Index: Planning the trip US Airways Shuttle to New York and the Sheraton JFK Cathay Pacific First Class, New York – Hong Kong The Pier Lounge and Cathay Pacific Business Class, Hong Kong – Bangkok Conrad Bangkok Deluxe Suite Bangkok Airways Business Class, Bangkok – Koh Samui Conrad Koh Samui, 2 Bedroom Ocean Pool Villa Conrad Koh Samui, Resort Bangkok Airways Business Class, Koh Samui – Bangkok Cathay Pacific Business Class, Bangkok – Hong Kong and Marriott SkyCity Hong Kong Cathay Pacific First Class Hong Kong – Chicago United Airlines Back Home Hopefully this trip will be useful to some readers, as I believe two of the very best aspirational uses of points are Cathay Pacific First Class (because it’s an outstanding product, and one that’s reasonably possible to redeem for) and the Conrad Koh…
30% Bonus on Transfers from Membership Rewards to British Airways
Via Mommypoints, American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 30% bonus on transfers to British Airways through January 31. It’s not as generous as the February/March 40% bonus or the June/July 50% bonus. And both of those were offered before British Airways decided to make up a new word for its frequent flyer program, “Avios” — a fitting change because they want you to make believe that the program retains much value. Still, there are times when you’ll want to use Amex points to redeem awards via British Airways. And a 30% bonus is better than no bonus! I rather thought they’d bring back bonuses once they made their points less valuable, though I admit I was hoping it would be 50% again, perhaps that’ll be offered again in the future. In fact, it makes…
Frontier Early Returns Offers Double Elite Qualifying Miles
Via Lucky, Frontier is offering double elite qualifying miles during the month of December, registration required using promo code DBLEQ. I like Lucky’s comment, “[N]o, the legacies won’t match.” Of course not, American has moved to shrink its elite ranks by making changes to million miler qualification effective December 1. In general airlines haven’t felt the need to run double qualifying miles promotions the past couple of years because they’ve shrunk capacity, their load factors have been up, and their elite ranks have not shrunk. Delta, with ‘rollover’ qualify8ing miles, is the carrier in least need of making such a move. They’re also most aggressive in offering alternative methods of earning qualifying miles, perhaps followed by US Airways which will let you do it via Grand Slam, outright purchase, or re-upping on club membership. And…
Should Loyalty Programs Care About Social Media Recommendations?
In the October issue of Executive Travel, Randy Petersen adopts a controversial thesis in an article titled, “2 Great Frequent Flyer Programs” — what two programs is he talking about? Delta Skymiles and Southwest Rapid Rewards! Why is it shocking that these programs would be dubbed great? I’ve redeemed well over 100 million miles for myself and for others, and from my experience and the near-universal experience of those I speak with, these two programs offer less value than their peers. Delta miles are difficult to work with and availability (at the ‘low’ or ‘saver’ level) is relatively poor. Southwest has a revenue-based program designed to reward buying expensive paid tickets and using points for cheap leisure travel on empty planes, with no possibility of aspirational international premium class travel. What Randy is reporting on…
Top 10 Airline and Hotel ‘Mistake’ Fares of the Past Decade
Airline and hotel mistake deals were the lifeblood of my best travel experiences for a long time. I took plenty of trips I wouldn’t have otherwise taken, and they often pre-empted going places that were ‘on my list’ for places I hadn’t considered and I had really great experiences in the process. But it’s sure seemed over the past two years that the best mistakes have dried up. Sure, I’ve heard of some glitches that haven’t been all that useful to me, business class fares originating in India or Malaysia that haven’t made sense for me to do or even to blog about since if I’m not finding them useful then it’s unlikely that a substantial portion of my readers will find them all that useful. I do think that airlines at least have gotten…
US Airways Bringing Back 100% Mileage Purchase Bonus in December
Via Lucky, US Airways will be offering a 100% bonus on purchased miles throughout the month of December. It’s interesting that US Airways has listed this on the web page for buying miles, presumably they’re going to be measuring whether an announcement of a future bonus reduces purchases that would otherwise be expected the last several days of this month. Still, odd, they’ve never announced this before. Perhaps they think drumming up advance interest will net them more than twice as many mileage purchases as the early announcement will lose them. Last month US Airways raised the price of purchased miles for the second time in a year and a half. That, combined with the award chart bump of two years ago, means that buying an award ticket from the US to Europe in business…
Aeroplan Bonus for Converting Points from Other Programs
Via NotiFlyer, through December 12 Aeroplan is offering up to 25,000 bonus miles for converting points into their program. The bonus applies to American Express Membership Rewards, Diners Club, Best Western Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, Marriott Rewards, Hilton HHonors, Hyatt Gold Passport, Choice Privileges, Goldpoints Plus, Coast Rewards, Shangri-La Golden Circle, Accor A|Club, Wyndham Rewards and Hertz Gold Plus Rewards. Convert enough points to get: 5,000 miles… and receive 1,000 bonus miles 10,000 miles… and receive 2,000 bonus miles 20,000 miles… and receive 4,000 bonus miles 50,000 miles… and receive 10,000 bonus miles 100,000 miles… and receive 25,000 bonus miles The bonus can be earned once per program you’re converting points from. This offer does help to counter July’s massive award chart devaluation, but the introduction of fuel surcharges does make the Aeroplan program far…
Value Your Miles as Money
… or why international first class is worth it, domestic coach usually is not. There’s been a bit of a blogosphere debate running over the best use of miles, and I wasn’t going to chime in. But since Rick called international first class his worst use of miles, and since it appears that my comments to the post didn’t get approved, I thought it worthwhile sharing my thinking. Here’s Rick’s take: International First Class redemption is a waste of miles, in my mind. I am being held captive in an aluminum tube for eight to 14 hours and just want to get to my destination after sleeping as much as possible… I don’t know or care about meeting “Dom” or any of his fancy drinking buddies. Caviar taste like too fishy to me and the…
Strengths and Weaknesses of Each Major Hotel Program, in a Nutshell
These aren’t all the pluses and minuses of each, but they’re the major drivers of value for a traveler who shares similar perspectives with me — an elite member who wants to use their points at the best and best value properties when vacationing on my own account. I’ve ordered them from best to worst according to my own subjective scale. Small but important items like 4pm late checkout likely feed into that scale, but don’t warrant bullets on their own. Hyatt Gold Passport The Good: Confirmed suite upgrades. This to me is the killer app, the feature that makes the Gold Passport program tops of any major hotel chain. Four times a year, Diamond members can reserve suites (for up to 7 nights at a time) from the lowest rate, confirmed at booking. No…
Clues on Sunday’s Expedia Rewards Redemption Chart Devaluation
On November 8, I posted that Expedia was reducing earning rates in their program and increase redemption prices as well. We learned the reduced earning rates, key for me is that airfare earns only 1 point every two dollars spent instead of one point per dollar. But on the redemption side we only were told that new reward redemption rates go into effect on November 22, but no clues as to what those would be. When loyalty programs tell you changes to an award chart are coming, but refuse to give details, you can usually guess those changes won’t be good. (In the recent case of British Airways, even the things they did say such as that 97% of routes would remain the same or become less expensive were highly misleading, as they were referring…
