Three weeks ago I wrote about the frustrations of a frequent flyer program fraud detection unit gone off the rails. Air France KLM’s Flying Blue shut down the account of someone who simply transferred points in from American Express Membership Rewards and redeemed those points for a ticket. The American Express account, Flying Blue account, and tickets were all for the same person. (American Express no longer even lets you transfer points to other people any more.) I learned about readers who had had similar experiences and I also heard from a fraud unit employee who actually claimed they wouldn’t permit transferring in points just to book awards. [T]he use of our frequent flyer accounts as boxes opened to transfer miles with our non air partners won’t be allowed anymore. I couldn’t believe this was…
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The Best Values from An Obscure Award Chart (Plus a 20% Transfer Bonus!), Discounted Hyatt Gift Cards, Plus The Onion on Loyalty!
News and notes from around the interweb: American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 20% bonus on points transfers to Aeromexico through March 6. (HT: Points, Miles, & Martinis). Travel Summary highlights some of the best values in the Aeromexico award chart. I find dealing with their call centers frustrating enough that no matter the values, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. I’ve got to applaud Ben Edelman and Jason Steele for this. And Delta admitted they were wrong, too! American Express is giving a 25% discount on redemptions for Hyatt gift cards. Even at 25% off it is a bad deal. Here’s how to play your Membership Rewards points instead. Southwest Airlines Demands Loyalty From Its Customers in its new ‘Loyalty Goes Both Ways’ Campaign.. according to the Onion (HT: Wandering Aramean) View from…
Star MegaDO 6 Frequent Flyer Charter Trip Goes On Sale Next Monday
MegaDO frequent flyer charter trip organizer Tommy Danielsen (‘tommy777‘) emails to say that the next ‘Star MegaDO’ goes on sale Monday at 1pm Eastern / Noon Central / 11am Mountain / 10am Pacific. Details of the program are posted on Megado.com. The event will be held in May and the itinerary is Stockholm – Toulouse – London Gatwick and Heathrow. I believe 150 seats in total are on offer for this SAS Boeing 737-800 charter. Past MegaDOs have been covered by the New York Times, by the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, by USA Today, by The Economist and more. Read some of the past coverage to see if the events are for you. (The events are crazy fun, with lots of partying onboard as an American Airlines Inflight Disturbance Report attests to.) Here’s…
Delta Just Imposed Secret 3-Week Advance Purchase Requirement on Domestic Saver Awards
Update: Since I posted commenters have found a few routes where there’s some inventory. The first several I tried where I found some turned out to be on Alaska Airlines routes (of course) but there are some Delta routes out there still showing award space within 3 weeks fo travel. Every route I tried at first was consistent, but I didn’t try every route! Something is definitely afoot here and it turns out that it’s been going on for at least a week. Very different inventory philosophy for releasing award space. On Friday (you always dump bad news on Fridays), Delta eliminated their award charts — just pulled them off the website — without telling anyone. When asked they said that members now get all they need to know from the award calendar. Instead of…
Use American Miles for the Whole Family: Business Class to Europe Without Fuel Surcharges
American AAdvantage is renowned for being tight-fisted with premium cabin availability to Europe on its own flights, something that really exacerbated with the introduction of their new lie flat business class. And since their primary transatlantic partner is British Airways, that’s where most of the availability is, but that comes with hefty fuel surcharges. (Iberia is also a significant partner and their availability through Spain is often quite good.) So it’s notable when American offers up business class award space to Europe, and appears to do so systematically — especially when it’s for more than just a seat or two per flight.
Free Cables, Luggage Tags, Music, or a Screen Protector
I wrote that you can receive 1150 free miles for joining Etihad Guest and reviewing a hotel. At first blush most of you are thinking, what in the world do I want to bother with Etihad Guest miles for? They’re a Citibank ThankYou points transfer partner so you may wind up using Etihad Guest at some point. But even if not, sign up for the program with this offer then review a hotel at HolidayCheck. The 150 points you earn for the review will qualify you for the 1000 mile signup bonus. That’s actually enough for some purchases from the Etihad Reward Shop. Etihad has one of the most extensive miles-for-merchandise programs of any loyalty program. And there are several choices at low points values. Get, for instance, an iPhone screen protector, music, cables, or…
The Best Travel Advice Tips and Tricks You Can Put to Use From the Past Month
Here’s the best travel advice, tips and tricks, the highlights of View from the Wing out of 204 posts in January. Last month I provided the best travel tips from December. Before that I collated the best travel tips from November. Here’s where you can find the very best travel posts from October, here’s the best travel posts from September, and from August. In July I offered the most useful and interesting developments from June as well in the first of the series. It turns out, surprisingly, that this feature is really popular, at least judging by the emails I get — people that don’t read the blog every day really appreciated the recap and not having to dig through all of the posts to find the most enduring ones. These are some that were…
Asiana Awards Have Disappeared From United.com. Here’s How to Find the Space.
On March 10th, there’s non-stop award availability in economy from Los Angeles to Seoul on Asiana. But searching United.com for non-stop awards I get this message: Indeed, search for award space between Seoul (Asiana’s hub) and Bangkok (Thai Airways’ hub), I am presented with options only for Thai on United’s website. But if I search for those March 10 Los Angeles – Seoul seats on the Aeroplan website (Air Canada’s Aeroplan is an American Express Membership Rewards partner and a Star Alliance member), the seats come right up. What you need to do is: Search for Asiana award space using the Aeroplan website (no miles are required in your account to search) or the ANA website. Call United to book if you want to use MileagePlus miles for the award Calling United directly, I was…
Tourists Arrested For Taking Naked Photos Inside Cambodian Temples. This is the Second Time in 10 Days It’s Happened.
Two women from Arizona were convicted, sentenced, fined and deported from Cambodia after taking naked photos of their backsides in an ancient Siem Reap temple. The Siem Reap provincial court said the sisters were each given a suspended term of six months in jail and fined 1 million riel ($315) for taking nude photos at Preah Khan temple inside the Angkor archaeological park. They will not be allowed to return to Cambodia for four years. This is, apparently, becoming a thing. It is the second incident in less than 10 days, after the authority arrested three French male tourists for taking nude photos at another temple complex of Banteay Kdey. Photos of a topless dancer at the sacred temples surfaced last month as well. You’re not even supposed to ascend to the top level of…
2 Reasons Not to Get the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
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. American Express, Citibank, Chase, and other banks are advertising partners of this site. 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). Chase Sapphire Preferred Card The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is the card I believe to be the single best personal rewards card on the market — with a great signup bonus, fast earning, valuable points, and strong benefits. I thought I’d highlight, though, two concerns that would suggest to some that it isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Over at One Mile at a Time, Sean M. commented on…
