Continental exited Skyteam last night. Or as I prefer to think about it, they were liberated. That’s because on Tuesday they join the Star Alliance. Continental has always been known to be stingy in offering award inventory. And this was a huge deal, because their partners were known to be the stingiest as well. Skyteam award inventory isn’t nearly as generous as Star or oneworld counterparts. Just try booking more than one business class seat at the same time on the same flights between the U.S. and Asia. Going forward I still expect Continental to manage its own award inventory in a similar way. After all, Continental offers relatively small international premium cabins and employs a strategy to actually sell those seats (at a discount) rather than offering them for redemption. Continental is also known…
About Gary Leff
Even in my dreams (aka How to Earn Lifetime Status on American Airlines)
I’ve neglected my American Airlines account too much lately. I haven’t earned much there over the psat several months, there have been too many great promos elsewhere and I feel like I’m ‘wasting’ credit card spend putting miles into that account. Don’t get me wrong, American Airlines miles are useful! I have an upcoming award trip in Cathay First… But I’m really a much bigger fan of Star Alliance than oneworld, mostly for the larger number of carriers offering an international first class product (and in that regard, I don’t even think American’s own product really counts). But it’s probably been a bit of a mistake. I’m a lifetime Gold elite member with American, because theirs is the only program offering lifetime status based on miles earned in an account from any source. One million…
The Practical Implication of the Hilton HHonors Devaluation, or How I’m Changing My Behavior
I’ve written about Hilton’s plan to devaluae their points here and here. Come mid-January many properties will require 25% more points, bizarre in a world where hotels are getting killed, rates are down and so is occupancy. One Mile at a Time‘s comments, “I have about 300,000 Hilton points I need to burn, so I guess it’s time to start thinking about where I want to go.” This got me thinking, how will I change my behavior as a result of Hilton’s gutting the value of my HHonors stash? The thing is that I’ve always found HHonors points to be situationally useful, especially for redemeptions in small cities on personal travel when I don’t want to come out of pocket. Or other pedestrian travels where the hotel is a place to sleep, rather than the…
Even Better: bmi 5000 mile bonus signup offer!
Yesterday I posted a 4000 mile signup offer for bmi’s Diamond Club. It turns out there’s actually a 5000 mile signup offer — so even better! Especially because that’s enough to redeem the lowest cash and points mileage award, just for creating an account. Although do be aware that they’ll only let you redeem signup bonus miles for yourself if you have no other miles in your account. (Hat tip to Flyertalk’s abcx)
4000 Bonus Miles for Joining bmi Diamond Club
Through January 31, bmi is offering 4000 miles for joining its frequent flyer program. And bmi miles stretch pretty far, since they offer one way awards and a cash and points option. They’re especially generous with earning miles on premium class fares, and still offer minimum miles for those short hop flights. So a non-elite United flyer going Los Angeles – Las Vegas would earn 600 miles by crediting the flight to bmi rather than 236 miles crediting the flight to United.
George Clooney Explains His 10 Million Frequent Flyer Mile Goal
New clip of Up in the Air released: “I don’t spend a nickel if I can help it unless it somehow profits my mileage account.” “Well we all need a hobby.”
Must Watch Frequent Flyer Documentary
A neat documentary about the quest for frequent flyer miles. Much of the filming was done at last spring’s Flyertalk Moderator meeting in Orlando. Sadly I was in Thailand at the time and missed it. Perhaps not Up in the Air, but it’s great to watch. I especially enjoyed Flyertalk’s beaubo talking about getting questioned by the DEA about why he had hired several local Thais to do nothing but fly back and forth between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai for six weeks. Not to mention Randy Petersen explaining how ‘normal’ it is to pick up and get together with friends on another continent.
Automatically Post Your Flight Status to Facebook and Twitter
A very neat tool, Twitterfeed for the frequent flyer set, it lets you automate your Facebook status update-bragging. Lufthansa has introduced MySkyStatus, that lets you enter your flights and it will send altitude, location, departure and arrival updates automatically to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
British Airways Visa Offers Two-for-One Award Redemption
The Chase co-branded British Airways Visa has announced a new benefit: Redeem for 1 travel for 2 Every year you spend $30,000 you will receive a redemption voucher for a ticket for a companion valid for 2 years. Redeem your BA Miles for a British Airways flight and take anyone with you on the same flight, in the same class of service. (There’s a website for the offer — http://www.ba.com/redeemfor1travelfor2 — that isn’t live yet.) Two first class award tickets for the price of one is huge, even with British Airways’ inflated award chart. This new benefit is on top of the new benefit that I mentioned a couple weeks ago where all spend on the card would earn 1.25 miles per dollar instead of the standard 1 mile per dollar. So you’ve got a…
Details of Hilton’s New Devalued Award Chart are Unveiled
Last week I posted that Hilton has been planning to devalue its points by introducing a new, more expensive higher category and presumably bumping the majority of properties up a category as a result. Now the new award chart is out and goes into effect on January 15. It comes with a new category 7 (50,000 points per night), and all “Waldorf=Astoria hotels” are 50,000 or more points in low season and up to 80,000 points a night in high season. From the FAQ: Has the cost of a free night changed? Yes. Reward categories have been updated along with point redemption rates. Please refer to the chart below. Updated reward catagory 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 New point cost for 1 free night 7,500 12,500 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000…
