Cash back shopping site Ebates (new members get $5 cash from the site or $10 gift card after first $25+ purchase when signing up through my referral link, feel free to leave yours in the comments) is offering 9% cash back on all Intercontinental Hotels Group bookings. That means you can earn a 9% rebate on reservations with Holiday Inn, Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, and related brands when you go to the IHG website by clicking on it through the Ebates portal. Even bigger rebates were available a year ago, but then IHG disappeared as a cash back option. It returned about a month ago at 4.5%. It’s great to see this (likely limited-time) doubling. Currently Marriotts are available through the site with a 2.5% rebate, Hyatt at 2%, Hotels.com at 3.25%, Starwood at 1.5%, and…
American’s New Aircraft Paint Job Will Stay
A couple of weeks ago CEO of the newly merged American Airlines-US Airways announced he would let employees decide whether to keep the new aircraft tail paint job or revert to the old one. The vote is in: 52% of employees voted for the new American flag tail. More than 60,000 of the Fort Worth-based carrier’s 100,000 employees voted, with 52 percent in favor of the flag tail that was unveiled a year ago — just before the merger of American and US Airways was announced. The merger was completed last month. The new paint job stays – and is thus how US Airways aircraft will be painted, though one imagines there will be some “heritage” planes showing the history of airlines that make up what will become just American Airlines. You can join the…
The Price to Buy United Elite Qualifying Miles Has Dropped
United sells miles paired with the purchase of tickets online at its website. You can buy redeemable miles based on the number of miles flown on the itinerary. On top of that you can also buy elite qualifying miles, too. Some people do this during the year in order to qualify for elite status more quickly. Others may do it right at the end of the year when they realize how many miles short they are going to be for status. In fact, some use this feature just to straight up buy the qualifying miles, without actually flying the itinerary that those miles are sold with. That’s because when you buy the miles, they post right away and are not refundable. But remember that any United itinerary purchased on the airline’s website can be refunded…
5% Cash Back, 35,000 Points, and Cheap One-Way Awards (Bits ‘n Pieces for January 2, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: “A photograph taken by another passenger showed a man restrained in a seat with his legs bound and also appeared to have his arms tied.” (HT: Claire M.) PFdigest says that it may still be possible to get the old American Express Blue Cash card offering unlimited 5% rebates on gas, groceries, and drugstores after your first $6,500 in annual spend. 35,000 miles for the Hawaiian Airlines MasterCard is back, the card now issued by Barclays. This interests me not at all, their partner awards are generally expensive and you can’t combine partners on a single award, and transfers to Hilton are no longer as interesting post-devaluation. It could be useful for getting to Hawaii from a city Hawaiian flies to, of course. This past summer’s Aeroplan devaluation,…
A Quick Jaunt to Southern India: Etihad Business Class Lounge in Abu Dhabi and the Flight to Chennai
Previous Installments: Introduction and Trip Planning Etihad Lounge, Washington Dulles Etihad First Class, Washington Dulles – Abu Dhabi After walking from terminal 3 to terminal 1 as a transit passenger, I arrived at the terminal 1 business class lounge. I would have been entitled to use the first class lounge, but there is no first class lounge in terminal 1 where my flight would be departing from and I preferred to be closer to the departure gate. There’s no security or passport checks heading from terminal 3 to terminal 1. Security is done at each bank of gates, rather than for the terminal as a whole. (Since there’s one screening as you enter terminal 3, you do go through security when transiting the opposite direction from terminal 1 to terminal 3, before getting to the…
Prepare for a New Year of Travel, Don’t Let the Government Destroy Your Flute, and You’d Better Give United Big Money Or You’re Over-entitled
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: US Customs destroyed 11 of flute virtuoso Boujemaa Razgui‘s instruments upon his return home to the U.S. because they were deemed “agricultural products.” This seems far worse than anything United did to Dave Carroll and much, much worse than Delta banning Lynn Harrell from the Skymiles program for attempting to earn miles for his instrument. Stephanie Rosenbloom offers good tips to be ready for a new year of travel: keep your passport up to date, don’t carry knives through TSA security, have the right mobile apps to respond to irregular operations during travel, prepare for lounge access, and have the best mileage-earning credit cards. She recommends my credit card advice page. Mommy Points sums up United’s new minimum revenue requirement for elite status. I covered this extensively when…
A Quick Jaunt to Southern India: Etihad First Class, Washington Dulles – Abu Dhabi
Dec
31
2013
Previous Installments: Introduction and Trip Planning Etihad Lounge, Washington Dulles I flew Etihad first class earlier this year both New York JFK – Abu Dhabi and also Abu Dhabi – Dusseldorf. In some ways this Etihad first class flight was better than either of those, though my return flight to DC would be better still. Etihad’s premium cabin award availability, certainly booking far in advance, is amazing. At times they’ve seemed to go through cycles where their entire first class cabin or at least the majority of it on both the New York and Washington DC routes has been open for awards. Most of the time there are 2 first class award seats. And from the US they partner only with American, which means the bulk of demand for the seats comes from American’s frequent…
14% Off Airfare, $109 Suite, But Buy Your Own Lounge Food (Bits ‘n Pieces for December 31, 2013)
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: The Alaska Airlines lounge at LAX now offers food for sale. Frontier Airlines is offering a 14% discount with promo code FLY2014 on tickets purchased by January 5 for travel between Jan. 6 and March 12. TravelZoo has a suite at the Anantara Bangkok Sathorn for $109 Australian Dollars per night including daily breakfast for two, free wifi, and a free cocktail per guest. JetBlue offered its own version of the WestJet Christmas, trolling Craigslist for people looking for rides home and offering them free flights instead. (HT: Don H.) You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also…
IHG Rewards Introducing Free Internet for All Members — Whether Staying as a Hotel Guest or Not
IHG Rewards, the loyalty program formerly known as Priority Club which includes Intercontinental (for points-earning and redemption), Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and other brands has updated its terms and conditions to include internet access not just for elites but for all members throughout most of the world, and to offer that access for free whether the member is even staying at the hotel or not. This benefit doesn’t apply in Europe, where only IHG Rewards elite members will receive complimentary internet. Internet Access for Members: Beginning January 2014, standard internet access will be available to all IHG® Rewards Club members at no additional cost at all IHG hotels located in the Americas, Greater China, Asia, Middle East and Africa with or without a hotel reservation and/or qualifying stay. Furthermore, IHG® Rewards Club Elite members will…
What’s the Best Business Airline? Has Pot Been Legalized at the Denver Airport? And What Would Abolishing the TSA Look Like? (Bits ‘n Pieces for December 30, 2013)
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Forbes looks at the best airlines for business travel in 2014. My take: A good business airline gets you where you want to go with multiple fight options a day, and lets you be productive while getting there,” Gary Leff, head of the popular View from The Wing blog tells me. “That means the major network (legacy) airlines are the better business airlines. The two best are American Airlines and Delta Airlines for letting you stay connected with inflight wireless internet while offering frequent schedules across their broad networks. Of course I choose American between those two due to their far superior mileage program. Photos of Lufthansa’s new lounge at Newark Colorado’s marijuana legalization allows entities controlling property to ban pot on their property. Denver’s airport is utilizing…
