|
 Starting October 16 customers flying on both Varig and Gol airlines will be able to accumulate miles through the Smiles frequent flyer program. Varig, which used Brazil's flag airline carrier, has been bought by Gol, after going into bankruptcy.
"Expanding the Smiles program to include Gol flights is a significant step towards our goal of offering our customers additional services to strengthen our relationship with them," said Tarcísio Gargioni, Gol's vice president, marketing and services.
Smiles, Varig's existing rewards program, is available in 212 countries, has issued one million memberships abroad and is the largest mileage program in Latin America with over 5.9 million enrolled members.
Miles are accumulated by purchasing Gol or Varig airline tickets or purchasing products or services from the program's nearly 115 non-air business partners in Brazil and abroad.
Gol's customers can enroll for free beginning October 16, through the website www.smiles.com.br or via phone through the Smiles Service Center. Existing program members, whose accumulated miles will not be affected, should also re-register beginning that date.
Starting November 16, miles can be exchanged for tickets to all Gol and Varig destinations based on the program's guidelines (available on the website in English and Spanish).
As customers accumulate miles they will become eligible for additional benefits and privileges, including membership-level upgrades and bonus miles, exclusive Service Center and check-in counters, extra baggage allowances and access to VIP airport lounges.
Smiles' non-air business partners include hotel chains, car rental companies, restaurants, insurance companies, publishers, educational establishments, banks, telecommunications companies and major banks and credit card companies in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
The company will also offer customers with Gold and Diamond Smiles cards access to two international VIP lounges, one at Guarulhos (São Paulo) and another at Tom Jobim-Galeão (Rio de Janeiro), as well as four domestic VIP lounges, located in Guarulhos, Tom Jobim-Galeão, Salgado Filho (Porto Alegre) and Afonso Pena (Curitiba) terminals.
The international lounge in Guarulhos offers seating for 202 and is approximately 400 square meters (4,305 square feet), making it the largest VIP lounge in Brazil. The area offers exclusive products and services, including shower-equipped bathrooms with no usage time limits (a common restriction in other lounges at major international airports), massage chairs to improve circulation and relieve fatigue and TV rooms offering 50-inch televisions, individual audio hook-ups and a number of popular cable channels.
"Varig's VIP lounges are now being converted into Smiles VIP lounges focused on improving our customers' well-being and offering exclusive items aimed at making their trip more comfortable," explains Gargioni.
The lounges also provide a relaxation area, laptop docking stations with wireless Internet connection, computer terminals with Internet access, an extensive selection of reading materials and a special Kids Area with children's books and games. The Smiles Lounge in Guarulhos is also the first in Brazil to offer a bathroom designed specifically for customers with disabilities.
Internationally, Smiles Gold and Diamond members have access to partner airline companies' VIP lounges in Bogota (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Caracas (Venezuela) and Santiago (Chile).
Gol-Varig Integration
With the integration of Gol and Varig's operations into one, unique route network, the company's ticket sales system and IATA codes will also be unified. The entire timetable, including Varig's inventory in the Iris and Amadeus systems, will be gradually migrated to the New Skies system under the G3 code.
By doing this Gol says it will reduce costs and simplify processes, simultaneously offering customers more convenient options when purchasing tickets.
"In this first phase, all international Varig flights will remain available for sale through www.varig.com and travel agents. However, as the company integrates both systems, all Internet sales and flight schedules for both brands will soon be available on one website, www.voegol.com.br.
This will greatly assist passengers in choosing the most convenient flight options," says Ramos. "Additionally, Varig's customers will benefit from the technological innovations already available at Gol, such as checking-in or purchasing tickets via mobile phone."
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.