Must-read Earlier Installments: Singapore, Cathay, and Qantas First Class.. Some of the Best Meals of My Life, and a Tour of Hyatts in Bangkok, Singapore, and Sydney Inside the New Oneworld Lounge at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal I’ve flown Cathay Pacific first class many times. I’ve even called their Hong Kong – New York JFK service my favorite flight in the world. They don’t offer suites with doors. There’s not really great ground service to speak of. The food is fine but hardly amazing. But they have several things going for them: The seats. They don’t have doors that close, but they are quite private and very spacious. Instead of four seats across in the cabin, they offer just three seats across, and a cabin with just 6 seats. Attentive service. You do need…
Don’t Make This One Simple Mistake on the Phone With an Airline
I gifted a domestic first class award. It was for a fairly well-known personality who offered to speak at an event for a non-profit I’m involved with. A non-stop first class flight was a requirement, and he was doing us a favor after all. Neither we nor I was going to come out of pocket for it (it was basically a transcon and pricey, no discounted first class available) so I offered to burn some miles. I needed to book a one-way flight, since there was saver availability on US Airways for the outbound and saver availabiltiy on United for the return. So I used American miles for the US Airways flight. (US Airways does not offer one-ways at half the price of roundtrip.) A couple of months pass, and I receive an e-mail e-ticket…
You Can Earn Up to 50,000 Miles Referring Your Friends to the 50,000 Mile Bonus US Airways MasterCard
When the US Airways Dividend Miles program is folded into American AAdvantage sometime during the second quarter of 2015, Barclays loses the ability to issue new US Airways credit cards. They’ll keep servicing existing cardholders with new AAdvantage Aviator Red and Silver cards. So they’re trying to sign up as many cardmembers as they can now. First they bumped their bonus offer to 40,000 points and then to 50,000. And now they’re offering existing cardmembers miles for referring friends to sign up for the 50,000 mile offer. Check your email box for your referral link. While I was offered 5000 miles per person I refer, some are offered 10,000 miles. There’s also a version of the card marketed to US Airways elites that offers 10,000 miles on your first cardmember anniversary (and thus for an…
Changes to How You Can Pay Bills With a Credit Card, and Congressman in Trouble Over Travel Forum Posts
News and notes from around the interweb: Congressman in hot water over his postings on Flyertalk Evolve Money stops taking Discover card for some bills, announces they’ll accept Vanilla Reloads Some people are getting 10,000 free points as a holiday gift from Club Carlson. I’ll be satisfied with 2000 free American miles from Citibank. Eastern Airlines flies again United has called for the FAA to investigate how much they’re being charged by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for their Newark flights Park ‘n Fly has suffered an online data breach of customer credit card information You can join the 40,000+ 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…
Two Free Hilton Nights or 25,000+ Miles for TV Service
DirecTV is offering two free weekend nights at almost any Hilton property as a signup bonus. That’s a new offer for the service I hadn’t seen before, although some will prefer 25,000 miles or more as their signup bonus. This is similar to the bonus offered on the Citi Hilton Reserve credit card which also comes with Hilton HHonors Gold status. Some folks have been burning through these accounts and getting plenty of signup bonuses for awhile, earning bonuses and then getting service again through family members. Generally you can get a new bonus in your own name 24 months after cancelling your last service. There are really attractive offers for people that want DirecTV and it may be a reason to choose DirecTV over cable. But it’s not a way just to buy miles…
A Big Thanks for the Holiday Cheer Goes Out To…
Mommy Points posted that Hyatt was giving away surprises to people staying with them this weekend who tweeted. Already this morning I have seen them hand out suite upgrades, food and beverage credits, and more. Even if you don’t have a Hyatt stay this weekend, check out the hashtags #HyattHoliday #InAHyattWorld to watch Hyatt put some smiles on some virtual faces. We have seen them do this before around Valentine’s Day and it was really fun to watch. So… I sent over a tweet myself. And wound up with a $100 food and beverage credit in response. It seems plenty of people tweeting them were generously rewarded, and they were pretty liberal with their interpretation of what ‘counted’ — one person who saw my tweet asked if their Martin Luther King Day stay would count,…
Can Timeshares Be a Good Deal?
Reader Barry asks, Any thoughts on the pros and cons on timeshare ownership, namely Marriott? Even if you could maneuver a 20 to 25% discount off the purchase price? I am not an expert in timeshares, but I’ve certainly been around plenty of horror stories about them. So let me share a general framework for thinking about them. There are certainly good deals to be had with timeshares, but these are serious investments and you need to be educated. The people selling them to you certainly are. You don’t want to make a big purchase with a big information asymmetry so if you aren’t educated you’re probably getting killed. While there are some benefits that may only accrue when buying a timeshare as the original owner directly from the chain, in general the timeshare resale…
Should You Earn Miles in a Single Program, or Diversity With Lots of Programs?
Michelle asked about… strategy for choosing credit cards for sign up bonuses. Should I stick with one or two programs at first or diversify widely? In general I think it’s a great idea to be strategic about where you acquire points. What award(s) are you most likely to want? Pick programs that will help you get those awards. Make sure you have enough points in the right accounts to get those awards. Then once you have enough points for the award you want in one program, move onto another program and start building points there. That way you wind up with enough points in more than one program for the awards you want — increasing your chances of getting the availability you need when it comes time to travel. Here’s where one-way awards really come…
When Kids Scream on a Plane, the Best Approach is Not to Slam Someone’s Head on an Overhead Bin
So you know things have gone too far when a pilot threatens an emergency landing over your behavior. Of course, it’s always the other person’s fault, right? A brawl involving three women erupted on a Chinese flight from to Chongqing to Hong Kong yesterday when two of them complained to a mum that her baby was making too much noise. The women, all believed to be Chinese, were warned that the pilot would be forced to turn back and make an emergency landing if they didn’t stop fighting. Naturally, “[T]he two women reclined their seats fully backwards, which aggravated things further. A scuffle ensued, with one of the women hitting on her head on the overhead locker..” There’s a video. When there are screaming kids on a plane, don’t do this. A year ago I…
Enter in This Post to Win Lounge Access Thanks to the LoungeBuddy App!
Read the post to see how to enter to win one of two $150 credits towards lounge access! Lounge Buddy is a useful app that – if you have an iPhone or other device in the Apple ecosystem – just got more useful. They will now sell day passes to lounges, sometimes at regular price and sometimes at a discount. Now, I don’t generally buy lounge access at regular price on a per-use basis. I have ongoing access to American, Delta, Alaska, American Express and other lounges via credit cards. And I was a little confused at first by the marketing claim that by buying access in advance you would be guaranteed lounge space and not turned away for crowding (I’ve only ever heard of such things happening to United elites trying to enter Star…
