Hilton HHonors is probably the most complicated, cumbersome hotel programs out there. One of the most complex aspects of the program is points-earning. Currently you have three options to choose from: Points and Fixed miles. Earn 10 Hilton HHonors points per dollar and a set number of miles per stay or per night that varies based on the airline you choose to earn miles with (e.g. “500 miles per night”). This is a classic ‘double dip’ element in the Hilton program, you can earn both points and miles. Points and Variable miles. Earn 10 Hilton HHonors points per dollar and a number of miles based on the amount of (eligible) spending at the hotel (1 mile per dollar). Points and Points. A newer edition to the program, you earn 10 Hilton points per dollar and…
How Do United’s New Award Charts Stack Up Against American and Delta?
With all of the furor over United’s massive award chart changes, I thought it would be useful to put together some context and compare United’s new February 1-onward award charts against the offerings of their two major competitors in the U.S., American and Delta. (I exclude US Airways because it’s a smaller carrier and still may merge with American.) I’ve put travel between North America and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific side-by-side to have a look at United’s new award charts (for both United flights and flights on United’s partners) against the award charts of American AAdvantage and of Delta Skymiles as it applies to travel June 1 onward. Each airline has a slightly different definition of which countries are in which ‘zones’ but this is a pretty fair comparison of…
3000 Bonus Miles on Your Choice of Airline for First Rocketmiles Hotel Booking
Yesterday I noted an offer of 3000 bonus United miles for your first Rocketmiles reservation. This is on top of the usual miles earned for hotel reservations through that site. But United miles aren’t exactly the most popular right now. So fortunately it turns out there’s actually a bonus available of 3000 miles on whichever Rocketmiles partner you choose. Here are the partners to choose from: To qualify for this offer you need to open a new Rocketmiles account and make your first booking by November 8, 2013 and complete your stay by December 31, 2013. (HT: Mommy Points) 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…
Play the Star Alliance Gold Game for a Chance to Win Elite Status
Star Alliance is running a game where you compete to test your knowledge of alliance elite benefits and answer questions quickly, with the prize being Star Alliance Gold-equivalent status in your preferred participating frequent flyer program. You have to answer questions like which frequent flyer card and program name corresponds to a given airline (e.g. “Sheba Miles” is Ethiopian Airlines) and also watch a video of someone going into a lounge and eating snacks, and identify which complimentary drink they had. The game runs through December 13, but you’re only supposed to enter once. The two people with the quickest times selecting each program will be awarded Gold status in that program. As such, it seems to me that there will be less competition to win status in more obscure programs. And that’s great because…
What Economics Tells Us About Mileage Inflation, and Why United is Now a Banana Republic
Ten years ago on Flyertalk I outlined a simple model of why we can expect frequent flyer programs to devalue over time. I explained that frequent flyer miles are a currency, but they are printed by a single company and there’s no independent central bank or other body whose job it is to defend the value of that currency. When programs ‘print miles’ but the number of redemptions available doesn’t increase proportionally, prices will ahve to rise. We can understand the move to offer ‘miles for merchandise’ and even ‘miles as money to buy travel’ as (partially-failed) strategies to help increase the number of redemption options and serve as a release valve. Milton Friedman…showed the world that inflation is a monetary phenomenon — increase the supply of money in the economy, and the general price…
3000 United Miles First Booking Bonus From Rocketmiles
Rocketmiles is offering a 3000 United mile bonus for making a first hotel booking through the site. That’s in addition to the normal miles earned for a booking. The offer is for new accounts opened after October 14 that make a booking by November 30 and complete the hotel stay by April 1. This is a one-time bonus, mileage offers displayed on the website do not include the 3000 miles which will be added separately after the fact. Loyalty Lobby implies that you can get this 3000 mile first booking bonus and the 1000 mile bonus for being referred by an existing member (“You can access this offer page here and you can get 1,000 additional bonus miles for first booking by signing up using the link here.”). I’m not so sure that’s correct. When…
American Extends Gold Elite Free Access to Extra Coach Legroom Seats and then Will Give Them a 50% Discount In March
American has given its bottom-tier Gold elite members two extra months of complimentary “Main Cabin Extra” extra legroom seating at time of booking (through February 28), will give Gold elites continued free access to those seats on day of departure starting March 1, and will offer the ability for them to purchase extra legroom seats at 50% off in advance at that time as well. When American first announced the introduction of Main Cabin Extra, Gold members were only going to get the seats for free through December 31, 2013. So this is a two month extension of the free benefit. What’s more, American unlike United (which only gives their first-tier elites access to these seats at check-in, and don’t give their Premiers a discount on advance purchase) offers equivalent oneworld partner airline elites the…
United Didn’t Just Change their Award Prices, They Changed Upgrades Too
Friday’s award chart changes at United were biggest for redemption of awards on their partners and especially for first class awards. Coach awards, and most awards in North and South America, saw modest changes. USA Today quoted me describing the crux of the changes: Frequent-flier expert Gary Leff described the changes as “really nasty,” adding in his View from the Wing blog that “the biggest bloodbath is to first class partner award pricing.” When the changes first came out they were myriad. I focused primarily on the way they added a new, separate award chart for redeeming miles (more expensively) on their airline partners as opposed to on United flights. While partner awards do cost MileagePlus more than awards on United flights, it still surprises me that they would charge more for award seats even…
100% Bonus on Purchased US Airways Miles is Back for Many
US Airways is running a 100% bonus for mileage purchases through November 30. For purchases of 50,000 miles you get 50,000 bonus miles, and your 100,000 miles cost you 1.88 cents per mile. It’s targeted, but seems targeted fairly broadly. I was eligible. The way you know if you are is that the purchase miles page first requires you to enter your name and account number. At that stage you will either be confronted with the other or you won’t be. but don’t fret! If by chance you aren’t, you probably will be next month — or being targeted won’t be required. The last time they ran this targeted was in July. Then August they ran it non-targeted. October of course was the much better 100% share miles bonus. US Airways IT Challenges Making Bookings…
How to Book Deeply Discounted Awards Flying Around Asia
Back in March I wrote about one of the best award values for flying around Asia: Japan Airlines discounted award for travel on Bangkok Airways. You may not have Japan Airlines miles, but they are a transfer partner of Starwood Preferred Guest. (JAL is also the best way to many book roundtrip first class Emirates awards.) The Bangkok Airways discounted awards were set to expire December 31. But it has been extended through December 31, 2014. (HT: @fotograaf) The promotion applies to economy redemptions only: These mileage bands are total trip miles (roundtrip, not one way, and including stopovers where relevant). Any trip up to 1000 miles total flown normally runs 15,000 miles. But with this promotion it’s just 5000 miles. That’s 2/3rds off. Travel between 1001 and 2000 miles are normally 20,000 miles. Through…
