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Flying Maxjet or Eos?

Looking to choose the best seats on the plane?

SeatExpert now covers the two all-business class airlines. Seats are color-coded for good, bad, and so-so seating, but annotated comments are yet to come. See here for Eos, and here for Maxjet. (The odd shape of Eos’ seats on the map reflects their use of ottomans and privacy partitions in their seating units.)

Flying Southwest?
Savvy Southwest flyers have been checking in online 24 hours before their flight, to get that boarding pass in group A and assure themselves of early boarding. Many use automated check-in services that guarantee an A pass, since they’re cheap, or even free.

But legitimate “A” holders may be fighting for space with cheaters. Someone posted a method of hacking your boarding pass to change the B or C to an A. It’s astonishingly simple, and it’s frankly an embarrassment to Southwest that their boarding passes are so easily manipulated. (No, you can’t create a boarding pass willy-nilly and fly around the country for free… the barcode still contains the information about you and your itinerary.) A similar trick could be used to change the date and print yourself a boarding pass for security, if you wanted to accompany a friend to the gate. (It won’t let you on a plane.) This latter trick I have no problem with, since you’d just be using the boarding pass to enter security, not cheating your way into better seats.

I wonder how long it will take before the company changes the HTML of the passes to prevent this sort of hack. When 137 people line up with “A” passes, with no one in “B” or “C”? Start the clock. (Via digg, thanks to reader BJ!)

(images: Maxjet, ladygypsy)

I received an account update from Continental Airlines OnePass this past week — it’s an airline I have some orphaned miles with, but I haven’t flown with them in a while, and I’ve never had status with them.

What struck me was the way my OnePass membership was framed. Right up top, I was labeled “Non-Elite.”

Why not call me “Riff-Raff” or “Pond Scum” while you’re at it? Will the airline be honoring my reservation, or will I need to wait at the bar?

I can understand the idea of incentivizing flyers to attain elite status, but labeling me “Non-Elite” sure doesn’t make this customer feel like the airline is interested in winning my business.

So I pulled up other family member accounts to see how other airlines label their low-rung riff-raff can’t-get-an-upgrade board-last sit-in-the-back middle-seat “non-elite” members.

Northwest: “Base Member”
United: “General Member”
Delta: “SkyMiles Member”

Notice the word “Member” appears again and again. Inclusive. Part of the club. Continental’s scheme doesn’t allude to membership at all, and focuses entirely on how close you are to elite status. Aspirational? Maybe. But it’s kind of off-putting. How would you feel if you logged into your bank account and before you even saw your balance, your account was labeled “Low Margin Checking”? (Unless you’ve got a 7-figure balance, of course…)

I guess I’ve learned my place.

Related: Debating the value of elite status

tags: travel | Continental Airlines | OnePass

Parking at the airport? Before you automatically grab a ticket at the airport’s official parking lot, consider the site AboutAirportParking. The site uses Google Maps to show the locations of the various airport area parking sites, with information on pricing, links to the lot operator, etc.

The site allows users to write reviews of parking facilities. On the downside, the information is limited to airports in the United States for the time being. Frequency of shuttles to the airport would be a nice feature to include, too.

Since many lots are at hotels, also consider ParkSleepFly.com, the directory of airport hotels with long-term parking packages, which I mentioned recently.

(via GoogleMapsMania, thanks to reader THC!)
tags: travel | airport parking

Downgraded: Food on Alaska Airlines
Well, the food is the same, but it’ll cost you $5 starting August 1.

Upgraded: First class food on Singapore Airlines
Flying up front on Singapore? Consider the thali. Do they have a tandoor in first class? This I gotta see.

Upgraded: Smokers’ inflight nicotine fix
Stuck on a long flight (and not flying all-smoking Smintair), or sitting inside a smoke-free Westin or Marriott? Crack open an ice-cold NicLite — the bottled water with the nicotine kick. You’ll soon be able to buy it at LAX, and possibly other airports.

Downgraded: Delta’s online booking bonus
Book a flight online at delta.com, only get 500 bonus miles instead of the usual 1000. American has already done this for less than top-dollar fares.

