Regular readers know that I am a fan of the American Express Centurion Lounge at Dallas-Forth Worth Airport (terminal D, across from gate D14). Free access to American Express Platinum and Centurion cardholders, with paid access available to other American Express members. There is a case to be made that it is the best lounge in the United States. There’s good food, a good bar, a complimentary spa (15 minute treatments), and showers. It’s attractively designed as well. I’ll gladly take the train between terminals when connecting to visit here instead of using an Admiral’s Club. A few more clubs like this (they’ve got one in Las Vegas, have San Francisco and New York LaGuardia in the chute, and more in the pipeline) and I won’t mind that my Platinum card won’t get access to…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for February 2014.
How to Maximize Your Chances of an Upgrade
I quickly earned elite status once I knew what it was, about a year after college when I was first traveling for work. I thought I knew the ins and outs like nobody’s business, and I thought I was a true road warrior. After all I had flown over 25,000 miles on United in a year, and I had Premier status! As a top tier (100,000 mile flyer) I worry less about strategizing to get domestic upgrades. A 1K on United might not always clear the upgrade list, at least living in a high revenue hub like San Francisco or a government flyer hub like Washington DC (since government YCA fares let 25,000 mile flyers trump 100,000 mile folks flying mid-tier fares). But an American Executive Platinum will usually clear the upgrade list except on…
How I Earn Miles for Most of My Spending With Merchants Who Don’t Accept Credit Cards
My local CVS pharmacies are endless sources of Vanilla Reload cards. They’ll sell me up to $5000 per day on a credit card (any amount of $1000 or more they will scan my drivers license). Vanilla Reload cards are essentially money — you buy them and can load the funds onto a variety of prepaid money cards like MyVanilla Debit and American Express Bluebird. And since I have an almost endless supply of these cards (many people can’t find them at all, or their nearby stores won’t take credit cards), I have no problem exceeding the $5000 monthly limit I can put onto an American Express Bluebird card. Bluebird is a great banking product, given its billpay functionality, I can use Bluebird to pay a mortgage, rent, or even monthly bills from other financial products.…
Here’s Why We’ve Had the Worst Winter for Air Travel On Record
Time has an important piece dealing with why this winter’s flight cancellations have set an all-time record. Weather has been bad, but it draws out several issues causing flights to be delayed and cancelled more than ever before. There is a combination of weather, government regulation, and the article pins blame on airline consolidation as well. No doubt new pilot rest rules contribute to the issue. These were lobbied for by pilots unions, and have created a shortage of pilots at regional airlines — which protects pilots from competition and drives up their bargaining power and ultimately their wages — in the same of safety. Like them or hate them, the rules are causing a pinch. And tarmac delay rules lead to longer delays (going back to the gate to open the aircraft door rather…
Club Carlson Devalues Their Devaluation — A Second Devaluation In Just Two Days!
Yesterday Club Carlson announced several changes to its program including reduced points-earning (lower elite bonuses, that the online booking bonus wouldn’t be permanent) and increased points costs (including a new top 70,000 point redemption tier). They also announced that award stays would count towards elite status (even as elite status will get you fewer bonus points). One element of the award chart price increases, though, was that they would be effective March 15 for stays for travel on or after May 1. In other words, you could still book at the old rates up to the date of travel if you’re going to stay prior to May 1. An April 15 hotel booking that you’d make on points the night before would still have been at the old rates, according to their announcement. So members…
Starwood Changing Award Prices on 20% of Its Hotels
Starwood has announced its annual changes in award categories. The increases are centered in North America, the decreases in Asia, with more hotels going down than up but more hotels entering the upper redemption tiers than leaving those tiers. Ultimately changes we can live with. Please note that we are not adding new categories or changing category pricing. Just over 20% of hotels are changing category, of these 56% are moving down and 44% are moving up. Here’s the preliminary (‘subject to change’) list of hotels changing category. Hotels dropping in award category: 8 hotels are dropping in category in Africa/Middle East. 88 hotels are dropping in category in Asia/Pacific. This is great news for redemptions in China and India and across the region. Oddly with so many hotels dropping in the region, none are…
Redeem Your Points for a Hot Tub, Compensate for the Latest Devaluation, and Profit By Moving to Seattle (Bits ‘n Pieces for February 20, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Taking the LCD toaster to a new level in terms of bad redemption value — Lufthansa’s Miles & More will let you redeem 2 million points for a whirlpool tub. At their inflated retail price offering, that’s still only half a cent per point in value. Delta doubles (or triples, quadruples, quintuples) down in Seattle again, with double miles and double elite qualifying miles for Washington State residents flying to and from Seattle through the end of the year. Now that they’ve devalued both earning and redemption, Club Carlson will offer you bonus points for staying at some of their hotels. The US government is offering $90,000 in prizes for developers who create apps which can help reduce the cost of federal travel. (HT: Carrie C.) United is…
New $35 Pay Lounge Opens at Newark Airport’s Terminal B
A new upscale pay-in lounge opened at Newark in Terminal B. It’s currently also available to El Al passengers as their premium pre-departure offering. The “Art & Lounge” is on the gate level of terminal B beside duty free. The art concept involves changing exhibitions of contemporary art — given the El Al arrangement, currently Israeli art. There’s also video art displayed on several tv’s of varying dimensions. There’s seating for 90 guests, free wifi, and Hebrew and English language newspapers and magazines. They cater Kosher refreshments, fruits, a vegetable salad bar, cheese, breads, and baked goods are offered. A “health corner” offers granola, dried fruit, yogurt and silan (dates and honey). The lounge is currently rented by El Al for their premium passengers, so open only around their departure times. It is available for…
It’s Worth It To Like Our Facebook Page. Trust Us. We’ll Tell You Why Later.
In an earlier career incarnation, I was a fundraiser. In fact, I wrote new donor acquisition letters (“direct mail prospecting”) under the signatures of two Majority Leaders of Congress and a future Vice Presidential candidate. About 15 years ago I attended a talk on direct mail fundraising, and remember the story of one of the most legendary and successful pieces of fundraising mail on either side of the aisle. It was written under the signature of then-North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, and effectively just said something along the lines of: I’m locked in an important battle with liberals and don’t have time to write more. I need your help right away, I’d appreciate if you could send a gift and will update you with news soon. That was it. One thing learned in direct mail…
US Airways Will Raise the Price and Limit Your Ability to Buy Elite Status Starting March 1
Some pretty big news this afternoon. US Airways lets you straight-up buy elite quaifying miles or segments. With the Dividend Miles program there’s frequently no need to ‘mileage run’ or take extra flights just for the miles in order to reach status, it’s usually cheaper just to have them charge your credit card. In fact, you can go from 1 mile flown to top tier Chairmans Preferred (100,000 mile flyer) for a flat $2999. Compare that to Delta where they want you to fly 125,000 miles with minimum ticket revenue of $12,500. US Airways has a history of unconventional means of qualifying for elite status. At the end of 2006 they offered an ‘everything counts’ promo where even miles from sending flowers and renting cars counted towards elite status. That way they wouldn’t have mileage…
