try and get ahead of the curve by booking your Thanksgiving holiday trip before the best deals hit the market. This should give you a better chance of securing a mileage seat before the airlines are sold out of all classes.
I’m a big fan of data. The more data, the better. Data helps us make better decisions which usually saves time, money, or all of the above.
Data about the airlines help travelers, like myself, vote with our feet (and our money). As I grow increasingly more disillusioned about airline point programs (I’ll write about the ridiculous terms of point programs later), I have less issues with dropping a bad airlines, regardless of my status, and switching over to an entirely new one.
Currently, I’m booking one way flights on United to my destination, but flying back on Southwest. The return flight has become SO BAD with delays and cancellations on United it’s worth it for me to not have a reserved seat JUST so I can actually get home at a reasonable time. It actually angers me as a traveler with Premium Executive (missed 1K by a few segments last year) to deal with the same delayed flight every single %#!&! week. United doesn’t seem to care. Southwest is on-time every week. I can get home while it’s actually daylight outside. It’s wonderful.
Anyways, I digress. If you want to know if a flight will likely be delayed before you have to experience it, then check out The Aviation Consumer Protection website for detailed data on flights.
Here’s some interesting information for April 2007:
Percentage of On-time Arrivals (Top is better)
Reasons for Delay
Props to the Consumerist for highlighting this resource.
DHL is offering a copy Fodor’s 1,001 Smart Travel Tips, a 400-page collection of great tips and ideas from the international travel-savvy editors at Fodor’sk as compensation if you spent a few minutes filling out a survey. It doesn’t seem like a bad deal if you don’t mind providing a little feedback and some personal information (of course!).
DHL’s sell line:
You’ll learn how to find the best prices for flights, hotel rooms and rental cars, avoid hassles at the airport and elsewhere, make the most of web resources, and much, much more. Plus, the book features local customs for dozens of international destinations. And it’s yours free just for completing our short survey.
The Terms and Conditions (aka fine print):
Promotional offer valid upon survey completion. Expires on date specified in advertising and/or while supplies last. Offer is nontransferable, nonnegotiable, and cannot be used for cash; void where prohibited. DHL reserves the right to cancel and change terms/conditions of offer and promotion without notice. Limit one per person. DHL has the absolute right to deny premium fulfillment to any survey submitted through unauthorized channels, altered web sites, by fraudulent means or in the event erroneous information is submitted. Offers cannot be delivered to P.O. boxes. DHL employees are not eligible. All services may not be available in all areas. Subject to DHL’s Terms and Conditions as published at dhl-usa.com and/or as set forth on the waybill of the country of origin. ©2007 DHL Express (USA), Inc. All rights reserved.
Amazon
has the book for $9.95.
Unbelievable! If you are traveling internationally, your laptop can be scrutinized and even confiscated for a period of time without giving a reason!
A informal survey conducted by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives discovered that 90 percent of its members were not aware that custom officials had the authority to scrutinize the contents of travelers’ laptops.
“One member who responded to our survey said she has been waiting for a year to get her laptop and its contents back,” said Susan Gurley, the group’s executive director. “She said it was randomly seized. And since she hasn’t been arrested, I assume she was just a regular business traveler, not a criminal.”
“We need to be able to better inform our business travelers what the processes are if their laptops and data are seized — what happens to it, how do you get it back,” Ms. Gurley said.
She added: “The issue is what happens to the proprietary business information that might be on a laptop. Is information copied? Is it returned? We understand that the U.S. government needs to protect its borders. But we want to have transparent information so business travelers know what to do. Should they leave business proprietary information at home?”
That’s pretty scary, especially if you carry proprietary information on your laptop. Never mind the fact that you could be without your laptop for a long while.
Even more reason to back-up your laptop if you’re a frequent international traveler.
Original article located at www.nytimes.com.
It will only cost you 2 million points, which wouldn’t be too difficult for some of you. Just make sure you are taking advantage of every point scheme possible to minimize the your time of real flying.
One catch – this is for Virgin Galatic, an offshoot of Virgin Atlantic aiming for the creation of a space tourism program in 2009.