On Friday I received an email from American Express. Hello Gary, Adding funds to your Bluebird Account is easy. Now, Bluebird is adding another no-fee way to add funds online to your Account. Effective immediately, you can add funds to your Account from your debit card for no fee (previously $2.00 per transaction). Click here to learn more about adding funds with a debit card. You can review the updated fee chart by clicking here. Should you have any questions about this change, please visit Bluebird.com or call 1-877-486-5990. Thank you for your Membership, The Bluebird Team You can now load an American Express Bluebird card with a debit card and not pay any fee. If you have a mileage-earning debit card, you should earn miles for the transaction. And of course Bluebird lets you…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for October 2013.
The Hyatt Visa Offer Now Is $0 the First Year and Other Changes
There have been some changes to the Hyatt Visa in the past month. The $75 annual fee is now waived the first year. The two free nights worldwide after $1000 spend within three months is now stsandard for all members who apply. Diamond members do not get the added bonus of having their two nights in a suite, and existing Platinum members do bot get an extra bonus of suite upgrades on paid stays. Since the product was first introduced about three years ago they added an annual free night benefit (up to redemption category 4) as well as double points on restaurant spend, air fare, and rental cars as well as credit towards elite status based on spending. In fact I made what turned out to be a strategic blunder — I put $40,000…
Whose Elite Members Most Need to Come in From the Cold?
A year ago in a post about redeeming Delta Skymiles I made a side comment comparing them to Air Baltic BalticMiles, It’s no secret that I think Delta miles are worth less than miles with United, American, US Airways, or Alaska Airlines. Sometimes I think they’re worth less than Air Baltic BalticMiles and Ukraine International Airlines Panorama Club miles. I’m the guy who coined the term “Skypesos” after all. That brought out the head of the BalticMiles program in the comments. Gabi said, I think it is time we get you over to Riga, Latvia to change your perception of the airBaltic BalticMiles value 🙂 He went on to say, though, that of course “it will be minus 30 C in a few months……” It turns out, though, that the cold weather in Riga, Latvia…
Up to 2000 Singapore Airlines Miles Per Hilton Stay
Hilton’s points-earning value proposition has long been known for double dipping, the ability to earn both points and miles for your stays. They’ve made things much more complicated though since now you can earn points and extra points instead of miles. Or if you earn miles you can pick between ‘fixed miles’ (a set number of points per night or per stay) or ‘variable miles’ (a number of miles based on your spending. This gets super complicated because you’re best off switching your preferences from stay to stay — short cheap stays are best earning fixed miles, long and expensive stays variable miles (or points and points). And on award stays you can earn points and points or points and variable miles but you will not earn fixed miles. So setting your preference to fixed…
Travel Tips that Win Gift Cards
I ran a short contest and was extremely pleased with the results. The giveaway: Two sets of (2) $100 Visa gift cards. To enter readers had to offer a travel tip. The full comments section, as a result, is well worth a read. I selected two readers that submitted tips at random to be the winners. And here they are. The first winner is Elizabeth: Make sure to pad extra time for connections between domestic and International flights, no matter how short that domestic flight will be. This is especially true when there are a limited number of International flights to your destination. Any delay could make you lose more than a full day at your destination. The second winner is Sarah C: Bring a pen! It sounds so simple but I recently forgot one…
PointsHound Extends First Time Booking Bonus Through October 11
PointsHound Lets You Earn Miles for Hotel Bookings PointsHound and Rocketmiles are the two major websites that award you frequent flyer miles when booking hotel rooms. In general Rocketmiles has the biggest mileage offers, but they also have the fewest hotels and are in a limited – but growing – number of cities. Booking through Rocketmiles will not entitle you to earn points and elite stay credit through a hotel loyalty program. (Some hotel chains like Marriott and Hyatt will honor elite benefits on third party bookings, while Starwood and Hilton’s policy is not to do so.) PointsHound has more hotels in more locations, a subset of which are referred to as ‘DoubleUp’ hotels where you earn miles and can still earn hotel points and elite stay credit. As a result I’ve found PointsHound to…
Giveaway: $400 in Visa Gift Cards
Offer Your Best Travel Tips in the Comments by 10am Eastern Saturday morning to Win. Some of y’all will remember that I hosted an online forum about technology and travel that was sponsored by National Car Rental coinciding with the launch of their new mobile app. I rent regularly from National and had been looking forward to the introduction of a mobile app (finally!) and the folks participating in the chat were friends and travel heroes. I like the products I like, I share the reasons why here, and I don’t want there to be confusion over my motives — if I benefit personally from a referral link I always say so in the post, I frequently try to arrange to give any miles I may earn from referrals back to you in the form…
Inside Flyer Interviews the Bloggers
The October issue of Inside Flyer interviews several miles and points bloggers. I was asked about ‘non-obvious frequent flyer programs to consider’. I give a short reason to consider each, and not a full discussion of caveats, but still hopefully the list is useful. The “non-obvious” frequent flyer programs to consider are: – Aegean Miles&Bonus (Star Alliance) because it’s a quick way to status that won’t expire as long as you keep your account active. Flying 19,000 qualifying miles in one year gets Star Alliance Gold status, and you just need to credit miles to the account once every three years to keep it. That means United lounge access even when flying domestically on United. – Avianca LifeMiles (Star Alliance) has one-way awards, no fuel surcharges, a reasonable award chart and cash and points awards—you…
Why Airlines Run Double Elite Qualifying Offers, and Why it Matters That This Isn’t Limited to U.S. Programs
Airlines monitor the number of elites in their program pretty closely, even as they jealously guard the specific numbers. When economic conditions, or airline performance, depress travel and especially frequent travel airlines can incentivize flyers that have historically been their best customers to get back into the air. They can do that with bonus offers and also with bonus elite qualfiying mile offers. Sometimes the offer is route-specific, not because travel is down but because they want to make sure their best customers stick with them when a competitor introduces new service on a route. And sometimes the offer isn’t made to everyone, isn’t based on general conditions, but based on a particular flyer’s patterns. If you were an elite before, but have lapsed in your flying, the airline might reach out to you with…
How New York JFK Coordinates Arrivals and Departures for World Leaders
Probably no airport handles as many tarmac transfers by car in a day as Frankfurt, where all passengers in Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal are chauffeured to their aircraft in a Mercedes or Porsche. Munich handles fewer transfers by car, but it’s a regular occurrence as first class passengers arriving and departing from an apron position are shuttled by vehicle. Here in the U.S. United and Delta now offer limited tarmac transfer programs. But New York probably sees the most complicated airport operations — tarmac receptions combined with constantly changing plans and complicated security arrangements — when world leaders descend upon the city for a U.N. General Assembly meeting. The New York Times carries a nice piece telling some of the colorful stories involved in managing the VIP airport process at New York’s JFK. The Czech…
