August 2008
13 posts
WatchBreaking up with United Airlines: By Steve Hofstetter
1 tag
Choosing The Best Credit Card Reward Program
I just stumbled across the Credit Card Tune-Up tool that helps frequent flyers determine what credit card reward program fits best with their spending habits. You provide an estimated monthly budget and then it will calculate the best cards for you to get based on your first annual reward accumulation. It will also tell you if your cumulative award balance would be higher at year’s end by...
Stop Ignoring Hotel Loyalty Programs
As of late, I’ve been blogging a lot about the airlines: fee increases, bankruptcy updates, loyalty program restrictions, and more fee increases. Obviously, the airlines are arguably the most important component of travel - since the first thing most of us do is book a flight.
The second thing we usually do is book a hotel room. So why isn’t there more discussion surrounding hotel...
United and Frontier...More Cutbacks and Fees
Travelfli is headquartered in Colorado so we pay specific attention to United and Frontier, since they each have a hub at Denver International Airport. Both airlines made important announcements this week that will affect their customers, particularly frequent flyers in Frontier’s case. Here’s the latest:
Frontier is the latest airline to succumb to the trend of monetizing their...
United Introduces "Award Accelerator"
United’s Mileage Plus Program just launched “Award Accelerator,” which allows frequent flyer members to pay for double or even triple miles on a flight. At first glance it seems like just another way to extract more money out of travelers, but after a quick review, we’ve determined that it could be a good way to pick up some extra miles if you are close to an award level.
...
Demo Day is Over....*Sigh*
Yesterday marked the climax of an amazing summer at Techstars when all 10 companies demoed their products for about 150 investors and Boulder community members at the Boulder Theater.
It was an emotional day for all the teams because it marked the end of the program and the end of an incredible experience. However, it also marked the beginning for many teams that will go on to build successful...
Dan Vorlage of Frontier Airlines Joins Travelfli
Travelfli is excited to announce that we have a new addition to the team. Dan Vorlage, the former Senior Director of Marketing and Sales for Frontier Airlines, is consulting with the airlines and other loyalty program partners on our behalf in order to establish and maintain working relationships with them to cut our costs and provide a more reliable service to our customers. He will also be...
Houston Resident Wins 21 Million Continental Miles
In celebration of the 21st birthday of Continental’s OnePass frequent flyer program, they awarded 21 million miles to one lucky frequent flyer.
Bill Shiver, a Houston resident (and apparently and exceptional poker player), took home the grand prize after winning the Texas Hold’em Poker Tourney at the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino in Vegas.
So what does 21 million Continental miles...
Travelfli Update
I wanted to take a detour from our regularly scheduled travel news to give you a brief update on the status of our company — and more importantly, information on when you will be able to get your hands on our tools!
Introducing…. We were very fortunate to bring on two additional full-time team members this last month. They are both killing it and helping us move faster (the unofficial...
Open Skies Opinions
The Open Skies agreement, which allows European and American airlines to fly freely between the two continents, has been operational for several months. As a result, a handful of European airlines have announced new routes between the US and the EU. The most recent announcement comes from British Airlines subsidiary OpenSkies Airline with a new premium route from Amsterdam to New York. Starting...
Kayak & AA...One Tough Divorce
If you’ve been following travel news, you probably already know that Kayak and American Airlines are having a lovers quarrel. But before I dive into this mess, here is a brief explanation of how Kayak operates (for those of you who don’t know).
Kayak aggregates fares from all of the other online travel agencies (OTA’s) as well as the airlines themselves. As a result, they are...
Read This Before You Sell, Buy, or Trade Miles
Travelfli is tackling some of the major issues distressing frequent flyers today. However, when we pitch our company to others, they invariably suggest that we also tackle another huge problem for frequent flyers. Namely, figure out a way to allow people to sell, buy, and trade their miles.
As soon as this topic arises, we all start to shake our heads slowly. Believe me, we’ve looked into it. And...
Happy Happy! Joy Joy! Frontier is baaaack!
I know this is a couple of days late but my company has been in a bit of a cave due to the impending Techstars pitch day.
However, please don’t misjudge my tardy posting as a sign that I don’t care about this new development, because this is the BEST NEWS IN THE WORLD!!!! Frontier Airlines, my all-time favorite airline that operates out of Denver, Colorado, has been given another...