Air Canada Begins Offering In-flight Wi-Fi from Gogo on Select Routes

By Darren MakWed, 11/18/2009 - 10:45

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Air Canada Wi-FiAir Canada has begun offering in-flight wi-fi access on some of its flights from Toronto and Montreal to Los Angeles (and vice versa). Like many other Airlines, now offering this service, it will be powered by Gogo, and I have to say I have heard nothing but good things about their offering.

The Air Canada website mentions that from now, until January 29, 2010 will be a trial period for this service, but I really have to wonder who came up with the pricing model for this? At $9.95 USD for a laptop, or $7.95 for a handheld device... I am not sure how many people are really going to take advantage of this service, while other carriers in the US have been lowering their prices, or finding sponsorships to offer the service for free.

Leaving the debate aside about whether one wants to be connected while in the air, this is a good first step, and hopefully this service will be be expanded to other routes to the US, and then those across Canada in the future! Currently the service is only available when flying over the US, as I believe it is a ground-based system.

It is also not clear at this point, if one can log in with their computer, and then with a handheld device, without having to pay twice. Something I think would make the cost of the service a little more palatable. Perhaps someone who has used the Gogo service on another carrier can answer that question?

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I Was Quoted in the Wall Street Journal

By Darren MakFri, 11/13/2009 - 21:38

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The Wall Street JournalI haven't yet shared with too many people that I recently went on a Frequent Flyer / Airplane Geek's dream trip to the USA and Europe to tour airports, airplanes, the Airbus Factory and Airline Operations centers with 200+ of my closest friends (that I had never met before). This Trip was called the Star Mega Do, in reference to the fact that we were being hosted by four members of the Star Alliance on this trip.

Darren in the CockpitI will be sharing more of my experiences over the days and weeks to come, but I wanted to share with everyone, one aspect of the trip that was kind of neat.

In addition to a crew from CNN, a Documentary Film Maker, and a Writer from Condé Nast Traveler Magazine, one of the people along on this trip, was Scott McCartney from the Wall Street Journal. He was a thoroughly enjoyable guy to spend some time with over the four days of this trip, and he wrote a great article entitled "A Travel Junkie Field Trip" which summed up what this trip was all about.

And hey, he even quoted me in the article...

Darren Mak, a self-employed Web-site designer, loves flying so much he looks for far-flung itineraries instead of direct flights to plump up mileage balances.

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US Airways Dividend Miles at Half Price

By Darren MakFri, 11/13/2009 - 21:02

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Dividend MilesIn keeping with today's theme of buying Loyalty Program miles or points, US Airways is currently running a promotion that actually is a great value. Basically they are offering to double the number of miles you buy from them, up to 50,000 miles.

So if you buy 50,000 miles at 2.5 cents per mile for a total of $1250 plus a $30 transaction fee, you will get another 50,000 miles for no cost. US airways is not the most lavish of airlines out there, but you can also redeem these miles for flights on other Star Alliance Airlines, making these miles a great value.

100,000 miles are enough to travel from North America to South America in First Class, or 80,000 miles ($1000) will get you from North America to Europe in Business Class on a premium airline like Swiss or Lufthansa.

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Starwood Offers Points at 20% Off

By Darren MakFri, 11/13/2009 - 18:41

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Starpoints I have never really understood why anyone would buy points in a loyalty program, as they are always very, very expensive. But I guess if you needed just a few more points for an award, it might make sense if you want to redeem that reward right away, or if you don't plan on earning points in that program the traditional way for a while.

So for those of you needing a few more SPG points to top-up your Starwood, SPG is currently offering Starpoints at a 20% discount for a limited time.

500 Starpoints is the minimum you can buy, at a cost of $14 USD instead of the usual $17.50, with a maximum of 20,000 for $560. You can theoretically redeem 7000 points at a Category 3 hotel for $196, or 12000 points at a Category 5 hotel for $336. This could possibly be a decent price for points at hotels which are chronically priced high, but likely you will be able to get a better rate just paying cash.

You can also take care of this offer to gift points to someone else, which I guess makes this an OK promotion if you were going to provide the points to someone as an incentive or something of the sort, but I am not sure how useful gifting perhaps 1000 points would be... but then again, that might be why I am not in charge of marketing for a hotel loyalty program.

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