News and notes from around the interweb: Euan points out in the comments to yesterday’s post on British Airways lifetime elite status that BA is also offering lifetime Gold Guest List status for twice as many lifetime tier points. That status lets you trump capacity controls on awards twice per year and also comes with Hilton HHonors Diamond status. Changes you’re going to like at the United Club: The complimentary wine is Sycamore Lane. A drink with Beefeater gin is $9 ($11 for Bombay Sapphire; McCormick’s vodka is complimentary). Heineken is $3, the only complimentary beer is Budweiser (so far, just Bud Light). Of course I remember stockpiling Red Carpet Club drink chits, because no alcoholic beverages were free! For our friends up North, the RBC British Airways Infinite Visa has up to 45,000 points…
Choice Privileges – Two Stays Earns a Free Night (Sort Of)
Choice Hotels’ Choice Privileges is offering “Take Two Separate Trips Earn One Free Night”. And then in smaller, lighter print they clarify ‘at over 1500 hotels’. So it’s not a free night anywhere, and it’s not exactly a free night that you earn at all. What you earn are points in the Choice Privileges program, enough to be used for a free night at a subset of their hotels. And it’s not even enough points for a free night in addition to the points you earn for two stays. Instead, it’s a bonus meant to top up the points you earn for those two stays so that in total you have enough for one free night at that subset of hotels. Specifically, after two stays you will earn a bonus of between 5000 and 8000…
The One Thing That’s Most Broken About Starwood Hotel Awards
Yesterday I shared my one wish that would make Starwood points the clearly most valuable rewards currency: timeliness of transferring points. Other programs figure out how to make transfers instantaneous, while Starwood can take literally weeks to move points around. In the comments to that post, Jay hits on my biggest frustration with Starwood hotel night awards. for me, i’d be that ridiculous rule on charging double points for hotels that don’t have standard rooms. ALL hotels should have standard rooms. that really ires me to no end I have hit on this before. For instance, three years ago I wrote Starwood’s outrageously-priced unattainable high-end hotel redemptions. [I] am increasingly bothered by another feature of their redemption program — the exorbitantly high redemption rates for some of their high-end properties that are described as ‘all-sute’…
Virgin America Double Points on Premium Fares and Threshold Bonuses
Via Notiflyer, Virgin American wants you to Feel the Earn. My mother caught me doing that once. Virgin America is offering double points on first class and Main Cabin Select fares booked and flown between September 10 and December 31. Instead of earning the standard 5 points per dollar, you earn 10 points per dollar. Tickets purchased before the promotion do not earn double points, unfortunately. And they are also offering bonuses based on the total points earned from flying between September 10 and December 31. Flights in any cabin count for this bonus but double points for premium fares offered under this promotion do not count nor do other bonuses (like route bonuses or elite bonuses). Registration is required and bonus points count towards elite status qualification — Silver is 20,000 points and Gold…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 10, 2013 (Part II)
News and notes from around the interweb: TSA security screening has killed many more people than terrorist attacks have. We should shout this from the rooftops. The new international terminal at LAX will open September 18th. It will still, sadly, bear the name Tom Bradley. How good could it be? The lounges won’t be done, either, so passengers with lounge access will have to use the lounges in the old terminal to start. A federal judge supports the TSA’s decision to lie in response to a Freedom of Information Act Request for non-classified, non-“sensitive security information” records. Virgin America’s safety video has been running since the airline’s first service in 2007. It apparently doesn’t have captions for the benefit of the hearing impaired. SO after an investigation (sic), six years in, the Department of Transportation…
The One Thing That Would Make Starpoints the Single Most Valuable Currency, or How SPG Slows You Down in the Internet Age
I love Starwood Preferred Guest points. In many ways, Starpoints are the single most valuable currency. They transfer one-to-one into more airline mileage currencies than any other program, and they add 5000 bonus miles with the transfer when moving Starpoints into 20,000 mile increments. That’s incredible flexibility. Oh, and they can be used for hotels too! But the one knock on the points, and the reason I ultimately value Starpoints less than I do Chase Ultimate Rewards, is how long they take to transfer to mileage programs. Whereas Chase is ‘live’ with most of its partners — meaning that points show up in the mileage accounts instantly when you make the transfer — Starwood takes several days to up to a month to put points into a mileage account. That means you cannot just find…
British Airways Introduces Lifetime Elite Status, Leaves Lifetime bmi Elites in the Cold
British Airways has announced the introduction of a lifetime elite status program. (This has been fairly expected.) Your lifetime Tier Points earnings are listed when you log into your Executive Club account. Lifetime Gold status is earned after accumulating 35,000 tier points. That’s a lot — Gold for a single year requires 1500 points. Compare that to a “million mile” program where flying 100,000 miles for 10 years is enough to earn status. The minimum required with British Airways is more than 20 years of flying at the top tier level. On the other hand, Gold is the top British Airways status you can generally earn based on flying alone. So that should probably be compared to 2 or even 4 million miles in a miles-based lifetime program in the U.S. At that level, it’s…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 10, 2013
News and Notes from around the interweb: Starwood and Delta introduced “Crossover Rewards” back in February. It was originally rumored that Starwood Platinums would receive space available upgrades on Delta but that benefit wasn’t included in the rollout. It’s now official: Beginning September 12 Starwood Platinums registered with Crossover Rewards will be in the queue for space available upgrades at the gate, behind all eligible airline elite members (even behind Alaska’s elites). So don’t count on ever getting one, and don’t make your flying decisions based on this. But it’ll be a nice surprise for some if it happens. Back in January Delta announced that unless your account is based outside the US or you put $25,000 in spending on a co-branded Delta credit card, you’ll have to spend a minimum amount on Delta tickets…
Can Sites That Give You Miles for Hotel Bookings Also Get You Better Rates?
I’ve written about Rocketmiles several times in the past, such as here, here, and here. And I’ve written about PointsHound several times in the past few months as well (Here, here, here, here). Both Rocketmiles and PointsHound are hotel booking sites that rebate much of their commission to you in the form of frequent flyer miles. Earning Frequent Flyer Mile Rebates for Your Hotel Bookings For the most part, you may not earn hotel points or elite status credit when booking through these sites — just as you wouldn’t when booking through an online agency such as Expedia or Orbitz — although PointsHound does have ‘double dip’ rates where you will. (Hyatt and Marriott will generally honor elite treatment during your stay on these rates, while as a general proposition Starwood and Hilton will not.)…
Qatar Airways Joining oneworld on October 30
Over the weekend I shared an amazing fare on Qatar Airways that I said would be great for mileage running — earning American Airlines miles and American status — once Qatar joined oneworld. Well, the oneworld website now says that will happen on October 30. It’s been a rocky road getting here. Qatar used to be a United partner. Word leaked a year ago that Qatar was expected to join oneworld. (Incidentally, a one-year transition into an alliance is very fast – I generally expect at least 18 months.) The airline’s CEO emphatically denied it, boldly declaring that they would not join oneworld… only to announce just over a week later that it would happen. Back in May we learned that the launch date would be in October and indeed, October 30 is still October.…
