Starwood is offering up to a 25% discount on purchased points through May 31. The same discount applies to gifting points as to buying them for yourself. Buy Starpoints® for yourself or as a gift now through May 31, 2014, and get up to 25% off the regular price. • Get 10% off 500–9,500 Starpoints • Get 15% off 10,000–14,500 Starpoints • Get 20% off 15,000–19,500 Starpoints • Get 25% off 20,000 Starpoints Now let’s do the math. 20,000 Starpoints still costs you $525. That’s 2.625 cents per point. Starwood points are worth a lot, and I’ll usually get at least 2 cents per point out of my hotel redemptions. But even for ‘topping off’ towards a hotel award this is dicey. Remember, you’ll get a better deal than buying Starpoints at 2.6 cents with…
20% Off United Economy Saver Awards to Mexico City
United MileagePlus is offering a 20% discount on roundtrip saver economy awards between the US (excluding Hawaii) or Canada and Mexico City if you book by April 29 and travel in May. That’s a 7000 mile discount — 28,000 miles instead of the usual 35,000. Of course travel must be booked less than 21 days out to qualify for this discount, so most members will have to pay United’s close-in booking fees ($75 for general members, $50 for Silver, $25 for Gold, waived for Platinum and above). 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…
How to Make Sure Your Checked Bag Arrives When You Do (Or Soon After)
If you are checking a bag, assume it will get lost — at least for a little while. Split up your most important items, try to carry on the things you can’t do without in first day, and don’t put all of your most valuable items in the same bag. Checked bags will get lost. Not every time, of course, just when you’re the one checking them and when you need their contents the most. They’re most likely to get lost when: Transferring bags between airlines. It’s an extra complication and condition that needs to go right. You have a short connection, whether because of flight delays or not There are disgruntled employees. When Alaska had a baggage handler job action I had one bag mutilated to shreds and another sent to Reno rather than…
Double Miles, Changing Free One-Ways, Another Delta Blow to Alaska’s Peeps (Bits ‘n Pieces for April 15, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: The one thing the US Airways website apparently does well. (It certainly ain’t this.) Iberia is offering double miles for tickets purchased at Iberia.com by April 21 for travel through April 30. Iberia, Iberia Express, Iberia Regional Air Nostrum and Puente Aéreo flights are eligible. Partner airlines and codeshare flights are not. I like having an Iberia account with some points in it because I can move British Airways Avios over to Iberia, and no fuel surcharges are added to Iberia flights booked out of an Iberia account. A reminder that even though American has eliminated stopovers at the North American gateway city on international award tickets (“free one-ways“), you can still make date changes to existing itineraries booked with these stopovers. The rules at the time of…
How Not to Determine the Best Hotel Loyalty Program
Skift reported yesterday on JD Power’s rankings of hotel loyalty programs (their “Hotel Loyalty/Rewards Program Satisfaction Report”). Honestly I was hoping this wouldn’t get any pickup, since it’s just another missive likely to mislead consumers. The most heavily-weighted factor in the rankings — nearly a quarter of it — was ‘account maintenance’. That just doesn’t strike me as the single biggest factor in how valuable a hotel loyalty program is. Note that this isn’t “customer service” which is its own category and worth just 5% of the survey’s weight. They factor how easy it is to earn (which will heavily weight number of points earned and number of partners with which you can earn) and ease of redemption (but not the value of what you’re redeeming for). An undisclosed amount — less than 5% of…
What Additional Changes Can You Expect from American and US Airways?
With the changes American announced to its frequent flyer program last week many members are wondering what shoe is next to drop. There are going to be many more changes for sure — for the frequent flyer program, and for the airline — simply as a matter of going down the list of differences between American and US Airways. And there are going to be members who don’t like the changes no matter which version of a policy, American’s or US Airways’, they decide to go with in any given instance. But here are some of the changes I expect to see as US Airways and American harmonize their programs and their airline operations. This list is by no means exhaustive, but several readers have asked me for some of the changes I expect and…
Free Hotel Night Just for Joining a Loyalty Program
MeliáRewards is a hotel loyalty program with most of its properties in Europe, and the largest number in Spain. The next biggest region for them is South America. There are 3 hotels in the U.S. as well, in New York, Atlanta, and Orlando. They have a current joining offer of 12,000 points, enough for a free night with many of their hotels. Here’s the detail: 2000 points is the normal signup bonus, and it’s enough to get a discount on a hotel booking (cash and points). The current promotion gives you an additional 10,000 points — for a total of 12,000 points as a signup bonus. The catch is that the extra 10,000 points expire at the end of April if unused. So you need to book an award night right away (within the next…
US Airways Targeted Buy Miles Bonus is Back for the Rest of April
Now that the US Airways 100% bonus on shared miles (the best offer for purchased miles generally made by any airline loyalty program) is over, they’re apparently back with a version of their usual bonuses for purchased miles (which isn’t nearly as good a deal). (HT: Loyalty Lobby) The buy miles offer page is again asking you to verify your name and account number at the outset, which means it’s checking on what your targeted offer is. The offer runs through the end of the month, not everyone is eligible, and the bonus you’ll be offered will vary. It turns out that none of the accounts I manage were targeted for a purchased miles bonus this go-around. Even if they were, I wouldn’t be a buyer — certainly not at any amount under a 100%…
Free Gold Status, Free American Miles, Girl Arrested for Tweeting American, and Shorter Gary Leff (Bits ‘n Pieces for April 14, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: That was fast: The second set of dates for Frequent Traveler University Advanced has already sold out. Shorter Gary Leff: The LA Airspace blog offers a much more succinct version of my advice on what to do if your frequent flyer account gets audited. All of my posts could probably use a ‘shorter Gary Leff’ version for readers who find me too verbose… Something intended for American Express customers in Europe: You can apparently get free Gold status for new Club Carlson accounts if you register with an address in Europe using a specific offer form. Earn miles for killing time in the airport. The American Airlines Admirals Club in the Dallas Forth Worth C Terminal has an Avis golf game giving out a small handful of miles.…
The US Airways Twitter Team Gives Us the Greatest Gift We Could Ask For
Someone on the US Airways twitter team committed career suicide today by posting a pornographic image of a woman playing with a Boeing aircraft in a manner not intended by the manufacturer. US Airways offers the following explanation, Our investigation has determined that the image was initially posted to our Twitter feed by another user. We captured the tweet to flag it as inappropriate. Unfortunately the image was inadvertently included in a response to a customer. We immediately realized the error and removed our tweet. This seems plausible, at least if by “initally posted to our Twitter feed by another user,” US Airways means that “our twitter team was surfing for airplane porn and cut and paste from the wrong broswer window when replying to a tweet.” If you want to actually see the highly…
