Guess how much to fill up a Boeing 777?

Inspired by a leading VC’s blog post about the insane cost of Gas in Israel ($120 to fill up his car) I decided to do a “back of the napkin” calculation on the price of filling up ElAl’s flight to New York. Boeing 777-200 Flight uses up about 40,000 gal to NY. Fuel costs about [...]

US Air cancels in-flight movies

US Air has tossed the movies from the plane in an effort to save their company. It turns out that the in-flight entertainment system weighs 500 pounds (or about the same as 4,000 ipod Nano MP4 players). So, to save fuel - no movies on US Air domestic flights. More suggestions:
- make the food out [...]

El Al discontinues flights to Miami

A little beyond our scope, but because we do have some people from Boca that we like - ElAl has announced that its non-stop (3 times a week) to Miami will stop for good in September. Reason given is high cost of fuel. (We all know gas is cheaper in Jersey - at the tunnel). [...]

Splurge for a One Day Lounge Pass

Executive summary - if your plans involve waiting time at the airport, access to the airport lounges is relatively inexpensive. Plan ahead - there is some research involved.
There are six ways to get access to the airport lounge:

Fly business class
Have the right kind of credit card (e.g. Amex Platinum, Citi Chairman)
Have super elite status on [...]

Continental Joining Star Alliance and United

Continental is leaving its alliance with Delta and is joining the StarAlliance, which is United + 18 others (list below). The buzz on the forums is that this is a good thing.
What it means to us is:
1. Continental miles will be good for use on UA and vice versa
2. Continental members with Elite status [...]

Take My Wife, Please …….. or A Good ElAl Offer Does Not Come Every Day

Actually, your wife, or husband or kid, or ME.
What seems to be a good deal from ElAl has just been announced. Buy one business class ticket and get the second at a very reduced price. $499 to NY/ $699 to LA (plus give up 200 - 400 worthless points). Valid from now till the end [...]

Water on the Plane - An Arbitrage Opportunity

An arbitrage opportunity is “the opportunity to buy an asset at a low price then immediately selling it on a different market for a higher price.” Not so simple for the average man/woman in the street to do. But now its easy - at an airport near you.
Value of a small bottle of water [...]

$15 luggage charge - whats next? water? YUP

United and US Air have joined American in charging $15 for the first bag. Two bags round trip now cost $80. One group on a 500 mile trip actually selected a driver to drive all the bags back and forth. If the plane left from LGA - the driver probably got there first.
Good news for [...]

TLV JFK - Coming Soon - Our Action Items - Stay Tuned

Last night, after the Mashable Bash in Tel Aviv, I spent some time with some of my old chip design buddies. We talked a lot about blogging and web 2.0 and that you need $80M to do a silicon-related startup. Naturally, since they are all senior managers, they gave me lots of action items for [...]

California - Got old relatives on the lower east side?

Did you know that a close relative of the Giant Sequoia tree lives on the lower east side???

It is called a metasequoia (aka Dawn Redwood) and is planted all over the city. At 100 feet, the tallest one is in the Liz Christy Community Garden on East Houston and the Bowery. Picture courtesy of [...]

Acela and Amtrak Service Outage New York Boston

There will be very limited service on the New York - Boston route on Saturday June 14 - Tuesday June 17. Anti-semites. Why couldn’t they fix the bridge on Shavuot!
Ashley Express to DC runs as scheduled.

The West Coast and the Three Day Work Week

Problem - in order to be back in Israel Friday afternoon, you have to leave the West Coast on Wednesday, effectively giving you a 3 day work week. Here are the general options for travel from the West Coast Wednesday evening back to Israel on Friday (before sundown).
OPTION 1 - Travel through Europe - [...]

Got VIP Status?

You spent 10’s of thousands of $$’s on Expedia and got Elite Status. Got Platinum Status on Continental. Whats it worth - Bupkis. Diddly sqat. Or less.
For example - upgrades to business class coming from Israel. A friend of mine (unnamed, but you will see him suffering in economy tonight all the way to the [...]

