On the downgrade side of the ledger, United Airlines has apparently altered the rules for award trips between the USA and South Asia when traveling via the Atlantic Ocean. Passengers are now limited to 4 segments on a one-way award or 5 segments each way on a round-trip award. That’s definitely a downgrade from the old rules, though it isn’t entirely clear just how many people were abusing the very loose routing rules and how this will affect the overall program. Still, unpublished downgrades are always disappointing and this seems to be one for UA.

On the upgrade side of things, there are several more stories to discuss. Delta is now just days away from having their extension to T4 at JFK opening up. Our whole crew met up at their pop-up model of the site in Lower Manhattan the other day to have lunch and get a feel for what the new lounges will feel like. Also, they’re giving away free passport holders, insulated cups and other cool toys and they have $4 lunch boxes available; I ate three of them so I could properly rate them for our listeners. The turkey & avocado sandwich is, not surprisingly, the best.

Also, American Airlines is giving away day-passes for the Admirals Club if you’ve got Klout. I have no use for this personally and they’re not the first to try this promo (Cathay did at SFO a while back) but it is a nice marketing effort.

Fozz has a bit of a trip report comparing AA’s 77W service with seat & meals on Air Canada and also with the in-flight wifi on United’s A320s. Sadly for him, none of them came away a pure winner, though AA mostly seems to be leading. Fozz also got to use the TSA PreCheck on his international itinerary, a new feature which only came into action in the past 10 days or so. Big win for travelers.

United announced more details on their plans to retrofit the seats on their Airbus planes and the news is mixed. On the plus side, they didn’t pick the crappiest option available for the Recaro Slimline model being installed. On the down side, no more channel 9 as there will no longer be any in-seat IFE on the planes.

And the 787s are back in the air. Ethiopian is flying already, United is putting them on the schedule for Monday and others are also updating their schedules.

Finally, as promised, details about how to win the Northface Recon backpack. There are two ways to enter the contest and each person is limited to two entries, one from each method. First up, leave a comment here and tell us what your favorite moment of our first year was. I’m guessing for many of you it will be when we decided to give you something for free, but maybe you’ve got something else in mind. It doesn’t actually matter what you write but it’d be nice to have something more than a generic “me, too” comment so try to be a bit creative. The second way to enter is to follow @PointsHoarder on twitter and include the phrase “Happy anniversary @Pointshoarder” in a tweet. You can add some other text, too, up to the 140 character limit, but that phrase has to be included. The contest is open from 1pm ET on 16 May 2013 until 11:59pm ET on 23 May 2013. At some point after that we’ll pick one winner randomly from all eligible entries and notify the winner. There may be some additional prizes too, depending on what I can find to give away in my box o’ airline toys. Good luck.

Show Notes:

• United TATL Award rule changes via FlyerTalk
• Delta’s T4X
• Admirals Club freebie/discount for Klout
• TSA PreCheck available on international itineraries
• Details on United’s new slimline seats
• You probably don’t want to fly on Air India

As best as I can tell there is no maximum on the number of points which can be earnt through this promo, other than the limit in the number of days between now and when it expires.

To enter the contest go to http://aa.com/klout and then click the button to link your Klout account to AA. It doesn’t appear to me that they get access to much of your account data through the link, though I’m honestly not certain. Then again, it isn’t like Klout actually knows much about me anyways…

Not a bad deal for a free pass.

American Airlines has announced their Elite Awards for 2013 and they’re accessible to more customers than ever. Not quite as squee-worthy as the attention they received, in my opinion, but still a nice benefit rolled out.

Alas, there were also a few cuts in the points world over the past couple weeks. All four major carriers in the USA have upped the change fee on domestic flights to $200 (AA was still holding out when we recorded but they since joined the others) and Hilton finally got around to cutting the value of their AXON awards which co-branded AmEx card holders have access to. Both rather significant downgrades, unfortunately. Not surprising, but still downgrades.

TSA PreCheck is getting a bit easier to figure out as Delta US Airways and United are now labeling boarding passes with the icon if the customer gets the faster screening. And Pakistan International Airlines is dropping their 5th freedom service between Chicago and Barcelona after a very brief effort to run that route.

Also, both Stephan and I took flights in Turkish Airlines‘ Comfort Class (premium economy) on the 77W in the past couple weeks and we offer up our comparative views on the product. Here’s a hint: it is comfortable.

All that and more in this week’s episode. Give it a listen and let us know what you think.

Show Notes:

• Change fees jacked up to $200 by American, US Air, United and Delta
• AA Elite Rewards are varyingly awesome, depending on who you listen to
• HH AXON devaluation sucks
• PIA drops ORD
• United gets more bigger regional jets

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or to the podcast feed.

The second significant bit comes for travelers looking to find award seats on Emirates flights. Thanks to the new partnership between Emirates and Qantas finding the seats is easier than ever. The Qantas website now shows the Emirates award options, and that means both searching and alerting on the award seats are easier.

Delta is changing their policy for same-day changes on flights and that has a number of people concerned. How bad are the changes and just who is winning or losing? You’ll have to listen to find out what we think.

We also talk about the recent banter between executives at Virgin America and United Airlines discussing the recent significant increase in capacity and decrease in fares between Newark and both San Francisco and Los Angeles. Is it inventory dumping or just a reasonable response to market demands? Probably a little bit of both, though each side sees it a bit more extreme.

Finally, Rolo and Seth discuss their recent experiences on the Thai Airways A380 in first class. Mostly agreement on the seat, service and food quality, though a few differences in the overall reviews.

