This is an open thread, I would love to hear what you’re thinking. What have your travels been like this week? What are you wondering, or what would you like to know? Booked any great awards? Frustrated with your airline or hotel program? How’s your team doing? The comments are yours to do with as you wish, please express yourself, and I may drop in here or there with answers or use your suggestions as a jumping-off point for posts. Hope you’re making it through the week! 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…
Last Chance for Chase Sapphire Preferred’s Annual Bonus?
7% Annual Bonus Is No Longer Offered. Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Last week I flagged that one of the really neat benefits of the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, a 7% annual bonus on points earned in the previous year, was no longer being listed on the Chase website. Chase confirmed the benefit was still in place. At the time I wrote that one of the things that makes points less valuable than cash is that you can earn a return (interest, investment gain) on cash but points have a tendency to lose value over time (award chart inflation). Chase’s solution to that, with its Sapphire Preferred Card, is the 7% annual bonus on all the points you earned in the previous year. The card has a great signup bonus — 40,000 points after $3000 spend…
Air India is Now a Star Alliance Member: Here’s What Awards Cost and Where to Find Seats
Air India has finally joined Star Alliance. Air India was invited to join Star Alliance in 2007. Joining an alliance generally takes about 2 years. Air India couldn’t get their service and IT systems in order to meet base level standards of the alliance, and their invitation was suspended in 2011. Star was backed into Air India as their only choice in this huge market. As Air India’s original application to join Star crumbled, the alliance began talks with Jet Airways to become India’s Star Alliance member. At the time the Indian government made clear that they wouldn’t permit Jet to join an alliance until Air India did. (Kingfisher was slated to join oneworld, which is led by American Airlines and British Airways, but went bankrupt before they could do so.) Air India award space…
The Dwindling Options for Earning Shopping Portal Points for Travel Bookings
Several readers have emailed over the past few days about Orbitz and Travelocity no longer being a part of the Chase Ultimate Rewards mall. I’ve written for years that one of the easiest passive ways to earn points is to go through a shopping portal to make purchases you’re going to make anyway. And over the past couple of years some of the best, most lucrative shopping portal offers have come through the Chase Ultimate Rewards mall. Plus, Chase points are among the most valuable (in my opinion along with American Express Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints) because of the variety of programs you can transfer the points to. I especially liked that going through the Chase portal earned 2 points per dollar with Travelocity, on top of the points you’d earn paying…
What You Need to Know – About United, Silvercar, Expedia, Amtrak, and Alitalia
Important things others are saying, and my own minor notes: United outsourcing customer service to the DMV at 12 more airports. Actually, on second thought, this could be an improvement. And here is Cranky Flier on the mess that is United and how management is looking in all the wrong places for a fix. From my things not to do list: Up to a 50% bonus on purchased Alitalia miles this month. Sivercar, the all-Audi rental company which includes wifi, tolls (you pay only actual toll charges), and gas refills (for a flat $5 fee you pay market rate), is adding Denver in August. They’ve just added Miami and Phoenix on top of existing Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco locations. See How I Made $12 on My Audi Car Rental, and How You…
Chefs Announced for the San Francisco and New York Centurion Lounges
I’ve said that the American Express Centurion lounge in Dallas is probably the best airline lounge in the United States. Competition for that title would come from the New York JFK Lufthansa first class lounge, Concorde Room, and Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse. The Centurion lounges do a fabulous job with food and drink. The Dallas lounge features local celebrity chef Dean Fearing’s creations. The launch of their second menu was delayed, apparently pending Fearing’s approval (or so staff in the lounge had shared). There are five known U.S. Centurion lounge locations either open or in the pipeline. Las Vegas (open) Dallas (open) New York LaGuardia (coming by end of summer?) San Francisco (coming by end of summer? at one point on track for a July open) Miami (coming by end of year?) The San Francisco lounge…
Here are Some of the Easiest Ways to Earn Lots of Miles at Little Cost
There are few things out there quite as lucrative or easy as just signing up for a new credit card to pocket 40,000, 50,000 or even more miles in a single shot. But there are plenty of other ways to earn lots of miles and at a low cost. Whenever I mention Amazon Payments to people I get a quizzical look. I tell them that “it’s like Paypal but no one knows about it” and then I get a nod. And since they’re a clear number two (at best) in the space, they try to make themselves more attractive and user friendly. They allow you to send up to $1000 each month charged to a credit card with no fee. So you can send money to parents or roommates or a spouse, anything you need…
American’s New Meal Service Standards Revealed: Here’s What to Expect on Flights Starting in September
Fly2Travel shares details on the new American-US Airways meals service going into effect September 1. As I explained back on June 7, starting September 1 American and US Airways will align their meal service offerings — offering meals on flights of 2 hours and 45 minutes or longer. For US Airways flyers this marks an improvement over what they had before the merger. And unsurprisingly, this is less generous than what American flyers have been used to. US Airways got this as their new standard on April 1. (The previous cutoff had been 3.5 hours.) About 40% more flights, or 126 flights a day, saw meal service at US Airways. American is going to reduce service to this metric starting September 1. Here’s a chart of meal service offerings, and of cities that are ‘exception…
Why British Airways is Now Adding Hundreds of Dollars in Fees to US Airways Redemptions, and How to Fly for Less
Both Dan’s Deals and Lucky note that British Airways has begun collecting fuel surcharges on award tickets issued for travel on US Airways. Lucky posits that the change is a result of changes to the way US Airways files fares. US Airways has long embedded fuel surcharges on tickets, meaning that the ticket didn’t show any fuel surcharges (instead they were “built in” to the fare). This meant that no fuel surcharges were collected on tickets booked using British Airways Avios. However US Airways has been adding fuel surcharges to their fares for the past few months. A more likely reason for the change happening now, rather than months ago, is that US Airways is finally collecting fuel surcharges when issuing award tickets for travel on British Airways. In other words, that British Airways wasn’t…
Strong – and Fun – New Member Bonus for Joining Virgin America Elevate
Spirit Air knows you hate airlines, so they want to give you magazine subscriptions. Virgin America knows you hate airlines, so they want to offer bonus miles that can be used for more than just magazines. Virgin American will give you 500 points for signing up. And then they’ll give you more bonus points for your first trip: 2500 points if it’s Main Cabin 5000 points if it’s Main Cabin Select 7500 points if it’s First Class What’s more, if you sign up using an existing member’s referral link, they get points for referring you too. Here’s my referral link to sign up. You are welcome to leave yours in the comments as well. Terms and conditions explain that the referrer earns the same 2500, 5000, or 7500 bonus points that the new member earns…
