Having just done my taxes, and having dealt with a series of 1099s (alas, no prize income this year), I thought I’d resurrect this post from 2005 on how to dispute the value of a prize as reported to you on a 1099. If you win a stereo, the provider of the prize says it’s worth $2000 but you can find it in a store for $750, what do you do? Very important not to pay tax on that $2000 — you might wind up sending as much to the IRS as it would have cost to just buy the item in the first place! Though not to be confused with tax advice, here’s my understanding of it from personal experience: First, you should attempt to negotiate with whomever provides the prize. The official way…
About Gary Leff
A Tale of Two Programs, Or Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
Continental no longer lets you book Qantas First Class awards for 135,000 miles. As of Friday the price is now a whopping 285,000 miles. I still don’t understand what Joe Sharkey meant by a potential merger with United reducing the value of his Continental Onepass miles. But the occasion of a 111% increase in mileage cost for what was probably the best award that Continental offered is probably a good time to underscore a piece of advice: don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Sure, if you’re working on elite status credit those flight miles to your home program. And if you have a particular award you want to redeem in that program, credit partner miles until your account balance suffices. But once you’ve gotten there, credit partner miles (that aren’t necessary to retain…
This will help only a small subset of my readers
… but Etihad is offering 50% off on award redemptions through May 31, on all routes except Amman, Bangkok, Dhaka, Dublin, Kathmandu, and Manila.
Starwood’s Annual Recategorization of Hotel Award Categories Goes Into Effect March 4
Starwood has announced its new hotel award categories which will govern redemptions beginning March 4. Each year they recategorize hotels which means different point amounts required for redemption. Last year was the mother of all recategorizations, tons of hotels around the world costing 42% or 60% more points than in the previous year. Set off a firestorm, really. The Starwood program sets each hotel’s category not by the hotel’s quality (as some people often misunderstand, eg “that hotel was awful, how can it be a category 4?”). Rather, they set the category based on a hotel’s average daily room rates in the prior year. With higher hotel prices, it’s taken more points than before to redeem. But that’s not the only thing that drove last year’s recategorization. The way that Starwood accomplishes its heralded ‘no…
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Gives Customer Exactly What He Wants – Customer Complains
One of Holly Hegeman’s readers rants about frequent flyer miles and concludes I’ve just cut up my Alaska Visa card and feel much better. Only I don’t get it. They wanted to fly from Spokane to Los Angeles, and the non-stop flights were available on awards. But they didn’t like the plane being flown on the route (as if this was the fault of the frequent flyer program) and were annoyed that the specific connecting flights they wanted weren’t available so they were faced with long layover. The non-stop flights were available as awards, as far as I’m concerned end of complaint. Then they redeemed their miles for premium awards on British Airways. They took business class but they didn’t like that they couldn’t get assigned seats on British Airways … an annoying British Airways…
20% Off on Virgin America – Short Booking Window
Book at VirginAmerica.com before midnight Pacific time on Sunday Feb. 17 2008 for travel through May 21 2008 (with March 20 -24 blacked out for travel) using promo code FLYVIRGIN.
W Hotel Store 40% Off Beds and Bedding is Back!
The W Hotel Store 40% employee discount on beds and bedding is back. (Previously discussed here and here.) Code Q96TE (which you enter while reviewing your order prior to purchase) yields 40% off until 2/29/08. For non-bed and bedding items, code T6X4A should still take 20% off but I haven’t tested it.
No more mileage minimums for short USAirways flights, and a new fee!
USAirways is sending out emails to all of its Dividend Miles members letting them know about changes in the program: No more 500 mile minimums for short flights. Fly Allentown to Philadelphia and get 55 miles, not 500. Fly Reagan-National to LaGuardia and earn 214 miles, not 500. (The email doesn’t make this explicit, but I’m assuming this applies both to redeemable miles and also to elite qualifying miles.) Online redemptions made within 14 days of travel no longer avoid a fee. In a world of instant issue e-tickets, I’m not sure what a “quick ticketing” fee of $50 is for exactly, except that folks who have accumulated miles in the past can’t just take those miles to another airline to spend. And about 16 months ago even United started charging these sorts of fees,…
Free and Expedited Status at Hyatt
I think I somehow missed this last month when it first came out, but Hyatt is offering instant platinum status for new enrollees who join by March 31. The status lasts 90 days, and if you complete one stay during that time the status will be extended through February, 2009. And for those seeking Diamond status, remember that all stays count double through the end of March (if you register).
Joe Sharkey is Snarky… and Completely Wrong (about Continental OnePass)
I get that Joe Sharkey is really just trying to be snarky about a rumored United-Continental merger, but he still strikes me as pretty far off base when he says: Oh great. There goes the remaining value of my Continental elite status and miles. To be clear, Sharkey is saying that both his status and his miles would be worth less after such a merger. Now it’s possible that a combined program could take the worst features of both programs and leave everyone worse off. But that’s not really what Joe seems to be saying, rather he thinks his Continental miles and status are worth more with Continental than they are with United. And that’s just silly. The Mileage Plus program is head and shoulders better than Continental OnePass for redemption. United miles are worth…
