Last night in Seattle, Randy announced to the Flyertalk moderators in attendance that he was going to be stepping down from Flyertalk at the end of the year. It was an emotional half hour where he shared his remembrances of individuals and events over the twelve and a half years since he started the project, and in the three years since he sold the website to Internet Brands. He’ll stay on through December 31 and posted this morning that he’s working with Internet Brands on the transition plan for the management of the community. Flyertalk’s missydarlin pushed me to offer a toast to Randy on behalf of the 58 of us at dinner last night and so in the middle of a Vietnamese restaurant I stood up on a chair on offered my thanks and…
Breakfast of Champions at the Flyertalk Moderator Meeting in Seattle
American’s New Car and Hotel Awards
American Airlines has introduced new car and hotel awards. This isn’t how I prefer to use my miles (read: premium cabin international airline awards) but it’s still an interesting development for a few reasons. First, more options with your miles are always better. Second, though you could always book car and hotel via the AA Vacations site you could only pay for the car/hotel portion with miles and not the air. This offering separates out these different components. Third and most importantly, the miles value for these offerings seems to be better through American than through similar competitor programs, and they’re offering better redemption values for elite members (and better redemption values for higher-level elites than for lower-level ones). Delta has had a similar offering and considering how difficult it can be to use Skymiles…
An Amazing Night at the Frequent Traveler Awards
The first annual Frequent Traveler Award ceremony was held yesterday in Houston, and I had the great honor to be a part of it — as Chair of the Nominations Committee and as presenter of the Hotel Program of the Year award in each of three regions (Americas, Europe and Africa, Middle East & Asia-Pacific). Throughout the evening the ballroom was packed We had about 250 people in all, equally divided between representatives of the industry and the traveling public. The trophies were all lined up, ready to distribute And here I am doing just that: While each of the presenters waited to come up, we sat at the corner of the stage in Continental’s new business class seat Full results from the evening are available on the awards’ website, and the full Powerpoint presentation…
50,000 Mile Signup Bonus for British Airways Visa, and No Foreign Currency Transaction Fees
For those who missed out on last year’s amazing, incredible, 100,000-mile signup bonus for the British Airways Visa (the first true megabonus offer, pre-dating the 100k bonus from Citibank and American), they’ve come out with a new 50,000-mile signup bonus for the card. Well worth doing in its own right. 50,000 miles for a $75 annual fee is a pretty good deal. And what’s more, they’ve actually improved the card. Chase introduced the elimination of foreign currency transaction fees with their Priority Club Visa. That was a really interesting innovation, but earning 1 Priority Club point per dollar is just not an attractive reward proposition. Then they rolled out the benefit with the new Hyatt Visa, and that became a really worthwhile card as a result — a valuable reward currency in Hyatt Gold Passport…
Double Continental EQMs on COPA
A reader sends me to this offer for double Continental Airlines elite qualifying miles through the end of the year for flights on COPA. Offer is valid for OnePass members who book and travel with Copa Airlines from November 1 to December 31, 2010. OnePass number must be included in the reservation. This offer is valid only for all Copa and Copa Airlines Colombia operated flights. Offer is not applicable on code-share flights operated by other carriers. Eligible classes of service are C,D,Y,H,K,N,B,V,U,Q,I,S,T,L,O, and A. End of year qualifying run to Latin America, anyone?
New 75,000 American Airlines Mile Credit Card Signup Offers
Even though the crazy 100,000-mile signup bonuses for Citibank American Airlines credit cards have probably expired (the original emails including the links said they’d expire October 31 — though of course anyone who wishes could still try to use the links and report back), there are still some hugely lucrative bonuses out there. Gone are the days of 15,000-mile signup bonuses… 20,000-miles signup bonuses… 25,000-mile signup bonuses as the ‘best offers’. Citibank is still offering a 75,000-mile signup bonus on each of three different co-branded American Airlines credit cards after $4000 in spend within six months, and first year fee waived. They’re also offering these cards with 50,000-mile signup bonuses after $2000 in spend within four months, first year fee waived. Both sets of offers are valid through February 28, 2011. Update: Link to card…
Earn Delta Miles for Your FedEx Shipments
MileQuest points out that FedEx is offering 500 Delta miles on your first and fourth shipments plus 1 Skymile per dollar spent. Customers “who already have a discount of more than 26% on their shipping” aren’t eligible.
50% Bonus Plus 25,000 Elite Qualifying Miles for Membership Rewards Transfers to Delta
Lucky pointed out a Delta bonus for transferring American Express Membership Rewards points — a 50% bonus and 25,000 qualifying miles for transferring 50,000 points. Registration is required, there was some speculation that it would be a targeted offer but if you can successfully register then you’re eligible (I was). Now, I am not sure that I want to move 50,000 points over even though I’ll get 75,000 miles and Silver elite status. For me, while the British Airways 30% transfer bonus is more appealing I mostly value the flexibility of Amex points and prefer to leave them in my Membership Rewards account until they’re needed. But if I was a Delta elite already and this would push me to the next tier I’d probably do it. The promotion runs through December 15, isn’t combinable…
Upgrade Availability and Priority: One Airline is Rational and Everyone Else Is Just Insane (or Else I Am…)
I grew up on United Mileage Plus and so I admit it’s probably just familiarity that makes United’s ways of doing things ‘make sense’ to me, and other carriers’ practices seem odd. Take prioritizing upgrades, there’s a seeming rationality to status, followed by fare basis, and then final tie-breaker of time added to the list. In contrast, Delta will treat full fare passengers of any status above their top tier members on a discount fare. At Delta, you aren’t their loyal customer, you’re your fare on any given day. At least that’s how it strikes this United-centric flyer. And Delta’s program really doesn’t work for me, being based in DC, since at my home airport there are so many folks flying on government fares. Those government fares, in spite of being heavily discounted, are treated…
