Category Archives for Discounts & Deals.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
For years Amtrak has made changes with no notice to its loyalty program. Even multiple times in a matter of days. A practice they’ve engaged in many times, and been called out in the Wall Street Journal for. (Amtrak even eliminated their satisfaction guarantee because too many customers were dissatisfied.)
Now that former Delta CEO Richard Anderson is in charge at Amtrak I haven’t expected anything different. So I’m not really disappointed and certainly not surprised to learn that Amtrak has imposed new expiration rules on the program without notice and without even telling members.
When you want to book a one way award using United miles from the US to anywhere in the world (including just domestic), grab a second one way award in another region for some time in the future and just add a United domestic flight at the end for around 5000 miles.
I still think the elimination of award charts is awful, but there are still ways to get outsized value using United miles both because partner awards are still pricing based on (effectively hidden) charts and because United will allow you to book those at a discount based on their new lower-priced domestic awards.
Four years ago Hyatt started testing letting guests use their phone as a room key at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco and the Hyatt Regency Bellevue. Hyatt has been pretty quiet about the technology, though in the fall they did say that all of their properties would have it by 2020.
I gave a talk recently where I promised that 90% of the people in the audience would walk away with a minimum of $500 in value right away, that some people would get as much as $20,000 in value, and that they’d be able to use the information over and over too.
That’s actually pretty easy to do.
Mark Ross-Smith, who until recently was head of the Malaysia Airlines frequent flyer program, is chock full of insights. He lays out a number of things that most frequent flyer programs aren’t doing, costing them real money, because they’ve gotten lazy — focused on little besides the revenue stream they’re earning from co-brand credit card deals.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
You can fly non-stop between the U.S. and Singapore in premium economy for just $890 roundtrip. That’s an incredible fare in my opinion. In fact coach is often more expensive than that.
This is available on Singapore’s non-stop Los Angeles – Singapore service, which offers just premium economy and business class. Book by April 11 for outbound travel April 1 – June 9, or after July 16. Your trip must be complete by November 30 and last at least 7 days.
On the preview flight for the first aircraft with new seats every passenger received a Polaris Bear. United’s CEO Oscar Munoz was with the group, first in the lounge and then on the plane prior to takeoff. He was well aware of the aftermarket for these bears. They were fetching hundreds of dollars on eBay. And I suggested to him that United consider getting out of the passenger business, and just sell bears. The margins are much better. He chuckled and said he’d consider it.
A year ago we learned that Apple was dropping its co-brand relationship with Barclays and launching a new Mastercard with Goldman Sachs. That didn’t matter much since their existing card wasn’t particularly strong. There was hope the new card would be much better!
It isn’t.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
