This week, our household received three credit card offers from Citibank, all for American Airlines AAdvantage credit cards. Each came with a different sum of bonus miles: 30,000, 50,000, and 75,000 miles. (Two of the envelopes were addressed to my wife, one to me.) Talk about mixed messages!

The 75K bonus (with $1,500 in purchases within 6 months) and a 100K bonus (with $10,000 in purchases within a year) first hit the inter-tubes about a month ago. I thought I had posted about it, but looking back, I didn’t. (Gary Leff was on the scene.)

This sort of deal usually doesn’t last long, but the fact that they’re sending it out to folks via snail mail (with an application deadline of October 31, 2010) and not just electronically suggests that it has some legs.

Some caveats/warnings: 1) If you can’t manage your credit, stay away from these cards. It’s not worth messing up your finances for a chunk of miles. 2) The cards have an annual fee, but it’s waived the first year. You can collect the bonus and cancel the card before the fee kicks in, but you’ll need to likely need to hold the card for 8 to 10 months after qualifying for the bonus in order to receive the miles. And 3) choose the right card. If you’re not going to spend $10,000 on a card in 12 months, don’t sign up for the 100K mile cards.

But, caveats aside, and in the interest of beefing up your mileage accounts, here are the links, via Gary.

75,000 miles after $1500 in purchases within 6 months, no fee the first year:

• 75,000 mile bonus: Visa
• 75,000 mile bonus: Visa Business
• 75,000 mile bonus: American Express (issued by Citi, not Amex)

100,000 miles: 50,000 miles after $750 in purchases within 4 months, and another 50,000 miles after $10,000 in purchases within 12 months, no fee the first year

• 100,000 mile bonus: Visa
• 100,000 mile bonus: Visa Business
• 100,000 mile bonus: American Express (issued by Citi, not Amex)

American Airlines is adopting another fee, which they’re calling “Express Seats.” If you’re willing to pony up $19 to $39, depending on length of flight, you too can sit in the front of the economy section, including bulkhead seats, without being an elite level frequent flier. The option is available only for U.S. domestic travel, and only from self-service airport kiosks.

Many airlines have been selling “premium” seats in the economy cabin for years. Northwest (pre-merger with Delta) started selling selected seats at the front of the economy section back in 2006. And United has sold Economy Plus upgrades for most of the past decade. (Though those seats have extra legroom, which is a bit more “premium.”) So selling seats isn’t entirely new.

The only real twist on existing “premium” seat reservations is that paying the new AA fee bumps you up to boarding group 1. You’ll not only sit toward the front of the bus, but you’ll be assured of space in the overhead bins and can be among the first to board and exit the plane. And that’s how the airline is spinning this: It’s a speed premium, not a comfort premium.

The real losers here are the elite-level AAdvantage members who used to be able to pre-reserve these seats for free. Those passengers will have to sit a little further back now. The airline promises to leave a similar number of seats available for the frequent fliers, but they just won’t be the same seats. If you were a gold, platinum or executive platinum AA flier and a fan of bulkheads, this is definitely a downgrade.

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Upgraded: Inflight wifi subscriptions
Gogo Inflight (aka Aircell) is making its monthly subscriptions for inflight wifi applicable across airlines — Air Canada, AirTran, American, Delta, US Airways, and Virgin America, to name a few. They’re also introducing discounts: For $19.95 in the first month and $34.95 each month thereafter, it’s all-you-can-surf pricing. I like. I like a lot.

Upgraded: Pilots on the edge
Upgraded: Headline writing
Great headline for a post: “United Pilot Loses Cool, Pants.” Poorly-played, trouser-dropping United pilot. Well-played, BlackBook!

Upgraded: Smaller airports near large cities
Downgraded: Methodology
CheapFlights has released their list of the “cheapest airports” in America, and some smaller airports near(ish) larger cities are on the list. Burbank, Long Beach, Bellingham… no huge surprises. But these lists are perpetually flawed… who edited this thing? Chicago-Midway, Chicago-O’Hare, and Chicago-All Airports on the same list?! The “CHI” code doesn’t really count, guys…

Downgraded: Travel insurance in the UK
If you’re planning to buy travel insurance in the UK, prepare to pay an “ash tax.” Yes, a surcharge to cover prospective volcano ash delays and cancellations.

Upgraded: The ubiquity of opaque bookings
Expedia, which owns Hotwire, will be integrating Hotwire’s opaque (i.e., unnamed until purchase completed) hotel supply into the regular Expedia sales channel. Travelocity added “top secret hotels” back in March. I guess it’s Orbitz’ turn next?…

Upgraded: Yada, yada, yada
Remember the “YADA,” the roving check-in unit being tested by American Airlines last year? It’s coming to LAX.

