Online Travel Review

OTR Trip Report to Amsterdam

I know that there are a bunch of people out there who love to read highly detailed trip reports. God Bless Lucky over at One Mile at a Time - he's got huge readership, he's an incredibly bright guy, and if you're interested in 32 photos of the Diet Coke ...

Continental & United Introduce Unlimited (sort of) Domestic Upgrades

A quick one: Continental and United announced that they will be offering unlimited (ish) upgrades on domestic, Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America to members of each others' elite programs (a perk that Continental has long offered). In general, that's good news. Except if you're Silver (or possibly Gold), ...

Aeroflot’s Cheap Fares to Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran (!?), and More…

(Thanks to Flyertalk for the heads up) Aeroflot has a sale going on right now with some ridiculous fares to ridiculous locations. How ridiculous? Good question. How about $527 round trip to Tashkent, Uzbekistan from New York (all prices I'll list include taxes...) NYC - Tehran, $508; Cairo, $470; Damascus, $533; ...

Reviews of A380 First Class on Qantas, Singapore, and Emirates

Musings of the Global Traveller has a great post comparing 3 first class services on airlines flying A380s (Qantas, Singapore and Emirates). The reviews of the A380 service also include some useful tidbits about how to use miles to get those seats as well as some of the differences between ...

Top 5 Friday: Top 5 People You Don’t Want to Sit Next to on a Plane

We've all had miserable seatmates on flights, so I thought I'd share the Top 5 People You Don't Want to Sit Next to on a Plane: 1) The Catapulter. Stands up, grabs your seat for leverage, lets go, flings you forward like a slingshot. 2) The Yapper. Hi. Where you going? I ...

Is Someone Actually Thinking about Starting a New York-based Airline?

Based on this Craigslist job post and this thread on Airliners, it would appear that someone with a strong stomach is trying to launch an A320-based airline out of New York (former JetBlue exec?). Since it wouldn't really make any sense to throw more capacity to the West Coast (and ...

American Airlines Fires Employee Who Wrote Thoughtful Post about Website Design

You may remember a story a little while back about a blogger who posted a suggestion about how to improve American Airlines' website. He took AA to task (wrongfully, in my opinion, as website design in a large company is a complex issue), but made some interesting suggestions about how ...

Air Zimbabwe Plane Crashes into Pigs

An Air Zimbabwe flight from Harare to Bulawayo crashed into a bush pig (a small warthog-like animal) during takeoff last Tuesday, injuring several passengers and causing significant damage to the Chinese-made MA60 aircraft. Passengers reported that after the plane came to a stop, smoke began to fill the cabin and they ...

Top 5 Friday: Unique Routes Flown by US Airlines

With United's announcement yesterday that they will begin serving Accra, Lagos and Bahrain (the latter two being extensions of other flights), I was reminded how much I appreciate when an airline takes on a route that is un- or under-served. Today I bring the Top 5 Unique Routes Flown by ...

Best Credit Card Bonus Ever: 100,000 British Airways Miles

First, I have to thank Gary at View from the Wing for giving all of us dorks the heads up on this. Well done. The short version is this: Sign up for a British Airways Chase Visa and, after $2,000 in spend or balance transfer, you'll get 100,000 British Airways miles. ...