Jan
20
2016
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Earn Double Miles Plus a Mystery Promotion
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for January 2016.
Star Alliance Miles That Just Got More Valuable: LifeMiles Now Allows Mixed Cabin Awards
Jan
20
2016
Avianca LifeMiles just became a whole lot more valuable and useful. They’ve solved the limitation on booking ‘mixed cabin’ award tickets. That makes the price at which they sometimes sell miles even more tempting.
Sometimes the Miles Just Aren’t Worth It
Jan
20
2016
There are those who would argue that awards are earned One Mile at a Time and so 100 miles should seem like a really appealing reward. I’ll certainly earn my 100 miles here and there, from the smallest online purchase to the occasional online surveys (most useful for extending the life of miles, or generating partner activity in all-too-rare partner earning promotions).
Starwood Just Changed Their First Quarter Promotion and Made It Better
Jan
19
2016
Starwood’s first quarter promotion was really disappointing when it came out — but they’ve made it better with additional threshold bonuses for staying 15 and 25 nights during the promotion period.
Register of course, because earning double points if you happen to stay 2 nights at a Starwood hotel during the promotion period — or at a 250 bonus point per night participating hotel — is better than not earning those points. And if you’re spending a bunch of nights with Starwood the quarterly promo got reasonably rich.
How Much Are Miles Really Worth? Valuations for Each Program
Jan
19
2016
What is the value of miles and points by airline, hotel and credit card program? Miles used to be thought to be worth 2 cents. I think that conventional wisdom developed out of the idea that a cross country flight cost about $500… or 25,000 miles. 20 years ago that was generally true, and award availability wasn’t really a problem either.
I’m going to share my own rough and ready number for several different programs. And I’m going to explain how I think about the value of miles — why they are different for different people, and for different circumstances of how you plan to use them.
Here’s how to think about the value of miles and points by airline, hotel and credit card program.
Airlines Sharing Information About You — and Removing First Class
Jan
19
2016
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Has Delta SkyMiles Finally Devalued to the Point That It Will Hurt the Airline?
Jan
19
2016
Delta’s astonishing arrogance is covered in a piece by Benét Wilson for Airways News that basically asks whether Delta CEO Richard Anderson is an evil genius.. or just evil?
While frequent flyer programs may have been overly generous, especially coming out of the Great Recession, and no longer need to be as rewarding to fill incremental seats on planes — and Delta could extract surreal amounts of cash from American Express after their co-brand issuer lost its deal with Costco — research suggests they may have wrung out way too much value from the SkyMiles program and could be on the verge of hurting themselves by it.
Uber Will Buy Helicopters from Airbus for New Service and Elite Revenue Requirement Cut in Half for US Residents
Jan
18
2016
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Japanese Airlines Look to Drop Absurd Fuel Surcharges, Are Award Tickets Going to Get Cheaper?
Jan
18
2016
Fuel surcharges don’t matter much to most consumers. They’re advertised as part of the paid fare when buying a ticket. They even earn credit in revenue-based frequent flyer programs. They really only matter to consumers who have airfare discounts that don’t apply to the surcharges, and to frequent flyers booking awards.
Since fuel prices have dropped, and fuel surcharges are now absurd on their face, several airlines have just renamed ‘fuel surcharges’ as ‘carrier-imposed surcharges’. In the US that’s important because in the US fuel surcharges unrelated to the price of fuel are considered by the DOT to be illegal.
Now there’s literally no justification for the surcharges. They’re just a fee for nothing. They’re ‘carrier-imposed’ (of course, who else sets fares?) but don’t cover anything in particular. That begs the question, why do airlines do this?
Time to Book an Emirates First Class Award, With Wide Open Availability
Jan
18
2016
Emirates has become one of the world’s largest airlines, and shows profits, but it has quite a few Airbus A380s without necessarily having routes robust enough to support the aircraft.
They’re taking the A380 off of the Dallas route (which they face competition to and through the Gulf region from Etihad and Qatar) and off the Houston route (the energy sector isn’t performing well…).
So they’re adding A380s to Washington Dulles and a second Los Angeles flight.
New routes and upgauged aircraft are often ripe with award space. Two A380s on the Los Angeles route is quite a lot and indeed Washington Dulles was downgauged from a 777 to a 787 by Etihad. With that kind of capacity perhaps award availability will be quite good over time.
