When do new elite cards get sent out?

I requalified for Priority Club platinum last month and they've already mailed the 2010 card to me. Most of my frequent flyer programs mail out elite cards only near the end of the membership year rather than when I've requalified. Sometimes they send them out too close to the end of the year and it doesn't arrive until after the following year has started - which can pose problems where partner lounges require sighting of the card as proof of eligibility (thinking of British Airways at London for example).

The oddest one I've come across so far, though, is Hilton HHonors, which used to mail out cards with an expiry date years ahead - ie assuming that you will keep requalifying. Which reminds me, I should get a new card from them soon.

2009 - A Year of Opportunities?

A little late, but here are my views on the travel landscape this year as it pertains to frequent flyers in particular.

The financial turmoil means flight and hotel bookings are way down overall, and particularly on some routes. As some bloggers have, correctly in my view, noted we can expect some good sales, and there are a range of other impacts.

First, the downturn in travel is uneven. Business travel will be much less than in recent years. This affects some aspects of travel more than others. Secondly, leisure travel is impacted through reduced discretionary spending.

What does this mean for savvy travellers?

Discounted fares and sales

Airlines that rely heavily on business travellers and premium leisure travellers will in general find 2009 hard. Expect sales and inducements to buy up to first or business class, particularly on certain routes most impacted. Normal wisdom is to book well ahead to get the best deals but this year year the reverse may be true. Not only are advance sales lower thus discounted fares will be available closer to departure than normal, but airlines will try to encourage demand through sales. Already some airlines have been offering last minute sales at very low fares.

Conversely low cost airlines may have less need for sales as people switch from perceived high fare full service airlines to perceived low fare reduced service airlines.

A similar logic applies comparing longhaul/expensive routes with shorthaul/cheap routes – demand drops on the former and may increase on the latter.

For some airlines or routes the impacts may be more subtle. People switching from business to economy travel may result in sales in premium cabins rather than the usual economy class sales.

Capacity reductions

Another airline response is to reduce capacity, through less flights and/or using smaller aircraft. This means schedules may change more than normal this year. For 2009 I’m being less aggressive on connection times and the long sequences of flights in a row that I sometimes do.

Frequent flyer status

Business travel is the bread and butter of many airlines. With business travel slashed, the airlines will be looking to retain as many customers as they can. So qualifying thresholds will not be increasing. It should be easier to get a status match, and frequent flyer programs may more readily requalify those who just fail to meet the requirements and/or fail to requalify but have a long elite history. Some FFPs may also offer inducements to their best customers to maintain the amount of flying – eg Air New Zealand has introduced a gift for a small proportion of top tier gold elite members based on a higher level of status earning.

Awards

As with discounted and sale fares it should generally be easier to nab awards in 2009, especially in first and business class. However, on heavy leisure routes it may be more difficult with people economising by using miles instead of cash to pay for their holiday travels. I also expect more awards to be available at short notice.

Will 2009 see Singapore Airlines finally making available their new/best first and business class on awards? Currently A380, 77W and A345 awards are not available in first at all, and only available in business class using expensive Kris Flyer awards.

Operational upgrades

Airlines should have less need to op-up passengers. However some exceptions come to mind. For example British Airways longhaul aircraft have a relatively high proportion of premium seats and some passengers who would have booked in business class choose instead to book into economy. Under pressure to fill seats and with more empty seats in premium cabins, airlines may oversell economy by more than currently, and on the more popular routes there may still be a reasonable number of op-ups required.

Upgrades

Mileage, voucher or complimentary status upgrades should be easier to obtain. Some airlines, such as Lufthansa, are managing op-ups by encouraging people at check-in to use their miles to upgrade.

Fees

In 2007 a number of airlines added new fees and increased existing ones to generate revenue. I see this trend continuing in 2008, but with perhaps more fee waivers for FFP elite members.

Packages

To try to induce demand there may be more extras thrown in for little or no cost to the air fares. Eg ground transport, cheap accommodation, sightseeing tours.

Hotels

Higher end hotels and those that normally do a lot of convention business will also be impacted. Expect more deals in 2009, and some hotels that haven’t yet opened may delay their opening until the economy improves.

Summary

I expect there will be lots of opportunities in 2009 for savvy travellers. However these will be much more in some areas than others. Those that adapt to the changed circumstances, and are the most flexible, stand to benefit the most.

Update on Accor A|Plus free status

Last year I blogged I had been offered gold status in APlus due to my old Sofitel Privilege membership, plus 500 free points.



It took a long time but the points were finally posted late last year. Unfortunately the status offer has been rescinded. It sounded too good to be true (free mid-level status when I hadn't even used my Privilege card) and so it has turned out. Easy come, easy go.



As with most other hotel chains they are trying to drum up business at the moment with bonus point offers.

Free Accor status

Accor is rolling out a new hotel stay program called APlus. It seems they are giving status of various levels to those who already have Accor Advantage Plus or Sofitel Privilege membership.

I have gotten free mid-level status with APlus, plus some bonus points thrown in towards requalifying.

A while back when I expected to stay at a Sofitel I signed up for the Sofitel Privilege program. This was free to join, and had a benefit of late check-out which I was after. As it happened I had to cancel my booking when an airline schedule changed, so I have no status or points with Sofitel currently.