Upgraded: AA’s Online Check-In
Same-day round-trip American Airlines flyers rejoice: You can now check in online for both the outbound and the same-day return flights. Convenient for out-and-back trips, as well as mileage runners.

Downgraded: Varig. Upgraded: Varig
Brazilian airline and Star Alliance member VARIG, long in bankruptcy court, was sold for a mere pittance to VarigLog, the cargo arm of the airline that had been previously spun off. The new owners immediately cancelled all flights except the lucrative Sao Paolo-Rio de Janeiro shuttle, leaving many international travelers scrambling for alternatives. Brazilian regulators subsequently forced the airline to resume international flights, but the carrier only has 13 planes that aren’t either repossessed or grounded due to lack of maintenance. Where she stops, nobody knows.

Downgraded: Canadians and permanent residents
If you’re Canadian or a green-card holder, you’re more likely than a US citizen to be a criminal. That’s the only conclusion I can draw from efforts to expand fingerprinting requirements. My opinion: Either fingerprint everyone, or no one.

Downgraded: My opinion of South African airport security
Reporters walked through security and onboard aircraft carrying razor blades, knives, mace spray, and other prohibited items.

Travelocity has disabled its flexible search function for international destinations. According to SmarterTravel.com, the online agency pulled the option because the U.S. Department of Transportation argued that the existing search did not offer sufficient price transparency. The culprit: fuel surcharges.

Indeed, this was my own pet peeve with Travelocity’s flexible search. You start with a great fare to Paris and when you finish clicking, your fare went up $300 — $100 in taxes (expected) and $200 in fuel surcharges (suprise!). Often, Travelocity would come back with a message like “We found a lower fare for you than the one you selected.”

(The change also affects the international component of Travelocity’s Dream Maps. Interestingly, you can still see fares to international locations posted on the maps, but you can’t go the next step to find airlines or book them.)

I part company with SmarterTravel’s blame game: I actually think the DOT was right in pressuring Travelocity to offer a more transparent fare search. The existing product was misleading. It’s Travelocity’s fault for not configuring their fare search product in a way that includes surcharges. Fuel charges are a specific, identifiable line item in building a fare. Why can’t it be included in a search?

But for those who loved that flexible international search, now gone, what are the alternatives? Here are my picks, ranked in terms of similarity to Travelocity’s defunct search.

1) Zuji
Outsource! Zuji is Travelocity’s Singapore-based subsidiary, and it looks and feels much like the American site. And guess what: the international flexible date search is still there. The site is in English, and results are in US dollars. (If you’re based in the US, choose “other” for a country on the first page.) Some airlines are missing (but they were missing from the flex search on the US site in the last few months, too). Suggestion: Run your search on Zuji, then actually book the specific flights you find on Travelocity or elsewhere. Booking on Zuji may work, but you’ll incur higher booking fees plus extra charges for using a credit card overseas.

(Update July 29: A reader e-mail asks about Zuji and Dream Maps (referenced above). I can’t find a Dream Maps equivalent on Zuji. However, since Dream Maps will still show base fares (for now), but won’t let you click through to see airlines or schedules, here’s my advice: Use Dream Maps to find a good base fare in your desired region. If you see one, do a flexible date search on Zuji for that particular destination.)

2) FareCompare
On the plus side, FareCompare’s search acts much like Travelocity, except it’s organized by fare, not by airline. The downsides: It doesn’t show total prices (will it be targeted by the DOT next?). It also doesn’t let you book directly, but refers you to the big online agencies, where the price is often very different from what FareCompare quoted. Finally, it’s missing a number of smaller (but still mainline) international destinations.

3) ITA
The engine behind Orbitz, Continental, and others, allows you to search for fares to just about anywhere in the world, and it shows final prices including all taxes. It also finds codeshares and mixed-airline itineraries that are often good values. Its “month-long search” isn’t as broad a search as Travelocity’s, especially because you need to specify the length of your stay within narrow ranges, but it’s worth checking. But … it won’t let you book anything. You’ll need to go to an airline website, online agency, or traditional travel agent to buy the ticket.

