chicagorich

As in:

So what is the fee for award travel between the 50 states..?

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TravellingMan

Wow! 20%. That must be a whole lot of liquidation going on.

For the NW award flights (which included CO/AF/KL legs) I booked/rebooked in the past weeks there were no "taxes" on award redemption......YET....

I am sure given the Aug 15th Delta deadline, they will come up with one to match it. Does this mean that AA will move its $5 charge to $25?

GUWonder

The distinction between: a) "* $25 for Award Travel between the 50 states and Canada"' and b) "* $25 for Award Travel within the 50 states and Canada?

tonypct

Bingo! Technically, that is still a question. At least the way the e-mail is written. But like I said earlier, I know what he means, he just didn't write it all too clearly.

tonypct

GU, that's what he should have written. I don't mean to come across like the English language police, but his e-mail really caused me some initial confusion.

HeathrowGuy

If that's what I asserted, it would indeed be stupid. But thankfully, it's not.

What many smart airlines have done over the years -- both in the USA and elsewhere -- is convert the variable cost of fuel into a fixed cost upon which additional good business decisions can be based.

Several years ago, more than a couple legacy executives scoffed at Southwest for opting to invest in fuel hedges and other arrangements to fix the airline's fuel requirements at a particular price point (I don't remember the exact price, but it was a point below $100/barrel).

Now while some legacy CEOs try to get legacy employees and legacy frequent-flyers to accept some undesirable "new reality" -- and those CEOs will likely succeed, because any lie or mischaracterization told and printed a thousand times becomes accepted as truth by some -- it's more or less business as usual at Southwest and other carriers who engaged in smarter business practices.

pbarnette

I think you have a choice of airlines, but they will all have the same fees, so it doesn't really matter.

Global_Hi_Flyer

So, the other question is whether DL will whack award inventory until Aug 15 to maximize fees.

Discuss.

TravellingMan

Nah. With the rush to beat the fees, just the hold time wait for someone in India to scour for award tickets would automatically do the necessary braking...

tomh009

I think it's a pretty good bet that not all airlines will have the same fare structures and loyalty programs. They don't today, and they won't in the future. As a business, you want to offer competitive differentiation, and someone will always be doing that.

As a consumer, you certainly have the choice between the SW model and the DL model, for example. Not the same thing -- which one is better for you, only you can decide.

pbarnette

And the "other carriers" in the US would be? Aside from WN, they all pretty much seem to be run by the Keystone Cops.

GUWonder

Language matters -- and I could definitely see how some others could read that as if DL were trying to apply fuel surcharges to just all international award ticket redemptions .... as if assigning a lower fee for Canada than for other international destinations. Sadly, it seems like DL is intent on making all -- domestic and international -- SkyMiles redemptions an additional revenue collection opportunity for DL.

chicagorich

Maybe they won't have to. What percentage of award tickets get flown as originally booked.? How many people book an award and then later call back to change dates, etc.?

Maybe this new fee (assuming that it also applies to award re-issues) will cause people to hang back and make award travel bookings closer to their dates of travel in order to minimize the chances of having to rebook for some reason.

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GUWonder

Well, if someone here wants to suggest DL is somewhat well managed, then how about looking at the amount of fuel that it hedges?

soitgoes

Yes, but since when did 'being a business' make one exempt from fair trade practices?

They've done screwy experiments with availability before. We'll see.