According to Loyalty Lobby, US Airways will be back with a purchase miles bonus of up to 100% between May 3 and May 25. Over the past few years they’ve run buy miles bonuses — sometimes targeted — about 75% of the year. Which means that the 100% bonus is more or less ‘regular price’. Nonetheless, that means they sell miles less expensively than most airlines including less expensively than American Airlines — and these miles will become American miles when the two programs merge. As a long-term play it’s cheaper to buy miles from US Airways and have them become American miles than to buy those miles from American. (One imagines that when the programs do merge, that the higher price of American miles will prevail.) Good Deal? At a 100% bonus, priced at…
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Earn 25,000 Bonus Points By Making Transfers Into Aeroplan
Aeroplan is offering a bonus of up to 25,000 miles for transferring in points from other programs. Through May 25, the more points you transfer the more bonus points you’ll earn. These are threshold bonuses rather than a straight percentage bonus, but the total bonus you earn is based on the cumulative amount of points transferred into the program. In other words you can make multiple transfers from several programs if you wish in order to get up to the next level of transfer bonus. We’ve certainly seen this promotion before, such as back in November. This bonus doesn’t require a single transfer to be as large as a bonus threshold. Aeroplan will count the total miles transferred in from eligible partners when calculating the bonus you earn. Hotel partners, Hertz, and points.com are eligible…
Earn the Most Points Possible for Renting a Car
You can generally accrue in a rental car company’s points program (those companies that have one) or earn miles and not both. Rental car companies generally pass on the taxes for miles awarded with your bill. And most rental car accrual offers are quite weak, such as 50-100 miles per day. In those cases I definitely take the rental car points or credits. But when there are bonus offers at play, the miles can be the better deal than credit towards free rental days. I used to credit my one-day Avis rentals to Virgin Atlantic for their 1000 mile minimum. Believe it or not there are good uses for Virgin’s points even though they’ve devalued tranfers to Hilton. Back in the day of course you could earn 1700 bmi miles on a single Hertz rental,…
Are the Airlines Just Stupid, Shooting Themselves in the Foot With Their Boarding Order Policies?
Vox has a piece claiming that there are $20 bills on the street just waiting for the airlines to pick up, and yet the airlines are just too dumb or too entrenched in their ways to do it. The canard here is boarding order, that there’s a ‘much better way’ to board planes and stubborn airlines don’t realize it. But the world isn’t nearly as simple as the piece portrays it, and the studies aren’t nearly as conclusive. Most US airlines follow the same procedure for allowing non-first-class passengers to board a plane. They let people who are sitting in the back board first, then people in the next few rows, gradually working their way toward the front. In fact, airlines do not all allow coach passengers to board back-to-front. First class aside, various airlines…
Another Airline Has Started Charging for Carry On Bags!
At the Freddie Awards Thursday night I told the audience that we had to make some cutbacks — that I would be the emcee this year instead of Randy Petersen. But that we hadn’t gone as far as the airlines, since on my way to Seattle I had been charged for my emotional baggage. Little did I know I was nearly prescient. Because Frontier airlines is now charge for carry on bags. They sent out an email announcement to their members saying that this is so that they can lower their fares, and they’re pitching it as not charging customers for services they don’t use. First, they will continue to charge a price that’s market-driven rather than rule-driven (‘lower than before’). Second, carry on bags aren’t a service as such (the airline doesn’t do something…
Actual Improvements from 3 Programs, Free Uber, and a Site You Must Click On (Bits ‘n Pieces for April 28, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: A new website you have to check out. Conde Nast Traveler‘s consumer editor Wendy Perrin has left after nearly 2 decades and now has her own venture. Here she interviews Randy Petersen who has kind words for yours truly. The big upcoming changes to the Turkish Miles&Smiles program turn out to be not so bad. Indeed, it’s still one of the better programs in Star Alliance, though I prefer Avianca’s LifeMiles for lack of fuel surcharges. United has reduced the price at which they will sell you elite qualifying miles How high fuel prices help legacy airlines compete against low cost carriers. Since everyone more or less has to pay the same cost for fuel, as fuel prices rise the cost advantage of the discounters evaporates. Singapore Airlines…
SURVIVOR: How to Make a 15 Minute Connection With Checked Bags
Yesterday American saved my bacon on the way home from Frequent Traveler University and the story reveals a few things about how the airline works and what to do (and not to do) when desperately trying to make a connection so it seemed worth passing along. Delta often gets the most kudos for running an excellent airline operation, but yesterday at least American delivered at a level I haven’t often seen from a US domestic airline. Pizza in Motion and I were on the same flight flying from Seattle to Chicago. I was connecting to Washington National and he was connecting on a separate ticket to a United flight to Washington Dulles. Here is his version of the story, a veritable he-said-she-said so read it. Our flight was just a few minutes late out of…
How to Get a Reservation at a Sold Out Hotel
Major Events Cause Rooms to Open Up Early Find out if there are any big conferences going on at the hotel. If there are, the group contract usually specifies various deadlines for ‘attrition’ (reducing the group’s commitment of roms) and also a deadline for the group’s block. A group might reduce the number of rooms six, three, or even a month prior to the event. And any unused rooms may go back into inventory often a month out, These dates can vary by contract but are roughly standard, and are times when rooms may open up. Often hotels are sold out in advance of major events, like the Presidential Inauguration in DC, but once the room blocks expire hotels find that they have unsold rooms and they’re quite anxious to move them. Many Hotel Chains…
Which Airline and Hotel Program is the Best?
The Freddie Awards were held in Seattle on Thursday night. They’re the awards for the best airline, hotel and credit card loyalty programs voted on by millions of frequent travelers around the world. They’re one way to answer which program is best. Not for everyone and at all times (not everyone casts their vote for the same program!) but they’re a real people’s choice award (although the voting is structured so that it’s not a ‘popularity contest’ – voters rank programs and small programs with a passionate and satisfied member base can do well). I had the honor of emceeing the awards, and presenting trophies on behalf of members tot he programs that earned them. Here’s USA Today coverage and Skift coverage of the event. And here are full results. I was interviewed by KOMO…
Discounted Purchased Miles, Chihuahaus Gone Wild at the Airport (Bts ‘n Pieces for April 26, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: The most lucrative miles for flowers offers The design strategies behind the most innovative new airplane seats. (HT: @A_W_Gordon) Chihuahua runs free in LAX terminal. Turkish Airlines is selling miles at 1.84 cents apiece through June 30 (up to 50,000 miles can be purchased per account each calendar year). Use a card with no foreign transaction fees if you buy. Changes are coming to the program June 1. I don’t expect that Turkish metal business class roundtrips between Los Angeles and Istanbul will cost 70,000 miles any longer. (HT: Loyalty Lobby) You can join the 40,000+ 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…
