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I don’t give a lot of specific fare deals on this site, since others (here and here) are more closely watching fares than I ever could, but this introductory Delta fare is just too good not to mention.

Commemorating their new New York-London route (which they recently purchased from United Airlines), Delta has great deals across the pond.

For travel between New York-JFK and London-Gatwick:
$199 ($303 with taxes) for roundtrip economy-class
$999 ($1141 with taxes) for roundtrip business-class

$1141 roundtrip is cheaper than anyone else in business class, including Maxjet, for the dates I checked.

The fine print: Buy tickets by September 7. Travel may begin November 15, 2006 through March 21, 2007. All travel must be completed by April 20, 2007. Blackout Dates: December 15, 2006-January 7, 2007. Saturday night stay required and 30-day maximum stay.

Of course, seats are limited, etc., etc., etc., and this will require a bit of hunting to find dates that work, especially for the business class fares.

Also, Delta has branded these flights Delta 001 and Delta 002. I guess that makes this the new flagship service?

(image)

Eos, Maxjet, Silverjet, MiMa… and now Elysair.

A new French carrier is planning to launch premium transatlantic flights by the end of the year using an ex-Condor Boeing 757-200.

Paris-based Elysair says that France’s civil aviation administration DGAC is “in the process” of delivering its French air carrier operating licence and air carrier certificate, the airline having fulfilled the necessary economic criteria.

At least you won’t have to connect in London…

tags: travel | Elysair

John Mark Karr, the recently-extradited suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey killing, flew back to the United States from Thailand yesterday. In business class.

I don’t know who paid for the ticket on Thai Airways — the Boulder police? The Department of Homeland Security? The U.S. embassy in Thailand? But there may have been method to the madness of putting a suspected killer into the premium cabin:

Some experts called the royal flight treatment a brilliant strategy intended to get the suspect relaxed enough to talk more.
“There is always a reason when the unusual happens,” said Denver attorney Larry Pozner, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Well, it sounds like he didn’t say anything of note.

The news reports are describing the onboard service in excruciating detail, making it into an infomercial of sorts for the Thai airline’s nonstop flight to L.A. Consider the Associated Press description:

Before takeoff, Karr took a glass of champagne from a flight attendant and clinked glasses with Spray, who sipped orange juice. Karr first dined on pate, salad, fried king prawn, steamed rice, broccoli and chocolate cake. He also had a beer — crushing the empty can with his hands — and then had a glass of French chardonnay. […] He later dined on roast duck with soy sauce and yellow noodles, and for his third meal had pizza, chocolates and a bottle of Evian.

Obviously, the level of detail is meant to enrage the reader, but it’s making me hungry…

(image: AP)
tags: travel | John Mark Karr | JonBenet Ramsey | Thai Airways

A short write-up of around-the-world ticket options in the New York Times today, while generally good, left out some important options.

- Branch out. The article advises checking with the 3 big airline alliance websites (Star Alliance, OneWorld, and SkyTeam) to see flight options. That’s great, but don’t limit yourself to the alliances alone. Some airlines have side agreements outside their alliance that may be appealing, such as the Emirates/United round-the-world ticket.

- Talk to a travel agent. While many airlines can sell you the ticket, it’s often easier to deal with an agent for this kind of thing. Not every airline customer service rep knows the minutiae of round-the-world ticketing. I’d even suggest you talk to more than one travel agent, to compare pricing, routing, and heck, personality.

- Start in Sri Lanka. If you’re going around the world twice or more, consider buying the second (and third, etc.) ticket someplace like Colombo, Sri Lanka. I’m not kidding. You can buy a business class RTW ticket there for about the same price as a coach RTW ticket in the US or most of Europe, on the same airlines. The article mentions this, but it’s really worth driving home.

tags: travel | RTW | round the world tickets

Flying in first class for the price of coach is a beloved subject with this blog’s readers. But reader Alan F. correctly points out via e-mail that I duplicated the Wall Street Journal’s mistake in my two earlier posts on the subject of Y-UP and Q-UP fares (here and here). I erroneously called these fares coach fares with an automatic upgrade to first. They’re not. They are first class fares, period.

