I’m addition to my usual writings here, I’ve been blogging occasionally for Conde Nast Traveler‘s The Daily Traveler. This morning I shared some thoughts on airline and hotel mistake fares, prompted by one that’s been handled especially badly by Korean Airlines. I’m more sympathetic than most when it comes to airlines and mistake fares, I buy them so that I’m in on the action if they decide to honor but I’m no worse off usually if they don’t. If airlines are giving away $28 tickets to Paris or $33 business class fares to Italy and Cyprus, I’d hate to think I wasn’t part of it, but I’m always pleasantly surprised rather than expecting or entitled. But I’m not at all pleased by Korean Airlines’ recent decision not to honor an almost $500 fare to Palau…
$20 Gift Card for $200 in Online Spend with a Mastercard by the End of the Year
Via Million Mile Secrets, Mastercard will give you a $20 gift card when you register and are then one of the first 80,000 people to spend $200 online by December 31. One week after completing your $200 in online spend you should receive an email form to complete and submit to receive your $20 gift card. Open to U.S. Residents Only. Having just closed my Continental Onepass Plus card, my only current Mastercard is my Diners Club. My most recent Citi AAdvantage signup was, sadly, a Visa. So I’ll only be grabbing one of these gift cards.
The Other Shoe Drops from Aeroplan: Adding Fuel Surcharges to Most Partner Airline Redemptions
Last week — without notice — Aeroplan began adding fuel surcharges onto award redemptions with several partner airlines. The next day they adjusted to only adding fuel surcharges onto Lufthansa reward flights. And now they’ve changed their mind again, and are going to be imposing fuel surcharges on most Star Alliance partner airline awards. With the increasing cost of fuel, many airlines have started charging fuel surcharges on redemption tickets. All fuel surcharge amounts are applied by Aeroplan on behalf of the ticketing carrier and are passed through directly to the ticketing carrier. Fuel surcharge amounts are determined by each airline and may change from time to time. Aeroplan has applied fuel surcharges for flight rewards on Air Canada since 2004. The fuel surcharge amounts to be applied by Aeroplan for flights on Star Alliance…
American AAdvantage Lifetime Elite Status Program Changing Soon
American Airlines changes the way that they count miles towards lifetime elite status on December 1. Currently, miles earned from any source count. Starting December 1, only miles earned via flying count (and for at least the next year, those folks who get the expensive Citi Executive Mastercard with bundled lounge access before December 1 will have spend from that card count as well). I expect to end November at 2,998,000 lifetime American AAdvantage miles. Which means that I will cross the 3 million mile threshold on the Oneworld MegaDO, which is neat in and of itself. And the advantage of not crossing 3 million miles until January is that the 4 international confirmed upgrades that I’ll earn will expire in February 2014, instead of February 2013 if I earn them before the end of…
43% Bonus on Transfers from American Express Membership Rewards to Delta
Via Ben, American Express is offering a bonus on transferring points over to Delta through the end of the year. Registration is required, for every 50,000 points transferred you will receive a code later to apply to your Membership Rewards account to rebate 15,000 points. (No limit.) Strictly speaking then, the offer is for a 30% rebate. Which means that you have to have available (or be able to borrow, or purchase) all of the points needed for the award you want to book through Delta Skymiles. A 30% rebate is mathematically equivalent to a 43% bonus. Under this offer a net cost of 35,000 Amex points generates 50,000 Delta miles. A net cost of 70,000 Amex points generates 100,000 Delta miles, which is enough for a business class ticket on Europe and in my…
Chase Sapphire Preferred Card as King of the Credit Cards?
This morning on Milepoint someone posted a question prompted by my blog post yesterday on whether Aeroplan fuel surcharges reduce the value of American Express Membership Rewards points and whether that changes my overall advice on best credit card. The question was about the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. It’s been all the rage with ‘in the know’ frequent flyers for months now, I only broke down and got the card myself over the summer, as Chase has improved the program substantially. I’ve referenced it several times as part of larger posts, such as my advice on the best mix of rewards credit cards but I haven’t given it real standalone treatment. As recent posts will tell you, I still love American Express Membership Rewards. I’ve even been defending Membership Rewards against naysayers who argue that…
The Sky is Not Falling, Why American Express Membership Rewards Points Remain Valuable
I like Ben, Ben is a friend of mine, but this morning he goes a bit over the top at One Mile at a Time with his declaration of the death of American Express Membership Rewards as a valuable program. Of course, I already used the program selectively — the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card was my choice for airfare (triple points) and groceries (double points) and that’s the crux of why my credit card advice hasn’t changed. See, unlike Ben I still value 3 Membership Rewards points from airfare more than 2 Chase Ultimate Rewards points for the same purchases. And I value 2 Membership Rewards points from groceries more than 1 Ultimate Rewards point for those. (For the uninitiated, Chase Sapphire Preferred earns double points on travel.) I don’t think these calculations…
How the Department of Transportation Regulates Twitter..
.. or at least airline tweets. Via Frequently Flying, the DOT’s enforcement unit is monitoring airline twitter activity for regulatory compliance. Sounds to me like an excuse for DOT staffers to spend all day at their desks on Twitter, but here’s what they’re after: if an airfare is mentioned and if any taxes and fees are not included, there must be a hyperlink “adjacent to the stated fare” that “takes the viewer directly to a place on a separate screen where the nature and amount of taxes and fees are prominently and immediately displayed. Likewise, if a roundtrip purchase condition applies to an advertised each-way fare, this must also be disclosed in the tweet.” However, HTML layout on this separate disclosure link matters — links taking the user to “a page or a place on…
What We Learned from Hyatt Gold Passport’s Live Milepoint.com Chat
Mommy Points offered a useful summary of the live Milepoint.com chat with Jeff Zidell, the Hyatt’s Vice President for the Gold Passport Program. A transcript of the chat is available here. Loyalty Traveler offers a pretty critical take. Bottom-line is that Hyatt didn’t break a lot of news in the chat, but they weren’t expected to, as Randy Petersen explained There was some talk to only have chats when a program is ready or has just made some major change, thus there would be a specific news purpose. However, we asked Hyatt to come on despite there not being a particular news item they were releasing right now. They have been wonderful in their support of the MegaDos, wonderful in support of various other frequent traveler and very much supportive of the young and new…
Aeroplan Adjusts Fuel Surcharges Again
Yesterday Aeroplan began adding fuel surcharges on several airline partner awards. Previously they had been adding those charges only to awards on Air Canada flights. Now they’ve dialed it back a bit, and are adding fuel surcharges only on Air Canada and Lufthansa flights. Awards on All Nippon, Asiana, and Thai are pricing out without fuel surcharges. Aeroplan has not made any statements about their intentions beyond that they are adding the charges to awards booked on Air Canada and Lufthansa — nothing about whether other airlines will be added in the future, or when. But they seem to suggest that fuel surcharges on other carriers may be coming down the pike. Effective November 9th 2011 at 7pm, Aeroplan began applying, at Air Canada’s request, fuel surcharges to flight rewards on Lufthansa. Members making voluntary…
