For years the official rule with American Express Membership Rewards has been that you could only transfer your points to your own loyalty program accounts, or to loyalty program accounts of people who had linked cards on your Membership Rewards account. In other words, if you had an American Express Platinum account and earned membership rewards and you had secondary cardholders, you could transfer points to accounts in the name of those secondary cardholders. And you’d probably have that rule enforced if you called American Express to make the transfer. But on the Amex website you could always link anyone’s account you wished — it would ask for the accountholder name and account number — and then once linked transfer points into that account. No longer. The American Express website has changed. It appears you…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for June 2014.
You Won’t Believe What Happened to This Man on a Flight to Hong Kong!
I almost wanted to pretend I was Buzzfeed and add an “OMG!” to the title of the post. Because a man on a Cathay Pacific Newark – Hong Kong flight trapped his middle finger in the lavatory’s trash bin. He couldn’t get it out. And he had to stay in the lavatory for the rest of the flight and for landing. It took firefighters to free him upon landing. (Although the South China Morning Post has a conflicting account suggesting that he managed to free himself before firefighters arrived.) At least this happened, apparently, towards the end of the flight rather than at the beginning, and he was only stuck in the lav for an hour. The passenger was a 32 year old American man. That’s the story, anyway. But I cannot imagine how this…
As an Older White Male Business Traveler, Should I Care that American Express Is Focusing Elsewhere?
The Wall Street Journal reports on the shifting business focus of American Express and the rise of Bluebird. American Express was traditionally an issuer of charge (not credit) cards and its customer base especially affluent. That’s changing. “I always figured AmEx was for more well-off people, but if they are extending their hand to people who are less well off, it’s OK by me,” says Mr. Rodriguez, who lives in Denton, Texas, about 40 miles from Fort Worth. AmEx once boasted a customer base that was the envy of the industry, with its iconic green charge cards and lavish perks. But growing competition for affluent customers from issuers like J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is driving the New York company to court consumers with a card it pitches as an alternative to checking accounts for…
Confirmed: American to Reduce the Size of New 777-200 Business Class Cabin
I’m really looking forward to American reconfiguring their international fleet with new business class. I love the new product on their Boeing 777-300ER and they’re finally getting started on the 767s and the 777-200s. Here’s what we’ve seen with the 777-200 seat. American’s new 777-200 retrofit revealed Details of American’s new 777-200 refurbishment revealed American’s new 767 Business Class Seat Revealed From what I’ve heard about the new 777-200 seat, it’s even better than the 777-300ER seat. It has more space. There are both forward and rear-facing seats, and from what I’ve been told the rear seats are better with substantially increased work space. But it’s not clear that I’ll ever fly these seats or at least I may fly them when the planes are first getting reconfigured, but it turns out they are going…
Another Program Flushes its Award Chart and More!
News and notes from around the interweb: Yesterday I wrote about a new $1000 gift card you can buy with a credit card. The Points Traveler walks through the steps for buying it, some notions on liquidating it, and summarizes reports so far (Chase and Bank of America coding these as purchases, Citi and US Bank as cash advances which is bad). JetBlue’s apology to the child forced to pee in her seat. Take a ride on Lyft and if you can get your driver to sign up for and drive with UberX you can get a $250 credit and they’ll get $500. This appears to be available in Atlanta, Chicago and Nashville. No more shopping portal payouts for gift cards purchased at Staples.com Military coups are bad for frequent flyer programs? Thai Airways Royal…
American Express Platinum Grows its Lounge Network: San Diego
Even though American Express Platinum and Centurion cardholders lost access to American and US Airways lounges at the end of March and lost guest privileges at Delta lounges May 1 (of course many people were cool with this because of credits up to $500 American Express handed out), I continue to find the card very useful for lounge status. American Express has a growing network of their own lounges, which are generally better than airline offerings. The cards lets you request a Priority Pass Select, which provides access to a variety of airline lounges (such as Alaska Airlines lounges in the U.S.) and independent lounges. American Express also has direct relationships with Airspace lounges There are at least 5 known US domestic Centurion lounges expected to be open by the end of the year —…
Was There a Riot at Newark Airport This Week, and Did United Cause It?
Have a look at this video from Newark airport, apparently after United cancelled a flight to Barcelona this week. Here’s the video’s description. I’m skeptical about the claim that “United airlines cancelled the same flight #2096 3 days in a row.” The normal Newark-Barcelona flight is UA120. According to Flight Aware only the Newark-Barcelona flight on June 15 was cancelled (and after a lengthy delay). Other flights appear to have operated normally in the preceding days. It also appears that United 2096 was a separate section run to accomodate that cancellation. So passengers appear to have been given the opportunity to get out the next day. Now, this is not a route on which I’d depend on on-time performance. I have no doubt that United customer service in Newark performed poorly. The very existence of…
Another Airline Decides to Light Money on Fire With All-Business Class Service to Paris
The old joke is still true: Q: How do you become a millionaire quickly? A: Start out a billionaire and invest in an airline. La Compangie will offer all business class flights between New York and Paris. When they invited me out to their launch announcement (I couldn’t go), my first thought was “because that always works.” There’s always an aviation executive who things “there’s a really big market, and if we just got 1% of it we’d be profitable…” But getting that 1% is a challenge With limited frequencies Without corporate contracts Without an existing customer base or brand recognition Without a major frequent flyer program for support Eos, Maxjet, and Silverjet didn’t make it. British Airways’ OpenSkies has had the support of a major airline but didn’t stick with a true all business…
Why Kuala Lumpur Is One of My Favorite Food Cities
Previous trip report installments Introduction: Maldives and Malaysia in First Class, How I Booked It and What it Cost Etihad Lounge and First Class, Washington Dulles – Abu Dhabi Premier Inn Abu Dhabi International Airport Etihad’s Abu Dhabi first class lounge, and business class Abu Dhabi – Male Maldivian Domestic Lounge, Flight, and Boat Transfer to the Park Hyatt Park Hyatt Hadahaa Maldives Boat Transfer, Maldivian Domestic Flight Kooddoo – Male, and Malaysia Airlines Business Class, Male – Kuala Lumpur Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur When I was in Kuala Lumpur a year and a half ago, I had a fantastic food tour put together by Farah at Food Tour Malaysia. So I decided to look them, and Farah, up again. The full day for a guide and vehicle (all food included for two) was ~…
The New Pattern for Finding 2 First Class Seats on American’s Premium Transcon Flights
As a follow on to my discussion of how tough it is to get premium domestic cross country award flights in business class except at the last minute, a word about first class is in order. American is the only airline offering a separate cabin 3-class first class product. You can read up on it here and also here. A good reminder that every rule about award availability works until it doesn’t anymore, I had pretty much internalized that American only releases one first class seat at a time on its New York JFK – Los Angeles and San Francisco new premium cabin A321T flights. Here’s the new pattern for finding first class award availability ofr two passengers on the premium transcon flights.
