Key Link: Chase Sapphire Preferred You can earn the most bonus points with the Ink Plus® Business Card because it earns 5 points per dollar on telecommunications (cell phone, internet, satellite/cable tv) and at office supply stores (with all the myriad things you can buy there) plus it has a signup bonus of 50,000 points after $5000 spend within 3 months and a $0 fee the first year ($95 thereafter). Here are the top 10 things I love about the Ink Plus card. But for someone looking for just one card, wanting to know which one is best, I recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. Here are my 10 favorite things about Sapphire Preferred. 40,000 Point Signup Bonus.. Plus 5000 More! At 40,000 bonus points after $3000 in spending within 3 months, it has a…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for April 2014.
How Airlines Combat Fraudulent Tickets to Protect Their Revenue
American’s ‘revenue integrity’ team was created in 2008. They search out abusive booking practices by passengers which take up seats that could otherwise be sold by the airline, and that work to get seats cheaper than the airline intends to sell them. Here’s a presentation by that team from 2010 (.pdf). American is not alone in this, and the things that are flags for American are also generally flags for others as well — to greater or lesser degrees. American searches for – and cancels – duplicate bookings. I recently put an itinerary on hold that overlapped with something I already had ticketed. My plan was to call, cancel the existing itinerary and use it as a credit towards the new ticket. By the time I called, the new itinerary I had held was cancelled.…
What Airlines Look for to Crack Down on the Sale of Miles
Last year I wrote what to do if your frequent flyer account gets audited. Here’s a link to a series of presentations on fraud from an airline’s perspective. In particular, reading through a 2011 powerpoint presentation from American Airlines, here are things they look for: Same email address and/or telephone number used on multiple frequent flyer accounts Booking of last-minute award travel Change to travel dates shortly after the ticket is issued Origination/destination not same as the program member’s address on file Confirmation email address does not match program member’s email address on file Logging into several frequent flyer accounts from the same IP address These things don’t inherently signal fraud, often phone numbers will be the same within a family (but do the addresses match?). But they’re still flags for the airline. Last minute…
Can You Get a Refund for a Vanilla Reload Card?
Reader Jim may have been too aggressive in picking up extra Vanilla Reload cards before it’s too late. And he doesn’t have anything to load them onto without waiting a month. At least that’s his story (he may just be asking about another method to ‘unload’ them). So he asks if it’s possible to get a refund for his card purchase, and ideally even to get the money refunded by check rather than refunded to his credit card. And the answer is yes, maybe. Only the store where he purchased the cards would be able to refund to his credit card. And they generally won’t issue a refund anyway. On the other hand, Vanilla Reload itself will, but they do not have to, which means that if you have a good reason to ask and…
United Lounge Access for US Airways Elites Through February 2015 (With 1 Air Canada Flight)
Airlines will often give you elite status if you already have status with a competitor. But it’s rare for non-U.S. airlines to do this. And it’s especially valuable when non-U.S. airlines that are partners of United or American/US Airways do this because that elite status will often afford you lounge access when flying United or American/US Airways. Since US Airways has left the Star Alliance and joined oneworld, Star Alliance member Air Canada is offering status matches to US Airways elite frequent flyers. This is very rare for Air Canada to do. US Airways Silvers get the grandiose-sounding but not all that rewarding ‘Altitude Prestige 25k’ level. While US Airways Golds and above (so including Platinums and Chairmans Preferred members) get Altitude Elite 50k, which is also Star Alliance Gold. That means you get priority…
The Truth About View From the Wing Revealed
There are a couple of ‘blog awards’ out there at present, this site is nominated in both of them, but I’m not pestering you for your vote. Instead, I’m highly amused by the approaches others are taken. The Frequent Miler blog wrote an amusing piece on their supposed ‘campaign strategy’ for winning one of those. He’s doing opposition research on other bloggers and developing talking points, in case he has to go negative. About this blog? View from the Wing: Full time job, owner or partner in numerous businesses. writes 40 to 50 blog posts per day. Alien? Cyborg? Talking points: still researching (need to check that Cyborg angle) Commenter Rob wrote, View From The Wing is obviously an automated SEO-driven software agent set to draw advertising and referral revenue by posting highly precise content…
Selling Vanilla Reloads at a Profit, Star Alliance Status Match, and British Airways Sticks it to Gold Elites (Bits ‘n Pieces for April 1, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: As reliable as a Delta.com award pricing error: A new alliance member means a bonus miles promotion. Double AAdvantage miles on all TAM flights in May There’s one born every minute: People appear to be selling Vanilla Reloads at a profit on eBay. The Onion: Flight Attendant Quietly Informs First Class Passengers Where Real Emergency Exits Are British Airways Sticks it to Their Top Elites, With No Notice: Reader Dave M. emailed me early in the morning on the 31st to let me know that BA started charging their top tier Gold elites award change and cancellation fees. The change was implemented without any advance notice — or any notice at all, as members haven’t been informed, it’s simply in the price quote details when making an award…
Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Testing Higher Fees: Consider Signing Up Now
Scott at HackMyTrip writes, Wandering Aramean found that Chase is doing some research on its new applicants, offering variable annual fees that range from $95 to $149. All of them still waive the fee the first year, but it is worrying that they may be planning to make this card more expensive. The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is the best all-around frequent flyer points card and the best for beginners. It’s the card I’d tell people to get if they could only have one. That’s because: it’s got a strong bonus, 40,000 points after $3000 spend within 3 months plus 5000 more if you add an authorized user and make a purchase it’s a great card for earning, double points on all travel and dining it’s great for foreign travel with no foreign currency transaction fees…
Star Alliance Gold Status for Sale
Avianca LifeMiles will now straight-up sell you elite status. And with this change they fully supplant US Airways’ role inside of the Star Alliance. US Airways used to be known as ‘the official consolidator of Star Alliance premium cabin seats’ (HT: eponymous coward), the idea was that they would sell miles cheap and as a result let people buy the business and first class seats that the rest of the Star Alliance didn’t expect to sell for cash at a deep discount. No one monetized their frequent flyer program, and the award seats of their partners like US Airways. But now US Airways and American have merged, US Airways has left the Star Alliance. Fortunately Avianca LifeMiles has stepped up to the plate — with frequent discounted mileage purchase offers (selling miles even cheaper that…
Buying Vanilla Reloads at CVS With a Credit Card May End Chainwide By April 4th
CVS apparently sent out a memo to store managers that they would no longer be accepting credit cards as payment for certain prepaid and reloadable financial products, effective March 31. My favorite local CVS didn’t know anything about the change and indeed, despite reports by many that their CVS’ would no longer sell them Vanilla Reload cards via credit card, I was able to buy more yesterday. So what’s actually going on? The memo from CVS corporate seems genuine, and sent by the person there in charge of the product line. And yet not every store has stopped selling the cards this way. Some people have surmised that it’s really regional rather than nationwide, since some CVS stores have stopped selling these via credit card and others have not. More likely, some stores are enforcing…
