While BMI is nearly gone, it is still taking membership applications for its loyalty program, Diamond Club.  Creating a new account with voucher code “1JA1KD” yields 1k bmi miles that can be transfered to Avios.

I’m a bit late to the party, but Online Travel Review noted yesterday that Icelandair is having a 20% bonus on purchased points until September 28th.  30k Saga Club points (25k base + 5k bonus) can be purchased for 39,500ISK (including a 2000ISK processing fee).  Based on recent foreign exchange rates, this is roughly $331 assuming one uses a credit card with sane forex rates.

While this doesn’t sound like especially exciting news, Icelandair has some gems in its partner award chart.  Alaska Airlines roundtrip itineraries can be obtained for 20k Saga Club points in coach or 30k Saga Club points in first, in addition to a $40 or so fuel surcharge.  Further, while the award chart states “continental US,” there’s been quite a bit of success in booking itineraries with connections under 4 hours for travel all the way to Hawaii.

I would deem this deal as not long for this world, but it appears that Icelandair is well aware of the attention their point sale and award chart is getting.

This year, I’ve largely shifted my New York-San Francisco/Los Angeles trips to American as I’ve been greatly enjoying a phenomenal complimentary upgrade rate.  With my booked September travel completing my Executive Platinum re-qualification, I’ve begun to switch my attention to United.

For most of my travels, I’ve been departing out of Newark and La Guardia for reasons of destination, price, schedule, and the eligibility for complimentary upgrades.  Last weekend, I was flying to San Francisco on p.s.  In an effort to conserve my upgrade instruments, I had confirmed an upgrade for myself only on my redeye return.  Nonetheless, my flight was oversold in coach so I was able to pick up an operational upgrade to business class.

United 397
New York Kennedy (JFK) – San Francisco (SFO)
Saturday, August 4th 2012
Depart:  8:18AM
Arrive: 10:53AM
Duration:  5 hours, 35 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 757-222ER (N517UA)
Seat: 11C (Business Class)

For now, the hard product on p.s. is unchanged, although it is due to adopt the Continental lie-flat business class product and lose its first class cabin late this year.

My seatmate was no where to be found until two minutes before the door closed, so I wound up using his seat as my example of a business class seat (as I had already settled in and thrown my pillow and blanket into the overhead bin):

Sadly, the “new” United has “aligned” its on-board products including its menus.

Thanks to “alignment,” the menu looks unsurprisingly similar to my Newark to San Francisco flight in May in format.  While the “p.s.” designator is mostly just another marketing term (American uses the word “Flagship” to refer to its service along thes routes), it is still disappointing to see it removed from the product.

My return to this trip was an uneventful redeye back on p.s. to JFK.  While I’m disappointed by the decline of the p.s. soft product and the lack of complimentary upgrades on the route, I still prefer the p.s. business class seats to those on American.

Alaska Airlines is offering a $50 discount certificate for new Mileage Plan members resident in California who sign up by October 26th, 2012.  The discount code is valid for travel between September 5th and November 10th for travel from California.

While prices out of Newark on Alaska are generally not competitive with United for me, Alaska routinely has $168 one-way all-inclusive fares to and from Hawaii out of San Diego, Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento.

ANA sent out a survey yesterday valid between August 9th and August 16th.  Even though United.com (prior to 3/3, Continental.com) has improved rather steadily over the past year for searching partner availability, ANA’s Star Alliance search is still quite valuable.