News and notes from around the interweb:
- Gol Smiles is offering a 200% bonus on purchased miles through tomorrow, June 18. Here’s their award chart. They partner with Delta, Air France KLM, Etihad, Aerolineas Argentinas, Qatar, TAP Air Portugal, Alitalia and COPA. The regular purchase price of miles is R$ 0,07 apiece or ~ 2 cents. With this, miles cost less than 7/10ths of a cent apiece.
- US courts have found that American Express rules that merchants who accept their cards can’t steer consumers to lower-priced cards to violate anti-trust laws. American Express says that the opposite is true: without these rules Visa and MasterCard (which have over 1.1 billion cards in the US to Amex’s 55 million) would gain market share and get closely to monopoly. A court will hear American Express’ appeal, but refused a stay so Amex will alter merchant contracts to allow them to push other cards while still accepting Amex. (HT: Alan H.)
- 100 free miles for joining the TAP Air Portugal (Star Alliance) frequent flyer program
- Up to 20,000 Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles for an Economist subscription through September 30. AsiaMiles is also a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, and Citi ThankYou Rewards.
- The $100 statement credit limited-time offer for the Citi Hilton Reserve Card is still available. You just have to walk through making a reservation to get it.
- Delta has one of the limited Tokyo Haneda slots. They were barely using it. American wanted it. DOT said use it or lose it, Delta said they would use it if they had to, but appealed saying they shouldn’t have to. The DOT’s ruling went final. Delta gave up according to tweets from aviation analyst Will Horton.
- The California Labor Commission ruled Uber drivers are employees, not independent contractors.
That will be appealed, of course, and note that California’s finding is likely to be different than the majority of jurisdictions.
California noted that Uber provides — and terminates for poor reviews — access to its app. That’s a unique perspective, since companies monitor the performance of independent contractors regularly and the primary tool a driver is using is their car and because drivers set their own hours and can make or lose money based on where they strategically place themselves to drive and which hours they work. Nonetheless an interesting development.
- Singapore Airlines first class gets new china
I just looked at the GOL chart. The chart has executive (first) class NA to Africa for 100K. Does that mean I can buy 100K GOL miles for $700 and fly to Abu Dhabi on Etihad?
Note that the Gol Smiles bonus miles expire after six months, so the price effectively triples if you don’t use them by mid-December. The rest expire in a year.
hmmm… so $595 for one way from US to Africa on Etihad apartments? that seems quite decent… is there YQ?
do the GOL call center agents speak English?
http://loyaltylobby.com/2015/05/27/just-bought-40000-gol-smiles-with-200-bonus-total-120000-credited/
@Dave and @Lantean … Those award charts vary by partner (though they don’t publish the real rates for most of their partners). Etihad is more expensive than the award chart suggests. The only airline that matches up to that award chart that could do the routing is Qatar.
I have read people having difficulty getting the awards booked. That said, ~$175 rt east coast to HNL is pretty nice. Haven’t checked the routing yet but it also looks like ~$700 rt to the Maldives is possible as us less than $500 rt to Europe, Africa, or South America if willing to travel economy.
You didn’t mention that Terms and Conditions of Smiles offer make it clear that the offer is available only to residents of Brazil who have a valid CFP (think of it as Brazilian SSN) added to their Smiles profile and can only be purchased by a Brazilian credit card. Smiles program often does not work properly, and if you have done anything against their Terms and Condition, they would attribute all and each problem to that and you are stuck with some miles that are impossible to use.
This isn’t an analysis of the offers presented, it’s a list of links to point folks to that they may be interested in reading about.
Not entirely clear from you blurb, but DL also has (and is keeping) an LAX-HND slot.
Glad to see the uber ruling. It is criminal that uber drivers only make $4-$5 per hour. They should be making at least the applicable minimum wage and have the same benefits and protections as other employees.
You could have simply written “offer for Brazilian residents” or something like that. It is not about an analysis.
@Gene I don’t think it’s that simple. Here’s a good discussion of the regulatory regime and the incompatibilities with Uber’s model:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/06/ca-labor-commission-has-just-killed-uber-though-it-may-take-years-to-bleed-out.html
I’m not quite as sanguine as that post is about what this all means for Uber, as I don’t take this ruling as the end or the model for how Uber will be treated elsewhere.
But to accomplish what you’d want I think we need to do more than take the current employment model and apply it to uber drivers.