Yesterday I noted an offer for 100 free and instant American AAdvantage miles, all you have to do is quickly sign up for hotel booking site PointsHound (no reservations are actually required). Via Frequent Flyer Bonuses, it seems that PointsHound also has an offer of 100 Virgin Atlantic miles just for joining. You have to choose which offer you want, and you are only eligible to join once. I can’t imagine a world in which I’d choose Virgin Atlantic miles over American miles, unless I suppose I needed 100 miles to top off towards an award and then cash out my full balance of Virgin miles.. (contrary to popular belief, however, there are great uses for Virgin Atlantic miles). The American offer will give you 2000 bonus miles with your first hotel booking. This Virgin…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for January 2015.
Linking American and US Airways Frequent Flyer Accounts Will Go Live in a Few Hours!
When American AAdvantage announced details of their 2015 program, and how they would integrate with US Airways Dividend Miles we learned that: The programs would combine in the second quarter of 2015 Members would be able to link their American AAdvantage and US Airways Dividend Miles accounts before that But there wouldn’t be an opportunity to transfer points back and forth between the programs before the actual merger of Dividend Miles into AAdvantage They’ll launch functionality tonight so that you can link your AAdvantage and Dividend Miles account. And you’re going to want to do this, because it’s the way you’ll make super extra darned sure everything gets combined smoothly when the programs merge. Combining these programs is a monster data nightmare. Though I linked my America West/US Airways accounts, Delta/Northwest accounts, and United/Continental accounts…
Delta’s Award Pricing Really Is Broken: Charging Double and Triple for a Simple Domestic One-Way
Earlier I showed that Delta was charging more for some awards than their published maximum ‘level 5’ prices. Delta’s award pricing engine has long been broken, charging more for an award than their published pricing suggests should be required. In the example I gave, the driver of the issue was just internationally configured aircraft which Delta intended to charge more for. They hadn’t published their award chart correctly. And after I wrote the post they promptly fixed the issue (by increasing the maximum price their award chart allows them to charge, natch), without comment. But my point that Delta’s pricing engine is broken, and charges more than their published award chart allows, remains. This has mostly been, in the past, for partner awards. Some partners and some routes (that were otherwise ‘legal’) would never let…
100 Free, Instant American Airlines Miles
American AAdvantage will give you 100 miles for joining PointsHound, the hotel search website. I’ve written about PointsHound in the past, and used it when they had rates that allowed you to earn miles in the airline of your choice for making a hotel booking and still earn hotel points, elite credit, and receive elite benefits from the applicable hotel loyalty program. Those rates (‘DoubleUp’) have been unavailable due to technical issues between PointsHound and the system they were using to source the rates. However I’m told they’re working on a new approach to bring those rates back. Without earning hotel points and elite status credit, I don’t want to use sites like PointsHound and Rocketmiles for my own stays (though occasionally I’ll have to book outside of a chain where I care about the…
Delta Changes Award Chart Just One Week Into the New 2015 Program
Earlier I showed that Delta was charging more for some awards than their published maximum ‘level 5’ prices. I gave the example of West Palm Beach – Honolulu. The award chart showed a maximum possible price of 90,000 miles each way in Delta’s premium cabin. But I showed that itineraries were pricing at higher than 180,000 miles roundtrip. A reader had flagged a 235,000 mile price. I gave an example of 207,500. Rather than reducing the price Delta was charging for these awards, they’ve changed the award chart. They’ve added new higher pricing for their lie flat seats to Hawaii. Each Hawaii category now has two prices, whereas it had only one in the chart when I wrote the first post. In each category you will pay more for an internationally-configured (‘BusinessElite’) aircraft. As Frequent…
Airlines Crack Down on Inflight Photography… While Delta Now Officially Encourages It!
It’s common for airlines to have photography policies, even if they aren’t well known or publicized and even if they are ignored for the most part. They usually are something like “you may photograph your own personal events” (which is fairly undefined) but may not photograph crew or equipment. People break this rules every day without knowing it, the rules are mostly there to be enforced when the airline wishes to do so or when a particular flight attendant is having a bad day (reasonable people can disagree on the appropriateness of photographing people which in the US is generally fine to do in public out in the open, but I don’t think there’s much of an argument against photographing your seat, meal, or the inflight entertainment system). Last month extended their onboard photography restrictions…
Transatlantic Economy Awards From 13,125 Miles Each Way
If you book by January 22, you can redeem Virgin Atlantic economy travel for 25% off. Travel dates appear to work through the end of 2015. Here’s mileage pricing for flights between North America and the UK under this promotion:
Delta Will Overcharge You For Awards: Their Pricing Engine Is Still Very, Very Broken
Jeffrey R. emails his frustration with an ongoing Delta award booking issue — that Skymiles simply prices awards incorrectly and it’s nearly impossible to get an agent to fix matters. I’ve written for years about this issue, that some connections that are both (a) legal/permissible and (b) have award availability will not price at the right amount of miles per the published award chart. Classic examples used to be New York – Los Angeles via Las Vegas which would always price as two separate awards. And getting Delta domestic flights available at the lowest award level included in an Air Tahiti Nui partner award was rarely possible — again, Delta would price as two awards. There are real improvements (and real non-improvements) at Skymiles, with one-way awards now available and a much more functional award…
United Top Tier Elites Flying First Class Now Get Lufthansa First Class Lounge Access!
Last month One Mile at a Time reported that Lufthansa’s top tier HON Circle members now get access to United’s first class lounges when traveling on intercontinental flights in business class on either Lufthansa or United. HON Circle members get access to Lufthansa’s first class lounges, including the First Class Terminal, regardless of class of service flown. But flying United, or flying business class on Lufthansa from one of the seven United airports with a ‘Global First’ lounge, these members wouldn’t otherwise have gotten access to that first class lounge. (Not that, in my experience, these lounges are all that special — but they are incrementally better than the alternative United Club offerings.) When sharing this news, Lucky wrote, I wouldn’t expect this to be reciprocal (in other words, I wouldn’t expect Global Services members…
The State of the Hobby: Frequent Flyer Miles in 2015
Whether the frequent flyer miles game seems to be historically rewarding, or in dire straits, depends on your perspective and time horizon. The game is different than it was 2 years ago, very different than it was 5 years ago, and orders of magnitude different than it was fifteen years ago. If you got into the game any time since 2008, the current state of affairs must be downright depressing. You got in at one of the most generous times in history. As a result of the Great Recession, the worst economic times in 70 years, hotels leveraged their loyalty programs to put heads in beds. It’s hard to even fathom the generosity of Hyatt’s Faster Free Nights promotions (2 stays at any hotel yielded a free night at any hotel) stackable with thousands and…
