Goodness knows I’m not a fan of British Airways Avios. I like my mileage redemptions long haul and in premium cabins. There used to be some fantastic values in the British Airways program for that — such as Cathay Pacific from the US to Asia in business class for 100,000 points with stopovers permitted. Sadly, since November 2011, no longer. But there are great strategic uses for the points and they generally center around shorter flights (since British Airways award tickets are priced based on distance), non-stop (since British Airways charges separately for each flight segment), and coach (since the program charges a full double miles for business class and triple miles for first — and US domestic front cabin is triple miles for “first”). You can still work the award chart to your advantage…
About Gary Leff
Free Hilton Gold Status
… with a European Hilton HHonors account address, and upon entering a Visa Infinite card number. Back in December 2011 I flagged an opportunity to get instant Gold Hilton HHonors status for free. It was an offer meant for Visa Infinite cardholders, but anyone could sign up. Some Visa Infinite numbers stopped working, while others remained functional. The offer was still available come March of 2012. Every time Hilton would tweak the signup process, commenters here would figure out how to get it to work again. The offer was still alive come mid-year. Finally, it was pulled. Some people who used the offer to signup for instant status had that still removed, while others got to keep it. Many who used the free Gold signup to get status have since had their status lapse (although…
Wild Speculation Time: What’s Hyatt’s Big Announcement Tomorrow?
Update: Ok, they got me. I read waaaaayyy too much into the photo of a happy passenger flying. It’s registration for Hyatt’s new promotion which starts tomorrow. Heh. Hyatt tweeted that they’ll be making a Gold Passport announcement tomorrow. And the accompanying picture is of a happy passenger sitting in an airline seat. The suggestion seems to be that Hyatt is about to improve the airline experience. Starwood and Delta have done a tie-up this year. So have United and Marriott. Could we see a deal between Hyatt and American? The man in charge at Hyatt used to work for American, after all. I actually don’t think so. Timing. Hyatt doesn’t seem like it moves quickly. The MGM M Life deal took two years to come about. There were lots of things supposedly in the…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 8, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: History of the Movie Airplane: “one of the funniest movies of all time exists because someone couldn’t properly program their VCR.” Canadian dealers will award up to 75,000 Aeroplan miles for the purchase or lease of a new Volvo through October 31. 250 miles are available for a test drive, and 2 miles per dollar on service, parts, and accessories. (HT: Canadian Travel Hacking) Up to 40,000 Citi Thank You Points for a new Citigold Checking Account. It’s actually good that the signup bonus is worth less than $600, as that should circumvent IRS reporting via 1099-MISC the value of the bonus. If you’re going to book a Hilton stay directly through the Hilton chain, there’s a 1000 point bonus for making the booking with their iPhone app…
The Federal Trade Commission Versus Washington DC Taxi Regulators
I think Uber and similar services are fantastic (and whether you want to pay a premium of about 50% over a taxi — or even pay for a taxi — it’s a valuable service to many). I first wrote about this in Why Taxis Suck and What You Can Do About It. Yesterday Federal Trade Commission member Josh Wright (full disclosure: I interacted with then-Professor Wright on unrelated matters before he was appointed to the FTC last year) wrote an op ed in the Washington Post about the Washington DC Taxi Commission’s attempt to stifle competition and harm consumers in order to benefit current taxi owner interests. In recent months, the staff of the Federal Trade Commission has provided comments on proposed regulations by several local regulatory bodies in U.S. cities concerning new competition from…
Virgin Atlantic Improves its Award Change Policy and Offers Discounted Coach Awards
Head for Points has two big pieces of news about Virgin Atlantic’s frequent flyer program. Virgin is offering 25,000 mile roundtrip coach awards. Though the pricing works whether you start in the U.S. or the U.K., I could only get the page with details of the offer to come up when my location was set to the U.K. Bookings for 25,000 instead of 35,000 miles roundtrip must be made by September 20 (for travel any time through end of schedule) and taxes and fees total £215 – £260. Virgin has improved its award ticket cancellation and mileage redeposit policy. It used to be you’d lose 25% of your miles but there was no cancel/deposit option within 7 days of travel. Now you can cancel and get all of your miles back up to 24 hours…
Business Class Fare on Qatar Airways: 7300 Miles for $250
Last week when it erroneously appeared that American Airlines was going to start adding fuel surcharges onto all international award tickets, and that there might just be a short window to make bookings before the change was fully implemented, I hurriedly grabbed a first class award on Cathay Pacific with onward business class segments to Cambodia and Vietnam. It turned out the whole scare was a false alarm. but I did have an award ticket to play with an I started to ponder what I might do in Southeast Asia. I was looking at airfares between Cambodia and Vietnam and found that Qatar Airways had a ‘tag flight’ between Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I’ve never flown Qatar, so I was interested. And it’s a really short flight — just 132…
Alaska Airlines 2 Roundtrips from San Diego Earns a Free Roundtrip (California Residents Only)
A former high school teacher that I’ve helped with Alaska Airlines travel in the past points me to this offer: California residents must register prior to flying, and fly two roundtrips between San Diego and any of the following cities. Boise Boston Fresno Honolulu Kahului (Maui) Lihue (Kauai) Los Cabos Monterey Orlando Portland Puerto Vallarta Santa Rosa Seattle Qualifying travel must be completed by November 20, 2013, and flights credited to the member’s Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account. Alaska Airlines will send out a discount code “on or around December 20” if you meet the terms of the offer. You can only earn one roundtrip ticket, valid between San Diego and any Alaska Airlines destination — redeem by January 31, 2014 for travel between January 7 and November 15, 2014. The free ticket will incur…
American Miles Can Now Be Used for TAM Flights, and Royal Jordanian Awards Can Be Booked Online
American Airlines miles can now be redeemed for travel on Brazilian airline TAM oneworld airline LAN merged with Brazil-based Star Alliance airline TAM, and there was initially speculation about which alliance the combined carrier would wind up with (or wondering whether the standalone entities, owned by the same holding company, could remain in separate alliances). It became fairly clear or at least likely early on that the winner would be oneworld, which is already the strongest alliance between North and South America for scoring award availability. And one more move in that direction, though TAM remains in Star, is that American AAdvantage introduced a relationship with TAM — first for accruing American miles by flying on TAM, and now the ability to redeem American miles for travel on TAM. TAM flies from New York JFK,…
Up to 30% Bonus from American on Shared Miles
Through October 10, American will award a bonus on miles transferred from one account to another — meaning that the person you transfer to will get as much as 30% more than the number of miles transferred out to their account. Transferring 50,000 miles from one account to another puts 65,000 miles in the receiving account at a cost of $550 plus a $35 ‘transaction charge or a total of $585. Transferring miles is one way to top off an account for an award ticket, say an account has 40,000 miles in it and needs 50,000 for a one-way business class ticket to Europe. If you have access to an account with surplus miles, transferring (“sharing”) is a more cost-effective way to get miles into the account that needs them than is buying miles. And…
