topbonus, the loyalty program of bankrupt airberlin, has been in its death throws ever since the airline announced their insolvency last year, hanging on and offering occasional redemption of miles with various airlines and travel partners. Now, the game is finally up, the account access is closed and all miles are gone! There is still […]
I have followed the airberlin insolvency closely and I was directly impacted by the ticket cancellations. The dramatic end of my airberlin travel saga was the cancellation of my award ticket for a flight on Etihad 1 hour before departure. I had already cancelled my backup flight when I received the dreaded cancellation notice, making
As announced, airberlin seized operations when the final flight, AB6210 landed on October 27th at 22:45 after a 1h flight from Munich, welcomed by airline staff with fanfare. The same day, after lengthy negotiations, easyjet announced that they’d buy a number of planes and slots, focused on the Berlin hub, and will accept existing airberlin tickets!
airberlin has announced their final flight after 39 years of operation – AB6210 from Munich to Berlin on October 27th, 2017! While the holding company will soldier on, there will be no flights with an airberlin flight number after this day. In an odd twist of fate, award tickets booked through airberlin’s reward program, topbonus,
In yet another surprising twist in the sage that is the insolvency of airberlin, the carrier’s topbonus rewards program announced today, that award tickets issued on 745- ticket stock are valid and have already been paid AND, topbonus shop is reopening to earn miles on Etihad flights and with ground partners and to redeem miles
I have seen quite a few airline bankruptcies: every major US carrier, including United, Delta and American, has filed for Chapter 11, and most recently, Alitalia (finally) went into administration. But in all of those cases, the reorganization proceeded fairly orderly. In contrast, German airberlin has been in a fast and furious downward spiral since it
Last week airberlin declared bankcruptcy, after their largest shareholder Etihad suddenly stopped their financial contributions that had been confirmed in June to keep airberlin running for the next 18 months, while it’s going through a restructuring. Now, they have also stopped the accrual or redemption of topbonus miles, the rewards program of airberlin that is
After years of financial losses, recent restructuring and talk with part-owner Etihad, Lufthansa, the German government and other stakeholders to mount a rescue or at least an orderly transition, the attempts have failed. Etihad (somewhat surprisingly) pulled the plug and declined to provide further financing, resulting in airberlin declaring bankruptcy because they can’t see a viable
airberlin announced a new partnership with JetBlue, offering code-shares to 31 destinations across the US from the JetBlue hubs in New York, Boston and Orlando. The News Release also promises that members of airberlin’s topbonus rewards program will also be able to earn miles on JetBlue flights in the future. This is great news for
Airberlin started a major restructuring this year, focusing on becoming a network airline for Europe and transatlantic traffic, wet leasing a number of planes to Lufthansa and spinning of leisure flights to subsidiary Nikki Air (I reported about it here and here). And that reorganization did not go smoothly: with the introduction of the summer
One of the best features of airberlin‘s topbonus reward program are the frequent sales – and it’s time again for a topdeal sale of award tickets. You can book a ticket for as little as 1,500 miles and with discounts of as much as 75% You have to book by June 18th and can fly
This week’s Deal Dispatch brings you some opportunities to earn more miles in airline award programs when flying: Cathay Pacific offers a sign-up bonus and double or triple miles.