Frequent Flyer Miles in Jeopardy?

Do you save up frequent flyer miles for a dream trip? Are you loyal to one airline so that you are eligible for flights and space-available upgrades? Do you use a credit card (left) that gives you miles for charges? I do all those things, and in terms of my balance in those mileage banks, I'm a rich woman. But my thrift, and that of other fequent flyer program members, could be in jeopardy.

Until it stopped hubbing in Denver, I flew Continental all the time and enjoyed Silver Elite status in their OnePass frequent flyer program. Redeeming miles was easier then, and I often used my miles for my son when attended school in New Hampshire. Now, I fly United enough to be a Premier Mileage Plus member. It gets me a seat on the front of the plane, which I love, but I still keep racking up more miles than I have been able to use. I also have accumulated miles in the fequent flyer programs of American, Delta, Frontier, Southwest and Virgin Atlantic.

Miles have become increasingly difficult to use any time I want to travel. My husband and I had hoped to fly to Munich for a wedding in May on United or Lufthansa, one of its Star Alliance partners. Not only were we unable to obtain tickets in any class of service on Lufthansa's convenient Denver-Munich non-stop, but we were unable to fly that route on any class of service on United or Lufthansa even with multiple stops. Therefore, the miles remained unredeemed in my account.

Airlines view people like me as liabilities, and stockholders are reportedly getting restless with liabilities. "Investors Press Airline to Spin Off Frequent Flyer Programs," a disquieting report in USA Today, in which reporter Dan Reed wrote, "Airlines are feeling pressure from aggressive investors and a slowing economy to boost their sagging share prices and raise cash by selling or spinning off some assets, including their prized frequent flier programs."

Examples? Reed reported the the investment group that is American's second-largest stockholder " is publicly urging the company to spin off its pioneering AAdvantage frequent flier program, which it estimates is worth about $6 billion on a stand-alone basis. AMR's total market capitalization is only about $5.5 billion. A spinoff would involve distribution of new, separate stock to current AMR shareholders."

He quoted a United spokeswoman who "confirmed that her company's board discussed 'portfolio optimization' at its annual strategy meeting this week in San Francisco, including the possible sale of the frequent flier program. She declined to say what the airline will do or when."

US carriers might be following the contrails of Air Canada, which " spun off its Aeroplan frequent flier plan in 2005. Since then, Aeroplan's market value has nearly doubled to about $4 billion."

I would love to use up lots of my miles, but the airlines, which understandably prefer a revenue passenger to a for-free flyer, make it so hard. I recently gave my son 40,000 miles so that he could fly to New England for a friend's wedding, and it hardly made a dent in my accounts. In the long run, I'm suspicious that these spin-offs, should they occur, will be yet another way to make air travel less about satisfying passengers and more about satisfying investors.

K-ching. K-ching. K-ching.

Travel-Babel Cited as Top Travel Blog

FlipKey, a lively and informative blog dedicated to the vacation rentals and real estate, recently asked its readers to nominate their favorite travel blogs. "Choosing the winners was difficult," wrote FlipKey's Carl Query, "but we have come up with four distinct blogs that did a great job of capturing their respective angles via frequent posts, eloquent writings, and great insights." I am thrilled that Travel-Babel was one selected as FlipKey's top four for Wealth of Information -- and for the record, I didn't stuff the electronic ballot box, nor did I ask anyone else to do so.

Here's what FlipKey's Carl Query wrote of Travel-Babel: "Why we love travel-babel? The blog is a great assortment of travel-industry related topics. Beyond just interesting tidbits about travel, a read through Claire’s blog is a rich learning experience, covering everything from the recent change in many country names to the 'seven wonders of Colorado'. Read her blog and I guarantee you will walk away with a new piece of knowledge."

The three other blogs cited by FlipKey are Christopher Elliot's blog in the Consumer Advocacy category, Nerd's Eye View for Creativity and 2ndHome in the Vacation Home Purchase category. I am familiar with Elliott's efforts, both in print and on line, on behalf of beleaguered travelers. I have cited it on Travel-Babel as well, but the other two are new to me. They're on my to-visit-often list now too -- and I'm guessing that we are all honored to have been cited by FlipKey for excellent content. FlipKey also listed (and linked to) a number of interesting Blogs as Honorable Mentions. These include The Tranquilo Traveler by my colleague, Joshua Berman, and others that I need to start looking at and perhaps linking to.

Coming in October: Denver Arts Week

I'm going to be traveling for a good part of October, and I'm kind of bummed, because I'll be away for the first annual Denver Arts Week. I don't know whether anyone has counted up the individual events, but the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau cultural census has tallied more than a dozen museums, 40 performing arts groups, six neighborhood arts districts and 100 art galleries. Here are some events that I already regret having to miss:

Friday, October 5 - Super First Friday Art Walks in RiNo, ArtsDistrict on Santa Fe, Golden Triangle Museum District, Tennyson and Cherry Creek North, the half-dozen arts districts the DMCVB has identified. What makes it more "super" than a regular First Friday Art Walk? For one thing, the ArtsDistrict on Santa Fe will have live music all weekend with street performers, a drum circle, fire dancers and wine/beer tents.

