Oct 20 2016

The basics of loyalty programs are recognize and reward. Earn and burn are the reward part, but the recognition you get — the ‘VIP status’ — for focusing on the goal of staying with a single chain 25 times or 50 nights, or flying an airline 50,000 or 100,000 miles a year gets you treatment orders of magnitude better than the average person walking through the doors or onto the plane.

But there are limits that the marketing sometimes makes it easy to forget. And sometimes employees take elite status too far, also.

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Oct 20 2016

Last year I wrote about a homeless man who used credit card signup bonuses and reselling to live in hotel rooms. He was brand-loyal to Marriott, and ultimately caught buying and reselling Amtrak tickets.

Of course he might have just stayed at the Radisson JFK which New York had been using to house the homeless.

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Oct 20 2016

As someone who flies American Airlines regularly, I place a high value on lounge access. It’s the people who keep me going especially during irregular operations, going above and beyond to get me to my destination.

American’s premium services agents, who (among other things) staff the Admirals Clubs, used to work from a command line in the Sabre reservations system but are being transitioned to a graphical overlay that restricts what they’re able to do.

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Oct 19 2016

A couple of weeks ago I outlined what sites and tools you can use to find frequent flyer award seats.

You almost always want to do the research to find award space yourself and then set up the award (online, if your mileage program offers all partners on its website, or over the phone).

One key tool I mentioned was Expert Flyer which I said had the most limited coverage of airlines but is indispensable for American flyers (because it has upgrade space) and because you can set it up to keep searching for space and email you when it opens up.

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Oct 19 2016

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.

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Oct 19 2016

Last week there was a rumor that Chase would be removing 5 points per dollar earning on its Ink small business cards, but grandfathering in existing cardholders.

We know a little bit more now: Later this year Chase will be introducing a new Chase Ink Business Preferred card.

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Oct 19 2016

There’s a fare war going on right now for winter travel between New York and Paris. Of course coach travel to Paris has to be cheap otherwise you’ll just buy cheap business class.

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Oct 19 2016

The Department of Transportation has had a lot of potential rules for how air travel should work on its docket. And it made a big announcement which doesn’t amount to very much. Fortunately.

So what did the Department of Transportation actually do? Effective January 2018 they will:

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Oct 18 2016

Booking Europe awards with American miles can be tough. American releases very little space on its own flights, and their primary transatlantic partner is British Airways — and British Airways fuel surcharges can be truly choke-worthy.

Right now though there’s something of a unicorn: amazing award space for the whole family on American’s oneworld partner Finnair. That means great saver pricing and no fuel surcharges.

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