Last week I outlined an American Express offer of 5000 Membership Rewards points for signing up for their pay over time option. (You don’t actually have to use pay over time, I don’t and I wouldn’t, but adding the feature to your card for free will earn Amex points.) At the time the website seemed not to be working, some folks had success calling up and adding the bonus to their accounts but others were met with frustration. The website, however, now seems to be working.
Don’t Try to Scam AAdvantage Lifetime Elite Status
In the desperate days before American Airlines changes the way they count miles towards lifetime status (no longer counting miles earned from any source beginning December 1), some folks are turning towards sketchy ways of bumping up their lifetime mileage balances. One way, and several folks this past weekend at the Chicago Seminar mentioned this, I’ve known about it for a long time but never felt comfortable doing it myself — the lifetime miles counter increments upward when you earn miles, such as via their shopping portal, but when miles are taken away out of your account after merchandise returns that lifetime miles counter doesn’t drop. You can imagine that there are some folks attempting to exploit this loophole in the AAdvantage IT system. So I thought it important to pass along a warning. JonNYC…
American Airlines 50,000 Mile Credit Card Bonus and $150 Statement Credit
Over the summer I took advantage of the Citibank offers of 75,000 miles for new American Airlines credit cards, though I was a frequent churner of these cards in the past I hadn’t applied for one in about a year and a half and I had no problem getting the bonus. Fortunate for me, it’s put me right on the cusp of 3 million mile status with American, right before American changes the criteria for awarding lifetime status thresholds. I’m already lifetime Platinum (2 million) and the next incremental million only earns me additional confirmed international upgrade instruments. But I’d like to reach that plateau before only flown miles count towards status. As it stands now, I expect to make my 3 million miles lifetime on the Oneworld Mega DO charter. I’ve considered dropping some…
SeatGuru Redesign in the Works?
A reader sends me to this link, which looks like a cosmetic refresh in the works for SeatGuru. Though personally I’ve found several inaccuracies in their seatmaps over time, shared several with the SeatGuru folks, and they haven’t corrected them. I’d rather see the investment go into keeping things accurate and up-to-date rather than cleaning up the interface, but I realize I’m in the minority of a minority of a minority of travelers, and won’t generate enough ad views on the site to justify any sort of investment to meet my needs… Still, there’s no question that SeatGuru (and SeatExpert) represents a really useful tool in the traveler’s bag of tricks in order to stay informed and improve the travel experience.
Hertz Offering Status Matches
Many airlines and hotels have long offered status matches (you’re an elite customer of one travel provider, they’d be happy to have you as their customer and will make the transition easier by giving you comparable status in their program). More recently several programs have moved towards challenges, either expedited ways of earning the status or temporary status while you fly or stay a certain amount to keep that status. Back in August I noted that National Car Rental is running a status match program through January 31. It was the first time I remembered seeing a formal status match offer from a rental car company, in the past when I’ve inquired about those I’ve been told by the major rental companies that they do not have anything of the sort. Now Hertz has a…
Award Wallet Drawing Reminder
This week I’m giving away Award Wallet OneCards. Just go to the official entry thread and leave a comment telling me how you track your miles, and I’ll draw winners after noon Eastern on Friday. I’ve purchased my OneCard, a single card listing frequent flyer numbers and phone numbers and with a magnetic stripe to use at airport checkin kiosks. But you might gets yours for free 🙂
AwardWallet Giveaway: Win a Personalized Loyalty Program Membership Card
As regular readers know, I used Award Wallet to track my miles and points. They have a free service with most of their functionality, you input your frequent flyer accounts and passwords and can update them all with a single click or can log into an account with a single click as well, no more spreadsheets or writing down account numbers and passwords on scraps of paper. I’ve used various services like Award Wallet for years, and there are several. The first one, which I loved, was Miletracker (the downloadable application, not the online service). The problem was that it wasn’t kept up to date. Whenever a loyalty program would change up its website, the service needs to be updated, and Miletracker just didn’t get updated all that often. Which meant that lots of programs…
In Which I Discover Biscoff Spread
The greatest thing about the US Airways Grand Slam may not even be the 100,000 miles I’m going to earn. It’s the fact that it introduced me to Biscoff Spread. GoRemy once tweeted that cashew butter is like peanut butter but with you owning two less dollars. Biscoff spread is like peanut butter… but with Biscoff. I was first introduced to Biscoff on WestAir regional flights in California 15 years ago. I was thrilled to find them on Skywest not long after. And now they’re an airline staple. And now they’re a spread. There is no great stagnation.
American Finally Adding Partner Award Booking Online
One of the things that surprises me most every time I hear it is that people I talk to assume that airline websites display all of the awards that are available with their miles. When they type in an origin city and a destination, and nothing comes back, they assume nothing is available and they are frustrated. Sometimes folks don’t know that partner airline redemptions are an option. Or if they do know, they assume that whatever is possible will be displayed online. Perhaps that’s just a reflection of society more generally, we expect to be able to do our business online, and it isn’t the first thing that would occur that the telephone is necessary or superior to a website. Especially with companies pushing so many consumers online due to lower costs. With airlines,…
Ten Year Hotel Stay Comes to an End
A woman recently checked out of Towne Place Suites in Falls Church, Virginia after 10 years. She did apparently secure a low nightly rate for her long-term stay, her monthly housing cost is lower than mine and in the same area. Her stay raises several questions for me that the CNN article doesn’t answer. I’m not familiar with Virginia law on the subject, but often long stays aren’t subject to hotel tax. Apartment rent isn’t, for instance. I wonder if that’s part of how she kept her expense down as well. Starwood Preferred Guest won’t away credit for stays over 30 days. Marriott Rewards doesn’t have such a rule. Was she a member? If so, you would expect her to be a lifetime Platinum (though it doesn’t sound like she availed herself of the benefits…