I sure didn’t see this one coming… American and Jet Blue have signed and interline agreement and will cross-sell each other’s flights in and out of Boston and New York-JFK. Notably, the airlines are not codesharing, and it’s a northeast operation, with no love for California or Florida.

The relevant quotes from the release:

The partnership will focus on routes into and out of JFK and Boston Logan International Airport that extend and complement each others’ networks. For example, it would provide seamless service for customers who wish to fly nonstop from Nantucket to JFK on JetBlue and from there to London on American. Likewise, customers can board American from Paris to JFK and connect to a nonstop flight on JetBlue to Burlington, Vt. JetBlue customers will be able to effortlessly connect on flights to 12 of American’s international destinations from JFK and Boston including Barcelona, Spain; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Tokyo, Japan.
[...]
Customers of both airlines are expected to benefit from improved connections, while each airline will see additional customers fed into their networks. None of the routes on which the airlines will cooperate overlap current flights served by the other. The agreement will provide connections for more passengers at JFK and Boston to American’s international destinations in Europe, Asia, and South America. It also will generate more traffic and support for American’s planned joint business with oneworld partners British Airways and Iberia between North America and Europe, and with Japan Airlines between North America and Asia.

What makes this especially unexpected is JetBlue’s recent moves toward Lufthansa (which is a part-owner of JetBlue) and AerLingus.

It appears that my early thinking — that JetBlue would start moving toward bigger partnerships and perhaps even alliance membership — may be wrong. It looks like JetBlue is willing to make ad hoc agreements with anyone, but it’s clear that they’re branching out to create more of a global network.

Will JetBlue flights count toward AAdvantage? Vice versa? If so, it will be an interesting question how the programs, which function very differently, reconcile.

Stay tuned.

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Both American and United have expanded their paperless boarding pass programs within the United States in the past week. If mobile boarding basses are your cup of tea, you’ll be able to check in wirelessly and receive an e-mail containing your boarding pass, which is scanned right off your phone at the gate.

American’s announcement brings their count of cities to 27 airports. United’s count is thirteen. Continental is still the leader, with 48 airports (including 2 overseas, in London and Frankfurt.) The TSA’s website lags reality, it seems, listing 43 airports in the US currently participate, across all airlines.

The expanded service is being pitched as a convenience to customers. And it is convenient, if you’re not able to print your passes. But be sure to save that e-mail or text message on the phone: If your miles don’t post, you’ll need to find a way to print that message to prove you actually took the flight.

This is only available at those airports where both the airlines and the TSA are linked up and able to scan the boarding pass. That’s what’s really holding this up from more widespread adoption nationwide.

Taking the convenience equation out of the picture for a moment: For you to move through security with one of those mobile boarding passes, you need to have it scanned by TSA first. What bugs me about this is the TSA’s involvement in the equation makes “revenue protection” the U.S. government agency’s job, in the name of security. (As I’ve argued ad nauseam, checking ID’s and passes does nothing to make you safer; true airport security does not hinge on holding a boarding pass or having an ID.)

This will be more and more widespread, going forward. But it’s still not truly widespread in its adoption — yet. In a reader poll back in November, 38% of readers had used a paperless boarding pass. That’s pretty high, but let’s face it, the readers of this site are highly travel-savvy, frequent-fliers. The general flying public is far less likely to have gone paperless. But not to worry, that will change.

It’s a good-news/bad-news scenario. American Airlines’ regional carrier American Eagle is upgrading the interiors of its Canadair CRJ-700 regional jets, to include 9 first-class seats. 25 existing planes will be converted; 22 new planes are on order. All are expected to be online by July 2.

Putting a first-class cabin on regional jets puts them more in line with the “exPlus” product United has been offering on its larger regional jets for a few years now. (No Economy Plus, though.)

It’s a good thing for upgraders. And the economy seats on the newly-delivered planes will eke out an additional inch of legroom, due to slimline seats.

That means new upgrade opportunities, yes, but… American is removing mainline aircraft — the ones with real first-class cabins — and replacing them with CRJs.

And some of those routes, especially from Chicago, are high-density:

American Eagle will offer First Class service from its Chicago and Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) hubs. From Chicago, customers will experience First Class service on flights to Atlanta, Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., Newark, N.J., George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City. From DFW, customers can fly First Class to Cleveland, Milwaukee, Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Bentonville/Springdale, Ark., and Little Rock, Ark.

Atlanta? DC? Newark? Yikes. It’s getting harder and harder to avoid regional jets.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it’s great that the CRJ product is being improved, and this sounds like a meaningful improvement. On the other hand, CRJs are inferior to mainline: more likely to be canceled, more prone to turbulence, smaller overhead bins, no ovens (for the first class peeps)… the list goes on.

At least there will be hot nuts!

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