News and notes from around the interweb: Which Hotel Loyalty Program is Best and Why? My piece over at Conde’ Nast Traveler. Younger business travelers are more likely to splurge with their company’s money than they would with their own. Older workers are much less likely to do so. (HT: uggboy on Milepoint) Several months ago I put together a primer on American Express financial reviews. Dan’s Deals what sorts of activities he sees as flags for banks generally to cause them to take a closer look at your accounts. Wandering Aramean says that United is now allowing only three connections (four flights) on one-way awards between the US and Australia/New Zealand and no longer just between the US and Asia via Europe. A United website glitch was letting people book award tickets without miles…
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JetBlue Introduces Family Pooling of Miles – A Great Option, But They’re Not First
Some frequent flyer programs allow ‘ppoling’ of points within a family, everyone flies and then a family member uses everyone’s points for a reward. Others offer family accounts on the theory that the points belong to the head of household. Family pooling is not uncommon with Middle East programs. Still others want to reward the decision-maker in travel, Southwest Airlines was one of the first ones with this idea with their ‘Secretaries Program’ in the 1970s where administrative assistants could earn free travel by steering their bosses to fly Southwest. (Another tactic in the 70s was rebating take-home alcohol to passengers buying pricier tickets, when the Civil Aeronautics Board began ‘experimenting’ with price competition and national carriers were permitted to undercut Southwest fares.) JetBlue has taken a step that’s a first for any North American…
Getting Started in Miles and Points With the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
I gave just a few people in my office one-on-one consultations about getting started in miles and points. I’ve also helped several of those people book award tickets with their points. Usually the first actionable thing my co-workers take away from those conversations is to sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. I tell folks that they want to start with understanding their reward goals — that both motivates them and helps them pick the right program to earn points in. For most goals, though, Chase Ultimate Rewards points are the best place to start. And to track their points, using a site like Award Wallet. What’s interesting is that once people get this advice, get the card, and use the points the advice seems to spread like wildfire. How did you do that?…
When to Take Advantage of United’s 25% Discount on Purchased Miles
United is offering a 25% discount on purchased miles through December 31. The miles do not post instantly, they warn posting can take up to 48 hours though they usually post a bit faster than that. The minimum purchase is 2000 miles and an account can purchase up to 100,000 miles per year. The only time this makes any sense is when you have almost enough United miles in an account for an award and need to top off that account (and do not have other, more cost effective ways of doing it). The deal in effect offers miles for purchase ~ 2.8 cents apiece. That’s still expensive. United miles are about the most valuable single airline currency out there because of the amazing award availability offered through Star Alliance (best from North American to…
Why We Must Shout About Delta’s Miles Problems From the Rooftops!
In response to a post I wrote about devaluing elite benefits in the BalticMiles program of Latvian-based airline Air Baltic, Gene wrote, Maybe you can spend your time bashing them instead of Delta now. My criticisms of Delta are, I think, fair. Delta is a well-run airline, and has a frequent flyer program that offers much less value than those of American, United, and US Airways (and offers a worse redemption program in my opinion than Avianca Lifemiles, Singapore Airlines Krisflyer, Air Canada Aeroplan, and many many more around the world but that’s not important right now). I coined the term ‘Skypesos’ for their currency because Delta miles don’t go as far as many other major currencies. They’re harder to use. They don’t permit one-way awards for half the cost of roundtrip (neither does US…
Qatar Waits Weeks, Won’t Honor Mistake Fare, Fibs About its Cause
I’ve always said I have no moral qualms taking advantage of ‘mistake fares’. If an airline publishes a far of, say, $28 to Paris and decides to honor it — if some people are going to get to go to Europe at a very very low price — then I would like to be one of those people. I don’t generally complain when such deals aren’t honored, and to me that’s a relevant moral difference. I don’t want to miss out, but I also don’t feel like there’s a moral claim against the travel provider either. “I’m going to sue” doesn’t really enter my thoughts. However, I do think that travel providers owe a certain clarity and expediency in communicating about the deal and how they intend to handle it. If it’s a mistake and…
Up to 2000 Singapore Airlines Miles Per Hilton Stay
Hilton’s points-earning value proposition has long been known for double dipping, the ability to earn both points and miles for your stays. They’ve made things much more complicated though since now you can earn points and extra points instead of miles. Or if you earn miles you can pick between ‘fixed miles’ (a set number of points per night or per stay) or ‘variable miles’ (a number of miles based on your spending. This gets super complicated because you’re best off switching your preferences from stay to stay — short cheap stays are best earning fixed miles, long and expensive stays variable miles (or points and points). And on award stays you can earn points and points or points and variable miles but you will not earn fixed miles. So setting your preference to fixed…
How to Book a Business Class Award to India Using Delta Miles (in Front of Hundreds of People)
One of the things I try to do on this blog and in presentations is explain how to make the most of points, not just earn them. That’s why I walk through the best tools to find available award seats, and point y’all to the routes with the best premium cabin award availability for a whole family. At Frequent Traveler University this past weekend in Tampa, Lucky from the One Mile at a Time blog and I team-taught a session on the basics of award booking and then we put on another session together that we called Theory to Practice: How to Find Award Space and Construct Your Booking. What we decided to do was to challenge each other to book a complicated award over the phone with an agent, live in front of a…
How to Find Business Class Award Seats for the Whole Family
Last month I argued that premium cabin award travel is best for families. More award seats cost more miles, and not everyone has the balances to support flying up front. But premium cabin awards in many programs do not cost substantially more than coach awards do — a business class ticket might cost 5 to 10 times the price of a coach ticket, but a business class award may be only 50% – 100% more miles. Ultimately you should redeem your points for what you value, and not everyone feels like extra room, a better sleep on long flights, or fewer hassles is worth any extra points or money. Last month I suggested ways to earn more miles instead of strategizing to economize on miles, as well as some of the compromises involved in finding…
A First Look At the New Singapore Airlines 777 Economy Seat
Last week I shared a first look at Singapore’s new 777 first class cabin and then I followed up with the new 777 business class cabin as well. I was fortunate to attend the delivery of Singapore’s first 777 with their new interior at Boeing’s Everett Delivery Center and to roam around the aircraft taking photos. I didn’t get to take pictures of everything, the lavatories were closed off for instance and since the plane was literally just delivered Singapore hadn’t done the full upload of its entertainment system yet. There are (8) 777 aircraft on order with this new interior. They haven’t announced anything about retrofitting existing 777s, but they have announced it as the product for Singapore’s new Airbus A350s on order. This first aircraft is being sent to fly Singapore – London.…