4) Kayak
Kayak allows flexible search to international destinations, but only within 3 days of your specific dates. Some reliability problems here, too, for international fares that are quoted well below what the target sites actually charge. It’s not the free-for-all price-first dates-later approach of Travelocity (or Zuji) but it’s an option to consider.

Reader Vicky S. of Stockton, California writes in:

I’m flying to New York in September on United, and I’m wondering if there is any way for me to use my Capital One miles to upgrade. I have over 20000 miles with the card.

Vicky, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. You would need United Mileage Plus miles or upgrade certificates to upgrade the flight. Too bad, too, because upgrading on the cross-country flights to JFK, in United’s three-class planes, is worth it.

You can use those CapitalOne miles to buy a ticket, but you can’t use them for upgrades on any airline. That’s one of the tradeoffs that comes with credit card miles that aren’t linked to a specific carrier.

As a general rule, I’m opposed to bank-issued miles, like CapitalOne’s “No Hassle Rewards,” as opposed to airline-issued miles. Sure, you get to cash the bank’s miles in for any airline’s ticket, but that really just means you’re getting cash back. Why not get a card that actually pays you in real cash, then?

Besides, the value of those bank-miles isn’t that great. CapitalOne sets cutoffs for redemption of their miles:

15,000 miles are required for tickets up to $150; 35,000 miles are required for tickets from $150.01 up to $350; 60,000 miles are required for tickets from $350.01 up to $600. For tickets over $600 in value, the required number of miles will be determined by multiplying the cost of the ticket times 100 (ex. $768 ticket requires 76,800 miles).

That means you’re getting 1 cent per mile MAXIMUM, with ZERO chance of leveraging those miles for an upgrade (like you just discovered) or a premium-cabin ticket. A business class ticket to Australia could easily run you $8000 — which would require 90,000 United Mileage Plus miles (though that’s going up to 110,000 miles in October) or a whopping 800,000 CapitalOne miles.

So for now, check your United account to see if you have enough miles for the upgrade. It’ll most likely cost you 15,000 United miles each way.

tags: travel | CapitalOne | frequent flyer miles | credit cards

With its Hampton Inn brand now a late entrant in the Bed Wars, Hilton has opened a new front in the global lodging wars: Coffee.

Hilton rooms will soon feature Cuisinart dual-cup single-brew coffeemakers, stocked with Lavazza coffee (Grand Filtro roast, for those keeping score). Sounds better than the single-use packets of Superior Coffee, a company that seems to have the corner on the in-room coffee business.

Begun, the Coffee Wars have.

Who will escalate? I demand in-room espresso! Or the option of a “triple Venti, no fat, no foam, extra hot, with pink sugar” like Katherine Harris orders.

But seriously, better coffee is a nice touch.

Nonetheless, I’m still hoping for a lodging chain to take up my saber-rattling calls for Door Wars.

tags: travel | Hilton | coffee

Bad week for birds, both mechanical and natural.

Two planes nearly collided at O’Hare on Sunday — the fifth “runway incursion” of 2006. Great.

Northwest Airlines and Air Canada are responsible for the deaths of 11,000 turkey chicks. Investigations underway.

And now, this “news” from the Onion: “Sparrow Aviation Administration Blames Collision On Failure To Detect Pane Of Glass”

Howard R. Trojanowski, a Pierre-bound, 2-year-old field sparrow who had been licensed to fly since two weeks after he was hatched and had logged over 60,000 flying hours, departed from a ledge near Sioux Falls Regional Airport at 11:04 a.m. CST. Trojanowski never reached his intended tree branch, instead striking a tempered-glass picture window 2.5 miles northwest of Mitchell 74 minutes after takeoff at an estimated speed of 39 mph.

There were no survivors.

SAA Commissioner Vincent Stivolo said the crash was likely due to glass, a “common, yet not fully understood phenomenon” in which an area normally blocked by such barriers as curtains, blinds, or shutters suddenly appears to be an open passage to an indoor facility or an unobstructed extension of the outdoor environment.