Friday, October 5 - Colorado’s GALA Choruses' "Everything Possible" at Montview Presbyterian Church, 1980 Dahlia Street, Denver. The concert will start at 8:00 p.m. and feature the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus, Denver Women’s Chorus, Harmony: A Colorado Chorale, Out Loud: Colorado Springs Men’s Chorus, Resonance Women’s Chorus of Boulder, Sine Nomine and Sound Circle. Tickets are $20. For sales locations, click on website or call 866-464-2626.

October 5-7 - Tickets the Colorado Ballet ("Le Corsaire") and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra ("Magnificent Mendelssohn II") are $52.80 for two. They're not cheap seats either.

There are all sorts of other special events, some free. You can find them on website with a full calendar, but the ones I've mentioned are the ones I would have been most likely to attend.

I know that I will also be missing the October 5 first look at the Denver Art Museum's "Artisans & Kings: Selected Treasures from the Louvre," but it will be around until January 6, so I figure there's time to catch that.

US Airlines Readying for Inflight WiFi

Being in the air will no longer mean being disconnected from the earth below. Beginning in 2008, passengers be able to use WiFi-enabled laptops, mobile handheld devices and smart phones aboard selected aircraft -- thanks to cell- and satellite-based wireless broadband services.

AirCell's high-speed data connection will enable passengers to surf the Internet, check and send E-mail, send attachments and log into office networks using personal WiFi enabled laptops (left) or mobile handheld devices. American Airlines is starting with B767s in transcontinental service, and Virgin America will install it throughout their fleet which is expected to serve 10 US cities by next year. Alaska Airlines will be the first to install Row 44's satellite-based system, a type of technology that several European carriers are already using.

Before you know it, I'll be blogging from 35,000 feet -- and you might be reading my blog that way too.

Big Brother is Watching You Travel

"The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials," according to a report in the Washington Post, which noted that "personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country." These actions may not be as obvious or annoying as Transportation Security Agency intrusiveness at the airport, but they are more insidious and impactful on American travelers' privacy.

Reporter Ellen Nakashima interviewed a Silicon Valley executive who was shocked that her records, obtained by the paper and passed on to her, include information not only on her race but on an international flight that neither began nor ended in the US, nor connected with a US flight and also included the phone number of a sister who lives overseas. Edward Hasbrouck, author of The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World , was quoted as saying, "The [agency's] Automated Targeting System is the largest system of government dossiers of individual Americans' personal activities that the government has ever created."

Nakskashima wrote, "He [Hasbrouck] said that travel records are among the most potentially invasive of records because they can suggest links: They show who a traveler sat next to, where they stayed, when they left. "It's that lifetime log of everywhere you go that can be correlated with other people's movements that's most dangerous," he said. 'If you sat next to someone once, that's a coincidence. If you sat next to them twice, that's a relationship.'"

One former DHS official was quoted as describing all this personal travel data "an investigative tool, just the way we do with law enforcement, who take records of things for future purposes when they need to figure out where people came from, what they were carrying and who they are associated with. That type of information is extremely valuable when you're trying to thread together a plot or you're trying to clean up after an attack."

Attention Department of Homeland Security: Next month, I am flying to the UK for a conference. While on the other side of the Atlantic, I am also flying from London to Lisbon and a week later from Madrid to London. Don't infer anything from this, because I am a tourist, not a terr'ist.

Luggage Lock Uses Words, Not Numbers

I should remember my PIN codes and combinations for luggage locks, bike locks and miscellaneous padlocks, to say nothing of numerous phone numbers, cell phone numbers, street addresses and Zip codes. But I don't. For those I select, I try to use the first or last four numbers of past phone numbers. Sometimes it works, but I sometimes get those ancient phone numbers mixed up, and I try to use a bike lock combo on the ATM or my PIN number to unlock a suitcase.

So I was delighted to learn about WordLock, which uses letters rather than numbers. For someone like me, who is better at words than at numbers, this is a brilliant innovation. All WordLocks are said to be easy to set and reset, and the manufacturer says that the luggage lock models are TSA-approved. They are available in several colors to harmonize or contrast with one's own bags. If you are one of the millions with black rolling suitcases, you'll find yours easier to spot on the carousel if it is outfitted with a colorful lock on a visible zipper pull.

WordLock's website does not give a manufacturer's suggested retail price, but expect to pay about $10-$12, depending on whether you buy it via mail or at a local luggage, travel gear, sporting goods or other retail outlet.

Airline News from Lufthansa and Southwest

In a move that can't possibly please powder-hungry European skiers, the Colorado resorts that welcome them or transatlantic business travelers, Lufthansa German Airlines is cutting its Denver-Munich nonstop service from daily to five per week beginning on October 28. Monday and Friday flights will not operate until they are reinstated -- possibly on March 31, the first anniversary this route. That, BTW, is my conjecture, not anything that Lufthansa has indicated.

Southwest Airlines is not going to abandon its open-seat plan but in addition to assigning first-come, first-served boarding groups, but by early November, the carrier will assign numbers within each boarding group at all 63 airports it serves. I don't know whether this will prove to be a good thing or bad thing. Instead of bunching up waiting for their boarding group to be called and then jockeying for position once the group has been called, passengers will be asking each other, "What number are you?" -- like the supermarket deli or bakery counter. In any case, Southwest did test several other boarding procedures in several markets and concluded that this was the best for it and its passengers.

Also, starting on October 2, Southwest will cease automatically pre-boarding families with small children. If they want to get on with the first wave, they will need to arrive at the airport early enough to be in boarding group A. Families will be boarded after the first 60 passengers are on the aircraft.