Online Travel Review flags that Turkish Airlines will begin flying to the Maldives on November 24th. This is one of the toughest places in the world to get to on points. The new Turkish service is an 8.5 hour flight on an Airbus A330. Istanbul – Male, 8:25pm – 7:10am+1, Turkish Airlines TK730 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday Male – Istanbul, 9:00am – 2:30pm, Turkish Airlines TK731 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday service With Qatar leaving as a United mileage partner in mid-September, and with securing Qatar bookings becoming increasingly difficult using United miles, it’s nice to see this addition especially for the Star Alliance. The only other significant Star Alliance service to Male is Singapore Airlines via Singapore (though in a pinch one could fly Thai Airways via Bangkok to Colombo, Sri Lanka –…
Bits ‘n Pieces for July 30, 2012
Minor news and notes: Will Run for Miles shares how Chase gave her 5000 points to cancel a card. Point Me to the Plane notes that American has expanded their status match program, they’re now willing to offer Delta Diamond (125,000 mile flyers) top tier Executive Platinum status through February 2013, with an offer to requalify after 45,000 miles flown through the end of the year. American makes their status match decisions on a case-by-case basis, but Delta top tier elites can now consider a switch. Commenter Bob Law discovers a $20 Uber signup credit which is better than the $10 standard credit for being referred by an existing Uber on-demand car service member. This link will register you with promo code YELPSF for the $20 first-ride credit. Delta Points was the first place I…
Excellent Hunan Chinese in Northern Virginia
I’ve been known to go off in search of great dumplings and dim sum when I travel (even here in the States). And living in the DC area I’m blessed with some generally very good Asian foods. My favorite Thai in the area remains Elephant Jumps. You can’t go wrong with anything Vietnamese in the Eden Center. But most of the Chinese seems to taste the same, there are decent carryout places that fill a niche (I’m not sure what niche, exactly, but a niche) but very few Chinese places that reach the heights of the Thai and Vietnamese restaurants in the area. For good Sichuan there’s China Star. And when I lost power at the beginning of the month and stayed out at the Hyatt Fair Lakes I discovered some really good Hunan —…
$200 off at Travelocity Air+Hotel, No Minimum Spend
Reader D.B points me to a Canadian Poker forum that’s discussing a Travelocity promotion code which allows you to take $200 off of an air and hotel package of 3 nights or more, with no minimum spending, valid for travel through December 31. The value proposition here is that you can book a really cheap flight that you don’t bother taking, and have a discount on your hotel stay. Or you book a really really cheap hotel somewhere in the world, and get a nice air discount. The code is NFB2012 and it must be used by August 4th, although it will end earlier once it has been used 3500 times. You can find some particularly cheap hotels in Southeast and in Central Asia. When doing an do advance search. then click that you prefer…
Miles For Car Services… And When You Should Just Say No
New Girl in the Air highlights several ‘miles for car service’ offers. I was particularly interested to see 500 miles for your first use of Groundlink and then 1 mile per dollar thereafter with your choice of American, US Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Alaska, Frontier, Hawaiian, Icelandair, AviancaTaca LifeMiles, or Priority Club (or, apparently, Best Buy). With your first booking you need to use promo code POINTSGL. Within a couple of weeks after you earn miles you’ll receive a ‘claim code’ e-mail from Points.com to redeem your points. Becky also notes offers from ExecuCar (the SuperShuttle car service) and Carmel. I’ve been using GroundLink quite a bit, first when they ran a flash sale via Jetsetter and I was able to grab a San Francisco airport car transfer for $14. And then when I was able…
Milepoint Launches Premium Membership – Miles and Big Benefits
The frequent flyer community Milepoint, which I helped to found last year, today rolled out its new premium membership offerings. Join Milepoint and upgrade to one year of premium membership for $59, and receive: One year of ad-free viewing of Milepoint 2,000 United MileagePlus miles Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status through Feb. 2014 (existing elites get 2,000 Hyatt points) 1 Year Subscription to InsideFlyer.com One Free Gogo Inflight Internet 24-hour pass A free 3-month trial of Clear A free upgrade to AwardWallet Plus and a free AwardWallet OneCard A free upgrade to UsingMiles Premier Membership And a series of discounts available only to Milepoint Premium Members: 40% discount on “Decoding Air Travel” books 20% discount on “Decoding Air Travel” seminars/webinars 25% discount on “Frequent Flyer Master” e-book 20% discount on ExpertFlyer.com 20% discount on BookYourAward.com…
American AAdvantage Answers Tons of Milepoint Member Questions
As a followup to her live chat on Milepoint, American AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin went back to her office with all of the questions that didn’t make it in during the evening event and wrote out answers. There were a ton of questions, this was a ton of work, and it’s really appreciated. I went through the Q&A and found several items of interest: They do not anticipate any changes to their award chart. I’ve predicted no changes during bankruptcy at least, and I take them at their word that they don’t have plans to increase the price of award tickets any time soon. They continue to evaluate status matches on a case-by-case basis. Some months ago they began matching United top tier elites to their own top tier status, entirely apart from their usual…
Big American AAdvantage Bonus for Avis/Budget Car Rentals
Through August 31, you can earn 3000 American miles on a 1-day rental or 5000 miles on a 3-day rental with Avis. Use coupon code MUAA035 and provide your American Airlines frequent flyer number with the reservation. A 1-day rental with Budget earns 1000 miles and a 3-day Budget rental yields 3000 miles. Use coupon code MUAZ025 along with your American AAdvantage account when making the reservation. Based on my experience with past offers of this sort, you do not need to use the discount codes that go along with this offer, which may or may not provide a decent rental rate, in order to earn the miles. Rentals must be from participating airport locations in the U.S. or Canada, and begin by August 31 in order to be eligible. The offer details page does…
My New Mobile Phone (or “I Really Really Miss My Blackberry Keyboard”)
Regular readers know that I’ve been going through a frustrating back and forth decision on a new mobile phone for the better part of 8 months. I’ve long been a blackberry guy. I love my phone for two reasons: that it’s a phone, and that it did an amazing job handling email. I send paragraphs-long emails with my phone. The blackberry keyboard was terrific, always has been. But the world was passing me by, there’s so much that new devices can do and they’re simply not being offered for Blackberry. I kept holding out hope that what seemed like a dying platform would be brought back to life, but their new operating system was delayed until the fall and then until 2013, and it was finally announced that even Blackberry would be ditching the physical…
A Superior Suite and Inferior Service at the Intercontinental Boston
I walked into the hotel and straight up to the checkin desk. I was asked for my name and I handed over my credit card. They asked for my drivers license. I know that internationally I’m frequently asked for a passport but I wish hotels would not card their elite members, they should at least feign knowing who I am and welcoming me rather than asking me to prove that I am who I say I am. This is hardly an issue I have with the Intercontinental Boston as such, just an observation. When I first became a Royal Ambassador member, one of the benefits that was explained was that they keep my credit card on file, I would never have to do the usual check-in formalities. That never turned out to be the case,…