The confusion arises because they have a fare code (e.g., “QUAUP”) that starts with an economy-fare letter, “Q.” But the booking code for these fares — the single-letter category the fares fall into — is actually a first-class code, such as “F” or “A.”

So who on earth, beside Alan F., cares?? Why would this matter? At least two important reasons:

1) Some travelers are reporting that they’re not getting seats in first on these fares. They get to the gate and are handed an economy boarding pass, with the comment that their upgrade didn’t clear. What upgrade? They bought a first-class ticket, so an economy boarding pass is a downgrade.

2) Miles, miles, miles. If you buy a first-class ticket, you earn more miles, both redeemable miles and elite-qualifying miles. Make sure you get what you paid for.

This business of the fare code vs. the booking code is silly. It confuses passengers and staff alike. I don’t know if it’s done this way by design or neglect. Or maybe there are travelers who like it this way. I could imagine a company’s accountants, whose job it is to enforce a “no first class travel” policy, not recognizing a Q-UP fare as a first class fare. Anyone?

tags: travel | upgrades | first class

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

Taking a cue from the introduction of all-business class airlines like Maxjet and Eos, and supplementing that concept with some addiction-enabling, German entrepreneur Alexander Schoppmann is starting up an all-smoking luxury airline.

The BBC reports that Smintair, short for Smoker’s International Airline, hopes to launch flights between Dusseldorf and Tokyo using leased 747s configured with only 30 first class seats and 108 business class seats. No economy seats.

Trying to emulate a “grand hotel” atmosphere from the 1960s, smoking will be allowed throughout the plane, with the upper deck turned into a lounge.

While smokers might value the opportunity to light up on a long flight, the airline is bizarrely pitching itself to non-smokers as well:

Non-smokers will find the cabin air more refreshing than on any other flight with any other airline, as SMINTAIR adds fresh outside air to the conditioning system! This is more expensive, as it burns more fuel, but it is seen as an additional service to our guests.

Yeah, sure, nonsmokers will really love that tiny bit of outside air that’s mixed with 138 chain-smoking travelers. Hilarious!

A deceptively simple question, without a simple answer. For starters, not all upgrades are the same. There are the “unlimited free domestic upgrades” for elites at Continental, but good luck getting them on a popular route, especially if you’re not an ultra top-tier frequent flyer. There are the electronic certificates (e.g., at United Airlines), which improve your chances if you’re a low-rung elite, but you still need to sweat it out, often at the gate. Then there’s the option of using miles. But how successful are travelers at actually GETTING the upgrade?

To really answer the question, we need empirical data, which the airlines are not about to volunteer. A few websites are stepping up to the plate, but they all have a way to go:

UpgradeSuccess.com is building a searchable database of upgrade requests and their successes and failures for the major US airlines. The data are still pretty thin (Northwest has the most data, with just under 1000 flight segments) but the site has an option for sorting the results by elite status. If there were more flights entered into the system, it might be nice to sort by flight route, too.

Looking more globally, WebFlyer maintains an index for both award tickets and upgrades, ranking the airlines in both aggregate and monthly terms. But they don’t tell us how many segments have actually been entered. (n=??) Looking at Webflyer’s May upgrade data, there are only three airlines listed, with Air Canada showing 0% and American showing 100%. I’m pretty sure that Air Canada’s flyers are doing better than that, and American’s are doing worse. The site also collapses domestic and international flights, so you’re comparing domestic U.S. upgrades to first class with, say, trans-Pacific upgrades from coach to business class. (The latter is much more desirable than an upgrade from Chicago to Detroit.)

