American Airlines will still let you earn elite status next year from flying and meeting minimum spend requirements. However they’re copying United with a new spending-only path towards status.
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.
Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles is a transfer partner of American Express, Citibank, and Capital One. Up until now it hasn’t been a great store of value, a place to transfer points and hold them, because Asia Miles expired after 36 months – this didn’t get extended with more activity in your account.
The good news is that this is changing – effective January 1, 2020 you can extend the life of your miles with any activity in your account every 18 months. Earning any miles, or redeeming any miles will extend validity.
What would you do if you were pushing a wheelchair and the passenger… fell out? What if you were a flight attendant, standing on the jetway, and saw this happen to one of your passengers?
And what if it was all a prank? This passenger deals with a lot more in life than I do each day, yet manages to maintain a great positive outlook and has fun with the people he meets. I find that inspirational.
There are some incredible hotels in the SLH portfolio, and it’s cool to be able to use Hyatt points for stays (though elite benefits don’t apply). Be careful on paid stays that you don’t overpay booking through Hyatt.
American Airlines announced this morning several new routes, the biggest of which are from my home airport in Austin. They also announced several one-off services to major events like the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting and Augusta National Masters Golf Tournament.
The Austin flights in particular are exciting because they’re a departure from American’s usual strategy. These are point-to-point flights that don’t touch hubs, instead they’re aggressively competing with new flights between Delta focus cities.
When residents complain about airport noise I’m not usually sympathetic, the airport was there before you were and planes aren’t as noisy as they used to be. And when you see thousands of noise complaints about an airport it’s frequently just one to three residents making them all believe it or not (the complaints process has been automated).
But what about when the FAA redirects air traffic overhead?
American Express is running a 30% bonus on transfers to Virgin Atlantic through December 28. You have to be logged into your Membership Rewards account to see the bonus.
There are some great uses for Virgin Atlantic’s miles.
The new Aeroflot business class has been revealed. Aeroflot’s Airbus A350’s will feature new business class suites with doors. Aeroflot is a partner of Delta, and member of SkyTeam.
Here are photos of the new suite, routes where it will be featured, and tips for booking award travel.
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.
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 »
