When ‘Coin’ was announced back in November, an app you’d manage on your phone and a single card onto which you could load your many credit cards… and gift cards.. cough.. it was greeted with a great deal of excitement. (See “One Card to Replace Them All (in Your Wallet)”) There were skeptics. The battery doesn’t last forever and isn’t replaceable, it isn’t going to work with EMV Chip cards that I can imagine. But it’s still a pretty cool innovation though of course there are others in the market. I just had to have one, so I placed an order. They said it wouldn’t be available until summer. Tick, tock. Today I got an email that I could set up my account to begin the process of ordering one for shipping. I bought two,…
LEAK: New Bose Noise Cancelling Headsets – QC25 – May Be Out Next Month
Bose QC25: Bonusfeber breaks the news and fortunately Google translates. A video briefly leaked on Vimeo which has since been pulled down. Bose is trying to keep the details quiet and refuses comment. Since Bose is the leader in frequent flyer noise cancelling headphones, their latest product is news. And it’s time for a refresh. They’ve got more photos and detail. 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 can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
BIG! 90,000 Mile Bonus Offer for New Virgin Atlantic MasterCard!
PointsCentric uncovered a 90,000 mile signup bonus for the Virgin Atlantic co-brand credit card. They used to offer the card as an American Express (one of those oddball American Express cards not issued by American Express). Now it’s a MasterCard. It’s advertised as a signup bonus of up to 90,000 miles but I wouldn’t think about it that way. There are several pieces to the bonus, and you should probably take less than the full miles.
Cathay Pacific is Launching a Boston Flight.. With First Class!
Cathay Pacific will start Boston – Hong Kong service in May of next year. This is exciting because Cathay Pacific is my overall favorite airline, and their Hong Kong – New York JFK service is my favorite flight in the world. When I first saw the news I thought it would be like the Newark and Toronto, with three classes of service — Business, Premium Economy, and Economy. Instead it’s like New York JFK, Chicago O’Hare, Los Angeles, and San Francisco with 4 classes of services — the three above plus a first class. The plane, a Boeing 777-300ER, will carry 275 passengers and offer first class, business class, premium economy, and economy cabins. Here’s the schedule: The 16-hour Hong Kong flight is scheduled to run four days a week, leaving Boston on Tuesday, Wednesday,…
HOT DEAL: Free 2-Day Weekend Car Rental from Avis
A week and a half ago I wrote about how you can get instant and free car rental status from Avis and from National. PointsCentric points out that when you sign up for your Avis status you will be given a free 2-day weekend car rental. [W]hen I got my confirmation email from Avis above, notifying me of my Avis First status, it included the perk of a free weekend rental! No previous rentals required! That email happened a few days ago but I waited to blog about until I received the coupon code and could test whether it works and it does. Sign up online for Avis First status. You’ll need to enter a MasterCard credit card as your payment choice. Just pay attention to the welcome email! You can join the 40,000+ people…
United Adding First Class Meals to Flights of Just 800 Miles
As American and US Airways split the difference on meal service and eliminate meals from nearly all flights under 1000 miles, United decides to go the opposite direction. Scott Mayerowitz reports that United will add back meals in domestic first class for flights of 800 miles or more. That would make United the most generous of the big 3, since Delta is sandwiched in the middle at 900 miles.
How Important Are Elites to Starwood? Uber to United and Hyatt? and Hyatt Bonuses
News and notes from around the interweb: The importance of loyalty to Starwood: 2% of guests deliver 30% of profit, and over 50% of guests are SPG members. Another underscoring as well of customization to meet guest needs. (HT: Alan H.) In addition to Hyatt’s 50,000 point bonus offer there are several offers between 2000 and 10,000 points that you may be eligible for. I apparently wasn’t targeted for any of them. Win 140,000 Hawaiian miles plus stays at the Royal Hawaiian and Moana Surfrider. What do people remember when their plane almost crashes? (HT: Hans M.) United’s mobile app now integrates with Uber Hyatt now embeds Uber in its app, too. I wasn’t totally impressed by Hyatt’s 40% bonus on purchased points so I’m not jumping on the offer of up to a 30%…
The Death of FEBO: American’s New Meal Ordering Procedure Starts September 1
When the US Airways and American merger finally got the go-ahead, airline President Scott Kirby promised that US Airways would adopt American’s higher standards. For meals, though, what’s actually happened is that the two airlines are splitting the difference. Roughly speaking American served meals on two hour flights and US Airways on three and a half hour flights — they’ll settle in the middle at two hours forty five minutes. Here are the specific time, distance, and offering standards that go into effect on September 1. One additional September 1 change that I hadn’t seen reported before, but that is being discussed on Flyertalk (HT: Jeremy F.) is a change to the order in which meal preferences will be taken from customers.
What are the Largest Airlines – in the US and in the World?
The winner of the crown among the World’s Largest Airlines – such as it is, since it’s hardly as meaningful a metric as ‘best airline’ or ‘most profitable airline’ — is American Airlines, now that they’ve merged with US Airways. When Delta merged with Northwest it became the largest airline in the United States. Then United merged with Continental and overtook Delta. That left American at number 3. Now, by most measures, things have shaken up again: American and US Airways merged to create the nation’s – and world’s – largest airline by a comfortable margin. United has struggled and Delta has grown. Delta has overtaken United as number 2 by aircraft, daily flights and passengers carried. (United still flies to more destinations than either American or Delta.) Now, if you’re going to include American…
The Most Lucrative Free Rental Car Day Promotion — National Car Rental One Two Free – is Back!
Back in June I said that National Car Rental would bring back their 1-2-Free promotion. And indeed they have. You earn a free rental day for every two qualifying rentals (mid-size or larger for 2 days or longer) between now and the end of January — that’s more than a five month earning period. And of course it is on top of the usual credits earned. Registration is required. And there are opportunities to earn points towards additional free days. Each qualifying rental earns 300 points, 600 points is a free rental day. Lots of small point activities, hard to earn the 300 points needed for a credit. I’ll get 50 points for connecting to Facebook. Add virtual credentials, downloading and making a reservation via the mobile app, and that only gets to 200 total…
