A great amount of time has been spent complaining about Delta’s policy for international upgrades – that is, upgrades on a product with BusinessElite, where BusinessElite service is provided.  No real amount of change has been seen with this product.  The relatively recent addition to standby when an upgrade seat is not available at booking changes nothing – when it comes to the price of a ticket that is eligible for an upgrade.   What if a plan was ...

As part of my struggle to earn miles at the end of 2010, I wound up picking Lisbon as the second of my destinations.  I had never been to Portugal before, and I was looking forward to seeing how it compared to the rest of Europe that I knew so well.  KLM had decent flight prices, and it seemed like a good place for a weekend trip.  

The airport in Lisbon is small, and seemingly completely dominated by TAP Portugal.  Continental has daily service to Newark, and US ...

In December 2010, I was rapidly growing paranoid about my requalification to Diamond status on DL.  I was roughly 7000 miles short, so I pulled out the Great Circle Mapper and looked at options.  I knew that the easiest thing would be for me to use AF, KLM, or Alitalia to a hub and then connect to something further.  This can be somewhat of a problem, as when you are in the center of a map, getting far enough - in MQM terms - requires some work.  I ended up deciding ...

In late June, Matthew and I took a quick trip to San Marino.  For those of you unfamiliar with the location, San Marino is an enclave-state located in northeast Italy, just west of Rimini, and about an hour south of Bologna.  While it depends on Italy for almost everything, it is, in fact, an independent place.

We both got into the Bologna airport late in the afternoon, and Matt was able to hook up a very reasonable deal for a Renault at the Sixt car rental agency. ...

Berlin is, in my humble opinion, the city in Germany that has the most fun.  If it were not for atrocious unemployment (13.6% compared to a national average of 7%), I would certainly be looking for work there.  The crowd is diverse, the entertainment offerings are plentiful, the living is cheap, and the people are nice (Berlin is to Mother Teresa what Munich is to Pol Pot).  You can’t ask for much more.

The city was formerly served by three airports, and will soon ...

I wrote about Aer Lingus a while back, and a baggage issue that I had when I connected from DUB to MUC.  Do I deserve the money back for the bag that I paid for, but didn't check, because DL interlined the bag all the way through?  Absolutely not.  The rules are the rules.  Nevertheless, it never hurts to ask.  

The denial of a refund is no surprise.  What will likely keep me flying with Aer Lingus again, though, is the fact that it took 42 ...

As one might expect in a non-hub city, Munich's airport does not cater well to the SkyTeam world.  Terminal 2 is dominated by Lufthansa and Star Alliance - and the amenities are good.  The post-security shopping is ample, there are an ample number of restaurants and bars, good lounges (as will be covered in another post), and bountiful smoking "shacks".  Free newspapers and coffee are available to everyone at stations throughout the post-security area.

On the other ...

Lufthansa has a variety of offerings for the lounge-ready crowd at Munich Airport.  Terminal 2, which contains all of the Star Alliance airlines, in split into Schengen and non-Schengen areas.  In the non-Schengen area, there are three lounges: Senator, Business, and First Class.  From mid-May of this year until September, these lounges are undergoing renovation and are closed.  As I've never been involved with any Star airline on a long distance flight, I did not visit ...

For my Atlanta – Dublin flights, I needed a connection to the Munich airport.  The only non-stop options were Lufthansa and Aer Lingus, and there was no chance that I was connecting the night after a red eye, which I originally thought was going to be a short hop from Newark.  Considering that Lufthansa credits no miles for low fares, and their relatively high prices, I chose Aer Lingus for the flight.

Aer Lingus operates on a completely unique, hybrid model.  For ...

Deutsche Bahn has the potential to be an amazing service, and were it not for atrocious customer service, they would be.  Let's take a look at the various aspects of their operation.

Rewards

Bahn.Bonus is the rewards program for DB.  The usual accrual and redemption options are available through both DB and their partners, which are plentiful and diverse.  One elite status level exists - Bahn.Comfort.  Unlike most airline programs that accrue status by miles (as ...

I'll readily admit that I wasn't aware of the controversy with Saudi Arabian and SkyTeam until very recently.  I was reading the Delta Blog entry about fleet updates when I found a very curious post, which I thought was simply an anti-Semitic jab that they accidentally let slip through, and I took a screen capture thinking they would realise their error and reverse it.  Sadly, it was only the beginning of a great deal of controversy.  

Matt has done an excellent job of ...

No one on this site caught this besides me? Seriously?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/crime/detail?entry_id=91446&tsp=1

http://deadspin.com/5815428/this-month-in-great-quotes

Today, in a Senator's Lounge in Munich, I decided to chat up a cute-enough agent to try to get free Wi-Fi.  In the German Senator's Lounges, Wi-Fi is free to First Class and Hon Circle members, and pay access for everyone else.  T-Mobile runs the service, and it is priced much like it was when Delta, United, and American were charging for the service in the US.

Here's the conversation, translated from German:

Me: Hi there, gorgeous.  Is Wi-Fi free for Star ...

Delta has thrown up a cool web page showing the progress of all the amenity updates - flat bed seating, in-seat entertainment in Y, Wi-Fi, etc.  The link is:

http://www.delta.com/traveling_checkin/inflight_services/products/progress.jsp

Just five minutes ago, there was no link structure leading to this page, so it is likely brand new.

Interesting enough: the A330s are included in the monitoring for flat bed seating.

 

Update: See comments 1 and 2 below for a possible explanation of what happened here.

About six months ago, I posted about the use of DL SWUs on AF – allowing someone to buy a premium economy (Premium Voyageur) ticket on AF metal and upgrade into business.  This was notable because the premium economy prices were much better than DL’s Y/B/M fares, and there was generally “OK” availability in the upgrade bucket.  I was successful in getting my ...

Majnun (Arabic: مجنون): "madman"

It’s been a long time, folks, but today, I emerge from hiding and return to enlighten you with the stories of my travels.  It is no secret that I’ve been hiding overseas for a prolonged period of time.  I’ll remain here for a bit longer, but I’ll be home soon enough.

In the meantime, I’ll share regular postings about my experiences here, and further enlighten you on mileage strategies when you live ...

Let's finish this quickie, shall we?

Matt wrote a post about good cabin crews, but I'd like to add the finer points.  Let's start with where the good cabin crews are long gone:

Any mainline US carrier Almost all mainline European carriers

The times have changed, and we don't have weight quotas anymore.  A few too many of the crews took the weight limit removal as a license to get fat.  When I say "a few,"  I mean almost all.  ...

I know the ladies love a good quickie, so I'm back for two of them.  This post is the first.

Mike was nice enough to send me the following links:

Delta Airlines finds lost puppy Kitten freezes to death after Delta Airlines flight Army officer's dog lost by Delta Airlines ends up dead Delta Airlines and lost dogs

It's unforgivable the way Delta handles animals, but I've reached my limit with the apparent blatant disregard that Delta has for animal ...

Today, I saw a news report on CNN International about a Delta flight making an emergency landing in Colorado Springs because of an engine problem.  Lucky enough, only a couple of people were injured during the evacuation, which was instituted because of hot brakes.  I’m sure you are as shocked as I am that one of the old NWA 753 birds almost lost it in-flight.  Like anyone else might, I went to Google News to get a little more ...