News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Fast, fast, fast: The 100,000 mile British Airways Visa signup bonus that I wrote about yesterday seems to be unavailable. It’s still on the British Airways website, but the application won’t come up when you click through. Possibly dead, possibly a temporary glitch. If the former, that was quick! (HT: Miles in the comments) Cheaper than you think: Yankees pitcher charters a 787. It cost $200,000 from Japan to New York, even with the plane flying back empty. Robert Palmer Was Right: (Might as well face it, you’re addicted to miles.) I was asked to contribute a piece on extreme miles behavior for an addiction and recovery website. A little bit tongue-in-cheek, and surprisingly (?) controversial. Bad Weather Plan B: Using airline 24 hour cancel rules to buy…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for February 2014.
Worst Case Scenario: How to Rescue Your Trip During Bad Weather
This has been one crazy winter for travel. And we’re back with a ‘crippling ice storm,’ a ‘state of emergency,’ ‘historic storm,’ a storm that ‘will make last month’s storm look puny’. If you’re traveling this week, here are some things you can do to handle the challenges ahead in the best way possible. Hang up, call back if you don’t get the answer or help you want. Have the airline call you. Hold times can be long. Elite phone numbers are usually better, but during weather events those can be interminable too. Try non-U.S. call center numbers — Skype an Australia, U.K., or Singapore phone number for instance to get through. Or if your carrier offers you a call back option, have them call you back — whether you think you need to talk…
American Confirms Citibank as Exclusive Card Issuer Going Forward
Last month I wrote that the US Airways card from Barclays is not going away with the American – US Airways merger. That was based on comments from Barclaycard’s managing director of co-brand partnerships. Today Citibank confirmed the same — that they will be the exclusive issuer of new American AAdvantage cards once the US Airways and American frequent flyer programs are combined in 2015. Bank of America and Barclays will still service their existing cardmembers for the time being, but won’t be able to issue new cards. American and Citi made the announcement formally today (I haven’t yet found the release online) that following the integration of American’s and US Airways’ programs Citi will be the exclusive co-brand card issuer. That was never really much in doubt, American and Citi have partnered since 1987…
Airlines Duel Over the Best Food in Economy, the February 15 Deadline, Woman Offers Inflight Sex, and More Sochi Hotel Goodness (Bits ‘n Pieces for February 11, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Malaysia Airlines is taking heat for the quality of the Nasi Lemak (a national rice dish) that it served in economy on a ~ 750 mile flight. The carrier promises to take “mmediate measures to improve the quality of its in-flight meal.” Meanwhile rival discount airline Air Asia (tagline: “Now everyone can fly!”) touts the quality of its own nasi lemak. Imagine such a rivalry in the U.S.! (HT: uggboy on Milepoint) Starwood is offering double points for eating at their hotel restaurants when you aren’t staying there as a guest. Woman went berserk on a Delta flight when another passenger turned her down for sex. Perhaps Delta’s planes just didn’t offer convenient places to join? If you got in any Hyatt Gold Passport reward night reservations before…
Air New Zealand’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Safety Video Is Live!
On Sunday I mentioned that Air New Zealand was about to debut a new safety video, Safety in Paradise, marking 40 years of flying to the Cook Islands — a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit safety video. And I posted a ‘making of’ video. Now the safety video itself is live. And they declare ‘the beauty of safety’. It’s all the traditional safety instructions, in bikinis, on a beach. And it has a good sense of humor about itself. Are you more likely to look up from your book (or, in the States, electronic devices) and pay attention to a non-traditional safety video? You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s…
Sheraton Macao Apologizes for Accusing Me of Stealing Coffee
My Sheraton Macao story was surprisingly controversial. Mostly I thought it was funny, I’m standing in my bathrobe at 6:30 in the morning, with a hotel staff member in the room pointedly accusing me of trying to scam them for 4 free cups of coffee. It was a minor thing in the grand scheme of things, but one of my more awkward hotel moments. And it brought out many divergent opinions from readers. I’m often surprised by the things that get peoples’ juices flowing! (I tend to think I’ll get more comments on things like 100,000 mile bonuses, but what do I know?) I thought I’d post a follow-up. As I shared in the comments earlier, I had tweeted the post to @spg and I received a response. They replied fairly quickly on Sunday night…
British Airways Visa 100,000 Mile Signup Bonus is Back!
Note that I do not receive referral credit for this offer at the time of this writing. British Airways and Chase are back with a 100,000 Avios signup bonus. (Update: No longer available.) You will get 50,000 bonus Avios after $2,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.2 25,000 bonus Avios after $10,000 in purchases within the first year of account opening.2 Plus an additional 25,000 bonus Avios after you make an additional $10,000 in purchases also within the first year of account opening.2 Together that’s 100,000 bonus Avios, which is enough for a round-trip business class award flight.3 Taxes, fees, and carrier charges are approximately $1,250 per adult in business class based on travel from Seattle to London.4 As with offers for this card over the past year and a half,…
40% Discount on Purchased United Miles
Through February 17 United is offering up to a 40% discount on purchased miles. Buy 15,000 to 39,000 miles and receive a 25% discount, or buy 40,000 miles or more for a 40% discount. United now allows the purchase of up to 150,000 miles per year. But would you want to at this price? You’ll still pay 2.26 cents per mile all-in with the 40% discount (requiring you to buy at least 40,000 miles). And while that would have been a little high — I’d not really have wanted to buy miles above 2 cents, though this is as low a price as United directly sells miles for — in a post-devaluation MileagePlus world I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where I’d be buying 40,000 United miles, enough to get the price down…
Lufthansa First Class Award Space Wide Open from Montreal (and Vancouver)
Lufthansa generally does not release first class award seats more than 14 days prior to travel to members of its partner frequent flyer programs like United MileagePlus, Air Canada’s Aeroplan, or Avianca’s LifeMiles. That makes it really hard to book. Most people make their award travel plans more than two weeks out, and even if you’re booking close to departure there’s also the return flight to worry about. As a result, Lufthansa first class awards don’t really exist for most people anymore. Which is a shame, because Lufthansa has tons of flights from so many North American cities. And they offer one of the better products across the Atlantic, especially on the ground in Germany (to read about the incredible Lufthansa First Class Terminal in Frankfurt, including photos and menus, see here, here, and here).…
Earn Miles for Paying Your Mortgage and Other Bills (and Liquidate Gift Cards for Free)
You should read this blog post by ‘Frequent Miler’. He describes Evolve Money, a new service that will let you pay bills (for free) with prepaid debit cards and gift cards. It’s a great way to liquidate those. They don’t publish a comprehensive list of the bills they let you pay. This service is a loss leader for them so they don’t just let you add your own merchants to pay. But you may be able to pay your mortgage, even, with a mileage-earning debit card (like the Suntrust Delta debit card) or liquidate a MyVanilla Debit card (that you funded with Vanilla Reloads) or even MasterCard/Visa gift cards that you purchased with a credit card at a store where you earned bonus miles. You’re allowed $1000 per day in bill payments currently. As they…
