Delta Skymiles are Skypesos, since they’re worth so much less than competitor currencies. But what about United miles now that they’ve announced an absolute bloodletting of their award chart? Frequent Miler suggests “Stardust.” After Continental took over at United, United’s million miler frequent flyers were promised that they would continue to get annual upgrades. Almost immediately, though, those were taken away. The ‘new’ United increased change fees on award tickets. They prioritized individual transactions over long-term loyalty by giving single trip full fare elites — even Silver elites — upgrade priority over 100,000 mile flyers. They started selling cheap upgrades to anyone at check-in rather than upgrading elites. And they prioritized ‘supported’ upgrades, such as mileage upgrades, over elite upgrades. So a general member with a co-branded Visa could upgrade ahead of an elite domestically.…
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Packing Tips that are Actually Really Good
Holiday Inn Express brings you packing tips that are actually really, really good. Very few packing tip videos are. This guy is a whole lot better at folding a shirt than I am! He tells you how to use a television to charge electronics and how to turn a coffee mug into a speaker for your music, too. What are your best packing tips? (HT: Head for Points) You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
United’s Frequent Flyer Award Prices are Going Up, Up, Up. Redeem Now (for Premium Cabin Partner Travel Outside the Americas).
United devaluation: I woke up this morning to an announcement of some really nasty changes to the United MileagePlus award chart. These changes don’t go into effect until February 1, so you will want to issue tickets you may be considering before then (and not make changes to tickets after that). What United has done is Announced an increase in the price of many of its awards Bifurcated its award chart so that partner awards will often cost a whole lot more than awards on United’s own flights There aren’t actually very many changes to awards in North and South America. There aren’t very many changes to awards in coach. The biggest bloodbath is to first class partner award pricing. Here are .pdfs of the current chart and the new chart. But to make it…
The End of the “No Electronics Below 10,000 Feet” Rule is Going Away is a Bigger Deal Than You Think
We’ll Soon Be Able to Use Personal Electronic Devices During Taxi, Takeoff, nd Landing Today’s big news was that the ban on using personal electronics onboard aircraft that are below 10,000 feet would be lifted. JetBlue hopes to be certified to lift the ban on its flights tomorrow. This change applies to both domestic and international flights on US airlines. Each airline has to submit a plan for how it will allow such use safely, and will be able to implement its own rules within FAA guidelines. But very soon we’ll be able to use electronics below 10,000 feet. We won’t be able to use broadcast signals, any such devices will need to be in ‘airplane mode’. And cell phone use will remain banned, since that’s an FCC rule and isn’t address here, because cell…
Hyatt Union Square’s Small Rooms and Super Comfortable Beds
Hotels in New York were pretty heavily booked, there weren’t any standard rooms for points even at the Andaz 5th Avenue where I love to stay. I wasn’t going to spend over $600 for a room there. I couldn’t get a standard room at the Andaz Wall Street, either. But I could burn points at the new Hyatt Union Square. It’s Hyatt Gold Passport category 5, or 18,000 points per night. With room rates a bit over $400 (an tax applying to paid rates but not awards) that seemed a reasonable redemption. And I’d get to try a new hotel in the city. The day before my arrival I received an email from the hotel asking my anticipated arrival time. It was going to be a bit after 3pm. I suspect they were pretty chock…
Saudia Business Class Trip Report: Riyadh – Washington Dulles
Pakistani Correspondent continues her guest post describing the experience flying Saudia business class, which she redeemed using American Express Membership Rewards points transferred to Delta. This is the final installment of her report. Here’s her previous installment: New York JFK – Jeddah Saudia Lounge, Jeddah and Jeddah-Lahore CIP Lounge in Lahore, Pakistan Lahore – Riyadh Saudia Lounge, Riyadh And now P.C. continues with her final installment, flying Saudia from Riyadh to Washington Dulles. A 777-300ER was awaiting and I was excited to have premium seats in what looked like a full flight. My seat was missing a blanket and a headset which I had to ask for. I was generally satisfied with new magazines, functional remote and a better entertainment guide. I discovered that I could pull a wall between the seats that came equipped…
The American Express Centurion Lounge Dallas: Complimentary Spa and Showers
American Express opened its second U.S. Centurion airport lounge this month. Dallas Fort Worth is the second location after Las Vegas. There are more lounges to come, including San Francisco. I visited the Dallas facility on a recent connection, and absolutely loved it. It’s the best U.S. airport lounge I have been to. Here’s my review of the facility. Here’s my review of the food and drink situation. And now here’s the scoop on their complimentary spa and their shower facilities. Exhale Spa The Exhale Spa is a small room in the lounge. Only one treatment specialist was working while I was there, he was doing 15 minute massages, facials and other treatments wouldn’t be an option that day. They have you fill out a consent form, it’s a clothes-on massage and I was the…
Earn Quadruple Points on JetBlue
JetBlue is offering quadruple points on tickets purchased by November 13 for travel through December 31. They undoubtedly don’t want the expense of awarding points to people who don’t know about the offer and book tickets anyway, or who don’t care about the offer, so registration is required. Tickets purchased prior to registering do not earn the bonus (hate that – punish your regular customers who loyally already purchased their tickets, but I do understand the desire not to spend to incentivize transactions that have already been made). Nonetheless, quadruple points — meaning 12 points per dollar, and not faking it by including the 3 points per dollar for booking on their website, so up to 15 points per dollar — is a good bonus for anyone flying JetBlue. (HT: Wandering Aramean) You can join…
Bits ‘n Pieces for October 30, 2013: United Becomes Less Transparent, Award Nights on Sale, Free Points and More!
News and Notes from Around the interweb: Sri Lankan airlines will join oneworld by April 1200 free Shangri-La points for playing games Pay service Expertflyer.com will no longer show United upgrade inventory and elite award space IHG Rewards has revealed their PointBreaks list for hotel redemptions through the end of the year. It should become bookable November 1. Qatar is now officially a member of the oneworld alliance. You could already redeem American and British Airways points for travel on Qatar. Now you can book American’s distance-based awards and include Qatar in the itinerary. You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on…
Chase Makes it Easier to See the Bonus Points You’re Earning With the Sapphire Preferred Card
Chase has made things a little bit easier and more transparent with points-earning for the Sapphire Preferred Card. You earn double points on all travel and dining spend. Now you can see, transaction-by-transaction, the points you earn for each. So if you go into your account activity, when you click the blue ‘plus’ on the left of each transaction, when it expands you can see the points earned for that transaction. Here’s an Uber transaction that correctly earned double points with the Sapphire Preferred card. ‘First Friday’ points (triple points for dining the first friday of each month) display correctly as well. This feature isn’t (yet?) available for my other Chase Ultimate Rewards cards like Ink Plus or other co-brand cards like the Hyatt Visa. (HT: The #Hustle Blog) (Note that cards in this post…