Give the latest episode a listen let us know what you think.

Show Notes:

• Lion Air splash landing short of the runway at Bali
• Emirates award inventory now available on the Qantas website
• Delta’s new SDC policy – winners and losers
• Frontier launches service from Wilmington, DE for no apparent reason
• Legoland’s new hotel; sadly, no self-assembly permitted
• Sir Richard Branson says United isn’t playing nicely with Virgin America
• Earn airline points rather than (or along with, in some cases) hotel points with a couple new OTAs

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or to the podcast feed.

Hyatt’s change means that Diamond Elite guests now get a choice of 1,000 bonus points or a local F&B amenity upon arrival at all properties worldwide, not only in the US, Canada & Caribbean. More points is always good, right?

Delta’s change is a bit more controversial. The carrier is altering its policy for “same-day change” of plane tickets. Here are some highlights of the new policy:

• You can only be rebooked in the same class of service as your original flight.
• You may request a day-of-flight change any time prior to the departure time of your original flight
• Your requested flight is same-day confirmed eligible if the departure time(s) fall between 12am (on the same day as the originally booked ticket) and 2am (the following day) to account for overnight flights. 
• Award Tickets are same-day confirmed eligible.
• Origin, destination or co-terminal (LGA to JFK) changes are not same-day confirmed eligible.
• You can use the same-day confirmed option for travel within the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands on Delta and Delta Connection® flights.

And, of course, the fee structure:

Silver Medallion members, general SkyMiles members and non-members:

• $50 USD Same-Day Change Fee — If your requested flight is same-day confirmed eligible
• Applicable Change Fee — These fees vary based on your ticket and its fare rules, and will be due if you have a restricted fare and your requested flight is outside of same-day travel eligibility. Change fees are dictated by the fare rules.

Diamond, Platinum, and Gold Medallion members:

• $50 USD Same-Day Confirmed Fee Waived — If the requested flight is same-day confirmed eligible and falls within 3 hours before or after the original ticketed departure time.
• $50 USD Same-Day Confirmed Fee- If the requested flight is same-day confirmed eligible and falls outside 3 hours before or after the original ticketed departure time.

Delta’s new policy is decidedly middle-of-the-pack at best in terms of benefits for top elites. And the need for the same fare class to be available can be quite limiting, though United has a similar policy and mostly addresses that by opening up most fare buckets close to departure. This is going to be an interesting one to watch.

We also talk about new capacity at Narita and Trenton shutting down for a couple months, meaning Frontier has to cease operations during that time. Whoopsie.

I also managed to get a shameless plug for one of my new efforts into the show; check out Hack.Travel.

Show Notes:

• Alaska Airlines One-way awards now available on partners
• US Immigration and Customs goes digital with the I-94 forms
• FAA Loosen Restrictions on electronic devices
• Narita opens more slots – open an hour later
• Frontier suspending Trenton Mercer – rebuilding runway 9/9-11/8
• Emirates / Qantas partnership is alive
• Hack.Travel: A curated view of the miles & points blogosphere
• Sequester shutting 149 airline towers
• AA Livery still up for change; bankruptcy court approved merger

The catch is that you have to register first, book quickly and travel in the noted window. But, assuming that all works for you, the bonus points are pretty nice. rather than the typical 3x points per dollar TrueBlue members will earn 12x points per dollar with this promo, plus 3x for booking online:

Quadruple points are awarded on the base TrueBlue point offer only, meaning that Members qualifying for this offer will earn twelve (12) TrueBlue points per dollar spent on their individual flight. Members can still earn the three (3) bonus points for booking on jetblue.com, for a total of fifteen (15) TrueBlue points per dollar spent on their individual eligible Quadruple Points flight booked on jetblue.com.

It is also worth noting that there are some decent fares included in the sale, along with a bunch of black-out dates (4/8 – 4/22/13 for routes to/from BOS, PWM, PVD and BDL). Travel on Friday and Sunday is excluded from the sale per the T&C but I’m seeing some instances where the sale fares are available those days anyways, so I’m not so sure about that.

Anyways, it is a pretty aggressive promo and worth checking out if you’ve got spring-time travel still to plan.

Avis renters please note that AWD TUEA002 is invalid and your reservation will be cancelled, pls contact cust.serv@avisbudget.com asap.

— Avis Car Rental (@Avis) March 28, 2013

Yeah, that’s not going to work out so well after all.

Best I can figure, the fun started with a post on FlyerTalk. From there Mr. Pickles posted about it on his blog and then several others followed up with posts as well. The details made it over to Dan’s Deals and Slickdeals and then, not much later, died a rather unceremonious death.

Is anyone really surprised? I certainly am not. Pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered. And yet people still appear unable to control themselves.

There are eight routes where Elevate passengers will earn double miles on all flights. There are five additional routes which earn double points for the first two round-trips and triple points for additional flights. Here’s the list from Virgin America:

Reading the fine print on the offers I also see this little gem:

Bonus Elevate points earned in this offer will also qualify towards Elevate Gold or Elevate Silver status.

Yup, these bonus points count towards elite status in the Elevate program, too. That’s a nice little perk, especially given that status is achieved by spend, not distance flown. Halving the cost to get there is a nice deal, indeed.

With the recent partnership between Virgin American and Singapore Air this promo also opens up the possibility to get at the SQ awards a bit cheaper than otherwise. And that’s on top of the already decent rates they offer in some circumstances.