News and notes from around the interweb:
- When you got a new American Express card it used to report to your credit as having been opened based on when you opened your very first card. This was great for the average age of your accounts, a small part of your credit score. New cards stopped doing that two years ago.
- Wyndham kind of dropped the ball on their big villa redemption discount promotion. Not the first time this happened. They should have things straightened out now.
- American Airlines seems to think they should be able to own exclusive rights to the word ‘advantage’ which is about as surreal as Citibank thinking they should own exclusive rights to saying ‘thanks’.
This isn’t a descriptive legal point. Rather a trademark system (in the ‘advantage’ case in Hong Kong) that allows a business to claim exclusive use of a common term is on its face absurd.
Note to American Airlines lawyers, Veterans Advantage offers consumer-facing airline discounts. Ready, set, go!
- Rumor: United to start offering lie flat business class Boston – San Francisco in June. A United spokesperson offers me this non-denial denial,
[W]e already fly 1 or 2 aircraft (with lie-flat seats) between BOS and SFO. We continually evaluate our products and services across all of our markets. We have not announced anything new or changing in those markets.
- 50% off SAS EuroBonus awards within Europe
- 200 Qantas points for quick survey
The flat-bed BOS-SFO service is probably more in reaction to Delta launching BOS-SFO in June using the 75S equipment with flat bed seats. I fly this route regularly (on United) and I’m really surprised it hasn’t been more competitive in the past.
Random chance had me pull my annual TransUnion credit report last week. While (for some reason) the months bounce around for each card, the year is 1980 for all of them. Brings back fond memories of that green card and my first job that required travel.