Calculated Risk reports on declining fuel prices, futures suggest further price declines. Any bet on whether fuel surcharges will fall alongside? (To pre-empt, no I am not willing to cover the other side of that bet!) Online Travel Review thinks the Etihad Guest award chart has some real values in it, especially useful as the program has become a Starwood Preferred Guest transfer partner. Frequent Miler has a convoluted scheme to buy Chase Ultimate Rewards points for under a penny a point. If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to buy physical gift cards from Barnes and Noble. Purchase the cards using an American Express business card with OPEN savings. Then go through TopCashBack to sell your gift cards to PlasticJungle. If each stage of the process…
About Gary Leff
MegaDO is a Popular Blog Topic for Sure!
I covered the launch party over the weekend, including dates, trip details, and pricing. Mommy Points was there and offers her own take on the evening as well. Heels First Travel attended and won an advance booking opportunity, plus United 1K status. And shrieked. Pizza in Motion seems excited. Are you?
The End of United’s Qatar Partnership Announced, and the Effect on Ultimate Rewards Transfer Options
United is ending its partnership with Qatar. Here’s the key line about mileage earning and redemption: Customers will be able to accrue mileage on Qatar Airways codeshare and interline flights until September 14, 2012. Award travel ticketed on or before September 14, 2012, will be honored as ticketed and valid for one year. It’s a terrible shame, United just added the functionality to book awards on Qatar to its website, and they allow combining Qatar and Star Alliance partners on the same award. Qatar has fabulous award space to many destinations, and transiting the Middle East is a really efficient way to get to many destinations in Central Asia and Northern Africa. While awards will be bookable through September 14, it presumably won’t be possible to make changes to those awards (except in ways that…
MegaDO Launch Party Blogging
Last night was the launch party for Star MegaDO — the ultimate frequent flyer adventure, where 150-200 enthusiastic folks get together, charter an aircraft, and go on behind-the-scenes tours of airlines and aircraft, while picking up swag and tons of miles and elite status along the way. To get a feel for what a MegaDO is all about, you can read a sample of some of the past media coverage. January’s oneworld MegaDO was featured on the front page of the business section of USA Today and also in an Associated Press story that hit about 70 papers. Scott McCartney‘s Wall Street Journal piece on Star MegaDO 3 focused on Tommy Class – a blocked middle seat, like intra-European business class. And the first Star MegaDO was featured in a big Conde’ Nast Traveler spread.…
Oneworld Treats Passengers Better During Irregular Operations When Connecting on Separate Tickets
Often when booking an award ticket I need to buy positioning flights. Not everything may be available on points, whether from my starting city or for the last segment. I’d hate to give up a beautiful Cathay Pacific award ticket in first class, Chicago or New York JFK to Hong Kong, just because I couldn’t get the flight from DC to Chicago or New York. So I’m willing to come out of pocket to buy that segment. Similarly with British Airways Avios, they charge you separately for each and every flight segment you book using points. So you might have enough for the flight from New York to Europe but not the flight to reach New York. So you have to pay for the with cash. You’re still saving a lot of money by just…
Just Added Pages to My 2 Year Old Passport
My current passport is a couple of years old and it was down to three blank pages. After I got back from Brazil I realized that I didn’t have much upcoming international travel, it was a great time to get pages added to my passport. The State Department lists processing times and says that if you don’t pay for expedited service it will take 4-6 weeks. There’s no way I can be without my passport for six weeks, so I opted into the extra cost processing, which they still say will take 2-3 weeks. In fact, I had my passport back in about 9 days, including mailing the passport both directions. So that was better than expected. The cost to do this was exorbitant: $82 to have pages added $60 expedite fee $12.72 to have…
All Kiva Loans Through the Milepoint.com Lending Team Being Matched
The Milepoint.com community gets pretty involved in charity, at the same time we see the world and leverage loyalty programs to do so inexpensively and comfortably, there’s an effort to help the world as well. An anonymous Milepoint member is matching all Kiva loans made as part of the Milepoint team up to $75,000. So if you’ve ever considered making Kiva loans, picking an entrepreneur that you’d like to help with a microloan (repayment rates are really high), now is a really good time to get involved since you can double your impact.
Turkish Airlines Star Alliance Gold Status Match
“Status matches” — a loyalty program offering an existing elite member with a competitor status in their own program as a means of attracting high value business — is predominantly a U.S. phenomenon. Very few international airlines offer status matches. Briitsh Midland was known to status match in its day, and plenty of elite members of U.S. frequent flyer programs took advantage of that — as an elite member of a non-U.S. Star Alliance frequent flyer program, they would have access to United, Continental, and US Airways lounges when flying domestically. What many folks who often grabbed bmi status found was that it was also an excellent frequent flyer program. Their award chart was reasonable, leveraged by cash and points, making their miles some of the most valuable out there. Calls routed over a poor…
100% Bonus on Purchased US Airways Miles in June
US Airways is offering a 100% bonus again on purchased miles during the month of June. The maximum number of bonus miles awarded is 50,000 with this promotion, and accounts have to be at least 12 days old in order to purchase miles. Back in October US Airways raised the price of miles from 2.75 cents to 3.5 cents apiece. That had been an increase over the previous 2.5 cent price. Buying US Airways miles used to be an amazing deal, not just because miles were 2.5 cents apiece three years ago but also because award chart prices were lower. US to Europe at 80,000 miles roundtrip in business class, with a 100% purchase bonus (which seems to be going on more often than it isn’t), and a 2.5 cent per mile price plus tax…
Live Online Chat June 19 with the President of American AAdvantage
Milepoint.com will be hosting a live online chat with Suzanne Rubin, the President of the American AAdvantage frequent flyer program, on June 19th. The chat will be held at: 6pm Pacific 7pm Mountain 8pm Central 9pm Eastern You can pre-submit questions in this Milepoint thread or ask them live during the chat. Past Milepoint chats have included: A Conversation with Kip Hawley A Conversation with Hyatt Gold Passport A Conversation with Southwest Rapid Rewards A Conversation with American Airlines AAdvantage
