News and notes from around the interweb: Chinese man earns 422 million Amex points with one purchase. He bought a ceramic cup at auction, and earned a a fairly inflated Chinese American Express points with his Centurion card. If you ask me, it’s not a very efficient way to earn points — unless he can turn around and re-sell the cup for more than he paid for it net of auction fees. It’s unlikely he’ll go that route, though, considering he didn’t even know his Amex card earned points. Purchase by tomorrow and travel between August 1 and September 1 and Virgin America will give you 20% off paid non-refundable main cabin select and first class fares. (HT: Lucky) Not as good as 50% off paid first class, but with the promotion some West Coast…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for July 2014.
Avis is About to Revamp Its Loyalty Program, So Your Free Rental Days Will Expire Early
Avis has been just about to launch a revamped loyalty program for a long time. Years, in fact. Now they’re finally talking about it publicly so it’s probably actually close. There are currently 4 levels to the Avis program: Preferred, First, Presidents Club, and Chairmans Club. The only real benefits (like guaranteed rentals and meaningful upgrades) come with Presidents and Chairmans Club but you cannot earn those based on renting with Avis. Presidents Club is given to customers with legacy Continental Presidential Plus MasterCards and to American Express Centurion cardholders. A certain number of Presidents Club and Chairmans Club memberships are given to large corporate contracts. For most, the best you can do presently is Avis First which lets you earn free rental days. Avis is in my experience the most generous awarding miles. I…
One More Reason to Love Connecting at DFW!
DFW Airport is getting a banh mi shop. It’s called Banh Shop and is slated to open later this month in terminal D (the ‘international’ terminal which does house some domestic flights) near gate 31. And here’s the weird thing…
A Trick to Get Extra Legroom Seats for Less, and Discounted Lounge Passes
News and notes from around the interweb: Enter my giveaway of 75,000 Hyatt points. You can also win a $250 MGM Resorts gift card. A trick to get extra legroom seats for less Here are the best and worst times to take the train between New York and DC Mileage consultants exist in Australia, too (HT: Larry M.) Alaska Airlines Boardroom passes are $10 off through August 31. They still cost $35, are valid for a year, and need to be purchased in person to get the price. Gosh, I remember buying them for $12.50 apiece not that many years ago. You can join the 40,000+ 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…
Man Charged With Wanting to Be a Security Screener… Too Much
A fake security screener probed passengers at the San Francisco airport. A man suspected of being drunk posed as a security screener at San Francisco International Airport long enough to direct a couple of women into a private booth for pat downs before real security staffers caught on to him, authorities said Wednesday. ..Two other airport law enforcement sources tell us the incident started when the man entered the security area wearing khaki pants, a blue polo shirt and blue rubber gloves — an outfit that might have been mistaken for those worn by screeners with the private Covenant security firm. The man, apparently without saying much, steered a woman into one of the private screening booths used to pat down selected passengers, our sources say. What happened inside isn’t known, because the woman soon…
How to Get Easy Rental Car Elite Status from Avis, National, and Sixt
I receive compensation for many links on this blog. You don’t have to use these links, but I am grateful to you if you do. I do not write about all credit cards that are available — instead focusing on miles, points, and cash back (and currencies that can be converted into the same). Your Credit Card May Entitle You to Rental Car Elite Status Reader johnf shared in the comments that one of unique benefits of Mastercard for their ‘World Elite’ level cards is rental car status. In fact, World Elite Mastercard rental car benefits entitle you to status with 3 rental companies. Complimentary National Executive status. This benefit also comes with American Express Platinum, and has been part of the Milepoint Premium membership package the past two years. You earn free rentals faster…
Here are the Big Changes to LifeMiles for North America Awards
Yesterday I shared that Avianca’s LifeMiles is Planning Big Changes to its Award Chart. They shared a small amount of detail, and the link I had only dealt with a small amount of detail to, from, and within Europe. Since then I’ve received an email from LifeMiles with a link to a small amount of detail for North America itineraries. They’ve only given us specific pricing — that they tell us we cannot rely on — for Avianca’s own prices. For Star Alliance flights, we just get a range of point pricing changes. And it’s a big range.
Loyalty Programs Can’t Figure Out Social. Free Points for Us!
Programs used to be generous giving out points or other rewards on Facebook. The idea is it was worth it to them, they’d get access to your Facebook feed and could advertise to you forever. But it’s almost always a mistake to invest in someone else’s plaform, they change the algorithm and your ads no longer appear as frequently. The investment you made in building ‘friends’ is no longer worth as much. If commercial pages want to advertise, and have the reach they used to, they need to pay Facebook. United used to give out points for follows on Twitter, other programs incentivized twitter follows as well. United also used to offer deep discount short-term twitter deals (“Twares”) but those ran afoul of agreements not to undercut pricing they loaded into computer reservation systems. The…
Internet MH17 Hall of Shame Award: Worst Tweet of the Day
Jason Biggs of American Pie and Orange is the New Black had the worst tweet of the day. (This is why.) You can join the 40,000+ 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 free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Maximizing Car Rental Status and National’s Free Rental Days
Rental car companies don’t have nearly the fully developed loyalty programs that airlines and hotels do. I keep expecting Avis to re-launch their program, but that keeps not happening. Both Avis and Hertz have really good top status tiers, but you cannot earn those just based on rentals. Hertz sells theirs. Avis actually does too each year as part of the US Travel Associatoin/American Express Daily Getaways. Hertz will status match. The top tier they offer based on rentals is Presidents Club and that only gets you a guaranteed one car class upgrade. National status matches too, usually though only in conjunection with their annual “1-2-Free” promotion. But their top tier — Executive Elite — only lets you earn a free rental day marginally faster, and lets you pick most cars rather than just up…