Conclusive explanations have historically eluded sparrow-crash investigators, some of whom have themselves apparently fallen victim to the phenomenon. Three investigators dispatched to the Mitchell site failed to show up and have since been reported missing.

Rest in peace, Howard R. Trojanowski.

tags: travel | birds

The last week has seen a number of new (or at least new-ish) travel-related websites in the news. Here’s a rundown/review, with some additional suggestions:

1) AirPower Wiki
A great idea: A user-generated list of power outlets in airports around the world. If you’re plugged into a socket in an airport somewhere, add it to the list.

2) Smoke-Free Hotels and FreshStay
On the heels of the Marriott smoking ban, Kitty Bean Yancey points to these two primitive but useful sites. My additional suggestion: Smoke-Free World, which covers restaurants around the world as well. Also see their smoke-free casinos and bowling (!) pages.

3) ExpertFlyer
Barney Gimbel is hooked on ExpertFlyer, the pay service that lets you see (mostly) complete booking class information for each flight. Some alternatives to consider: First, AOW’s fare bucket class and seat availability page offers several free links to similar information. (The Travel and Transport link is a good all-purpose freebie substitute.) Second, FlyerTalk member KVS has written a widely-used piece of software that functions similarly to ExpertFlyer; he has three membership options, including a free trial. I’ve used it, and it’s quite powerful.

4) AvoidDelays.com
First pointed out by Rob at the Airline Hub, this site is run by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association with an eye toward helping you, well, avoid delays. It’s a nice looking site, and it points to some useful information, including the most delay-prone airports, airlines, and specific flights. But… a lot of the site’s statistics are way out of date. For example, the “worst offenders” page, listing the worst airports, airlines, and individual flights, relies on government data from May 2005! The Bureau of Transportation Statistics updates that information every month and posts it here. The information isn’t presented as slickly as the AvoidDelays site, but it’s much more up-to-date.

tags: travel | travel websites

Lydia Gordon of the New York Post is on the money with her critique of hotels’ failure to soundproof their rooms. My #1 complaint in hotels, of all categories, is noise. What good is a fantastic bed with a gazillion pillows if you can’t sleep because of a loud TV, an arguing or passionate couple, or a bevy of brats running up and down the halls screaming late at night?

Gordon names names — the Standard Miami and Chicago’s Peninsula and James hotels feature posh interiors but thin walls. If hotels were serious about soundproofing the walls between rooms, it would cost $1470 per room. A higher cost, to be sure, but rapidly recouped at higher end chains.

My wife and I were serenaded with slamming doors and hallway noise just this past Saturday night. And this reinforced my theory of hotel noise, and my one key addendum to the NY Post article: The Achilles heel of any hotel room remains the door.

The door is the crux on two counts: First, 99% of hotel doors slam shut with a metallic crash. Is there a way to dampen this blow, say, with a rubberized lining of the door frame? Even if the people next door don’t talk or use the TV, you hear their door when they enter and leave.

Second, the gap under the door itself allows an inordinate amount of hallway sound into the room, including the sound of other rooms’ slamming doors. (And often a bit of light, too.) I’ve blocked the door with a towel before, but this shouldn’t really be necessary. It’s as if the doors were built to glide over a 4-inch shag carpet. Every housekeeping cart, every parent scolding a child, and every other room door slamming shut — all these sounds enter your room through the poorly-constructed door.

Some hotels are coming up with half-baked solutions. Crowne Plaza offers “Quiet Zones,” which promise a quieter sleeping experience, but the program is still woefully misguided:

That’s not good enough. Inevitably, someone will suggest traveling with earplugs, and that’s fine, but I don’t think I’m off base in thinking that earplugs shouldn’t be mandatory for a night of sleep at an upscale hotel.

We’ve witnessed the hotel industry’s Bed Wars. Hopefully soundproofing is next. Bring on the Door Wars.

(image)
tags: travel | hotels | door wars | soundproofing

You’ve flown over it, now see it on the ground
Confirmed: Air Greenland to begin nonstop service from Baltimore to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland in May 2007.
Unconfirmed: Discounts for correct pronunciation of “Kangerlussuaq.”

