News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Qantas Bans Pork After Linkup With Emirates (HT: sobore on Milepoint) Boeing 787 to fly starting June 1. At least that’s what LAN has updated its schedule to say. Alitalia will give you a $100 off e-cert in exchange for your email address, amounts higher for premium cabin travel. (HT: Joe Sent Me Steals & Deals) American Admirals Club prices are going up for elites on May 1 (they get less of a discount): $25 for Gold members and $50 for Platinums and Executive Platinums. I use my British Airways Gold status (acquired when BA bought british midland) for access. If I didn’t, I would use my American Express Platinum card. If I didn’t, I would redeem Business ExtrAA points for lounge access (one of the better values…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for April 2013.
1000 Free Marriott Points for Posting in their ‘Insiders’ Forum
Via Notiflyer, Marriott Rewards is offering 500 points per post, up to 1000 points, for baseball stories. Everyone who writes a baseball story and posts it to the Marriott Rewards Insiders blog in the “Other Topics” section will earn 500 points per story (up to 1,000 points). You will need to create a new account if you aren’t already a Marriott Rewards Insiders member and then enter “42story” in the tag section when posting your story. There are prizes for the stories as well — up to 60,000 Marriott points and baseball ticket.
Why I Finally Signed Up for ‘Global Entry’ and Just How Easy It Was
Global entry sign up: I bet it will come as a surprise to many of my readers that I wasn’t one of the early adopters of Global Entry, the expedited customs and immigration program (that also comes with TSA PreCheck). But the civil libertarian in me was initially really bothered by the program, and I just didn’t do it. Though that all changed a few days ago. Concerns That Kept Me Away From Global Entry These Past Two Years Global Entry requires the government performing a background check on you and also fingerprinting you and taking your picture. Even though I was influenced a great deal by reading David Brin’s 1998 book The Transparent Society where he argues that low-cost surveillance, communication and database technology would mean an end to privacy as traditionally conceived, I…
Who Has the Best Business Class Seat Across the Atlantic? The Answer May Surprise You
Best business class to Europe: Some will argue on a technicality that the best transatlantic business class belongs to Singapoe Airlines — they fly New York to Frankfurt with an Airbus A380 on a flight that continues to Singapore (not to mention their 777 flight from Houston to Moscow). But I’m not sure even that would be true. Believe it or not, and with some caveats that I’ll note below, American Airlines probably has the best business class between North America and Europe right now. Wait before jumping out of your seat and just hear me out on this. About six weeks ago American Airlines reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in flying on their new 777-300ER aircraft in business class when it began serving New York – London Heathrow. American…
Why Starwood is Willing to Pay You to Book Through Their Mobile App
Lucky is confused by Starwood’s desire to offer bonus points for mobile bookings. [A]m I the only one that doesn’t really get the trend lately for mobile site booking bonuses? I understand the concept of wanting to familiarize people with their mobile site, but at the same time I can’t help but feel like no one wins if we just have to go through the hassle of making a normal booking by smart phone when we’re sitting in front of a computer. Hotel chains offer incentives– at various times carrots but also sticks — to get you to book directly with them rather than through travel agency sites. They’ve in the past offered online booking bonuses. Some chains won’t honor elite benefit benefits at all if you book through a third party website. And most…
American Wants to Test Your Math Skills With Good New Buy Miles Bonus
American is offering two stackable promotions for the purchase of miles. First, up to a 30% bonus on purchased miles through May 17. There are specific bonuses at various threshold levels of mileage purchases, it isn’t a straight percentage. To get the best deal you want to buy the minimum number of miles necessary for the tier level you’re interested in. To get a 30% bonus you need to buy exactly 40,000 miles — anything less and the bonus is lower, buying more miles and you still only receive 12,000 bonus miles so your percentage bump is lower as well. This offer on its own isn’t that attractive. But through noon central time on April 5 you also get a 15% discount on the price of the miles you’re buying (as long as your purchase…
Securing Transatlantic Business Class Award Space from Houston
Turkish Airlines launched Houston – Istanbul six days per week service yesterday. The route makes a good deal of sense for Turkish. They’re a Star Alliance member and Turkish is a Star Hub, so they should see some decent feed. They also connect up with a ton of former Soviet cities with oil, including many more obscure airports. I also like Turkish quite a lot for their strong business class lounge in Istanbul, their willingness to put even economy passengers up in a hotel when traveling on a forced overnight, and because of their decent award availability to Asia and Africa (it’s often a go-to last-ditch way of getting folks to either on award tickets). They’re also the best way to use Star Alliance miles to the Maldives. (And they’re willing to status match.) So…
Starwood’s May-July Promo: Double Points and Mobile Booking Bonus
Starwood announced their upcoming promotion on Milepoint this morning: SPG Double Take. Between May 1 and July 31 Starwood is offering double points at most hotels (non-participating properties.. hate that!) and 500 bonus points for all reservations booked on Starwood’s mobile site or iPhone/Android mobile apps (no excluded properties). Registration is not yet available, I tend to remind folks of these things once registration opens but Starwood is happy to remind you via text as well if you’d like: Request a text from us letting you know when registration starts in late April. To opt in, text DBLT to 44264 in the U.S. or 447950080934 in the U.K. Back in the fall they offered double or triple points and a mobile booking bonus. So certainly this one sounds familiar (I did a double take!). This…
The Death of the Double Miles Award: and Why the US Airways/American Merger Will Kill it For Good
I’m going to stake out a prediction for the US Airways-American Airlines merger that I haven’t seen anyone else make yet — it spells the death knell for the ‘double mileage award’. Most US Programs Used to Charge ‘Double Miles’ for a Seat When There Wasn’t Award Availability Traditionally US frequent flyer programs offered to let members book any seat on any flight for twice the miles. That way if there wasn’t any “saver” award inventory, it would still be possible to use your miles. Now it wasn’t always precisely twice the miles. Up until October 2006 United Airlines Mileage Plus offered awards from North America to Australia in business class at 90,000 miles roundtrip — or 150,000 miles for what they called "standard" or rule-buster style awards where you could have any empty seat…
50% Bonus When Transferring Hotel Points to US Airways
It sure seems to be US Airways day! (That is, in addition to April Fools Day…) There’s no registration required. US Airways will give you a 50% bonus on top of whatever miles your hotel program sends over to US Airways with an activity date in April. The promotion is supposed to be valid for transfers initiated in April, though the terms and conditions appear to have a typo in them since they seem to require points to be reported by a hotel program within the next 9 days! The last date that activity from a qualifying partner can be received by US Airways for bonus miles consideration is April 10, 2013, regardless of the eligible activity date for such activity. That’s clearly a mistake, and I’m unconcerned about it. What I don’t know, though,…
