Walking along the Seine last weekend I was approached multiple times — in just a few minutes — with the same attempted scam. A guy walks up, ‘notices’ a ring on the ground. Calls for your attention. If you let it play out, he asks you if it’s yours. When you say no he plays up how great it is, how it’s his lucky day, but that he’s in need of cash quickly and can’t get to a jeweler. He’ll grudgingly sell this very expensive piece to you for just 50 euros. Of course it’s worth almost nothing. But people are greedy and get taken. The scam must work, since scammers are out around Paris doing this all day, every day. The first two who tried it on me weren’t very good. The best would…
Citi ThankYou Points Introduces Hilton as its First Transfer Partner
About 10 months back there was a great deal of speculation that Citibank was on the verge of introducing points transfers into other loyalty programs as a feature of its ThankYou Points program. That speculation was followed by a whole bunch of non-denial denials from Citi. I was confident it was going to happen, but it didn’t Until now, that is. Citi ThankYou Points can be transferred to Hilton HHonors at a rato of 1000 ThankYou points to 1500 HHonors, the standard American Express Membership Rewards rate which I don’t generally consider a good deal – and rarely consider to be a good deal when Amex runs transfer bonuses, either. This option now appears on the Hilton HHonors website. And it’s also on the Citi ThankYou site under Points Exchange (must be logged into your…
Finally Some Information on American’s Elusive Business ExtrAA American Express Card
A card that I’ve been curious about for a long time — American’s Business ExtrAA American Express — is a bit of a conundrum. Nobody really has written much about it. But the Business ExtrAA (small business program with AAdvantage) program has some great awards, and their chart is fairly lucrative (3000 points is enough to gift an Admiral’s Club membership, 5400 points is enough for a capacity controlled premium cabin Hawaii roundtrip award) — so it always just seemed a matter of figuring out the earning rates. Which are far from clear on the card’s website. But Pizza in Motion has begun digging and lays out a bit of how the card works along with its benefits as well as who qualifies and the process for getting the card. He promises more to come,…
Bits ‘n Pieces or January 4, 2014
News and notes from around the interweb: Wandering Aramean details a new top elite tier in the Greyhound Road RewardsAmtrak Guest Rewards program that seems pretty good for upgrades and bonus points (if you spend about $10,000 or take 40 one-way Acela trips in a year). I shouldn’t make fun of the Amtrak program, I id receive all those Hyatt gift cards from converting my Priority Club points after all. Delta Points says the Air France website now recognizes Delta trip confirmation numbers, which can be mildly useful for seat assignments. I suppose it was easier to update Air France’s technology than for Delta to just display corresponding Air France record locators online, or to train Delta telephone agents that Air France is a partner. He suggests adding Delta flights to a Flying Blue account…
Avis Now Defaults to Charging Preferred Members to Convert Foreign Rentals to Their Home Currency — And Why This is Bad for You
Reader Mary Beth points out something I hadn’t seen before on the Avis website, when you go to your profile and update your credit card (probably because my credit card on file will expire soon, so I haven’t updated it in a long time): Emphasis below is mine: Note: International travelers using a MasterCard or Visa charge card have the opportunity to be billed in their local currency: I choose to have Avis bill all my future rental charges in the currency of my Avis profile credit card. I understand that if I am renting at a location at which the currency differs from my credit card issuing currency, Avis will convert my rental charges to my card issuing currency. Immediately after I return my rental car, Avis will use the prevailing conversion rate. Any…
Up to 50% Bonus on Purchase of Virgin America Miles
Virgin America is offering a bonus on purchase of miles that gets progressively larger the more miles you buy, up to a 50% bonus. This applies to purchases through January 31. The maximum points you can purchase in a year is 20,000. Buying 20,000 miles nets a 10,000 mile bonus. That means you get 30,000 miles for $1040, or about 3.5 cents a mile. The thing to remember is that Virgin America’s award chart is a bit different from legacy carriers, so in some ways that equates to buying miles from such other carriers for a bit over two pennies. I’m not a buyer at that price, but for topping off towards an award it’s a non-crazy price. For instance, buying 30,000 miles is enough for a one-way San Francisco – London award in Upper…
Bits ‘n Pieces for January 3, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Instant top tier platinum status with Le Club Accorhotels is still working. Turkish Airlines is still offering status matches, including to elite members of other Star Alliance programs. That means if you have Gold or higher status with United or US Airways, you can get a status match from Turkish and free lounge access when flying in the domestic U.S. Travel & Leisure‘s January issue quotes me in their “Most Important Travel Trends of 2013 piece — I argue that international award seats are easier to get than domestic, and they pick up the argument from me that airlines which block tools that help frequent flyer members manage their miles (like Award Wallet) reduce their own members’ loyalty. United is offering 2000 miles for joining a participating gym.…
US Airways Finally Tells the Truth — Lufthansa First Class is Not Offered by the Dividend Miles Program
I was emailing yesterday with Ben and after discussing something on a completely different topic, and mentioned I needed to write about the addition of a new footnote in the US Airways award chart. He replied, “was *just* writing it as you emailed. Hah!” Of course Ben is a professional blogger and got his thoughts up right away. I, on the other hand, had my first day in a new office. I have been overseeing the construction and permitting (egads, it involved getting a County re-zoning), which all completed last week — just in time for move-in. So things were a little bit chaotic. And I’m about 16 hours behind. US Airways Updates Their Award Chart to Say Lufthansa First Class is Not Offered The US Airways partner award chart (.pdf) has been updated to…
United Drops Price of Buying Elite Qualifying Miles
Loyalty Lobby says that United has dropped the price of its ‘premier accelerator’. That’s the option to not just buy additional redeemable miles when you buy a ticket, but also to buy elite qualifying miles at the same time (additional qualifying miles in the amount equal to the miles you’ll fly on your trip). People have been known to use this option to buy a ticket they do not intend to fly — the purchased points post immediately, rather than after your trip — and then cancel the ticket (either buying a refundable ticket, or of course tickets purchased at United.com are generally refundable for 24 hours). The ticket gets refunded, the extra mileage purchase does not. So folks calculate the number of elite qualifying miles they need, come up with an itinerary which flies…
Bits ‘n Pieces for January 2, 2013
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: The Pizza in Motion blog is giving away a free roundtrip ticket on American Airlines and also a choice of 25,000 United miles or 25,000 Hyatt points. A good blog, but one that gets less attention, which means chances of winning are likely to be pretty good. Frequent Miler has a useful update on which retailers let you go through a shopping portal to buy gift certificates and earn points or cash back, and then go back through the shopping portal to make a purchase and earn more points or cash back while paying with the gift card — in other words double dipping, earning twice the reward for each purchase. United will be featuring Chris Guillebeau’s $100 Startup as an audio book in its inflight entertainment March…
