TIME TO SKI: Have you seen the snow in Colorado? That photo was taken in Crested Butte last week! Most slopes don’t open ’til the end of November, but Delta’s reduced fares on its nonstop B737 flight between ATL and Steamboat Springs/Hayden, Colo., for this winter. If you travel off peak in January, you can fly for just $258 round trip. That’s a remarkable deal for a flight that does NOT require a stop in Denver and then a drive up to the mountains. You land, get off the plane and you are there. (Compare that to ATL-Vail nonstops currently going for $350 roundtrip. Even Salt Lake is pricey in Jan…when we checked fares were close to $400 roundtrip. Denver’s running about $284 round trip.)
DELTA-AMEX CREDIT CARD NEWS: American Express is removing the 60,000-mile earnings cap on its regular Delta SkyMiles card, and the 100,000 Gold Skymiles card cap effective in February. (Platinums never had a limit.) That’s good news for those who are frequent flyers AND frequent spenders with accounts that could easily exceed 60,000 or 100,000 miles in a year. Speaking of Amex, have you heard about its new Premier Rewards Gold card? This is a great card for folks who spread their biz among several airlines (probably best stick with Delta SkyMiles card if you are Delta heavy). Anyway, the Premier Rewards card offers triple Membership Rewards points for every dollar spent on airlines, double points for gas and groceries, one point for everything else. Plus, you get a 15,000 point bonus for the first $1000 spend, and then another 15,000 bonus if you spend $30,000 in a calendar year. You can then turn around and convert those points into miles with Delta or 16 other airlines. Or, you can “pay with points” for a ticket on ANY airline, any time with no blackouts. Fee is $175, but waived for first year. Not bad! (Disclosure: We are engaged in a consulting project with American Express.)
(Get TICKET updates faster! Check out The TICKET’s Facebook Fan Page and become a fan! Please!)
BEFUDDLED BY THE BLACKBERRY? While your TICKET editor has moved along from a long string of Blackberries to the new T-Mobile MyTouch (the “Google phone”), I recall how good it felt to learn a new Blackberry trick, like clicking the N button to go to the next email, or preventing pocket-dialing with standby mode…Anyway, USA Today put together a really helpful article offering up some smart shortcuts. Be sure to see the tips offered up by readers in the article’s comments box. (Thanks to my travel blogger buddy JohnnyJet for sending this my way!)
SO LONG FSB. We’ve long enjoyed reading FSB-Fortune Small Business magazine (and actually did some freelance writing for it for many years) and were saddened to learn that Time Inc decided to shut it down last week. FSB was distributed for free to American Express Small Business cardholders and not sold in newsstands or by subscription.
<<<PLEASE ANSWER THIS MONTHS TICKET POLL! LOOK LEFT!<<<<<
CALL ME! This week Expedia eliminated the $25 fee it charged to speak to a human travel agent. All major airlines charge a $25 fee when you call, speak to a human, and this human actually books your trip. This means that if you’d like to call in your travel reservations instead of doing it online, it makes more sense to call Expedia (1-800-EXPEDIA) than to call the airlines. Go figure.
THEFT OF CHECKED BAGS. Now that airlines are charging us up to $100 round trip for the honor of checking out bags with them….this happens: Last week authorities in Phoenix busted a husband and wife team who would drive to the airport with a horse trailer, spend the day stealing bags off the luggage carousels and storing them on the trailer, then taking the hocked bags back to their house and selling the contents at weekend garage sales! Remember when airlines used to have guards stationed at baggage claim who matched bags with tags? That service was eliminated in airline cost cutting measures nearly a decade ago. Now that airlines are making tidy profits from their bag fees, they need to bring back the tag matchers…do you agree?
TINY NEW AIRLINE. Did you know that there’s a new airline flying between ATL, Macon and Athens? Each leg is just $39. Check out the Georgia Skies website here: .
(Get TICKET updates faster! Check out The TICKET’s Facebook Fan Page and become a fan! Please!)
STOCKHOLM. Delta will eliminate nonstops between ATL and Stockholm in March, but will still offer one-stop flights via JFK
MORE FREE WI-FI. This is getting crazy! Here’s yet another way to get free in-flight internet this winter: Now through Dec 31, all AirTran passengers that buy one in-flight Wi-Fi session will get their second Wi-Fi session free.
GO GREYHOUND. The bus is learning from the plane….did you know that Greyhound now offers bus passengers the option of paying a $5 fee to board the bus first and not have to wait in line with others? And on some routes in the Northeast, it’s offering free onboard wi-fi.
Don’t Forget! BOOK ALL YOUR ONLINE TRAVEL VIA LINKS FROM THE TICKET!
airtran.com | delta.com | Hotwire
Thanks Norman: That’s right, the platinum card does not and will not have any earning limit. In the past regular cards had a 60,000 limit; golds had a 100,000 mile limit. All three will offer unlimited miles starting in Feb according to American Express.
The posting about Delta-AmEx credit card may mislead some readers. The SkyMiles Platinum card has no limit on annual mileage opportunities. That applies (at present) to the regular SkyMiles card.
Bag matching-it held up getting out of the baggage carrousels in ATL, and just as the recent incident of that guy that had over 1000 bags hauled out in his trailer, if a thief is hell-bent on getting *your* bag, or any bag, he will find a way to do it, and a so-called bag matcher won’t deter him one bit.