Between December 8 and December 22, the amount you spend with merchants through the AAdvantage shopping portal will earn tiered bonuses. One AAdvantage holiday shopping promotion ends, another one opens up and this time with up to 3000 bonus miles instead of 2500. Registration isn’t required. Making exactly $250 in purchases earns the full bonus and amounts to an extra 12 miles per dollar on top of usual earnings. Though fewer total miles, the lower spend thresholds amount to 13.33 miles per dollar. Terms: From 12/08/13 through 12/22/13 11:59 PM EST receive a one-time additional bonus of up to 3,000 miles when you spend a cumulative amount of $250 or more with the AAdvantage eShoppingsm mall. Spend a cumulative amount of $75-149.99 to earn 1,000 miles; spend a cumulative amount of $150 – $249.99 to…
About Gary Leff
Lessons From the Road: How to Deal with Weather Delays and Cancellations the Best You Can
I’m not sure how interesting this story is, but a couple of folks asked me to share it on Twitter. I think the idea is that sharing how I think about dealing with travel as it happens (and as it goes wrong) could be interesting and useful. There’s rarely going to be a ‘right way’ to approach irregular operations. Bad weather especially, lots of things going wrong, you’re playing percentages and also playing hunches based – hopefully – on years of experience in travel. Yesterday was a bad weather day for an American Airlines flyer, especially one transiting Dallas but really across much of the system because delays and cancellations in a major hub cascade across the whole system. A flight cancelled out of Dallas doesn’t make its next city, and can effect wherever the…
Last Day to Buy US Airways Miles for Just 1.1 Cents Apiece
US Airways brought back their “up to a 100% bonus on shared miles” (miles transferred between accounts) for just this week. So if you want to take advantage of it, today’s your last opportunity until and unless the bonus returns. And since it’s been a US Airways practice but not an American AAdvantage practice, the merger with American makes future such bonuses somewhat uncertain. You can earn up to 50,000 bonus miles with the offer, which should appear instantly with the transfer. The cost for this is “$0.01 per mile plus a processing fee of $30 and a tax recovery charge of 7.5%” — transferring 50,000 miles from one account to another will deposit 100,000 in that account at a cost of $567.50. Since that’s a net increase of 50,000 miles you’re buying miles at…
Supreme Court Justice Conflicts of Interest in their Current Airline Miles Case
This week the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of the Rabbi who complained too much and Northwest Airlines (now owned by Delta) shut down his frequent flyer account as a result. The Rabbi sued, and one of the crucial questions in whether his suit is permissable is whether a state court’s view of contracts as having to be made fairly and in good faith is an acceptable overlay in light of the Airline Deregulation Act’s prohibition on states regulating an airlines prices, routes, and schedules. I’ve covered the major arguments in this space already. And having taken an eye to the knowledge (and in some cases lack of knowledge) that the Justices appear to posses regarding frequent flyer miles based on the questions they asked on Tuesday, I thought it worth noting…
Give Elite Status and Miles for the Holidays!
The current round of Milepoint Premium offering is: 1000 United miles Hilton Gold status National Car Rental Executive status .. and several other benefits such as with ParkingSpot, Hyatt gift cards, and beyond. Last year’s offering was popular enough that we managed to secure substantially more packages this time around, hence it’s still available — though as of yesterday Milepoint Premium was 96% sold out. It’s now possible to gift Milepoint premium membership. With only a small number of packages left there will be limited opportunities to do this for the 2013 holidays, if elite status for Christmas or other similarly-timed holdiays appeals. But I love the functionality as we go into future releases of Milepoint Premium. It means I can take advantage of a Premium offer more than once, by leveraging it with friends,…
Highlights from Supreme Court Oral Argument: What the Justices Do — And Do Not — Know About Miles and Points
Tuesday night I read the Supreme Court transcripts so you don’t have to — there were some priceless frequent flyer moments during the Court’s oral argument in the case of the Rabbi who complained too much and Ngorthwest Airlines closed his frequent flyer account… Justice Ginsburg didn’t seem to think that an airline unilaterally cancelling an account and refusing to honor accrued obligations was reasonable. JUSTICE GINSBURG: Mr. Clement, the argument was made that if — if the airline has an unreviewable right to terminate this agreement for any reason or for no reason, if that is so, then it’s an illusory contract. What — what is your answer to that, if one 16 party can get out willy-nilly, why — what kind of 17 bargain is it? Delta’s lawyer suggests that people pay for…
National Car Rental WILL Give Elite Status Credits When Earning Airline Miles After All
National Car Rental revised its terms and conditions last week, sneaking in some changes (they don’t tell you what the changes are) right before the Thanksgiving holiday. A reader alerted me that the updated terms specifically say that elite status credit will not be given for car rentals where you choose to earn miles instead of free rental day credits. Qualifying Rentals: Members attain their Membership Level (described below) based upon the number of qualifying vehicle rentals… A qualifying rental does not include … when a member chooses to receive mileage, credits or points for a frequent traveler program (such as, but not limited to, an airline frequent flyer or hotel points program)… National Car rental writes in to clarify that, even though this is what they say, it isn’t what they mean: . I’m…
American Express-American Airlines Lounge Relationship Ends March 22, and Other Big Amex and American News
There Has Been Speculation About the End of Amex Lounge Access on American Since October Back in October there was a good bit of speculation that American Airlines would stop offering lounge access to American Express Platinum and Centurion cardholders. A few people reported being denied access, but that seemed anomalous. What was telling was that American Express seemed to stop listing American Admirals Club access as a benefit in their card marketing materials. They didn’t want to promise it to new cardholders, it appeared, perhaps suggesting they couldn’t guarantee it would be an ongoing benefit. Both American Airlines and American Express strongly confirmed that Admirals Club access remained a benefit of Platinum and Centurion American Express cards. Very explicitly they claimed there had been no decision to end the relationship. I concluded at the…
How Airline Bundles and Premium Service Subscriptions Can Save You Money — Or Cost You More
@jayhawknj tweeted me last night to let me know I was on a local CBS news segment in New York last night on airline bundling of ancillary services, and selling subscriptions for a year of those services. I’ve explained why airlines bundle in the past, and when you can come out ahead by buying packages from the airlines. Many of the benefits airlines will sell a la carte or in packages are offered free to an airline’s co-brand credit card holders, and of course to their elite frequent flyers. I think the piece as a whole is a little bit too positive on bundling, describing it as possible to get “VIP treatment” but not explaining the differences between seats with more legroom and personal escorts through security to private lounges as offered by American’s “Five…
Delta Will Sell You Qualifying Miles Instead of Making You Mileage Run
Delta is selling end of year elite qualifying miles, so you can give them a whole bunch of money instead of giving them a whole bunch of money and spending your time flying. They will sell you between 2500 and 10,000 qualifying miles, at a cost that will vary based on you status. I have 10,146 “MQM”s for the year. Had I been flying Delta I would have credited the miles to Alaska Airlines. So this isn’t from a Delta flight. Instead, it’s from a Saudia business class flight that was redeemed for someone else out of my account and which posted incorrectly. Since I’m more than 10,000 miles away from status, and I cannot roll over these elite qualifying miles to next year, so these purchased miles are literally of no use to me.…
