I’m going to start a post once every few weeks rounding up interesting news and links to articles and info that have caught my eye.
Clearly the big news for the week was the Qantas shutdown and Virgin Australia’s efforts at gaining further traction across all segments in the market as a credible Qantas alternative. If you weren’t travelling this week, Qantas’ shooting itself in the foot will have interesting outcomes for frequent flyers and points collectors as they try and attract business back to the airline and try to rebuild their brand.
And elsewhere..
This post on Australian Frequent Flyer outlining the American Airlines and Air Pacific plan to codeshare – meaning more local AAdvantage point earning opportunities, assuming the codeshare fares are competitive.
AusBT reporting on the Malaysian Airlines plans to fly an A380 to London from mid 2012
AusBT again on the launch of Air Australia – interesting quote from their CEO, Michael James on a potential frequent flyer scheme –
“We want to come up with a scheme where, say, you fly nine times and you get your tenth flight free” says Air Australia CEO Michael James.
Sounds like the Hotels.com Welcome Rewards approach where you receive a free night after 10 nights booked – to the average price of those 10 stays. Basically, a 10% discount on every booking for rewarding loyalty. If it’s implemented in a similar way it wouldn’t be a bad thing for Air Australia – and would keep their program simple (but pretty unhackable).
via AFF – Citibank’s planned downgrade to Qantas earn rates on their high-end Platinum card – not great news, and I’ll be trying to chase up Citibank to see if this will affect the CitiBusiness Gold Visa as well.
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