The Amtrak/United partnership has ended, apparently effective immediately. It used to be possible to transfer Amtrak points to United miles at a 1:1 ratio, up to 25,000 points per year (50,000 points for Amtrak elite members). That option is apparently gone, removed sometime in the past 48 hours, with no notice whatsoever. This is a real blow to the value of the Amtrak program for several reasons. I used to recommend the Amtrak Mastercard as the best free points-earning credit card. It had several benefits: Obviously, it was free Points could be transferred to United, Midwest, Continental and Hilton It’s issued by MBNA, so the foreign currency conversion charge is only 1% (rather than 3% for most issuers) In fact, it was a better way for most people to earn United miles than the United…
About Gary Leff
Bonus miles for filing taxes
Dec
30
2004
American Express OnlineTax is offering 1000 Delta miles for using their online tax filing service from January 1 to April 15. $34.95 buys filing of your federal and state returns, which is somewhat higher than other online services I’ve seen and likely higher than the after-rebate price of some software packages.
Applying for credit card signup bonuses… over and over
A reader writes: Hi Gary: I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while now and find it highly enjoyable and informative. Thanks! However, I’ve never seen one question asked or answered. How frequently can you sign up for an airline or hotel credit card, get the signup bonus, cancel the credit card, then sign up again? I’ve signed up for the various airline and hotel credit cards, used them for a while, then canceled them since I never actually used them much. My credit rating is good enough that it can suffer another round of hard inquiries on my credit reports if I were to sign up for those credit cards again and would be worth the extra signup points. I’m somewhat puzzles that this isn’t a more frequently asked… Perhaps I am missing…
Support Disaster Victims
Dec
28
2004
Flyertalk is accepting contributions for the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund in support of the earthquake and tsunami victims. Red Cross contributions are tax deductible, and there are of course only a few days left in the calendar year to seek such deductions. What better cause?
Time to start thinking about taxes again
Lots of rebates, and all your finance and tax software needs for $6.49, shipped. Note, though, that the Norton Anti-virus rebate is an upgrader’s rebate so the deal only works if you already have a version of a Norton, Symantec, or McAfee software product (which in my experience a large number of people do). Borrowed from FatWallet.com:# Amazon.com is carrying this TaxCut 2004 Deluxe for $24.50 # Search for “B0006466DA” to add TaxCut 2004 State to your shopping cart for $24.50 # Search for “B0002D1572” to add Microsoft Money Standard 2005 to your shopping cart for $27.99 # Search for “B000646EGO” to add H&R Block DeductionPro 2004 to your shopping cart for $19.95 # Search for “B0002UCJV6” to add Norton AntiVirus 2005 to your shopping cart for $46.99 # There is a $5 Mail-In Rebate…
Free Magazines
Dec
26
2004
Free subscriptions to Stuff magazine and Field & Stream are available.
Free Starbucks Card
Dec
26
2004
Oracle is offering a free $15 Starbucks gift card for completing a survey. It looks to have been originally targeted, so no guarantees whether the card will be delivered (but the survey is short).
Are Delta’s Frequent Flyer Changes Their Death Knell?
Dec
24
2004
Joel Widzer (whose book I reviewed over the summer) doesn’t like the changes to the Delta Skymiles program that I reported on last week. He sees Delta as [c]aving to the protests of its stingiest customers and believes that the changes will “accelerat[e] Delta’s path toward bankruptcy.” I usually start by giving an airline, or any company, the benefit of the doubt – concluding that they know a lot more about their business than I do as a simple armchair observer. Certainly they have more data at their disposal and knowledge of their specific circumstances. It’s hard to do that in the case of a company on the verge of bankruptcy with losses in the 10 figures. But I could have made that same negative assumption about Delta before the announced changes so the simple…
Independence Air to Operate as United Express again?
Dec
24
2004
It’s still a long-shot, but United requested a bid from Independence Air to operate as a United Express carrier. This is precisely the move being pushed for by Independence Air’s largest shareholder. The Washington Dulles-based low fare carrier has been losing buckets of money and warnings have been issued about a possible bankruptcy filing in January, a mere seven months after starting service as an independent carrier. FlyI used to operate as Atlantic Coast Airlines with most of their flying as the United Express carrier at Dulles and additional activity as a regional carrier for United at Chicago and for Delta at Boston (if I recall correctly, in this last case). The problems they face are several-fold. They decided to sell tickets directly to consumers, bypassing Global Distribution Systems. The model works well for an…
Accounting and Frequent Flyer Programs
Dec
24
2004
Alaska Air made a $5.2 million accounting error in the third quarter related to its frequent flyer program. They sold a bunch of bonus miles to their partners and booked the revenue. That turns out to have been the problem — because their accounting practices require them to book revenue when the miles are redeemed rather than sold. That simple item may offer a window into the behavior of airlines offering award sales and alternative redemption options. In the case of award sales, customers are encouraged to book award flights they otherwise wouldn’t — allowing the airline to recognize revenue. In the case of alternative redemption options (such as magazines for miles or even points exchanges), the airline gets to book revenue even though it also has a cash cost. In this latter case the…
