Last month I flagged an offer for instant Hyatt Platinum status. Loyalty Traveler points out that Hyatt elites (including Platinum members) get their first year membership free in the Clear airport security program. I had thought the free Clear membership offer expired December 31, but I tested it and it appears to still be valid. Now, I really don’t have any desire to submit to an iris scan for the chance at maybe going through security faster, and I’m fortunate that most of the airports I transit have elite security lines (for now, at least). So I’m going to pass on this. But for folks willing to submit to their screening, and who prefer to save the cost of membership, just sign up for Hyatt elite status and then score your Clear membership.
About Gary Leff
Delta Last Seat Availability Redemptions to Return Summer 2008?
Tim Winship sketches the plan for Delta’s new three-tiered award structure. Regular readers of this blog know that on December 1, Delta axed the ability of its Skymiles members to use additional miles for last-seat availability. But the option will be coming back, albeit with a higher mileage price than before. Robertson also elaborated on plans for a revamped award structure, to be rolled out sometime this summer. The SkySaver awards will remain as is, allowing SkyMiles members to redeem 25,000 miles for a capacity-controlled domestic coach ticket. But the less restricted SkyChoice awards will be split into two tiers. Using the current SkyChoice domestic award as an example, Robertson explained that in place of the current 50,000-mile award, there would be a 60,000-mile award which guarantees last-seat availability, and a 40,000-mile award which would…
More Reasons to Dislike Delta’s Pay With Miles Program
Feb
29
2008
Tim Winship makes a point about Delta’s new miles as money option for award tickets that I neglected to mention: that the tickets you ‘buy’ at one cent per point are treated as award, rather than paid, tickets. In other words, they don’t earn miles and they can’t be upgraded. Still, Winship concludes [T]he increased flexibility, transparency, and convenience provided by Pay with Miles will be welcomed by many SkyMiles members and sets a new industry standard for award availability. Now, as I mentioned previously, United already offers Choices — a similar program for Mileage Plus members with a co-branded Visa credit card. So it’s hardly a new industry standard being pioneered by Delta. Of course, holders of the Delta American Express card can use all their miles in this program, rather than just the…
Obtaining a US Credit Card Without a US Credit History
Yesterday I sought advice on Flyertalk for a co-worker on how to obtaina a credit card in the U.S. as a non-citizen who has just immigrated here and therefore doesn’t have a credit history attached to his new U.S. social security number. I received four pieces of advice, that I thought I’d pass along here. Go to the non-US bank where the person already has a relationship and have them set something up with a US affiliate, if there is one. In this case, the person is Canadian, so they could try to work through Royal Bank of Canada (which has the North Carolina-based RBC Centura) or Toronto Dominion (which has TD Bank North). Have their employer take them to the financial institution where the business banks, and ask a senior person there to assist.…
Delta Signup Bonus for non-US Addresses
This Flyertalk thread reports that new Delta Skymiles members signing up with a non-US address will receive 6000 bonus miles after their first coach flight or 11,000 bonus miles if their first flight is in paid business class. No promotion code is necessary, it apparently is automatic for new members outside the U.S.
Virgin America First Class Passengers Can *Buy* lounge Access.. And Why They Should!
One Mile at a Time reports that Virgin America passengers flying paid first class from San Francisco can now use the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse there.. for an additional $40. Naturally, a move to charge folks flying in paid first class for lounge access will seem strange to many. But since most US airlines don’t offer lounge access for paid domestic first class tickets (Alaska Airlines is one exception), since the price of a one-way first class ticket from San Francisco to Los Angeles isn’t especially high, and since the Virgin Clubhouse is a rather nice lounge by US standards, this seems more than reasonable to me. I’ll be visiting the Virgin Clubhouse at Washington-Dulles for the first time in a few weeks, I understand that it’s rather underwhelming for a Virgin lounge but still the…
Details of Delta’s Miles as Money Option for Redeeming Towards Airfare
Webflyer.com wrote up details of Delta’s new pay with miles feature. Skymiles members with a co-branded American Express card can now use their miles to pay directly for tickets rather than searching award availability. I haven’t previously mentioned that this was coming (I don’t think) mainly because it doesn’t merit much attention. As I expected, the best you’ll ever do by using miles as cash for a ticket is one cent per mile in value. Now, Delta miles aren’t generally worth much more than a cent, I use my United and American miles to redeem (with ease, relatively speaking) for premium cabin international awards. In recent years I’ve booked international first class tickets on tons of airlines including Qantas, Air Tahiti Nui, Asiana, United, Thai, ANA, and Lufthansa (not to mention business class on many…
WebFlyer Writeup of United and Continental Frequent Flyer Programs
Webflyer.com has a feature called Head2Head, where you can compare any two programs next to each such that the features, pros, and cons of each are side by side. I contributed descriptions of Continental OnePass and United Mileage Plus for them. With Continental I made substantial revisions to what was already there, for United I started from scratch. I’d appeciate comments or thoughts from readers here about whether I was fair to the programs, whether I should have highlighted something I left off, etc.
Last Call for Freddies Balloting
This is your last chance to vote in the annual Freddie Awards, voting ends tomorrow February 29th. This is the one that matters, there are an almost limitless number of travel awards out there and it’s always shocking the results that some of them offer (and one suspects that in some cases they’re bought and paid for). Travel providers seem to really care how they do in this set of awards, the programs almost all promote it to their members to get out the vote of those likely to support them. But even so, all the politicking in the world is unlikely to skew the vote — over 400,000 travelers will cast their ballots in the Freddies. So even when I disagree with an outcome I have to respect it. On the whole (and in…
Currency Controls and Cheap Airfare
Here’s a little bit of creativity on Flyertalk that requires a more adventurous spirit than I have, represents a great deal, and also teaches a little something about global economics. Venezuela imposes currency controls. If you buy your tickets there, the dollar price of the fare is converted to Venezuelan currency at the official rate. But you can buy your Venezuelan funds at the much more favorable black market rate. So you wind up saving about 60% on your tickets. This only works for tickets issued in Venezuela. There’s some discussion of whether the tickets need to be purchased in Venezuela or just from Venezuela, and whether tickets would need to originate in Venezuela (think flying from Caracas to somewhere else as the first segment on a much larger itinerary with stopovers taking you to…
