Hyatt is offering a bonus of 10% – 30% on points purchases through February 6. The more points you purchase the higher the bonus. 1000 – 9000 points gets a 10% bonus. Buying 9000 points means you receive 9900 points at a cost of 2.18 cents apiece. 10,000 – 29,000 points gets a 20% bonus. Buying 29,000 points means you receive 34,800 points at a cost of 2 cents apiece. 30,000 – 40,000 points gets you a 30% bonus. Buying 40,000 points means you receive 52,000 points at a cost of 1.846 cents apiece. Hyatt Gold Passport allows a maximum purchase of 40,000 points per year. I value Hyatt points at 1.5 cents apiece. I would not do this on a speculative basis. If you were going to buy some points to top off towards an…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for January 2013.
It’s a Great Time to Use Delta Miles for Travel on Virgin Australia
I consider using Delta miles for travel on Virgin Australia to be the absolute best use of Skypesos. Delta even allows online booking for Virgin Australia awards and has stopped collecting fuel surcharges when redeeming for that carrier. While Delta miles tend to be the toughest to use of any major carrier, award availability tends to be quite bad. They don’t permit one-way awards for half the cost of roundtrip (neither does US Airways). Their agents are clueless, their award booking website offers limited partners and is generally quite broken. International first class awards aren’t allowed. And yet ironically the miles are better for travel between the U.S. and Australia — one of the toughest frequent flyer awards there is — than anyone else’s. And that’s not just because they will let you go the…
Malaysia Airlines Joins Oneworld Tomorrow – And New Oneworld Top Tier Alliance Benefits
Malaysia Airlines Joins oneworld Tomorrow Malaysia Airlines joins oneworld February 1. That’s not news, since it was long ago announced and is proceeding based on recently expected schedules. (It was originally set to join in late 2012, so even the first deadline was only missed by a wee bit.) It’s a great addition for folks using American miles in the U.S. — oneworld is light on Asian partners, this expands South Asian reach, plus it’s another option to Asia from the U.S. (Los Angeles – TaipeiTokyo – Kuala Lumpur). And they offer a great premium product. Hey, their satellite terminal first class in Kuala Lumpur even has lobster on the buffet. While American’s standard partner award rules will not permit travel from the US to Malaysia via Europe, or to destinations like India via Malaysia,…
Where the Award Seats Are: Summer Travel to Europe via Brussels
Star Alliance remains the best program if you want to get to Europe or Asia in business class on points, largely because they have the most carriers with the most routes, and of course neither United nor US Airways adds fuel surcharges to awards on any of their partners. LufthansaFlyer wrote this morning that Brussels Airlines has announced 5 times weekly service between Washington Dulles and Brussels beginning June 18. Lucky discussed this morning his recent business class flight on Brussels. They have a new flat business class seat, though Lucky finds it a bit narrow especially at the feet. Flight times: Washington Dulles – Brussels, 10:35pm – 12:10pm+1, SN516 (Sun/Tues/Thurs/Fri/Sat) Brussels – Washington Dulles, 5:30pm – 8:15pm, SN515 (Sun/Tues/Thurs/Fri/Sat) Since I happen to be based in DC this was exciting news. I figured I…
Frequent Traveler University Excitement Heats Up
jay said, brimming with excitement about the upcoming FTU in april… any news of when the agenda will be out? Frequent Traveler University has a new website and lists many of the speakers that are confirmed. I have a draft schedule, but haven’t released it yet because we’re working with the hotel on just how much meeting space we have … I’d love to be able to run as many as three concurrent sessions at times (although there will also be main sessions where everyone is together) but do have at least two sessions much of the time. How many rooms we have will determine how many ‘tracks’ folks can be on to choose their content. And thus the schedule isn’t done yet. Will get that nailed down as soon as possible! The event promises…
Travel Blogs and Credit Card Signup Bonuses
I have no idea the broader answers to this reader’s question, or at least I won’t speculate, but I will offer perspective from my own experience. LIH Prem said, What would the travel blogosphere look like without credit card referral fees? (compared to the way it is today.) -David I’ve been writing this blog since May of 2002. When the blog first started there was an ad on it, but it wasn’t mine. I signed up for a free Blogspot account. After I had been writing a little while, Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) bought out that ad for me. I probably had gotten the most attention selling Impeach Norm Mineta bumper stckers, though I did so at cost (if memory serves, $2 apiece including shipping and I handled all fulfillment myself). I wasn’t making any money,…
Is United an Airline or a Credit Card Program?
This is a bit of a long question, but it boils down to why in the world are these airline and bank relationships so close? Why does it seem like co-branded credit cards are the tail that wags the dog in the frequent flyer universe? Chris B. said, [H]ow does an airline decide which financial company they should form an alliance? If US and AA do merge, I’m curious which bank (Citi or Barclays) would win the relationship, how they would be involved in financing the merge, how the relationship affects both companies, and how it may effect the credit card offers. There is much chatter regarding the relationship between AMEX and Delta, and how much Delta receives from their co-branded credit card fees, miles, and services, and whether it is enough income to warrant…
Options for Getting to the Maldives Using Miles
john said, I have an upcoming trip to MLE on CX using AA award. I’m having a hard time getting excited as the HKG to CMB leg is in old school regional business class and arrives in CMB at 23:00. There is a 9 hour layover in CMB before the morning flight to MLE. What do you do in CMB with a 9 hour layover in CMB? I wish there was a better way to get to MLE. John is using his American Airlines miles to fly Cathay Pacific to Colombo, Sri Lanka. He actually wants to go to the Maldives, but that can be a bit of a challenge. There aren’t that many flights in and out of Male, the capital, on ‘alliance’ carriers — those you can use your miles for most of…
Citibank “Two Browser Trick” Dead (or on Life Support)
Reader Mike points me to the ongoing Flyertalk discussion of Citibank’s American Airlines co-branded credit card offers. While I haven’t tried this myself as it hasn’t been 18 months since signing up for my last American Airlines credit card (conventional wisdom is that’s about how long you need to wait between applications to get the bonus again), discussion starting at post 4,199 in that thread seems to suggest that the ‘two browser trick’ may no longer work. The practice has been that if you applied for two similar Citibank products at the same time, such as two American Airlines personal credit cards (say, a Visa and an American Express) that you could get approved for both. That way, if using a 50,000 mile signup offer, you could net 100,000 miles. Several reports over the past…
Who Gets Access to United’s Economy Plus?
Chad said, If I have Turkish Airlines Gold Status (Star Alliance Gold), do I qualify for Economy Plus seating on United? Uniteds website won’t allow me to change seats without a fee even if I have my Turkish Airlines gold number in my profile. When United first introduced Economy Plus — 3 to 4 extra inches of legroom in the coach cabin — they made it available to their own elite members as well as Star Alliance gold members and passengers traveling on full fare tickets. They found some success in selling the seats at a premium and stopped allowing free access to Star Alliance Golds such as Turkish Elite members. They even stopped allowing free economy plus seats to full fare passengers — which led to some really absurd results. For a time a…
