25% Bonus Converting Hotel Points to American Miles

airline seat
Apr 29 2017

It’s an annual tradition for American to offer a conversion bonus for moving points from a hotel program into AAdvantage miles. Historically this was a summer offer, and focused on Starwood like in 2014, in 2015 and 2016.

Revenue growth at AAdvantage is materially below expectation and they would love hotel chains to buy more of their miles, so they’ll give you a 25% bonus through June 15 for doing it.

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Alaska Airlines Re-affirms Commitment to Generous Frequent Flyer Program and First Class Upgrades

alaska airlines plane
Apr 27 2017

Delta adopted a revenue-based frequent flyer program for frequent flyer earning two years ago, and removed their award charts to reduce transparency with members. (They intended to do full revenue-based redemptions but were surprised by member pushback in focus groups.)

Naturally United and then American followed because they blindly copy Delta the way fast food restaurants locate stores near McDonalds on the belief that McDonalds is smart and knows what they’re doing.

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How Airlines Started Overbooking — and Why They Do It So Much Less Now

Apr 27 2017

Over the history of the airline industry in the United States, carriers have been subsidized and then protected by government. Prices even used to be set by government, and no shows were a lot higher than they are today.

The story of how airlines started overbooking and why they do it much less than they used to is a fascinating one. It actually begins with the Post Office.

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Etihad is Now Selling Miles – and Regular Price is Just 2 Cents Each

Apr 27 2017

Etihad is now selling miles, the price is reasonable, so this could be useful to top off an Etihad account, take the place of transfers from American Express or Citibank, saving those points for something else, or work in conjunction with transfers, you may not have enough Amex or Citi points on their own for the award you want but this option leverages your transferrable points.

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