Yesterday the Hyatt Gold Passport system was showing award redemption prices in error for some hotels. Take the Park Hyatt Chicago, which normally runs 25,000 points per night as a category 6 hotel. It was showing up at 35,000 points: Now, 35,000 points isn’t even a thing in Gold Passport. The top price for a standard room is category 7, which is 30,000 points per night. The same thing was showing up for the New York hotels, by the way. When I clicked through to the property, the number of points required for the hotel didn’t even appear.
FARE WAR: American and Delta Offering $1550 Business Class Roundtrips to Rio and Sao Paulo
American and Delta appear to be in a fare war that will not last long. These are not mistake fares, but deep discount business class fares that each airline is aiming at the others’ hub markets. They’re 21 day advance purchase fares require departure Tuesday through Saturday and return Saturday through Wednesday. The American and US Airways fares allow travel through December 15, while Delta appears to allow travel through end of schedule.These fares require return no earlier than 7 days from departure. You can fly American from:
TONIGHT ONLY: Buy a $1 Gift Card, Make $20, Plus How to Scale It and Make Even More
New TopCashBack members (only) can buy any gift card priced at $1 or more and get $20 cash back. …purchase any gift card priced at $1 or more and within seven days $20 cashback will have posted in your TopCashback account. Shipping’s free. That’s effectively a $20 saving on anything you want at a retailer of your choice. If you’re super-savvy and buy a card for somewhere that costs more than $1 but less than $20, you could even be in profit. From apparel stores such as Macy’s, Gap, Kohl’s, Old Navy, (even) Gucci, Century 21 and TJ Maxx to home and garden retailers such as Lowe’s, Home Depot, Sears and Yankee Candle; there’s an enormous choice available to utilize the free $20 credit. Pet owners might opt to treat their pal at Petco or…
American Will Honor $450 Business Class Tickets to China!
American has publicly stated that they will honor the business class mistake fares between Washington DC and both Shanghai and Beijing that were posted on Tuesday. We already knew they’d honor some of the tickets. They hadn’t made a public statement, but internally seemed to be saying they would honor the tickets that were ~ $20 plus taxes and fuel surcharges, but not the tickets that were $0 plus taxes and fuel surcharges. No such distinctions here. All purchased mistake fare tickets on this deal will be honored. Congratulations to everyone that purchased these. They seem to still be taking the position, however, that tickets which had merely been ‘held’ and not purchased will not be honored. (That’s the reference to ‘fully purchased’.) Some people used American’s 24 hour hold feature, and had American cancel…
Taxi Scammer Was Charging Over $400 for Rides from New York JFK to Downtown. Here’s How You Can Avoid Getting Taken By Similar Scams Anywhere in the World.
A man has been arrested for running an airport taxi scam at New York JFK. He would approach passengers, tell them that the Airtran wasn’t running, but that he’d drive them into the City. He also claimed to be a Super Shuttle driver and had Super Shuttle logo items in his vehicle, and a professionally printed rate list. He charged over $400 for the trip and insisted that price didn’t include the tip. Road Warrior Voices offers tips on how to know whether a taxi or similar in New York is legit. Frankly I don’t like advice such as to wait in an official taxi queue. I really think the best approach is much simpler. Know approximately what a ride should cost. Get your luggage out of the vehicle before raising any question about the…
SkyTeam Award Improvements, a New Way to Bali, and What United Express Carriers Have to Agree To
News and notes from around the interweb: Crowdfunding an airline ticket so you can monitor your girlfriend. What could possibly go wrong? Skyteam’s alliance-wide online award booking tool should be rolled out globally by the end of the year American official arrested for bringing a firearm through the Islamabad airport. If he hadn’t done so, he’d likely have been the only one not armed there, right? Emirates launches a daily flight to Bali starting June 3 operated by a two-cabin 777. More American employees who don’t like the new uniforms This week’s non-story. RyanAir ‘refued to fly’ an organ transplant child — because the family arrived at the airport after the cutoff time to buy a ticket for the flight. They took the next flight 70 minutes later. United Express carriers’ contractual commitments. Do you…
Where Should You Credit United Flights to Now That They’re Awarding Fewer Miles?
With United’s new revenue-based frequent flyer program for earning miles from flying, you earn miles based on the price of your ticket and not based on the distance you fly when traveling on United. The ‘break-even’ price to earn the same miles in 2015 that you would have earned in 2014 is a ticket that costs about 20 cents per mile. But United’s average fare is significantly less than 15 cents per miles. So on average folks are positioned to earn fewer miles from their flying under the new program. As a result, it is worth asking whether — if you must fly United — to credit those miles to the MileagePlus program or to credit to a partner airline. If you are going to earn elite status, credit to United. You may earn fewer…
For the Best Airfare Deals (Including Mistakes), Follow The Flight Deal
Several readers asked how they could have found out about the American Airlines mistake business class airfares to China from earlier this week. That one was on FlyerTalk first, I believe, but it was also posted at TheFlightDeal.com. They had the $1700 3-cabin first class deal to Seoul and the $178+ fares to Abu Dhabi, India, and Africa. They also had this month’s $500+ Air France premium economy deal to Istanbul (a $2500 – $3000 ticket normally). Scanning their site just this morning I see: Chicago – Jakarta for $795 roundtrip Los Angeles – Copenhagen for $651 roundtrip New York – Bangkok for $756 roundtrip San Francisco – Stockholm for $654 roundtrip Seattle – Hong Kong for $536 roundtrip They have a daily email list and they tweet out deals as well as listing deals…
US Airways Credit Card in the Process of Disappearing…
Via Doctor of Credit, the US Airways MasterCard has disappeared from the Barclays website. As many readers know, with the merger of US Airways and American, Citibank becomes the exclusive issuer of new American AAdvantage cards Barclaycard will still be able to service existing cardmembers Last week American announced that the programs would be combined within 30 days That leaves a very short window to still get the US Airways card and its concomitant 50,000 mile signup bonus. The card still appears on the US Airways website and there’s still a link for the card that works. Barclays has sent out some emails indicating that it will be available until April 12, and others that it will be available until April 17. Little by little though the window is closing on both this card and…
This One Mileage Offer Is Everything People Hate About Marketing, and Fine Print
Star Alliance frequent flyer program Avianca LifeMiles has a new promotion running through April for you to sign up for their co-brand credit credit card. And it’s everything customers hate about marketing, and fine print. Triple miles could be exciting, right? In fact, it’s your ticket to paradise! With triple miles you can even plan the getaway of a lifetime. In addition to the standard signup bonus of 20,000 miles with first use, you’ll earn triple miles on all of your purchases for the first 45 days as a cardmember… “up to a total of $1,000.” Put another way, this offer gives you the opportunity to earn an extra 2000 miles which is apparently your ticket to paradise. If LifeMiles offered bus service redemptions to Paradise Valley, Arizona. And if your life were especially boring,…