Both of these sites can only function with your help. So go, enter your segments! Tell them when you tried to upgrade, when you failed, and when you succeeded. Improve the data. It’ll be doing everyone a public service, and maybe in a year or so we can empirically say which airline is best for upgrades. At least for that year.

tags: travel | air travel | upgrades | first class | business class

I realize I’m late to the game here, but I just found out about this minutes ago: If you book a flight on all-business class Eos Airlines by midnight tonight, you get another ticket for free. Payment must be made with American Express, and you earn 4x Membership Rewards points. ANY fare level is eligible, but you have to CALL Eos **tonight**. It’s a Father’s Day promo, and you need to request it. Sorry for the short notice. (Edit: FARE GONE.)

Eos not your speed? Prefer the less swanky but still comfy Maxjet all-business class flights instead? We got a deal for you, too…

New York JFK or Washington Dulles to London Stansted:
$1199/£699*roundtrip, including all taxes and fees

Book between: June 12,2006 and July 14,2006
Travel between: September 15, 2006 and November 10, 2006

Book on maxjet.com and use Promo Code: FALL06

Hey, it’s not the $499 roundtrip business class fare from early May, and it’s too bad the $1199 fare isn’t good for summer, but it’s still a great fare for business class.

tags: travel | air travel | business class | Eos Airlines | Maxjet

A few years ago, Warren Buffett assessed the airline business this way:

…if a capitalist had been present at Kittyhawk back in the early 1900s, he should have shot Orville Wright. He would have saved his progeny money. But seriously, the airline business has been extraordinary. It has eaten up capital over the past century like almost no other business because people seem to keep coming back to it and putting fresh money in.

Sure enough, fresh money is coming into the business.

Silverjet, the latest entrant (alongside Maxjet and Eos) in the London-New York all-business-class space, successfully raised £25 million (approx. US$46.6 million) in an IPO. 75% of shares went to institutional investors, with management retaining 19%. While funding does not guarantee that the airline will actually fly, it’s certainly far more likely.

The company’s goal? To “offer passengers ‘the same level of service as EOS but at the same price as Maxjet.’” Flying from the London-area Luton airport, served primarily by discount airlines, Silverjet promises speedy check-in, as late as 30 minutes before departure.

Unlike Maxjet and Eos, Silverjet states that it plans to expand outside the transatlantic space:

The airline has already identified 30 routes that would suit the airline’s business model and started the licensing process for three long-haul routes outside North America.

We’ll be watching. But, perhaps like Warren Buffett, we won’t be buying the stock.

(Updated August 6, 2006; original text is crossed out, corrections follow in text. Reason for update is here.)

Last week we discussed coach tickets that automatically upgrade actually book into first class (usually Q-UP or Y-UP fares; Z fares book into business class on three-class or international flights). (Updated August 6, 2006: Q-UP and Y-UP fares are first class fares, NOT economy fares with an upgrade. A minor distinction, but an important one in case your flight gets overbooked, or if a gate agent tries to tell you your “upgrade” was denied. See here.)

The folks at FareCompare have come up with two useful tools for finding discounted first class fares. First, they offer a Q-UP and Y-UP fare list for U.S. cities. This link will take you to the y-up (or equivalent) fares for Chicago; change the departure city at the top of the page.

Even better, they offer a handy guide (PDF) for booking Q-UP and Y-UP fares on the airlines’ websites. (Citing problems with the airlines’ homepages, they refer you to Expedia.com instead for USAirways and Delta.)

I’d add a caveat: Some of the discounted first class fares their methods find are nonrefundable first class. For example, a United QUAUPN fare is nonrefundable; a QUAUP fare can usually be refunded.) The fare without the N at the end might just cost a few dollars more (single digits) but it offers much more flexibility. You may need to pick up the phone to buy the refundable version.

Washington to London for $499 roundtrip in business class??! It’s true. If you can leave Washington-Dulles on May 6, and return from London-Stansted May 7, 8, or 10, all-business class Maxjet will take you. Apparently valid on these dates only. I just checked, and seats ARE available. Go to the Maxjet homepage, and be sure to enter the promotional code “MADMAX” before clicking “next.” But hurry, these fares are likely to sell out faster than you can say “Independence Air.”

via FT