Points are so easy to earn with the IHG Rewards (formerly Priority Club) program. I don’t love Priority Club. Their terms and conditions exclude most elite benefits when staying on points (though some hotels will still give you benefits). There is also no option to spend more points or a better than base room on an award night. So at many properties no matter your status or points balance you can be stuck in a base room when claiming your reward for loyalty. But piling on the points is something you can really do because they run many concurrent promotions, ostensibly targeted but that are often in practice open to everyone and can often be stacked on top of each other. You don’t always know which promotions will post and which will not with this…
Free Instant Accor Hotels Top Tier Elite Status
Leclub Accor Hotels will let you sign up for a new account and start off with top tier Platinum status. This offer won’t last long, usually just a few hours once they start getting lots of signups but sometimes a little longer. You must open a new account, it cannot be applied to existing accounts. And when you do so you must use an email address that’s not currently on file with them. Even if you don’t frequently stay at Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, and other related properties frequently, you never know when you might find yourself in one and having top tier status can’t hurt. Platinum status usually requires 60 nights or 25,000 points earned. It offers double points and subject to availability and on request 4pm late checkout and an upgrade. Now, this…
American Won’t Be Using Bus Gates at LAX After All
Back in July I went through a mental exercise over how a merged American and US Airways could combine their operations at LAX. I liked other ideas better, but my guess was “bus gates.” It turns out that the American operation at LAX is getting squeezed even advance of any merger due to Tom Bradley International Terminal construction. Last week they were saying they’d have to go to bus gates right away, even without additional capacity. They said they’d try to avoid assigning high yield flights (DC-Los Angeles non-stop, JFK-Los Angeles non-stop) to bus gates, and flights with lots of connecting passengers. But surely that would create a challenge for minimum connecting times there. It turns out that they’ve changed the plan again, and will be moving around international arrivals only. For the foreseeable future,…
Time Lapse Video of LAX’s New Tom Bradley International Terminal Construction
(HT: L.A. Airspace) You can join the 30,000+ 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. Don’t miss out!
Understanding Korean Air First Class Awards Using Chase Points
Reader Carberrie asks, Korean Air miles booking process! I know Korean miles are a good option for those of us with Ultimate Rewards points seeking transpacific F. However, I just know that the availability is great but the booking process is a pain in the butt. What I don’t know is how bad is it, and is the pain worth it? Korean is one of the really undervalued transfer partners of Chase Ultimate Rewards. Transfer to Korean Air, the transfers are usually instantaneous. Here’s the award chart. They offer one-way awards at half the cost of a roundtrip. From the US to Hong Kong via Seoul in first class is 80,000 points. They do add fuel surcharges which vary by destination, though Asia is usually less costly than Europe. The key here is that first…
Here’s the Very First Look Inside the Brand New Singapore Airlines First Class Cabin
Last August I reported here that Singapore planned to launch a new inflight product in late 2013. And they’ve done just that. I attended the aircraft delivery of Singapore’s first new-cabin 777. They previewed the seats back in July, but those seats are now onboard an aircraft that’s about to go into service. It’s an evolution on their current 777-300ER offering, not something completely different, but it’s also a real improvement in some meaningful ways and has me excited to fly Singapore again. There are 8 aircraft on order with this new interior. They haven’t announced anything about retrofitting existing 777s, but they have announced it as the product for Singapore’s new Airbus A350s on order. This first aircraft is being sent to fly Singapore – London. Additional routes for future aircraft haven’t been announced,…
15% Off Hyatt Discount Code
Hyatt has a targeted game “the CHASE” where they’re giving away points and other prizes. I’ve read that at first anyone could play but they’ve fixed that programming. I got around to playing the game on a flight last night and it was amusing and cute, for what that’s worth. The default result of the game is a generic discount code such as 10% off (DISC10) or 15% off (DISC15). The codes don’t attach to your account, so they should be usable by anyone, you simply enter them in the discount code box when searching for a reservation on the Hyatt website. I ran a search for a random night at the Hyatt Regency Austin… …and came up with the following rates: DISC15 did give 15% off of the Hyatt Daily Rate. It’s also a…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 19, 2013
News and Notes from Around the Interweb:You can request an invitation to United’s family day in San Francisco on October 13. ANA is offering a 30% discount on Air New Zealand award redemptions. Their distance-based chart has some sweet spots. This offer makes Los Angeles – Auckland roundtrip in business class just 63,000 miles. Of course you have to find award availability first! American Express Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest offer good value transfers to ANA, albeit not instantly. The heads of the Hyatt Gold Passport and MGM M Life programs hosted a live chat on Milepoint. Since they didn’t get to answer all of the questions online, they agreed to go back and reply to the rest. Here is the result, literally everything you could want to know about the Hyatt-MGM loyalty program…
Here’s How It’s Possible to Earn Miles Flying on Award Tickets
Reader Robert asked, Are there any situations when a flight that one booked with award points earn actually earns points? For example when a late flight results in a misconnection and rebooking by the airline onto another flight? In general frequent flyer award tickets (tickets you buy with miles) do not earn miles. But there are exceptions to that rule. bmi Was the Whale of All Mileage-Earning on Awards british midland used to give mileage credit for Star Alliance award tickets on several airlines booked through partner mileage programs. This was a glitch that was broadly exploited. An international first class award, say, on Thai Airways paid for with United miles could net you gold elite status in the program and enough miles for a business class cash and points award between the US and…
Have You Ever Been to South Korea? You May Be Eligible for $860 in Compensation
Some folks claimed that Asiana and Korean Air were colluding on their pricing. They sued, a class action was created, and some lawyers got very rich. A funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse though. This class action looks like it may actually pay out more to folks than just a small discount on very expensive future travel. In fact, one estimate of the settlement payout is $500 cash plus $360 in vouchers for future travel — although the actual amount will depend on how many people file claims. If you purchased a Korean Air or Asiana ticket in the U.S. for travel between the US and South Korea between January 1, 2000 and August 1, 2007 then you may be entitled to a payout. Flying through Seoul doesn’t count — you cannot…