Free Ticket for your Kids 18th Birthday

It turns out my readers like the free stuff - so here is our best one yet:

Your kid turns 18 and he or she is headed to the army or whatever. Time for a free trip. Step by step process would make Abbie Hoffman proud.
Step 1: Sign up for American Airlines (should have done that [...]

Good Things about ElAl Gold and Platinum (for serious flyers only)

In the interest of fairness and zionism - I decided to write a post about what is good about accruing miles on ElAl. This is not to be confused with actually flying ElAl. I love flying ElAl.
But, you can fly ElAl and get much more valuable miles on other airlines. So, today I decided [...]

Frequent Flyer Guide to US (even for this summer)

With the rising cost of airfare - there is only one real solution to vacation travel to the US - use free tickets. Since I know many readers of this blog have 100,000’s of miles sitting in their accounts, I decided to summarize the options available for using them for trips to the States [...]

American Airlines will lose your bags for only a dime.

American Airlines is now charging $15 for the FIRST BAG checked. Multiply by their 0.75% lost bag rate and you get that American Airlines will lose you bag for only 10 cents. Seriously, this will NOT apply to international flights and to elite status members. You get to lose your bags for free.
Peder Zane [...]

ElAl Best Frequent flyer freddie awards - Hutzpah!!

I hate to have to bash ElAl every day - especially in the spirit of the 60th year Independence Celebrations, but this takes the industry Hutzpah award.
ElAl flyers received a nice email with this ad:

Wow, we all said - little old Israel makes it to the world frequent flyer stage. Well, not quite. Kind of [...]

ElAl Frequent Flyer Awards worth less than a Big Mac at the airport

Thats it?
Yes. Amazing Fact. Do the math:
Lowest fare ticket to London earns 25 points one way. 36 Oneway flights gives you 900 points required for the “bonus fare”. Bonus fare is $340. Regular fare is about $650. So you save $310 = about $9 bonus. Or “half-Chai” in appeal-speak. Thats about 30 NIS which can’t [...]

elal airfare increase

Just got an email from ElAl - due to $117 oil, fares go up on average 6.5% on May 1. This reflects the overal trend in the airline industry.
SO, if you have already booked a flight - buy it before May 1.
Of course, check cancellation policy and change fee if that may be a possibility.
And [...]

Bad Kosher Airline food - funny?

Right now I am on the plane eating my “Economy Class Chicken Dinner” for breakfast and I am thinking of yesterdays kosher meal on Turkish Airlines. Worst ever. And I have had a lot of bad ones, including 18 lettuce only salads once.
Please don’t read this if you plan to eat in the next 3 [...]

Great report on Turkish Airways (including electric outlets on planes)

I selected them because they were the cheapest by far when flying with only 3 days notice. They certainly have come a long way since I flew them from Bangkok with 400 Thai workers all smoking.
Plane was a brand new A330-200. Individual screens (Rain Main, The Fugitive) and electric outlets - so you can keep [...]

Car Rental Dropoff Charges

At $18 a day you don’t have to be Agatha Christie to figure out that Avis is not making money on the rental fee. We know they make it on insurance and gas (”we will refill for $7 a gallon” - if you are lazy enough). Now - beware the drop-off fee scam. You rented [...]

Frequent Flyer Change - Turkish Airlines

Turkish Airlines is out of the oneworld alliance and in the star alliance. Effective today!
So, you will no longer be able to get AA miles, but you will be able to get UA miles. (UA has not updated their website - but take my word for it).
And you can get all the way to Hawaii [...]

Turkish or Olympic to JFK - Best Price

Going to NY this week on short notice. All flights were in the $2000 range. Looked on Kayak and then booked on Turkish Airlines for under $1200. Flight is very convenient - leaves at 530a and arrives in NY 2p. Return 4p (next day). 2 hours in Istanbul. I did the booking on Turkish website [...]

AA/LY Codeshare

In December ElAl and American Airlines announced a codeshare arrangement. This means that you will be able to continue in the US on an ElAl flight (operated by AA). It was supposed to start Feb 1, but didn’t. Lots of points are being discussed in the relevant forums - so far, more questions than answers. [...]