Rewards Network is the company that provides branded mileage-earning dining programs in conjunction with major frequent flyer programs like United MileagePlus, American AAdvantage, and Delta Skymiles. I’ll always call them iDine, it former name, and the predecessor to that was Transmedia — the old program where you paid to sign up and had a membership card which you needed to present at restaurants for a cash discount. When I first started earning with them in the mid-1990s, United’s program was only open to their elite frequent flyers. I used to rack up miles by choosing to schedule reimbursable business meals at participating restaurants, and steering groups of friends towards those restaurants — where everyone would kick in cash and I’d earn miles for the total bill that I’d put on my credit card. Standard earning…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for February 2014.
Frequent Traveler University – Nearly 90% Sold Out
I wrote about the upcoming Frequent Traveler University event in mid-December. It will be held in Seattle, starting the evening of Friday April 25th and running through the afternoon of Sunday, April 27th. Tickets are on sale Hotel is available for booking Here’s where to discuss the event with fellow attendees We’re capping the size of the event this time, after having ~ 650 people in Washington DC in April and a much more managable group in Tampa in September. 400 people seems just a better size for having a chance to get to know people, networking and sharing tips with each other, and building community beyond just listening to speakers. That said, the speakers will be great. I already shared that we would have Lucky from One Mile at a Time, Greg from Frequent…
Big Bank Threatens a Blog, Consumers Threaten a Big Company That Does Good, and Heathrow Set to Get Better (Bits ‘n Pieces for February 7, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Capital One tries to shut down a blog for talking about them without authorization. The proper way to set your passport on fire. A rundown of Heathrow’s new Star Alliance terminal 2 which will open in June Jet Airways JetPrivilege is being spun off into a separate company that will be 51% owned by Etihad. Wyndham is offering double points on your first 4 stays by March 21. Wyndham Visa cardholders earn an additional 500 points per stay as well. Is Gogo inflight internet an unlawful monopoly? The claim strkes me as silly, it’s a substantially contested market, Gogo isn’t even profitable, and I think it’s hard to claim that their substantial investments in inflight internet have somehow harmed the consumer. They’ve materially improved my life. Go, Gogo,…
Will Your Credit Card Work in Europe? What’s a “Chip” Card, and Do You Need a PIN Number?
Reader S. asks, I was in Norway 2 weeks ago – tried buying a train ticket, but the machine only accepted chip cards…same thing for the automated parking garages where you have to pay with a credit card only. Everyone I saw was entering PIN numbers with their chip card – for US cards with the chip – do we have to get a PIN number? I have the Hyatt Card with a chip in it (my sapphire does not – can I request cards with chips now? How does that work?). If we get a PIN number – is it still a credit transaction or does it become a cash transaction (never used a PIN for my credit card before – only my ATM cards). Most US cards have only a magnetic strip on…
$9 Audi Car Rentals from Silvercar
Silvercar is a new car rental outfit that only rents Audi A4s and gives you: Free GPS, wifi, and satellite radio Free toll tracking (you pay the tolls you consume, with no markup) If you don’t refuel the car, you pay a $5 admin fee and the local rate for premium gas. They’re currently in five locations: Austin Dallas – DFW Dallas – Love Los Angeles – LAX San Francisco – SFO The business model isn’t a clear no-brainer, they used to have a Houston Hobby location but that’s been closed. Lucky noted that discount code AFF-FTD is good for $50 off a rental through June 30. And since rates start at $59+tax for a weekend day, I thought I’d check them out for a one-day weekend rental I needed coming up. Entering the promotion…
Rocketmiles 3000 Aeroplan Mile First-time Booking Bonus
Rocketmiles is a hotel booking site with a limited number of hotels and in a limited – but growing – number of cities. It rebates you a potentially large number of miles for your reservations. (You generally won’t earn hotel points for your stays booked through the site.) You get to choose whose miles you want to earn for your stays. In addition to the standard bonus they are now offering a 3000 mile bonus for making your first booking by April 6 for a stay consumed by December 31 and earning Aeroplan miles. Qualifying Activity: To be eligible, the hotel reservation MUST BE BOOKED USING THIS PROMOTIONAL LINK (www.rocketmiles.com/aeroplan-3k-bonus) by 11:59PM CT on 6 April 2014 and travel by 31 December 2014 (a yellow banner at the top of the search results page will…
How Credit Cards are Made, Watch Planes and Get Hit By a Truck, and Inflight Streaming Video Coming Next Year (Bits ‘n Pieces for February 6, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: How a credit card is made. (The actual, physical card, not the benefits.. which themselves involve a negotiation between card issuer, card network, and co-brand partner.) Another US Airways flight gets hit by a truck. That’s costly, and they’ll need to make it up somewhere in merger synergies… The observation deck on top of the old Encounter restaurant at LAX will re-open Saturday. It’s one of the many great places at LAX (like the In ‘n Out Burger next to the Sepulveda Parking Spot location – free bus!) to watch aircraft. The end of digEplayers? Alaska’s CEO says they’ll add servers to their planes and start streaming 1000 movies inflight in a year. Good Costco joining deal. The Truth About the Luxury of Qatar Airways (HT: Lucky) It…
Pretty Proud of My Award Booking Partner!
Many of you know that I offer an award booking service. It grew too big to handle on my own, and I was fortunate enough to be able to partner with one of the real veterans and gurus in the frequent flyer game, Steve Belkin (known in online forums as ‘beaubo’). Steve is most famous for exploiting loopholes in frequent flyer programs like Aeroplan and United’s MileagePlus in a truly big way, scaling opportunities to earn millions instead of thousands of miles. And in that pursuit he has hired disable Thai rice farmers to fly in and out of the Golden Triangle area of Thailand, and New Zealand college students to fly to Europe for the summer. One of the really fun projects he’s had is called Competitours. For 12 days every summer, Steve disappears…
United Won’t Charge More for Connecting Flights on Partner Airlines (Despite Their Earlier Threats)
United’s big devaluation also creates a more complicated mileage program. There are distinctly different award charts for travel on United (or Copa) and for travel on United’s partners. The complication of course is that there are plenty of world destinations that United doesn’t serve. And they still want you to fly United for the major portions of the trip, since that redemption costs them less. The initial clarification was that you could add a partner connecting flight in a lower class of service than your United flight without forcing the higher partner award chart price. In other words, they said they were going to allow you to fly US – Europe on United in business class, and then Europe – Your final destination in Europe on a partner in coach and you’d still pay the…
What Changes Will Be Allowed to United Award Tickets Issued Before the Devaluation?
United’s big award chart devaluation which was scheduled to go into effect on February 1 was put off a few days but is now in effect. Lots of folks booked awards speculatively before the bloodshed. Transatlantic business class awards on United’s partners went up 40%. Some first class awards went up more than 80%. Of course, there were few changes to coach awards and to awards within the Americas. And a handful of awards actually get cheaper. But for Americans looking to travel to Europe, Asia, Africa, or elsewhere in premium cabins prices went up a whole lot. And for those who planned ahead and booked future travel under the old rates, there’s been lots of uncertainty about what kinds of changes to travel would be permitted without an increase in mileage cost to the…
