Last month I cited Frugal Travel Guy on the ability to earn AirMilesMart points (which transfer to Starwood, among others) for reloading Starbucks cards. The December, 2008 Inside Flyer picks up on the offer (subscription required). But my wife points out to me that AirMilesMart has tagged the merchant explicitly now with the statement, “Not Valid on Starbucks Cards.” Bummer.
About Gary Leff
Good luck to Thais and Their Visitors
I’m up early Thanksgiving morning, looking into flight options for a friend of mine in Nepal who is supposed to fly back to the States via Bangkok. She’s on two separate tickets, a paid flight out of Nepal to connect to her award ticket departing Bangkok. Of course Bangkok is closed. United doesn’t permit changes to Star Alliance awards post-departure, except to change to all-United aircraft, hopefully we’ll get them to permit her to drop her flight out of Bangkok and she can then buy a new ticket out of Nepal to connect to her award elsewhere, that seems the simplest solution at the moment. Meanwhile, there’s much chatter about a coup this evening in Thailand. There’s pressure on the military to solve the current crisis. The PAD protesters who have seized the two commercial…
Northwest Visa 25,000 Bonus Miles and No Fee First Year
The proprietor of Free Frequent Flyer Miles points me to his site where he has an offer for the Northwest Visa with 25,000 bonus miles after $500 in spend and no annual fee for the first year. Several readers have sent along links with 25,000 bonus miles (the one I recently posted offered only 23,500) but those links didn’t say anything about the fee waiver. This one does, so thanks, Gary!
HOLD OFF ON ANY DELTA SKYMILES PARTNER ACTIVITY
They have apparently pulled the up to 150% bonus on partners. Looks like they’re playing a real fast one here. Unfortuantely I already transferred Diners Club points and they’ve posted to Skymiles, so I’m going to have to fight real hard for the bonus — because otherwise there’s no getting those points back into an account where points are worth anything. Shame on Delta. Shame, shame. More over at Flyertalk. (And thanks for the heads up, Carol.)
An Academic Theory of Airline Industry Woes
An NBER working paper seeks to explain airline financial difficulties through changes in price sensitivity of travelers, as well as a shift in costs and preferences favoring non-stop flights over connections through hubs. A non-gated .pdf version of the paper can be found here. (Hat tip to Tyler Cowen.) Ultimately I think it does a good job in demonstrating price sensitive consumers, and less well demonstrating changes in consumer preferences. The paper appears to contain some factual inaccuracies — I’m a staunch critic of much so-called security regulation, but it hasn’t measurably increased baggage handling time on connecting flights. Meanwhile, the paper is correct that connection times have grown, but that’s a function of ‘de-banking’ hubs to spread labor costs evenly throughout the day rather than having peaks and then paying workers to wait around…
Northwest Visa Offer — 23,500 Bonus Miles for $500 in Spend, No Fee the First Year
Thanks to Reza for the tip. Others have flagged offers that are supposed to have no fee, but the fee waiver didn’t appear explicit on the offer’s web page. This one does. Moreover, with the Worldperks program going away, it’s close to a last opportunity to get the card and signup bonus of miles which will be converted into the Delta Skymiles program. 23,500 bonus miles after $500 in spend is a good offer with no fee for the first year, just cancel before that year is up. In my experience, by the way, the card is churnable — at least after some period of time has elapsed. I had a Northwest Visa card back in 2004 and had no problem getting a signup bonus again earlier this year.
British Airways Half Off Redemption for the Next Week
British Airways gave a heads up to Flyertalk and is currently sending out emails to announce 50% off the mileage required for award bookings. This offer is valid for redemptions in all cabins, a roundtrip award is required, and is limited to bookings on mainline British Airways flights (no subsidiaries or partners). The booking period is November 21 – 28 (ending on London time presumably). This is truly a huge offer, especially since while there’s a limited time to book there’s no restriction on when travel can occur other than how far out BA’s schedules have been loaded.
US AIrways Returns Elite Bonus Miles and 500 Mile Minimums for Elites
I turn the mike over to One Mile at a Time I never thought the day would come, but US has made the decision to return 500 mile minimums for elites, as well as return elite bonus miles. Best of all it’s retroactive, and it doesn’t come with an announcement of another “enhancement.” I have no clue why it took the airline so long to realize that eliminating elite bonus miles is idiotic, but at least they’ve woken up a bit. I think the credit for this goes to Randy Petersen, who has fought like crazy to “Save Dividend Miles.” Previous coverage of US Airways’ ill-fated moves and the campaign to reverse those decisions can be found here, here, and here. And with this about-face, I can finally lift my advice that it makes…
Thoughts on the Huge Delta Partner Promotion
I’ve been thinking about how to best maximize return on the big Delta partner promotion I wrote about yesterday, offering up to a 150% bonus on most partner miles through the end of the year. Last night I transferred a bunch of Diners Club points. Diners Club is offering up to a 35% transfer bonus to begin with, which on its own wasn’t enough to entice me. That offer runs through the end of the year and is tiered as follows: -Transfer 10,000 to 19,999 points and receive a 15% mileage bonus -Transfer 20,000 to 29,999 points and receive a 25% mileage bonus -Transfer 30,000 or more points and receive a 35% mileage bonus But on top of that 35% bonus, Delta will give me another 150% bonus. As I said before, I’m not a…
Time To Cash In American Airlines (or Other Qantas Partner) Miles to Australia?
Posted this afternoon in Flyertalk’s Qantas forum I’ve been monitoring award availability for SFO/LAX to SYD/MEL/BNE for the past few months. I’ve NEVER seen more than a few scattered F/C award seats available. However, in the past few days, QF has opened up tons of F/C award seats from the US to Australia and vice versa, from now until Feb. Most dates in November and December have some F/C award seats available. Some even work for Xmas travel (though not the absolute peak season dates of course). Is this normal? In the past, I haven’t seen last minute award availability as being significantly better than far in advance availability. The post even notes seeing a first class award seat on Qantas’ A380, so consider spending those miles…
