Million Mile Secrets interviews me. An excerpt: It’s cliché to say that we shouldn’t take this all too seriously, but I disagree: I’m passionate about miles and points. I practice full contact loyalty. I love these programs. I think they offer a tremendous value proposition, and for all of their success I think they’re still widely misunderstood (perhaps because they’re so complicated, though therein lies the true opportunity). I do my best to honor those programs that work well – for the travel providers and for the consumer, and to criticize those that I think are missing the boat. Properly understood, the relationship is win-win and for my part my entire worldview has been changed by these programs, I see the world as much smaller and more accessible and I experience the world in a…
American Finally Announces Changes to their Million Miler Status Program
Though speculation has been rampant over the past couple of years, it became clear by April that American was on the verge of changing its uber-generous million mile status qualification program. At the Randy Petersen Travel Executive Summit in April, the President of AAdvantage confirmed that they were looking at changes and promised that there would be advance notice. And indeed they’re giving us 3+ months of notice. For years, American has offered lifetime elite status based on all of the miles you earn in their program. In contrast, every other airline offering million mile recognition only counts those miles earned by actually flying. As a result, and though I am not a frequent American Airlines flight customer, I’m a 2-million miler and have lifetime Platinum status. Historically, American has offered: Lifetime Gold at 1…
The Value Proposition of the US Airways Grand Slam Promotion
Several days ago I shared some details of the upcoming US Airways Grand Slam promotion which offers bonus miles for qualifying activities with their partners. Deals We Like has an excellent summary of what the promotion actually looks like. I had been afraid that only elites would be able to qualify for the traditional highest bonus of 100,000 miles, and also that that highest bonus would require more partner activity than in the past (40 rather than 36 ‘hits’). Instead it’s more or less the standard Grand Slam offer of 100,000 miles for 36 partner activities plus an extra opportunity for an additional 10,000 miles when hitting 40 activities, if you’re a US Airways elite member. Now, since various bonus point thresholds actually offer miles towards elite status, and the 10,000 miles towards elite status…
Improvements Coming to United’s (Mostly Continental’s) Inflight Product
Wandering Aramean outlines planned actual improvements to United’s inflight product. I previously reported that United would keep economy plus after its integration with Continental, and that the Continental fleet would be getting economy plus starting in 2012. Seth reports that the timetable is being moved up: The company expects to see the E+seats on 38 Continental aircraft before the end of the year. Based on some information received from other sources it is quite possible that these first Economy Plus aircraft will be 757-300s or 737-800s. …By the end of Q1 2012 the company expects to have 100 Continental aircraft equipped with Economy Plus seats. That number will include 29 Bombardier Q400 commuter turbo-prop aircraft which will be equipped with both a first class and economy plus section. Back in May I noted that United…
Details Begin to Emerge on US Airways Grand Slam Promotion
Mommy Points details the upcoming US Airways ‘Grand Slam’ promotion. You can’t register for it yet, but the offer’s FAQ page is up. The offer will run from September 14 through November 14, and will eventually be detailed (with registration available) at usairways.com/grandslam. This annual promo stretches a baseball analogy where various partner activities are considered ‘hits’ and the more hits you accumulate, the more bonus miles you earn. For instance, 4 ‘hits’ earns 3000 bonus miles while 8 hits earns an additional 7,000 bonus miles (on top of the 3000 that were earned after 4 hits had been completed). So 8 partner activities is 10,000 bonus miles. Lots of folks will start to figure out the cheapest ways to get eligible partner activities, and I’ll certainly report on several of those here. If you…
National Car Rental Status Match Offer
Earlier in the week I detailed National Car Rental’s new “One, Two, Free” promo — rent twice (mid-size or larger, two day minimum) and get a free rental day which is running through January 31. Several other bloggers have subsequently noted that National is also offering to status match you if you have elite status in another car rental program. That’s a unique departure from past practice in the car rental industry — airline and hotel status matching has been a long-standing practice but car rental companies haven’t routinely done it. As I observed in my earlier post, at the base signup level I like National better than the other car rental firms because of their ‘Emerald Aisle’ (choose your own car) concept. But I don’t make National my own rental company of choice because…
My Award Booking Talk at the Chicago Seminar is Now Completely Booked Up
A week and a half ago I shared that my talk on booking frequent flyer awards at the Chicago Seminar was 90% full. Rick (aka Frugal Travel Guy) emails this morning to let me know that my session is completely booked. Anyone who was still planning to sign up for my talk at the October 29-30 event is too late. While the seminar itself appears at about 70% capacity so far, there are multiple concurrent sessions throughout the weekend and no one of those sessions can go over 300. Of the 370 people or so that have signed up so far, 300 chose my award booking talk. The point in sharing this is, if you’ve been considering signing up for the Chicago seminar (details here), it’s best to do so asap so that you’ll still…
Best Solutions for International Phone Calls While Traveling Abroad
International phone calls: I’ve been searching for a new international calling solution. My old throwaway cell phone died. My old favorite SIM card that was useful in several countries seems to be giving me fits. While I’m perfectly happy making calls via Skype (and that’s still the cheapest way to call out, less than 3 cents a minute to the US), my wife is less than happy with the call quality. Plus it’s not a great solution when you’re out and about without internet, or for people who want to call you who aren’t themselves going to be online when doing so. So it’s not enough. Backing up a little bit here, I Skype all the time — for work or to make calls when abroad. I don’t mind it at all, and I always…
Mileage Mall Portals, Who Am I Even Dealing With? More Finger Pointing From EasyCGI, US Airways, and FreeCause
A week ago I posted about the most lucrative mileage offer ever made, the trouble in having the vendor honor the terms of the offer, and what it means about airline ‘mileage mall’ shopping portals. As far as these things go, I’m relatively savvy, there are likely others who understand details better than I do but I’m reasonably well-informed relative to the average consumer. And the more I think about the proposition being offered, the more I realize I knew very little at all about how things worked or whom I was even dealing with. Some may recall the details of the offer: any transaction through the US Airways or Hawaiian Airlines mileage malls with web hosting company EasyCGI earned miles. But it turns out that these weren’t offers from US Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, or…
500 Free Points for Accepting Text Messages From Priority Club
Via Points Addict, if you’re willing to accept Priority Club marketing messages via text there’s 500 free points for doing so. It’s a Visa promotion, you have to register a Visa card with your signup. Me, I don’t actually want their texts and won’t invite them to SMS me for 500 points. But some will find this worthwhile for the points.
