Rick, Frugal Travel Guy, emails to let me know that the Chicago Seminar, where I’ll be speaking at the end of October, is filling up. Now here’s what that means. There are still 200 tickets left, which means it is 60% full. But since there are concurrent sessions, the maximum attendance at my talk on booking award tickets the morning of October 29th is 90% full. The maximum number of folks in my session is 300, and apparently 268 have signed up. Only 32 spots left to hear me explain the best uses of frequent flyer miles, how to find available award seats, and how to navigate phone calls with the airlines to get them to construct your award. Other talks include Lucky on Hyatt and Priority Club loyalty programs, a talk on priceline bidding…
Delta Awards to Become Non-refundable, Non-Changable 72 Hours Prior to Travel
Wandering Aramean points to a significant change in award travel rules over at Delta Skymiles that a lot of members are none too pleased about. Recently Delta announced that tickets had to be canceled prior to departure or they would retain no value. In other words, you couldn’t just not fly and cancel an award later, getting back your miles (for free if you’re a Platinum or Diamond elite, for a fee for everyone else). They said ‘over 400,000 seats’ went empty due to this practice. Notably, they didn’t mention 400,000 seat over what period of time, but the natural assumption when hearing a number like that would be a year (perhaps the announcement didn’t include a reference to time knowing that would be the assumption, but that may just be too cynical of me).…
Re-usable 15% Off Code for American Airlines Flights
The Points Guy points out this morning that downloading American Airlines’ ‘DealFinder’ application will get you a 15% off single use discount code. I got the email from American last night and didn’t jump for joy, not just because it meant I had to download software that I’d then have to remove — I’ve done sillier and more cumbersome things for smaller deals before — but because I had a better solution for American Airlines discounts, courtesy of commenter qbrain who pointed out over the weekend, in response to my post about 10% off discount codes on American, that promo code 4681BX takes 15% off at AA.com for flights from any airport to many major airports served by American between August 22 And December 15. Where can you fly? From: All Airports To: BOS/Boston Logan…
US Airways 100% Bonus on Purchased and Gifted Miles is Back
US Airways is back with their 100% bonus on purchased miles through September 15. And this time the offer is also available for gifted miles as well (buying the miles and depositing them into someone else’s accout). This time it’s 10,000 bonus miles for every increment of 10,000 miles that you buy, up to a maximum bonus of 50,000 miles. In other words, •Buy 10,000 – 19,000 miles = 10,000 bonus •Buy 20,000 – 29,000 miles = 20,000 bonus •Buy 30,000 – 39,000 miles = 30,000 bonus •Buy 40,000 – 49,000 miles = 40,000 bonus •Buy 50,000 miles = 50,000 bonus US Airways has been offering some variant of this bonus most of the time since November 2009. It’s what earned Dividend Miles the distinction of being ‘the official consolidator of Star Alliance premium class…
40% Discount on Lufthansa Business Class Mileage Upgrades
Lufthansa is discounting transatlantic business class mileage upgrades through September 19. Full (Y or B) fare tickets can be upgraded for 20,000 miles per person each way, instead of the normal 35,000 miles. Discount G, H, M, Q, U and V fares can be upgraded for 30,000 miles per person each way, instead of the normal 50,000 miles. This offer applies to all Lufthansa flights between the US or Canada and Germany. And of course this discount applies to redeeming Miles and More miles only, not to redeeming miles from Lufthansa’s partner airlines. (HT: 744 on Milepoint)
American Airlines 10% Off Discount Codes
UnRoadWarriot brings us 10% off discount codes for flights to several cities on American Airlines. Code 5591AG is good for travel between September 7 and October 4 to any of the following cities: AMA/Amarillo International AVP/Scranton Wilkes Barre International BMI/Bloomington Normal BNA/Nashville International BOS/Boston Logan International BUR/Burbank Bob Hope CHA/Chattanooga Lovell Field CLE/Cleveland Hopkins International COS/Colorado Springs Municipal CVG/Cincinnati Cinci/Nrthrn Kentucky DFW/Dallas Fort Worth International EVV/Evansville Dress Regional EWR/Newark Liberty Intl FSD/Sioux Falls RegionalJo Foss Fld GRR/Gerald R Ford International Airport GSP/Greer Greenville Spartanburg HPN/Westchester County Apt ICT/Wichita Mid Continent JFK/New York John F Kennedy Intl LAX/Los Angeles International LGA/New York La Guardia MCI/Kansas City International MKE/Milwaukee General Mitchell MLU/Monroe Municipal ONT/Ontario International ORD/Chicago OHare International PDX/Portland International PIA/Greater Peoria SEA/Seattle Tacoma Intl SFO/San Francisco International SGF/Springfield Branson Rg SHV/Shreveport Regional SJC/San Jose International SNA/Orange…
FAA Shutdown Over, Government to Start Taxing Airfare and Mileage Sales Again
The Senate has passed the House version of the FAA funding extension, by ‘unanimous consent’ in a nearly empty Senate chamber. (With the House in recess, the only way to fund the FAA this month was for the Senate to accept the House’s already-passed legislation.) The Republican House bill becomes law, which extended the FAA but said that the most heavily subsidized airports (over $1000 per passenger) would lose their Essential Air Service program funding. I had previously said it was political posturing, there weren’t going to be real reforms to the program, just cuts to a handful of airports in states represented by powerful Democrats like Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller. My point that this dispute was all ‘fake’ was bolstered in recent weeks with the claim by Senate Democrats that the Republicans were…
New Hyatt Visa Annual Free Room Night Benefit
Milepoint member Kaanapali received a mailing from Chase about a new benefit of the Hyatt Visa: As a charter member of the Hyatt Credit Card, we look forward to celebrating your one year anniversary, and we are delighted to offer you a gift in recognition of your continued loyalty to Hyatt. Following your anniversary in (month), you will be rewarded with an Award Night. – Your award night will be issued in November – You’re more than welcome to redeem your reward for any available standard room at a Hyatt hotel and resort in categories 1-4 – As a cardmember, you will continue to enjoy this anniversary bonus each year hereafter.” New benefits are great, especially ones you didn’t know you had and didn’t know what you were getting. It’s a pretty conventional benefit, something…
50% Off British Airways Award Redemptions (Coach, Premium Economy, Intra-European Business)
Charles and Basil both point me to a new offer from British Airways for discounted award redemption. (You’ll need to log in to your BA account to see the details.) Book award travel by August 12 for travel complete by August 3, 2012 and get a 50% discount on economy, premium economy, and intra-European business class mileage required. This only applies to redemptions on BA mainline metal. International business class and first class are unfortunately not eligible for the discount. Unfortunately, since you have to fly BA metal only, you’re going to be paying BA fuel surcharges (in addition to other taxes). Which, to my mind, are generally worthwhile when redeeming for premium cabins especially given BA’s generous availability. But that reduce the value of BA awards for coach travel. Still, a BA transatlantic coach…
TSA to Demand Eye Contact (and a Business Card) Before You Fly
Via Alan H., Boston TSA screeners “soon will be carrying out sophisticated behavioral inspections.” The training for the Israeli-style screening — a projected $1 billion national program dubbed Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques — kicks off today at Logan International Airport and will be put to use in Terminal A on Aug. 15. It requires screeners to make quick reads of whether passengers pose a danger or a terror threat based on their reactions to a set of routine questions… …Under the SPOT program, as passengers hand over their boarding passes and identification, specially trained agents will ask three to four questions — from “Where have you been?” to “Do you have a business card?” and “Where are you traveling?” — while looking for “micro expressions,” such as lack of eye contact, that might hint…
