Category Archives for General.
Star Alliance frequent flyer program Avianca LifeMiles is offering a tiered purchased miles bonus through September 30 — from 50% to 135%. That gets the cost to buy miles down to 1.4 cents apiece.
This is of course the program that will monetize everything, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d sell you printed copies of your mileage statement. They straight-up sell Star Alliance Gold status.
Several days ago I asked readers for questions and I’ve started writing posts that answer many of them.
However I thought I should also highlight where I don’t know the answer to questions being asked. Maybe readers will. I do have my limits.
I sought to limit the questions to travel or miles and points but readers asked other things as well, again some of those were outside my area of expertise.
There’s a current call for the federal government to impose ‘minimum seat standards’ on US airlines. However there’s absolutely no evidence that current seat sizes ‘threaten health’ or ‘safety’. But requiring bigger seats and more legroom will have one obvious effect: raise prices.
Right now consumers can choose the level of comfort and price they’d like to buy. Proposed regulations would simply make current inexpensive options illegal and force everyone to buy a product they may not want to pay for, especially shorter people or for shorter flights.
I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Mo asks, “I’d really like to get to South Africa on one of the American Airlines carriers (preferably somewhere near the front of the plane) . What is your best strategy?”
Kent asked, “What are some of the best airline sites to see award availability on many other airlines ? For example on Alaska Air I can see if British Air has seats available, and a couple other airlines all in the same search.”
Reader Jason asks, “You’ve long supported [American]’s no-complimentary-upgrade policy for lower elites. You’ve said this policy keeps the [first class] cabin emptier for top elites. But on my last two AA flights the [first class] cabin was completely full — and occupied largely by non-revs.”
I don’t think that’s the reason I’ve said I like American’s policy… but let’s talk about employee upgrades, and unlimited complimentary elite upgrades.
Reader Wings has two questions: what’s the best rewards possible for a $25,000 home remodel project? And is now a good time to status match from United 1K to American’s Executive Platinum level?
Reader Jesse asks for a Starwood points strategy: “I understand that many airlines release more award seats close to the dates. Well, I am ready to transfer up to 200k SPG points to make first class award seat dreams come true. But I heard SPG takes up to 2 weeks to transfer points. How would you know which airline program to transfer the miles to so they would get there in time?”
IHG’s Accelerator promotion is great for new members of their program (2 free nights after 4 stays!) but less good for many others. I won’t come close to earning enough points for a free night from the offer. It turns out, however, that there is an alternate promotion you can choose.
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 »
