SmartMoney ran a piece telling frequent flyers to go out and burn their American Airlines miles because the airline is so troubled. Attention, nervous flyers: It may be time to buckle up and use your American Airlines miles. Shares at the airline plummeted by one-third Monday amid fears that it will seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As investors panicked and sold their shares, its 67 million frequent flyer members around the world were also left with a worrying question: In a worst-case scenario, will all those hard-earned miles be lost? The bad news: When airlines file for liquidation, loyal customers are usually among the last on the long list of creditors to be reimbursed. Experts say nearly all other major debts will be paid before these rewards are redeemed. What a lead, eh? And the…
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Aeroplan Will No Longer Include Domestic First Class with International Business Class Awards
I haven’t yet verified this myself, but via Matthew Klint, Aeroplan has a new devaluation (on top of the pretty brutal changes to their award chart in July). Aeroplan will no longer book domestic (and US-Canada transborder) first class seats as part of an international business class award. If you include domestic first class, they will price the whole award as first class. Most airlines will include domestic first class on a business class award. There are exceptions. British Midland treats first class as first class, business class as business class, even when the flight is just an hour-long ‘first class’ seat on a United Express regional jet. That’s how Aeroplan appears to be proceeding, as a way of cutting costs on their redemptions according to the memo that an Aeroplan supervisor read to Matthew.…
A Reason Not to Trust Hotel Reviews
Leave aside that hotels post their own bogus positive reviews, and competitor properties post their own bogus negative reviews. Sure, some people like to create an image of themselves as sophisticated, either by associating with a high status property or trashing a high status property — or by convincing people that where they stay is indeed high status. The individual incentives aren’t necessarily to spread the word about great places a traveler wants to return to. It can sometimes be better to keep them a secret. Or so says XKCD web comic.. (HT: Dan R.)
The Million Mile Secrets Interview
Daraius from Million Mile Secrets has been running a series of interviews of frequent flyer bloggers. He interviewed me last month (and I extended on the most asked about story from the interview here.). For a new blogger, it’s a great strategy to bring in an audience I imagine, since the more highly trafficked bloggers link to you. Plus it happens to also be interesting, I’ve enjoyed the stories of the bloggers who are my daily reads.source a blog post! 🙂 Since Darius is a relatively new blogger, but whose posts have been interesting and useful, I thought that his story would be interesting. So I asked him to share it with me. Plus, I get to mostly out And so I present The Million Mile Secrets Interview. (In Rajasthan, India) How and when did…
Win a Free Night at Hyatt Lost Pines Resort
Mommy Points is giving away a free night at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort outside of Austin. The place looks great, and while I don’t often post contests that others are running since the odds of winning are so low, as of this writing there are only 62 entries. Which means the odds of winning are really, really good. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment in her post answering two questions: 1. Why do you need a day away at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa? AND 2. What activity or amenity do you most want to experience at this resort? Enter by Friday 11:59pm Central. Often when I run a contest there are 800, maybe 1000 entries or more. The odds here are much better, and the…
It’s Official: Award Stays Count Towards Stays in Starwood Preferred Guest Effective October 1
Yesterday I blogged that Starwood appeared to be rolling out award stays as qualifying towards elite status beginning October 1. It had been confirmed to me by two sources, but I hadn’t seen it in writing. However, the following memo was sent out from Starwood Preferred Guest to hotel properties at the end of last week: Update: In my original posting of the memo sent to Starwood hotel managers, I redacted some information that struck me as internal and proprietary. On reflection, more of the particular memo ought to be kept internal to Starwood, out of respect to them. In publishing the document itself I was looking primarily for confirmation and explanation of the changes. And the changes have now been publicly confirmed. So the memo itself is no longer necessary. Key details of the…
American Express-Continental Relationship Ends September 30: Should You Transfer Membership Rewards Points Now Before It’s Too Late?
With the American Express-Continental relationship ending on September 30 (crazy to think that they gave us a full year’s notice of year, serious kudos to them!), if you have Membership Rewards points it’s worth revisiting whether to take any last minute steps to protect yourself. Now, for me the first thing I think of is lounge access, since American Express Platinum (and Centurion) card members no longer will have access to Continental/United lounges beginning October 1. And Priority Pass Select members (which also happens to come with the Amex Platinum card) no longer get access, either. I’ll still get my lounge access via my British Midland Gold status. And I’m not really too tinked at American Express here, either. First, understand why the relationship is ending. Chase bank is the issuer of the co-branded credit…
Starwood Award Stays Likely to Count Towards Elite Status
It’s been the subject of speculation over on Milepoint, and I’ve just had two different people confirm it for me: expect an announcement on October 1 that award stays and nights (including cash and points awards) will count towards elite status in the Starwood Preferred Guest program. We’ll wait until October to see whether this actually goes into effect, but there’s strong indication that it will. Since January 1, 2003 this has been the case with Hilton HHonors but the other major chains didn’t follow suit. It looks likely that Starwood will be the second. Last October, Starwood began awarding both two stays and five nights to American Express cardholder accounts (no spend threshold required). Folks who have both the personal and small business card get four stays and ten nights. Now heavy spending American…
Hilton Free Night Every Four Stays in the Fourth Quarter
Hilton is bringing back “Fast Ways to Free Stays” for the fourth quarter. Between October 1 and December 31, every 4 stays or 10 nights earns a free night — or you can choose double base points after 4 stays or 10 nights. There’s no limit to the number of free nights you can earn, but free nights will need to be redeemed within 6 months from being earned. Registration is required and you have to choose at registration which offer you want, you cannot change later. There’s a long list of excluded rates which are mostly third party rates (like Orbitz, Expedia, Booking.com) though not exclusively so. And there’s a long list of excluded hotels which won’t earn credit in the promotion, from the Homewood Suites in Clovis, California to the Grand Hilton in…
Purchase Unlimited Delta Miles for 1.7 Cents Apiece (+tax) Through November 30
Via Online Travel Review anyone can sign up for the Delta incentives program where you buy miles to give out to customers or others as incentives for doing business with you. There’s a $75 setup fee, and then anyone can participate. The straight-up purchase price is 2.2 cents per mile with a 60,000 mile minimum purchase. That’s far less than the normal consumer price of 3.5 cents per mile. Through September 30 there’s a 100% bonus on purchased miles which brings that cost down in half (to 1.75 cents, but of course there’s also 7.5% tax on top). Turns out that the Delta incentives program has a bonus going on too, through November 30th. Purchase 60,000 – 149,999 miles, receive a 10% bonus Purchase 150,000 – 249,999 miles, receive a 20% bonus Purchase 250,000 or…
