Category Archives for General.
Back in August United announced new change fees for awards and new limits award stopovers. They eliminated round the world awards as well. This was a devaluation, but — at least based on the announcement — seemed to be in areas where United was more generous than the competition.
It turns out the changes were more draconian than what United announced.
Wyndham offered status matches and to match Starwood account balances with quadruple the points if you donated your full account balance to charity.
About 40 minutes prior to the start of the promotion they announced they wouldn’t be honoring the offer after all.
Delta now offers complimentary domestic upgrades to Silvers on award tickets, a benefit they already provided to higher-tier elites.
This move doesn’t cost Delta anything substantive. Domestic first class seats rarely go out empty. This might help a Delta Silver using their miles domestically on a Saturday regional jet flight in a market where the airline is overscheduled like Seattle.
Arguably the greatest frequent flyer offer ever came in 2002 when the KLM Flying Dutchman program offered not just to match elite status in another frequent flyer program, but also account balances (flights on KLM or partners were required for this). People earned millions of miles from a few flights.
Over the summer JetBlue matched Virgin America point balances with up to 75,000 bonus miles.
But I don’t recall an account balance promotion that was both unlimited (like KLM’s) and that required draining the points in your existing account.
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.
Doha is a really convenient stopover, as the home airport for Qatar Airways, a top world carrier and member of oneworld. Their first class lounge in Doha is amazing, and even features pieces from the Museum of Islamic Art’s collection.
I found just two days in Doha to be perfect, but if I had it to do over again I’d do four nights… two dedicated to a museum visit and two for The Ritz-Carlton Sharq Village & Spa.
The new Ritz-Carlton Rewards® Credit Card is a Visa Infinite card. The card was already strong, two months ago Chase made the card great.
Here are the 5 most important things to know about this card.
United’s shopping portal is offering 45 MileagePlus miles per dollar for Magazines.com purchases instead of their usual 12 miles per dollar.
This offer won’t last long. 45 miles per dollar means buying miles at $0.022 cents apiece. However here’s an idea to play with:
Hyatt Gold Passport is offering a 20% points bonus for Las Vegas stays between October 19 and December 29.
What’s especially interesting is that almost all eligible hotels are MGM properties (Hyatt Gold Passport and MGM’s M life Rewards have an alliance that almost amounts to hotel codesharing).
“Round the World” service is a huge badge of honor, Pan Am used to offer a single flight that made stops and crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
After United bought Pan Am’s Pacific routes, it operated round-the-world service as well. It was a source of pride, not profits. At one point United flew New York JFK – Los Angeles – Hong Kong – Delhi – London Heathrow – New York JFK. United flights 1 and 2 traveled in opposite directions.
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 »
