News and notes from around the interweb: Sketches of the new United terminal and club at LAX An angry badger put the Radisson Blu Stockholm on lockdown (HT: Alan H.) Amex has a website showing how much points are worth for a variety of their redemption options. The points are still worth the most transferring to airline miles, of course. Richard Branson is calling for a boycott of the Maldives. A cynic might point out that British Airways flies there and Virgin Atlantic doesn’t. No word on whether Virgin Atlantic will stop flying to Lagos, Nigeria. (See: should you travel to countries with awful human rights records? What do you think? The most expensive Hawaiian resort of the 1960s (HT: Alan H.)
About Gary Leff
How to Get American Airlines Lounge Membership for Just $100/Year
Back in December I wrote how to get American Admirals Club access free for one year. That strategy still works. Here’s how to get American club access for a net cost of $100, plus get a whole lot of additional benefits as well. (Admirals Club membership normally costs $400 – $500.) Here’s American’s new airport lounge strategy What makes a domestic airline lounge special? Citibank and American Airlines promote that the Citi Executive / AAdvantage Card is the only credit card offering American Airlines lounge access, but that’s not accurate. The Citi Prestige card does as well. The card normally comes with a $450 annual fee but Efficient Asian Man writes that he had no problem getting the $350 annual fee offer meant for Citi Gold accountholders (Citibank customers with significant financial relationships) that also…
How Starwood Determines How Many Points You’ll Pay for Your Award
LIH Prem asks about how a hotel’s room rate affects the number of points you have to pay to redeem for it in the Starwood Preferred Guest system. Understand that each hotel program is different, and Marriott for instance reimburses hotels an amount that depends on the number of room nights redeemed at the property versus being strictly based on the hotel’s room rates. Starwood – like Hyatt – assigns hotels to categories based on the hotel’s rate since it’s the rate that determines how much the program has to pay to the hotel for your reward night, and also how much the program charges you in points for that night. However if the hotel is full it gets more revenue. That’s how they get to ‘no capacity controls’. No capacity controls (often mistakenly referred…
Are Credit Cards About to Be Killed Off in Europe?
Doctor of Credit writes that EU lawmakers agreed to impose limits on EU debit and credit card interchange fees of 0.2% and 0.3% respectively. The Effect of Debit Card Fee Limits in the U.S. Debit interchange is already limited in the US by the Durbin Amendment to Dodd Frank (which led, more or less, to the end of rewards debit cards though I’m grateful that my Suntrust Delta debit card is grandfathered – for now). Of course it wasn’t just the end of rewards debit cards that happened as a result of the Durbin Amendment. Banks no longer earn much off of debit cards, which means that the average checking account customer is no longer profitable, there has to be another non-checking relationship there. So it becomes more difficult to get free or fee-waived checking…
The World’s Cheapest Award Tickets – Book By Monday!
oneworld frequent flyer program airberlin topbonus offers discounted economy award redemptions starting at just 1500 points. Over 600 routes are on sale, book by March 16 for travel through June. These aren’t expensive routes to buy but you can get these flights just for the taxes more or less since you receive 500 miles just for joining the program, and I regularly write about small free mileage offers in the program.
Credit Card Shutdowns and $1.30 China Flights!
News and notes from around the interweb: Details on the Daily Getaway Groupon-type deals are out for 2015. Some are decent, others not so much, here’s the lowdown. I’d buy the Hyatt points, but I probably won’t be quick enough. Everyone getting shut down with the new premium Diners Club card. (Which may explain why applications have been ‘unavailable’ for months after first returning in September.) Star Alliance carrier Austrian Airlines will launch Miami service 5 times weekly starting October 16. China United Airlines, a subsidiary of China Eastern, will become a low cost carrier and offer fares starting at $1.30. Reloading Serve cards with Visa, MasterCard, and Discover will end April 16. You’ll still be able to load online with American Express.
Smelly Poo Forces British Airways Flight to Return to London
Normally I’d just suggest “light a match,” but that’s not an option on a plane. A British Airways flight was forced to turn back to Heathrow leaving passengers stranded for 15 hours – because someone did “a smelly poo in the toilet”. The plane turned back just 30 minutes into the 7 hour flight to Dubai, and passengers had to wait 15 hours before continuing their journey. The decision was made because, apparently, the smell was just that unbearable. A British Airways spokesperson said, “We’re very sorry for the discomfort to our customers.” They did not say “We’re very sorry for the discomfort of one of our customers.” BA flies both 747s and 777s on the route. They have many bathrooms. I have a hard time even fathoming a situation that wouldn’t allow just shutting…
25% Off Etihad Redemptions!
Etihad Guest is offering 25% off saver award redemptions in any class of service. Book online only by March 20 for travel through December 31 using promo code REDM25. You may not already have Etihad Guest points. That’s fine, they are a Citi ThankYou Rewards transfer partner. The offer is for select destinations, but includes Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington Dulles (787!) – Abu Dhabi. Here’s DC – Abu Dhabi.
Here’s How to Automatically Reduce the Price of Your Hotel Reservations
DreamCheaper is like AutoSlash for hotels. It’s like what Yapta was supposed to be for airfares. It keeps checking the price of your hotel room, and helps you cancel and rebook when the price goes down. Yapta was all about getting you refunds when airfares dropped. Airlines used to do that, remember? They’d issue you a voucher (you’d likely be on the hook for a change fee if you wanted an actual refund). Airlines tightened up those policies and now it’s mostly just frustrating to learn that the price of a ticket you booked went down. AutoSlash will check your car rental prices and rebook, and I’ve had fantastic success with this. Originally you could book your initial reservation through AutoSlash, but the major car rental companies all stopped allowing AutoSlash to display their cars.…
What Does United Airlines Smell Like?
A big story in travel this week was United’s new boarding areas and process. There are prototypes at O’Hare gates B4, 8, and 10. United has changed passenger seating areas and gate-agent podiums, while adding standing work stations and boarding poles to bring more order to the boarding process. Here’s the part that really struck me, though: United plans to add blue lighting to the jet bridges — the walkways from the gate to the aircraft — and scent machines to create “positive transition moments.” “Just before you cross through the boarding door of the plane, you get a whiff of the signature United scent,” Walter said. Called Landing, the fragrance is an herbal, spalike smell, Walter said, that also will be in O’Hare’s United Club lounges. Westin’s ‘white tea’ scent has actually managed to…
