US Airways is offering 1000 miles to new members for joining by December 31 using promo code NMCB. Members who join under this promotion and book a ticket within 60 days using a Mastercard will earn an additional 2000 miles.
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Venetian (and Palazzo) to Join Priority Club
VegasChatter has the news that the Venetian and Palazzo in Las Vegas have entered into a 10-year agreement with Intercontinental Hotels Group. The property will be bookable on the Intercontinental website and will be eligible for earning and burning Priority Club points. Otherwise, the hotels will maintain their own identities. Which tells me they won’t become Intercontinental properties (no stellar Royal Ambassador upgrade benefits and free minibar!). More generally, while time will tell whether they honor any Priority Club elite benefits at all, Priority Club’s platinum level isn’t especially rewarding to begin with so this won’t be a major driver for the elite-status crowd. Still, the opportunity for points earn and burn at better properties in Vegas is certainly welcomed, as the Wynn and Bellagio for instance offer no such conventional chain loyalty opportunities. Traditionally…
Delta Execs Share their Views of and Plans for the Skymiles Programs
Yesterday I posted links to notes on presentations by Delta Executives to members of Flyertalk. Since I’m not really much of a Delta flyer, the specifics weren’t hugely engaging for me, but I passed them along for those of you out there hub-captive to Delta for whom the nitty gritty of the Delta experience matters a great deal. Flyertalk member ND76 has posted notes of a couple more presentations, and these are much more up my alley. Bob Kupbens is Vice President of e-commerce and offered significant feedback on the airline’s IT priorities. I was most interested in the following comment: 16. When award calendar showed up on the screen, the house almost came down. There will be a new look to the award calendar by end of first quarter 2011, with emphasis on accuracy…
Notes from Delta Management’s Presentations to Flyertalkers
Delta hosted an event for Flyertalkers, and ND76 took notes of some of the presentations and posted them in Flyertalk’s Delta forum. I’m not a big Delta guy as regular readers know, but those who are may find these presentation notes interesting: Richard Anderson, CEO Tim Mapes, Sr. Vice President of Marketing Sandy Gordon, Vice President of Inflight Services Neil Stronach, Vice-President of Operations, Planning, Control and Reliability
US Airways Award Chart Giveth… and US Airways Award Chart Taketh Away
In the neverending saga of US Airways award zone adjustments, after just last week definitively moving Thailand to their North Asia region (thus reducing the cost of US-Thailand awards in business class by 30,000 miles and in first class by 40,000 miles!), they’ve once again updated their partner award chart (.pdf) and it’s now back in South Asia. In the first iteration they moved Russia from North Asia to Europe. Ok, no more Moscow – Frankfurt – Seoul first class roundtrips for 40,000 miles. Fair enough. And they listed Thailand and the Philippines under both North Asia and South Asia, instead of just South Asia where they had previously resided. Then US Airways corrected the double listing mistake, moving Thailand and the Philippines to North Asia only. And now they’ve moved both countries back to…
Mastercard Gift Card For AA.com Travel Booking
American Airlines is offering a gift card for travel purchases made via Mastercard at AA.com by December 15 for travel through March 31. Registration required. Purchase air-only and receive a $10 Mastercard gift card Purchase air + another travel item (car, hotel, or activity) and receive a $25 Mastercard gift card Purchase air + 2 other travel items (car, hotel, or activity) and receive a $50 Mastercard gift card For folks who’d be booking American flights anyway it’s free money. Sadly they’ll only award one gift card per person.
$10 Costco Cash Card for Paying Your Wireless Bill By American Express
Via MileQuest, you can Register any American Express card by December 31 and use that card to set up automatic bill pay with your wireless provider and you’ll receive a $10 Costco Cash Card. The offer does not appear to be targeted, or exclude folks that are already using automatic bill pay to charge their American Express card with their monthly wireless bill.
Great Use of Amex (or Starwood) Points: Booking Awards on Virgin Atlantic Through Their Partner All Nippon
Virgin Atlantic’s frequent flyer program adds some extortionate taxes and fees, not unlike the British Airways program. Expect to pay about $550 from the US to London and back in a premium cabin. Fortunately, All Nippon’s program is often less expensive in terms of miles and for some reason they don’t add fuel surcharges onto awards using their partner Virgin Atlantic. So taxes are a more reasonable ~ $275. I don’t really understand why this is the case. ANA hits redemption bookings on their own metal and on Star Alliance partners with fuel surcharges. Why not Virgin bookings? I really don’t know, but I’ll take it. The ANA website doesn’t show Virgin award availability. It lists Virgin flights as ‘on request.’ You put the request in on the website, then a couple of minutes later…
US Airways’ Great Value Business Class Awards to South Africa
Early this morning I spent a good bit of time on the phone with US Airways.. four passengers in business class between the US and South Africa. Part of the reason it was a long phone call is that the miles were separately coming out of four different accounts, miles for each passenger from their own accounts. That means separate reservations for each. And the taxes on the award wouldn’t price automatically, which with US Airways means getting the rate desk involved. And the agent has to hold for the rate desk. I love US Airways for international awards. I love their award chart. I love their flexibility. And I don’t think I’ve spoken to an agent outside the US since January. On the whole they’re very helpful. But the calls often take awhile. Calls…
2000 Free Priority Club Points for Identifying a Photograph
I’ve written before about the Priority Club Challenge, each week they present a picture and some clues and guessing the location of the photograph earns points. Each day during the week they release additional clues, you can guess once per day, and you earn 2000 points if you guess correctly on the first day (Tuesday), 1500 on Wednesday, 1000 Thursday. Members of Flyertalk have collaboratively done a great job guessing the answers each week. For this week’s challenge, the consensus developed quickly and sure looks correct to me: Lake Titicaca, Puno, Peru Don’t forget to enter for each account you manage (family, friends, etc)…
