Around the Frequent Flyer World in 30 Seconds:
- MileValue is offering a seminar in Honolulu at 10am on July 21, how to maximize miles for folks living in Hawaii.
- Via Milepoint, an interesting article on how the federal government is trying to reduce its spending on hotels, and how the hotel industry is lobbying against it.
- Million Mile Secrets discovers that you can earn Delta miles for paying taxes with a Suntrust debit card — and that PayUSATax charges just a flat $3.49 for debit card tax payments. Normally the ‘convenience fees’ aren’t worth the miles earned paying taxes by credit card. So this is a great workaround.
- JonNYC at Traveling Better points out that the American Airlines website says you can redeem miles online for Iberia’s Madrid-London flights. This hasn’t previously been announced, and the functionality doesn’t appear live yet, so presumably this is queued up as the next IT improvement for online partner award booking (having already added Alaska, British Airways, Hawaiian, Qantas, and associated airlines).
- Lucky points out business class fares of $1543 between New York and London over Thanksgiving. It’s available non-stop on Virgin and Delta, and with connections on Lufthansa, Air Canada, and others.
Regarding the convenience fees for paying taxes online with a credit card, if you are having to pay 2012 estimated taxes as a person with self-employment income, you are permitted to write off these convenience fees as a biz expense on your 2012 tax return next april. it’s a legit write-off.
Also, $1,623 for business class NYC-VIE over thanksgiving, either non-stop or transfer. I have never seen fares this low for business class on this route… it’s about what coach costs in the summer.
You can even fly Swiss on certain dates for this price, sadly only thru GVA… but still phenomenal value for Swiss business class. I’m just not sure about that 40 min transfer time in GVA… lol.