I’ve been loving American Airlines as a customer since doing their Executive Platinum challenge as part of the oneworld MegaDO. American’s 100,000 mile flyers are truly top tier, in contrast to at United where it’s just mid-tier and the real top elite level is Global Services. American’s top elites clear their upgrades, their international confirmed upgrade instruments are valid from any fare, and the lounges are nicer (albeit with less free food). And onboard wireless internet has changed my life. American miles are also currently my favorite mileage currency, since my own goal is international first class awards — Star Alliance first class awards have gotten really tough, especially for a North American-based flyer who doesn’t want to fly United‘s first class. While first class awards with American miles are quite doable — Etihad (and…
Virgin Atlantic Award Sale
Via NotiFlyer, Virgin Atlantic is running a “two for one sale” on economy award redemptions (must be logged into your account to access the details). The offer is valid for travel through May 31, 2012, although their Vancouver route will allow discounted redemptions through October 27 and Cancun through July 3. Sample prices: JFK-London is available for 29,500 miles roundtrip, San Francisco-London is available for 47,500 miles roundtrip. The rub? Virgin adds fuel surcharges onto the cost of awards, which means that you’ll pay over $500 in cash as part of the redemption. That’s why it’s almost never worthwhile redeeming economy award tickets with mileage programs that hit their members with fuel surcharges. You still wind up paying much of the cost of a paid ticket, while spending miles rather than earning them. You don’t…
Frequent Traveler University (April 27-29) Registration Now Open!
Frequent Traveler University details have been announced, the event will be held at the Sheraton Meadowlands on Saturday, April 28 and Sunday April 29. It’s the conclusion of a days’ long Frequent Flyer Extravaganza — there’s an industry conference on loyalty taking place on the Wednesday and Thursday, Thursday evening April 26th is the return of the Freddie Awards honoring the best in frequent flyer programs as voted by the members themselves. Friday will be the return of the Randy Petersen Executive Travel Summit. And it all concludes with a two-day learning event for frequent flyers. Mommy Points has done a nice job summarizing the event. Complimentary cocktail party on Friday night sponsored by milepoint.com On Saturday you will be able to learn from the best in the biz from exclusive speakers you won’t be…
Hotel Award Redemption Prices Should Be Lower Than They Used to Be
According to Calculated Risk, while hotel revenue per available room and occupancy rates are trending above 2011 levels so far this year, and are of course higher than when the bottom dropped out in 2009, they are still below their median level for the 2000 – 2007 period. That’s worth remembering when hotel chains like Starwood Preferred Guest which say they’re explicitly tying hotel categories to room rates bump up their redemption categories. I would argue that members haven’t fully shared in the effects of the Great Recession — lower room rates should mean lower redemption prices than during the 2000 – 2007 period, not just slowed growth in the increase in points necessary to redeem for rooms. I’m tilting at windmills here, but it’s a useful perspective to keep in mind, the more we…
Jetsetter Social Media Firestorm Gets the Attention of their CEO
After having a few hundred dollars of credits ‘removed’ from my Jetsetter.com account, and being given he runaround by customer service — being told I had violated their terms and conditions, but being refused requests to tell me how, and then being told that using referral links that they had given me at all were seemingly in and of themselves a violation of their terms and conditions — I shared the ludicrous story of their customer service responses here on this blog. The post generated over 100 comments, it also was posted on Jetsetter’s Facebook wall and tweeted and re-tweeted. Lucky picked up on it as well. Within hours of my posting, I finally heard from a ‘real’ person at Jetsetter (from a non-generic email address with a person’s name attached). I was unfortunately in…
US Airways Trial Preferred Status: You Can Earn the Top Elite Tier Even if You Just Sign Up for the Cheapest Silver Challenge
US Airways doesn’t do status matches, if you want expedited elite status they will sell you a ‘challenge’ where you get temporary status for 90 days and then have an opportunity to fly to keep that status on an accelerated basis. Trial silver costs $200, trial Gold $400, and trial Platinum $600. Then your travel on US Airways flights determines whether or not you keep status: Silver: Fly 7,500 miles or 10 segments Gold: Fly 15,000 miles or 20 segments Platinum: Fly 22,500 miles or 30 segments Chairmans: Fly 30,000 miles or 40 segments Here’s something that’s implied by their chart, but that I didn’t actually know — the level you pay to sign up for is just the amount of temporary status that you have during your 90 day challenge. Put another way, the…
Priority Club 24 Hour Reward Night Sale
Via @PriorityClub on Twitter, they’re running a 24 hour award sale at 50% off (or more) on a handful of properties: We’re pilot-testing our One Day Sale with reward nights starting at 50% off! Hurry, it’s only around for 24 hrs! Here’s the award sale and the page says that the sale is available from “12:00 a.m. Thursday morning to 11:59 p.m. EST Thursday night.” However there’s also a countdown clock on the page that shows the deal expiring an hour before that, at 10:59pm Eastern. IT glitch, it seems… There are only 12 hotels on offer, although two of them are Intercontinental properties — Johannesburg for 15,000 points per night and available for redemption February 24 through April 13, and Panama City, Panama for 12,500 points per night and available for redemption through April…
Continental’s Victors Get in their Zingers Against the Old United
In the Continental-United merger (read: Continental acquisition of United), integration means that most things are being done the Continental way. Not everything, mind you, they tried briefly to use Continental’s boarding procedures but realized ‘back to front’ was a problem when they were upselling passengers for economy plus up front and then those passengers boarded last and had to gate check their bags. But even there, it’s mostly Continental leadership making those decisions. They’re keeping Rhapsody in Blue, at least for now, but even that was touch and go for awhile. The victors, of course, get to write the historical narrative. And they’re getting in some zingers. I do think that Continental meal service has been better than United meal service on the whole in recent years, but this line from United’s (i.e. Continental’s) executive…
Hyatt Gold Passport Dropping 4 Airlines as Partners
As I understand it, in the coming days Hyatt Gold Passport will be announcing that effective March 16 members will lose the ability to earn miles with Aeroplan, Alaska Airlines, Frontier, and US Airways for their hotel stays and also the ability to transfer points into miles with these airlines. While the announcement of these changes have not been made yet, apparently a website detailing them is up early. This isn’t a huge loss, Aeroplan gutted its award chart last year and then began adding fuel surcharges to awards, taking a once great frequent flyer program and making it mediocre at best (though its online booking tool is pretty good). Frontier is, well, one of the weakest programs in North America. Personally I will miss the opportunity to earn US Airways miles, at least during…
30% Bonus on Purchased Amtrak Guest Rewards Points
Amtrak Guest Rewards is running a 30% bonus on purchased points through March 31. You have to log into your account to see details of the offer. You can purchase a maximum of 10,000 points in a year. The same bonus applies to gifting points, though the same 10,000 cap (not a separate cap) applies to receiving points via gift as via purchasing for yourself. Not an amazing offer by any means, but useful to top off your account towards an award you want to redeem for and also can be strategically useful for some, it’s often less expensive to buy points (especially with bonus) than to buy tickets on some Northeast corridor routes especially and also on 1000-point one-way routes. Provided of course that your travel falls outside of Amtrak blackout dates (and for…
