British Airways Visa: up to 100,000 point signup bonus The most lucrative current credit card signup bonus is scheduled to be pulled June 7. The public offer is: 50,000 points after first purchase 25,000 points after spending $10,000 on the card within a year 25,000 additional points after spending the next $10,000 on the card within that year There’s a $95 annual fee, spending earns 1.25 points per dollar, and the card has no foreign currency transaction fees. The unique selling proposition for putting high amounts of spend on the card is that after $30,000, they award a free companion award ticket – the second passenger travels on an award booked on British Airways flights for no additional points (though both passengers are charged taxes and fuel surcharges). (Some folks have luck making a mock booking on…
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Bits ‘n Pieces for May 24, 2012
News and comment from elsewhere: Over at Conde’ Nast Daily Traveler I review the best credit cards that offer benefits for having the card as opposed to putting spending on that card. The Wall Street Journal today runs a piece on the challenges of the United-Continental integration. Everyone has their pet peeves (and I’ve found few fans). But we often conflate technical challenges or glitches and changes in policy. On the award redemption side, I love relaxed routing rules and the end of Starnet blocking, and hate no more free holds on awards when your miles are already in your account at time of reservation. I abhor the new policy where full fare tickets trump elite status level. And I hate that when you change a ticket you can’t pay the fee out of the…
United’s 787 Seatmap Updated
In yesterday’s post on United’s new 787 serving Denver – Tokyo, I noted that the schedule was live and thus a 787 seatmap was online that you could access when making a (dummy) booking. But the seatmap looked odd, since it had more seats available than the announced configuration of the aircraft was supposed to hold, and the seatmap didn’t specifically flag economy plus. Seth notes in the comments on that post that overnight United has updated the seatmap, and these problems appear fixed. Here’s the new seatmap: (Click on the seatmap above to enlarge) It’s interesting that there’s no center section of seats in row 16, but that the center section of row 23 is economy plus (while the right and left sides are not), and that the row 27 exit seats are considered…
Feecation.com: Get Up to $1250/year in Reimbursements for $14.97/month Membership
One of the banks I do business with gives away as a premium for opening a checking account a benefit where they’ll rebate you $10 per quarter in exchange for submitting grocery or gas receipts. People usually think this is a way for a marketing company to understand your buying habits. The bank does nothing to dissuade that belief. But that’s not the idea at all. You have to remember to request rebate forms, they don’t automatically send you more. You have to save your original receipts and mail them in. And then you have to hope they actually process it and mail you the check. In other words, they get a top line benefit to market that they’re giving you $40. But most people never get anything, or if they do they get $10…
Up to 40,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles for Transferring in Points from Other Programs
Via Notiflyer, between May 21 and June 18 Aeroplan is offering up to 40,000 bonus miles for transferring points in from other programs (excluding the U.S. American Express Membership Rewards program). The bonus isn’t per transaction or per partner, it’s cumulative — the more points you transfer in from various sources, the more total bonus points you earn. Eligible partners are: Credit card programs: CIBC Aventura World MasterCard Card, CIBC Aventura Gold Visa, CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite, CIBC Aventura MasterCard Card, American Express Membership Rewards – Canada, BankAmericard Power Rewards credit card, Diners Club Club Rewards Hotel programs: Starwood Preferred Guest, Hilton HHonors, Marriott Rewards, Wyndham Rewards, Best Western Rewards, Choice Privileges, Coast Rewards, Club Carlson, Le Club Accorhotels, Shangri-La Golden Circle Award Car rental: Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Other: Points.com The highest yield points…
American’s Initial Schedule for Their New Boeing 777-300s Announced
The initial schedule for American’s incoming Boeing 777-300 aircraft, featuring their new first class and new business class products, has been announced. Beginning December 13 they’ll run it Dallas – Sao Paulo, and in February it’ll start on Dallas and New York – London. Time to start looking at airfares and flights with confirmable upgrade space, I’d love to be among the first to fly in the new business class seats. According to Expertflyer there appears to be reasonably good confirmable upgrade space on the 777-300 for Dallas – Sao Paulo service. Executive Platinum eVIP upgrades are valid from any fare and book into C inventory. I just got back from Sao Paulo on Sunday but this is tempting… (HT: AAdvantageGeek)
New Online Shopping Portal with the Biggest Cash Rebates
Whenever I’m doing any sort of online shopping, I search EV Reward to find the best deal. Most online shopping sites offer some sort of rebates, for instance if I’m going to buy something at Target.com I search Target.com at EV Reward and find that I can get 3% cash back through Ebates (which offers a $5 bonus after your first purchase), 3 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, 3 American miles per dollar, or several other options. Given this information, I’d probably choose 3 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar at Target.com. EV Reward is a useful tool, but it isn’t updated in real time and offers from the various cash back and mileage sites change all the time. So what they list as currently-available offers may vary from the offer you see when…
United’s 787 Seat Map
Now that United has loaded its first 787 into the schedule, Denver-Tokyo beginning March 31, you can see the seatmap for the aircraft by walking through a dummy booking on the website: There are 36 business class seats, 63 economy plus seats (presumably rows 16-22, not highlighted on the seatmap), coach has been announced as 120 seats though the seatmap would appear to show 135 seats — presumably some of the blocked/unavailable seats aren’t. They clearly haven’t put the finishing touches on the seatmap since economy plus isn’t so-flagged. Nine across in coach seems tight to me, considering that All Nippon and Japan Airlines are doing eight across with their 787s. It’s notable that Denver – Tokyo is announced as the first 787 route for United, they had previously indicated they’d inaugurate the 787 on…
New Priority Club PointBreaks (Discounted 5000 Point Reward Nights) Hotels Available Through July 31
Priority Club’s new PointBreaks list is out. This is the deepest discount in award travel across any hotel brand, a handful of properties are offered at any given time for just 5000 Priority Club points per night, even properties that may cost 40,000 points per night normally. I usually look for Intercontinental properties, which offer the steepest discounts when they’re participating, but there are other interesting options as well such as the Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown and the Hotel Indigo Shanghai on the Bund. Intercontinentals participating this summer are Cleveland, Houston-Galleria, Cyprus, Bucharest, Mauritius, Cairo, Nairobi, Lusaka, Fiji, Wuxi, Kuala Lumpur, Puebla, Buenos Aires, Tegucigalpa. That’s a more extensive, richer list than I’ve seen in a long time. (HT: Milepoint)
Bits ‘n Pieces for May 22, 2012
Lots of Loose Ends and Little Things: Is Hilton playing games with the cash portion of their cash and points awards? Loyalty Lobby details AviancaTaca’s 100% bonus on purchased miles which is running through the end of the month. If you don’t already have a LifeMiles account you won’t be able to take advantage of it this time around, but may want to open for the next go-round of the offer which seems to come around with some frequency. The airline is expected to join Star Alliance this year, making the miles potentially more useful. Accor is selling Motel 6 to Blackstone. I’m guessing not, but it would be interesting to see whether that portfolio is added to the Hilton HHonors program. For a limited time last year, Accor’s A|Club (now Le Club Accorhotels) allowed…
