… or in the case of American AAdvantage, just because you’re going to be doing a bunch of flying in the coming three months. An airline status match is an old, useful, and venerated idea. I think it was about 9 years ago on Flyertalk that I created ‘The Status Match Master Thread’ to answer one of the most frequently asked questions across frequent flyer-dom, “will a specific airline match my current status with my preferred carrier? And how do I go about getting that match?” Inside Flyer magazine even reprinted the post, because it addressed what was once a fairly secret, unpublished phenomenon — the idea that airlines were interested in acquiring their competitors’ best customers, but elite status had a lock-in effect. Sure, you might want to defect from United to American or…
Yearly Archives
Yearly Archives for 2013.
Priority Club Completely Revamping Reward Night Chart in 11 Days
Priority Club has completely revamped their award chart. The current redemption table prices hotels based on their brand (and in most cases there are a couple of points levels within each brands, with the more expensive hotels tending to cost more points). > Last year’s new-ish ‘multiple levels for each brand chart’ just went into effect a year ago. Since the change was done without notice, they provided a ‘grace period’ if you knew to call and ask where they would credit you points back into your account to make up for award price increases. Under the new chart which goes into effect January 18, awards still cost between 10,000 and 50,000 points but hotels will be assigned to one of 9 categories (like how other hotel chains do it, but with more categories) instead…
Common Tourist Scams and How to Avoid Them
Walking along the Seine last weekend I was approached multiple times — in just a few minutes — with the same attempted scam. A guy walks up, ‘notices’ a ring on the ground. Calls for your attention. If you let it play out, he asks you if it’s yours. When you say no he plays up how great it is, how it’s his lucky day, but that he’s in need of cash quickly and can’t get to a jeweler. He’ll grudgingly sell this very expensive piece to you for just 50 euros. Of course it’s worth almost nothing. But people are greedy and get taken. The scam must work, since scammers are out around Paris doing this all day, every day. The first two who tried it on me weren’t very good. The best would…
Citi ThankYou Points Introduces Hilton as its First Transfer Partner
About 10 months back there was a great deal of speculation that Citibank was on the verge of introducing points transfers into other loyalty programs as a feature of its ThankYou Points program. That speculation was followed by a whole bunch of non-denial denials from Citi. I was confident it was going to happen, but it didn’t Until now, that is. Citi ThankYou Points can be transferred to Hilton HHonors at a rato of 1000 ThankYou points to 1500 HHonors, the standard American Express Membership Rewards rate which I don’t generally consider a good deal – and rarely consider to be a good deal when Amex runs transfer bonuses, either. This option now appears on the Hilton HHonors website. And it’s also on the Citi ThankYou site under Points Exchange (must be logged into your…
Finally Some Information on American’s Elusive Business ExtrAA American Express Card
A card that I’ve been curious about for a long time — American’s Business ExtrAA American Express — is a bit of a conundrum. Nobody really has written much about it. But the Business ExtrAA (small business program with AAdvantage) program has some great awards, and their chart is fairly lucrative (3000 points is enough to gift an Admiral’s Club membership, 5400 points is enough for a capacity controlled premium cabin Hawaii roundtrip award) — so it always just seemed a matter of figuring out the earning rates. Which are far from clear on the card’s website. But Pizza in Motion has begun digging and lays out a bit of how the card works along with its benefits as well as who qualifies and the process for getting the card. He promises more to come,…
Bits ‘n Pieces or January 4, 2014
News and notes from around the interweb: Wandering Aramean details a new top elite tier in the Greyhound Road RewardsAmtrak Guest Rewards program that seems pretty good for upgrades and bonus points (if you spend about $10,000 or take 40 one-way Acela trips in a year). I shouldn’t make fun of the Amtrak program, I id receive all those Hyatt gift cards from converting my Priority Club points after all. Delta Points says the Air France website now recognizes Delta trip confirmation numbers, which can be mildly useful for seat assignments. I suppose it was easier to update Air France’s technology than for Delta to just display corresponding Air France record locators online, or to train Delta telephone agents that Air France is a partner. He suggests adding Delta flights to a Flying Blue account…
Avis Now Defaults to Charging Preferred Members to Convert Foreign Rentals to Their Home Currency — And Why This is Bad for You
Reader Mary Beth points out something I hadn’t seen before on the Avis website, when you go to your profile and update your credit card (probably because my credit card on file will expire soon, so I haven’t updated it in a long time): Emphasis below is mine: Note: International travelers using a MasterCard or Visa charge card have the opportunity to be billed in their local currency: I choose to have Avis bill all my future rental charges in the currency of my Avis profile credit card. I understand that if I am renting at a location at which the currency differs from my credit card issuing currency, Avis will convert my rental charges to my card issuing currency. Immediately after I return my rental car, Avis will use the prevailing conversion rate. Any…
Up to 50% Bonus on Purchase of Virgin America Miles
Virgin America is offering a bonus on purchase of miles that gets progressively larger the more miles you buy, up to a 50% bonus. This applies to purchases through January 31. The maximum points you can purchase in a year is 20,000. Buying 20,000 miles nets a 10,000 mile bonus. That means you get 30,000 miles for $1040, or about 3.5 cents a mile. The thing to remember is that Virgin America’s award chart is a bit different from legacy carriers, so in some ways that equates to buying miles from such other carriers for a bit over two pennies. I’m not a buyer at that price, but for topping off towards an award it’s a non-crazy price. For instance, buying 30,000 miles is enough for a one-way San Francisco – London award in Upper…
Bits ‘n Pieces for January 3, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Instant top tier platinum status with Le Club Accorhotels is still working. Turkish Airlines is still offering status matches, including to elite members of other Star Alliance programs. That means if you have Gold or higher status with United or US Airways, you can get a status match from Turkish and free lounge access when flying in the domestic U.S. Travel & Leisure‘s January issue quotes me in their “Most Important Travel Trends of 2013 piece — I argue that international award seats are easier to get than domestic, and they pick up the argument from me that airlines which block tools that help frequent flyer members manage their miles (like Award Wallet) reduce their own members’ loyalty. United is offering 2000 miles for joining a participating gym.…
US Airways Finally Tells the Truth — Lufthansa First Class is Not Offered by the Dividend Miles Program
I was emailing yesterday with Ben and after discussing something on a completely different topic, and mentioned I needed to write about the addition of a new footnote in the US Airways award chart. He replied, “was *just* writing it as you emailed. Hah!” Of course Ben is a professional blogger and got his thoughts up right away. I, on the other hand, had my first day in a new office. I have been overseeing the construction and permitting (egads, it involved getting a County re-zoning), which all completed last week — just in time for move-in. So things were a little bit chaotic. And I’m about 16 hours behind. US Airways Updates Their Award Chart to Say Lufthansa First Class is Not Offered The US Airways partner award chart (.pdf) has been updated to…
