IHG Rewards Club has moved to ‘gamified’ promotions with different pieces meant to incentivize behavior among members — with the specifics driven by data about your activity so far, like whether you’re a co-brand credit card holder or an elite.
You’ll have an opportunity to earn a minimum of 30,000 points between September 6 and December 15, but there are reports of much bigger bonuses.
Through September 16 Hilton HHonors is running a sale on Hilton points. You have to log in to see the offer, so it’s possible some people don’t get the full 50% off, but I haven’t heard from folks yet that are offered something else.
Hilton usually charges a penny apiece for points, so with this bonus is selling points for half a cent each. That’s tied for the cheapest I’ve ever seen (in June 2015 they offered a 100% bonus on purchased points).
Last fall I spoke with then-AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin and suggested that with their higher award pricing (since March 22), they could loosen their routing rules somewhat. She indicated they were looking at that.
And it appears they’ve started to because back in April they started to allow flying Cathay Pacific or American Airlines to Hong Kong, and travel beyond to India and the surrounding region on Cathay Pacific, as a single award — instead of requiring you to fly via the Atlantic.
Now they’ve loosened this further.
Delta is running a sale on awards to Europe in either coach or business class booked by August 25 for travel between September 23 and April 6. Europe travel is weak, and we’ve seen plenty of sales on paid tickets. In Delta’s pseudo revenue-based program that means spending fewer miles for those tickets, too.
Specific routes are on sale with a 7 night minimum stay and roundtrip booking required.
United partner and Star Alliance member Austrian Airlines has opened the flood gates with business class award space between North America and their hub in Vienna.
In fact there are 8 or more business class seats available on most flights from a variety of cities right now! (There’s coach space, also.)
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.
Air Koryo’s international operations mostly involve flights to China, but China is planning to place limits on those flights in light of an incident last month where an Air Koryo Tupolov TU204-300 from Pyongyang to Beijing made an emergency landing due to smoke in the cabin.
According to China’s civil aviation regulator, the “smoke had come from a call button located under the luggage rack on the right hand side of the cabin between rows 20 and 27.”
On June 1 the oneworld alliance (which includes airlines like American, British Airways, Iberia, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and more) changed its policies so that member airlines no longer had to check bags to their final destination for passengers traveling on more than one reservation on a oneworld airline.
Member airlines also wouldn’t be required to check customers in to their final destination on the second reservation, either. Airlines still can do this and I asked American Airlines about any changes to their policy.
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.
Last month I gave away 99 upgrades to AwardWalet Plus. I’ve updated this post on the first 2 things you should do when you’re new to the frequent flyer hobby with 106 more new free upgrade codes.
The first two things anyone interested in frequent flyer miles and travel should do is sign up for Award Wallet to track your points and get a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card to earn the most points in a highly flexible, valuable currency, quickly.
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 »
