I mentioned off-hand this morning about really good premium cabin award availability on American flights on Wednesdays. That’s worth drawing out more explicitly. They seem to be changing how they release award seats, for the better.
They started loosening up the Sydney route. They loosened up London. They opened up China.
There is plenty of first class award space on Japan Airlines for New York JFK – Tokyo and Chicago – Tokyo over the next 6 weeks. There’s also a new pattern for American’s Dallas and Los Angeles – Tokyo flights releasing premium cabin award seats.
When there’s first class available it’s on JAL’s Boeing 777-300ER which has their new first class suites. American charges 62,500 miles each way between the US and Japan (as well as Korea). Make Tokyo your connection and continue on in Asia and first class awards are 67,500 miles each way.
Last year IHG Rewards Club (née Priority Club, the loyalty program for Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, and related brands) introduced a new top tier elite level, Spire Elite. It offers almost nothing to improve in-hotel treatment: no promise of suites, or club lounge, or breakfast, or even late checkout.
But they’ve now sent out a new benefit. And it means more points for everyone else, too.
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.
A year ago American Airlines introduced collectors edition Heritage amenity kits featuring red flower amenities honoring the airlines that over time merged to create the world’s largest airline…
Now American is introducing new amenity kits in March — a custom-designed Cole Haan bag “inspired by their pinnacle design and innovation collection, ZerøGrand” including…
Frequent Flyer Bonuses points out an interesting promotion to earn 5000 bonus GarudaMiles plus 3 miles per dollar via Rentalcars.com. The offer is valid through March 31.
GarudaMiles is the frequent flyer program of Skyteam member Garuda Indonesia. They’re also a transfer partner of Citi ThankYou Rewards.
Here’s the interesting thing. The 5000 mile bonus doesn’t say it applies to first rental only, it seems like it would apply to each rental via RentalCars.com made using their referral link that you complete during the promotion period with no minimum car size or rental length.
I don’t usually like using points for non-travel awards, but there are two exceptions–to keep points from expiring, and when there’s the opportunity to use a big travel company or bank’s contacts to get access to the kind of life events you can’t possible set up on your own.
Starwood has a new set of culinary experiences that you can use your points for starting this morning, including Morimoto and Eric Ripert chef’s table events. Definitely worth doing if there’s something that matches your interests, and you have my permission to use your Starpoints for something other than transfers to American, Alaska, or Japan Airlines miles….
Regular readers of the blog know that I use Award Wallet to track my miles and points.
The free version of the service suffices for most. You enter your frequent flyer account numbers and passwords. Then you can update most of your account balances with a single click and see them on one page. You can log into your accounts with a single click.
When I first signed up I realized quickly I was happy to pay the minimum required for their premium membership that included expiration date tracking for many of my accounts.
American’s revenue management has been notoriously stingy about releasing seats for premium cabin international travel over the past three years.
American seems to have released a ton of award and upgrade space from several US cities to London. There are plenty of dates where you’ll find as many as 6 or more award seats on the elusive Los Angeles – London route even.
Chase used to be offer tons of miles for mortgages, people used to refinance or take out seconds on their home and immediately pay them off. They might earn 100,000 miles at a cost of under $200 and a whole lot of time on paperwork.
But unsecured loans probably aren’t something you should do for the miles no matter what marketing emails you receive in your inbox.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
