ExpertFlyer Blog

4 New Airlines added to the Award & Upgrade Search tool

We're happy to announce the addition of 4 new airlines to the Award & Upgrade search tool:

China Southern Airlines (CZ):
First - Award (P)
Business - Award (I)
Economy - Award (O)

Brussels Airlines (SN):
Business - Award (Z)
Economy - Award (U)

Kingfisher (IT):
Economy - Award (R)

Hawaiian Airlines (HA)
First - Flex Award/Upgrade (P)
Coach - Flex Award (Q)

As always, the full list of airlines we have award and upgrades for can be found here.

Travel News: Southwest, JetBlue, Secure Flight, Twitter

This has been a busy week for travel industry news, here's the rundown:

• Republic Airways won an auction to acquire bankrupt Frontier Airlines over discount carrier Southwest Airlines.  Apparently pilot seniority was a major sticking point between Frontier and Southwest and lack of an agreement in time made the Southwest offer unacceptable. Full story here.
  
• Beginning Saturday, many air travelers will be asked their birth dates and genders when making airline reservations as part of the new Secure Flight program.  This means that the federal government, instead of the airlines, will be responsible for comparing passenger names against the "no-fly" list.  Full story here.
• JetBlue announced their "All-You-Can-Jet" Pass which allows for unlimited travel between September 8, 2009 and Thursday, October 8, 2009 for $599, taxes and fees included for domestic destinations.  You have until August 21 to buy it "while supplies last" and if you already booked travel between those dates you can pay the difference to upgrade to the Jet Pass.  You have to book the travel at least 3 days before the flight, however.
• New Twitter travel aggregator site wanderlisting.com launched today. The site contains the top travel Tweeters divided up by categories. You can follow them @Wanderlisting to see what the latest trending topics are in the travel twittersphere.