I received an email offering to give me APlus Gold status for 1 year. You have to sign-up as if a new member. On the first page, enter promotional code "BONUS500" for 500 free points. These have already been credited for me, and they count towards requalification. On the second page there is a box to enter your old Accor or Sofitel numbers to link up with the status offer.

Voila! For 2 minutes work I will have (once they match up the membership numbers) mid-level status in APlus. Benefits include

• 75% bonus points
• a welcome drink and gift
• room upgrade at check-in (subject to availability)
• 4pm check-out

The emails to existing Accor and Sofitel members seem to have been slow to be sent - some received theirs several days ago. So be patient if you haven't yet received it. If you are an Accor or Sofitel member and don't receive the email by mid-October, I'd try signing up anyway at the AClub website.

Travel update

Sorry for the lack of recent blog posts. While I haven't had as much travel lately as normal (blame the need to stay in the country while my passport gets some visas for upcoming trips), I certainly haven't been grounded and have still been busy with travel-related plans.

I managed to rush through ticketing some trips that became "impossible" to ticket after the move to e-ticketing.

Star Alliance has a new member, Egypt Air, and so I have been checking how I can leverage that in an upcoming trip. There normally are some welcome to the alliance type promotions. Since I belong to many frequent flyer programs I can pick the promo that best suits my travel. Check out Flyer Talk's Star Alliance forum for more info.

In the middle of a couple of big trips later in the year, I've planned some side-trips to places I haven't been before and perhaps not so easy to get to. 2 of these are now ticketed and I have 2 more to sort out.

The Qantas frequent flyer program finally launched their response to Virgin Blue and Air New Zealand's any seat redemptions. My analysis is it is a pale imitation - awards are more expensive (some simple round trips are well over a million posts!) and yet Qantas will not allow any seat redemptions on the cheapest fares. The ability to flex the any seat award cost between points and $ is interesting, but worthless given the ridiculously poor value assigned to a point. There is also concern that less regular awards will be made available. Conclusion - the changes are good for small business owners who earn vast amounts of points from credit card spend and a yawn for everyone else.

A number of schedule changes have been made with varying impacts on my upcoming itineraries. The worst will have me spend 2+ hours in the middle of the night waiting for transfers to open up (the alternative was spending 3 hours landside with no amenities).

After a long absence I had some more domestic travel - by air and by train. I appreciated that the lounge staff (3 different cities for 2 airlines) had noticed my absence!

I've had to chase up several flights that have not been credited from earlier trips. The amount that failed to credit automatically added up to almost 100,000 miles so worth my spending some time following up.

I have decided (I think) to switch my hotel loyalty. I've been with Hilton a few years mostly as Diamond (and a couple of years as Gold). However the issues I had earlier in the year (see here for example), plus problems getting my earned status recognised, a total absence of promotions and terrible room rates at the hotels I usually stay at frequently; means it is no longer worth it to me. I still have to figure out how best to cash in my points while I still have some status (thus better award availability). In the meantime I requalified for Priority Club Gold in just 2 1-night stays and by my calculations should reach Platinum with another 3 or 4 nights, thanks to some decent promos.

More miles - 3 free tips

Sorry it has been a while since I last blogged here. It has been a busy travel month even by my standards as I have passed through 18 countries on 5 continents. When I travel I have more time to ponder and notice things - look for a few upcoming posts on this.

1) I got an email recently from AAdvantage offering miles to subscribe to some of their email offerings. These are the same offerings which I subscribed to last year (and got bonus miles for then), so it is worthwhile unsubscribing to stuff you don't need. The only catch is to unsubscribe after the promo period (in this case I've diarised for the 3 months subscription that is required to earn the miles). For a minute effort I will get a modest bonus, and the price sure is right.

2) Normally I stay in the same hotel chain where it is available because I struggle to maintain high (meaningful) hotel stay program status given my schedule (lots of overnight flights and same-day return trips) and the locations I visit (lots of places with no or few chain hotels). However, lately I've been staying in a few different chains due to location, cost and availability issues. So, what I have done is use these odd stays to credit to various lesser used frequent flyer programs (FFPs) as an easy way to extend the mileage expiry out several more months. For some of these frequent flyer programs I am yet to set foot on one of their aircraft but have almost enough for a basic award, again with just a bit of effort here and there to credit some hotel stays or pick up the odd promotion (such as surveys).

3) I have a lot of flights of many different airlines and so it can be hard keeping track of the frequent flyer miles, hotel points and status earnt. I spent an hour or so the other day reviewing 5 of my accounts which I had credited recently. The result - I found several uncredited flights (which will net me about 70,000 miles when they eventually post), some more flights were I was given too few miles (an extra 3000 miles have already been credited), a couple of flights were the miles credited seems too low (still being investigated by the frequent flyer program), 3 missed hotel stays (2 have credited already which requalifies my status in that hotel program), and another where they forgot to give me points for incidental spend. Not a bad return for an hour of my time (plus maybe some more chasing up). Although ideally these would all credit correctly in the first place. One account took me more time than the others to go through, because they had reversed and re-credited many transactions, and not always at the same rate which then meant more reversals and re-credits.

I'm still looking for an easier way to reconcile my accounts than the spreadsheet I currently keep. If anyone knows of software please let me know.