After close of business the judge in the American Airlines bankruptcy case denied the airline’s request to terminate their pilot contracts (in what’s known as a section 1113 ruling). Most of the headlines I’ve seen leave it at that, “American denied request to reject pilot contract” or the like. And while that’s technically true, their motion was denied, it was denied without prejudice — with the judge agreeing with the airline on almost everything — but felt the airline had gone too far in their requests in two areas. So he wouldn’t give them everything they were looking for. I’m not an attorney, let alone one versed in labor and bankruptcy law. But I read through the 111 page document (.pdf) this evening. And it was almost a universal, across-the-board win for American. It just…
50% Off Reward Nights at 16 Holiday Inn Resorts
Priority Club is offering a 50% discount on 16 different Holiday Inn resort properties from today at Noon Eastern through Thursday Noon Eastern. You can book for stays September 4 and November 2 for 12,500 points per night. Participating properties are: Holiday Inn Resort Daytona Beach Oceanfront Holiday Inn Resort Fort Walton Beach Holiday Inn Resort Orlando – The Castle Holiday Inn Resort Panama City Beach Holiday Inn Resort Pensacola Beach Gulf Front Holiday Inn Resort Lake Buena Vista Holiday Inn Resort Lake George-Turf Holiday Inn Resort Wilmington E-Wrightsville Beach The Lodge at Running Y Ranch, a Holiday Inn Resort The Lodge at Eagle Crest, a Holiday Inn Resort The Beach House, a Holiday Inn Resort Holiday Inn Resort Galveston On the Beach Holiday Inn Resort Acapulco Holiday Inn Resort Mazatlán Holiday Inn Resort Puerto…
40% Bonus on Purchasing or Gifting Alaska Airlines Miles
Through September 28, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is up to a 40% bonus on purchased or gifted miles. It’s a 20% bonus on purchases/gifting of 19,000 or fewer miles, a 30% bonus on 20,000 – 29,000 miles, and a 40% bonus on 30,000 – 40,000 miles. Even with a 40% bonus you’re paying 2.1 cents per mile — not cheap enough where I suggest buying miles on the if-come, but a good deal if it puts you over the top towards a premium cabin award. And the Mileage Plan program has some really great values. They have a wide variety of partnerships across both members of Skyteam and of oneworld, as well as unaffiliated carriers like Emirates and Icelandair. They don’t permit award holds, they don’t offer one-way awards when booking on partners, and they…
Bits ‘n Pieces for August 15, 2012
News and Minor Notes: Via Notiflyer, Delta’s mileage portal is offering 250 bonus points for every $250 spent through August 25 up to $2500 and 2500 points. You can earn 100 Club Carlson points per day through September 24 by viewing their ‘vacation look book’. This also earns you entries in their drawing for hotel nights, airline tickets, and cash. MilesQuest passes on the story of shoplifters who would take cheap toys in big boxes at Toys ‘r Us, replace the contents with expensive toys, and check out paying the less expensive price. The more expensive toys were sold on eBay. How were they caught? They credited all the purchases to the Toys ‘r Us loyalty program. The Air France/KLM Flying Blue program is displaying its 50% off promo awards for September/October travel. For US-Europe…
Registration Now Available For Hyatt’s Fall Promotion
Registation link. On August 2 I detailed Hyatt’s new fall promotion. And I offered further analysis and comment a few days later. For stays between September 1 through November 30, Hyatt Gold Passport is offering 5000 bonus points after 5 nights and then 10,000 additional bonus points for each incremental 5 nights stayed during the promotion period — up to a maximum of 35 nights. If you have the Hyatt Visa you’ll earn an 20% more from the promotion. Registration is required by October 31, and is now available. Do it today so that you don’t forget. This offer isn’t as generous as many of the past promotions Hyatt has introduced. Last spring they offered 10,000 points after 5 nights, then 5000 more each additional two nights (up to 60,000 points for 25 nights). Last…
Don’t Overpay Taxes and Fees When Booking Frequent Flyer Awards
Reader Arthur has done some really interesting digging and passed along some great experiences in dealing with Star Alliance member ANA in booking an award. Now, many folks will say “I don’t have any points with ANA, so why would I care?” Well ANA is one of three Star Alliance members that are partners with American Express Membership Rewards for points transfers. There’s Aeroplan, Singapore Airlines, and ANA. Singapore is great for redemptions on Singapore itself, since they give additional availability to their own members not offered to their airline partners. And also for one-way awards. But their award chart can be pricey at times and their website doesn’t let you book their partners. Aeroplan can be useful, they have a functional website, but some awards are expensive. ANA has a distance-based award chart which…
A Cheap Stay at the Recently Redone Renaissance Boca Raton
From 2004-2006 the Renaissance Boca Raton was probably the hotel I stayed at most often. Once upon a time it was actually a Sheraton, it’s on 19th street but you turn off Glades Road onto Renaissance Way which brings you a block down to the property. I remember driving past Sheraton Way years back. It happens to be the closest decent place to where I was traveling. And it was a hidden treasure. Service used to be incredible. Some of the friendliest, most engaging people I had come across at a hotel, I thought the place was flagged with the wrong Marriott brand or at least they had sent the staff over from the Palm Beach Ritz. An oasis of a suburban hotel, the pool area was more akin to a resort. Without a resort…
Did You Win My 60,000 Starwood Starpoint Giveaway?
My 60,000 Starpoint giveaway — in which 2 readers win 30,000 Starwood Starpoints apiece, courtesy of American Express — has now ended. The American Express folks wanted to know how you would ‘stretch your summer’ with 30,000 Starwood points, the new limited time bonus offer on their Starwood American Express personal and small business credit cards. So I asked y’all, and 3770 entries were submitted before the close of the context. I drew winners with the help of Random.org. The first winner was entry #606: and that was Tina Trin who wrote: W in Los Angeles Our second winner was entry 2408: That winner was revealed as Austin who wrote: St Regis Bora Bora! Now, I should note that in checking the eligibility of these winners I did find an Austin mentioning a different St.…
Last Day to Win Starwood Starpoints
Today is the last day to enter to win Starwood points — 30,000 points apiece to two lucky readers. The deadline is 5pm Eastern (and you can enter once every 24 hours, so if you’ve entered before, don’t forget that). American Express offered the points to help you “stretch your summer” with a last-minute getaway. Way back in May 2002 when I first started this blog I wrote, “the credit card I recommend most often for earning miles is the Starwood American Express, because points transfer 1:1 into most airline programs and you get a 5k mile bonus for transferring 20k points — equivalent to earning 1.25 miles per dollar on all purchases.” Last month I attended a launch event for a new credit card and the rep from Visa saw the Starwood Amex as the card to beat.…
Virgin America and JetBlue take Different Rhetorical Tacts With Their Elite Programs While American Makes Premium Cabin Investments
Over at CreditCards.com Cathleen McCarthy has a piece on the new Virgin America and JetBlue elite status programs. I recently flew JetBlue for the first time in a decade and didn’t mind it a bit, I was able to credit my mileage-earning to American AAdvantage (albeit not for status miles, which is cool because I had already re-qualified for Executive Platinum). Their offering is a decent mid-tier status equivalent, it doesn’t come with a first class upgrade benefit since the airline has no first class, but then most mid-tier elites don’t wind up with complimentary upgrades all that often anyway. I covered their elite status a few weeks ago and called it ‘animal farm’ status, since the airline insisted on claiming that all of their customers were still equally important (some customers were just more…
