News and Notes from Around the Interweb:You can request an invitation to United’s family day in San Francisco on October 13. ANA is offering a 30% discount on Air New Zealand award redemptions. Their distance-based chart has some sweet spots. This offer makes Los Angeles – Auckland roundtrip in business class just 63,000 miles. Of course you have to find award availability first! American Express Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest offer good value transfers to ANA, albeit not instantly. The heads of the Hyatt Gold Passport and MGM M Life programs hosted a live chat on Milepoint. Since they didn’t get to answer all of the questions online, they agreed to go back and reply to the rest. Here is the result, literally everything you could want to know about the Hyatt-MGM loyalty program…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for September 2013.
Here’s How It’s Possible to Earn Miles Flying on Award Tickets
Reader Robert asked, Are there any situations when a flight that one booked with award points earn actually earns points? For example when a late flight results in a misconnection and rebooking by the airline onto another flight? In general frequent flyer award tickets (tickets you buy with miles) do not earn miles. But there are exceptions to that rule. bmi Was the Whale of All Mileage-Earning on Awards british midland used to give mileage credit for Star Alliance award tickets on several airlines booked through partner mileage programs. This was a glitch that was broadly exploited. An international first class award, say, on Thai Airways paid for with United miles could net you gold elite status in the program and enough miles for a business class cash and points award between the US and…
Have You Ever Been to South Korea? You May Be Eligible for $860 in Compensation
Some folks claimed that Asiana and Korean Air were colluding on their pricing. They sued, a class action was created, and some lawyers got very rich. A funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse though. This class action looks like it may actually pay out more to folks than just a small discount on very expensive future travel. In fact, one estimate of the settlement payout is $500 cash plus $360 in vouchers for future travel — although the actual amount will depend on how many people file claims. If you purchased a Korean Air or Asiana ticket in the U.S. for travel between the US and South Korea between January 1, 2000 and August 1, 2007 then you may be entitled to a payout. Flying through Seoul doesn’t count — you cannot…
Request for Requests
Most of the time what I write on a given day is really just ‘whatever pops into my head’ although sometimes the very best pieces are those prompted by reader questions. You’re always welcome to email me of course, but what I’d love is for you to share what’s on your mind here in the comments. What would you love to understand better? What do you want to know? What do you think I could do a better job of covering for you? What would you like to see me write about? What’s on your mind? I won’t promise up front to cover everything, though I’ll read and ponder everything that’s written here in the comments. It may take me awhile to work through it as well, goodness knows there are things I’m behind on.…
Why Miles Really Matter… and to me, more than ever before
My grandfather was a huge influence on my life, but in a Mr. Miyagi kind of way. He taught me lessons growing up without telling me that was what he was doing. He taught me division using M&Ms when I was three or four, with his help I bid on stamp auctions when I was 11 or 12. I owe a great deal about how I think about the world to my time with him when I was young. Last week I learned that his heart had failed. He was in a rehabilitation facility and was scheduled to return home. He was just a couple of weeks from turning 97. After a brief stop at the hospital he was transferred to a hospice, and I was told he had days or hours to live. I…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 16, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Why I Love Airline Food (HT: Joel G.) Double or even triple points… Southwest is running various targeted promotions, such as 50%, 100%, and 200% flight bonuses. Log into your account and look under promotions to see whether any are available to you. Offers appear to apply only to forward bookings (not to flights booked before today but for travel during the promotion period) for travel through November 21. (HT: Reader Jay R. pointing to a discussion started by frequent commenter toomanybooks) For bookings made by September 20 and travel through December 30, promotion code COSSW may get Costco members 25% off on Hyatt stays in the Southwest U.S. (HT: Lucky) American’s new pimped out A319s take flight today with initial service to Charlotte, Cleveland, Memphis and Wichita.…
40% Bonus on American Express Transfers to Virgin America
American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 40% bonus on transfers to Virgin America through September 30. Instead of receiving 100 points for every 200 transferred, you’ll receive 140 Virgin American points for 200 Membership Rewards points. Not the biggest transfer bonus they’ve offered, last November the offer was 50%. But certainly better to make a transfer when there is a bonus then when there isn’t one. Virgin America’s points are worth 2.2 cents apiece towards Virgin America travel, so it’s not a great deal for Virgin America travel. Normally you’re only getting 1.1 cents per Amex point transferring to Virgin America. This offer bumps that up to a bit over 1.5 cents per Amex point in value. Still, it can be a good deal to top off an account towards a specific award. Where’s…
Up to 5000 Delta Miles for Gifts to United Way, But Should You Earn Miles for Your Donations?
Points, Miles, and Martinis points to an offer of up to 5000 miles for making a donation to United Way by September 30. The PMM blog concludes, “It’s nice to see Delta giving out bonus miles for donations to United Way.” Except… United Way doesn’t appear as a designated charity to donate Skymiles to. So I think we can assume that this isn’t “Delta giving out miles for donations” but rather the charity buying miles from Delta in order to entice contributions. And actually in this case, the website soliciting the funds and providing the miles in Truist.com, a company which works with charities. They are soliciting donations and willing to spend money to acquire new donors. That’s not because your donation now is worth so much. Roughly speaking, after this third party’s costs and…
United Will Honor Yesterday’s $5 – $10 Mistake Fares
United was selling $0 base fares (tickets pricing out at $5-10) yesterday. At one point they shut down their entire booking process to stop these from selling. These were for a variety of routes, long and short. Earlier I speculated that United would honor the tickets, My guess is that domestic coach mistakes that weren’t booked by nearly as many people as some past mistakes won’t be that hard for United to swallow And indeed, United will honor the tickets but they word it very carefully to let you know not to think this is some sort of precedent. We’ve reviewed the error that occurred yesterday and based on these specific circumstances, we will honor the tickets. You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 13, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: It’s hard for me to overcome my mental models and remind myself that United sometimes has wifi now and it’s not even that rare anymore. Meanwhile, Gogo inflight internet is getting faster speeds but not yet overwater coverage. United was selling $0 base fares (tickets pricing out at $5-10) yesterday. At one point they shut down their booking process to stop these from selling. One of the sad things about not doing this travel thing full time is that my ‘real job’ had me in meetings all day yesterday and I didn’t get to be a part of the drama. We’ll see what sort f position United takes on these tickets. My guess is that domestic coach mistakes that weren’t booked by nearly as many people as some…
