Nov 17 2015

American has come out with its award chart changes. These have been much anticipated, because we really haven’t seen changes to the saver award chart in a big way since the introduction of one-way awards in 2009.

While United and Delta were busy raising award pricing, American was focused on integration of two airlines. In some sense we had a couple of years where American AAdvantage was just more generous than their competitors. Now they’re making changes that narrow that gap.

Continue Reading »

Nov 17 2015

For the past week or so American’s website has had intermittent issues when searching for and booking award travel. The site has frequently errored out, necessitating a call. Fortunately American no longer charges a telephone booking fee for awards that cannot be booked online (which unfortunately remains the majority of partner airline awards).

For the past few days there have been several reports of American’s phone agents unable to see Etihad first class award space that can easily be found on the Etihad site.

Continue Reading »

Nov 17 2015

Air Canada’s Aeroplan, a Star Alliance member, is offering a bonus for transferring in points of up to 40,000 miles through December 21.

American Express Membership Rewards is excluded from this bonus. But Starwood points transfers (and most others) are eligible.

Continue Reading »

Nov 16 2015

Last summer I attended ‘All Access Day’ at Gogo, the inflight internet provider, and shared a behind-the-scenes tour of how internet gets beamed into space so that an aircraft traveling at over 500 miles per hour can access the rest of the world (very slowly).

This week I was invited back to sample their fastest internet, and see their latest technology which had only just been announced when I visited last summer. They promised a test flight onboard the Gogo Boeing 737 equipped with ‘2Ku’. For avoidance of doubt, I paid my own way to the media event and covered my own hotel.

Continue Reading »

Nov 16 2015

Through November 30 at 5pm Pacific, Plastiq will let you make any one-time immediate payment (i.e. not prescheduled future payment) with a MasterCard for just a 1.5% fee rather than the usual 2.5% they charge (which is still less than Paypal).

That way you can earn miles for your bills, even from merchants who do not take credit cards.

Continue Reading »

Nov 16 2015

American Airlines was Down Under promoting their new Sydney service which starts next month, their joint venture with Qantas (which has yet to receive US government approval), and announcing new service to Auckland, New Zealand as well.

American AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin was there talking frequent flyer programs, and the Sydney Morning Herald reports on several possibilities for the program.

Continue Reading »

Nov 16 2015

Three Chinese firms were supposedly seeking government permission to make a bid to buy Starwood Hotels. Hyatt was rumored to be the lead bidder. There had earlier been speculation about a Starwood-IHG (or Wyndham) merger. Wyndham hired away enough Starwood talent that it’s recently been referred to as Wynwood.

Starwood’s CEO, whom I interviewed on stage earlier this year, made clear he expected to sell by the end of the year. And it looks like he made good on that promise.

Continue Reading »

Nov 15 2015

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.

Continue Reading »

Nov 15 2015

Through November 30 American is selling miles for as little as 2 cent apiece. That’s cheaper than they usually sell miles.

On average I value American miles at 1.7 cents.

They’re worth more if they put you over the top for a specific award. And they’re worth more if you redeem them for something you’d be willing to pay full or close to full price for otherwise.

Continue Reading »