Too many miles
Me, I get tense when I have too many miles in my account. Not only do the miles not earn interest, but I have the creeping feeling that airlines will devalue them. So my first thoughts, when I read that someone has amassed 31 million Delta SkyMiles: “This guy must be nuts.” Or lazy. Or maybe he really has been trying to cash ‘em in, calling and calling, trying to get those first class tickets to LAX… Saving for an award may make sense, but hoarding is foolish. Spend faster!

Synergy!
Airlines have been turning to NASCAR, and hotels have been training their staff with improv actors, so let’s turn it around: Car dealerships are taking service lessons from hotel chains like Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons.

More upgrades to premium cabins
Star Alliance member LOT Polish Airlines is upgrading their transatlantic business class seats.

More upgrade opportunities
Star Alliance is slowly rolling out mileage-based upgrade options across the entire alliance. United just joined the program, and you can now use United miles to upgrade flights on some Star Alliance members: ANA, Asiana, Austrian, LOT Polish, Lufthansa, TAP Portugal, and Thai. (Some airlines are joining within the week.) The catch: Your economy ticket has to be in Y or B booking classes — the most expensive, full-fare tickets. Business class tickets can be upgraded to first from C or D booking classes (not the discounted Z.) Still, a new option, and a new benefit.

Separate, not equal
Delta Airlines is moving check-in for BusinessElite ticketholders at JFK to a different terminal: Terminal 2. Economy-class riff-raff customers can continue to check-in at Terminal 3. The scoffing sound you hear is coming from Germany: Those seeking (or offended by) separation of the traveling classes should really get their pulse racing with Lufthansa’s dedicated First Class Terminal in Frankfurt, which features a chauffeured ride to the plane. Jetways are apparently for suckers.

tags: travel | airlines | hotels | Greenland

Canadian citizens now get to worry about their names appearing on two separate no-fly lists: Canada’s, and the United States’.

Canada’s airlines, voluntarily and against the advice of the Canadian government, have been using the American lists of banned passengers to screen their clientele — for domestic flights within Canada. Of all the products to import from the U.S., they chose this one?

The U.S. no-fly list is full of misspellings and false identifications. Though a “redress” procedure exists on the TSA website that allows the falsely-accused to seek removal, it’s still virtually impossible to be removed from the list.

Best of all, there have been recent complaints that the U.S. no-fly list has been especially good at falsely-categorizing… Canadians. Two Canadian members of parliament, with the astoundingly generic names “Bill Graham” and “Pat Martin” have been delayed at U.S. airports because their names were on a list. They might just start getting delayed at Canadian airports, too.

On the flip side, Canada’s own no-fly list is coming under attack for not being aggressive enough: Membership in a terrorist organization is not sufficient reason to be put on the list, as group membership is not “a demonstrable threat to aviation safety.”

The debate in Canada actually shows the absurdity of no-fly lists in general. Yes, we need to keep threats off planes, but isn’t that what the metal detectors and puffer machines are for? And if the person is a criminal suspect, then isn’t that what ID checks and arrest warrants are for? (Hardcore libertarians may object to showing identification to get on a plane, or to identification in general; I’m not one of them.) But no-fly lists create an opportunity for government abuse, by punishing individuals — and those innocent bystanders whose names are similar — without a trial.

The lists also allow agencies to categorize groups critical of the government as terrorists, and thus as threats to the flying public. Think I’m kidding? Sadly, no. I would bet good money that there are people, whose only “crime” is protesting the war in Iraq, on the no-fly list.

Which now means they can’t fly in Canada, either.

Update: Here’s another great reason to be wary of the watch lists: Denver’s local ABC news reports that Federal Air Marshals have a monthly quota of incidents to report, and that the FAMs have been making stuff up in order to meet the quota. Innocent passengers who do something like taking a photo while onboard could find themselves pegged a terrorist. Fantastic.

Update 2: Even the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security thinks the watch lists are a joke. He calls them “too vague” and a waste of agents’ time. Read on.

tags: travel | airport security | no fly list | Canada