Through October 31, 2010, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is offering a 30% bonus on miles transferred from one account to another. You can transfer 1,000 to 30,000 miles in increments of 1,000 miles at a cost of $10.00 per 1,000 miles, plus a $25.00 processing fee per transaction. A maximum of 100,000 miles can be transferred into any individual Mileage Plan account per calendar year and up to 100,000 miles can be deducted from your Mileage Plan account per calendar year. Now, it’s not worth doing for the 30% bonus alone, but if you need to top off for an award it’s nice to take the bonus miles while they’re offered.
Jeff Robertson Speaks Candidly About Why The Delta Skymiles Program is Less Rewarding Than Its Peers
Cranky Flier visited Delta headquarters and among other stops on his agenda sat with Jeff Robertson, who runs the SKymiles program. Since I’m the guy who coined the phrase Skypesos to describe the program, I naturally felt the irresistable need to chime in on the conversation. Now, the funny thing is I don’t doubt for a minute that Jeff wants what’s best for the Skymiles program. And he understands that he needs to deliver value for his members (though he might not want to deliver too much value) in order for it to be a long-run value creating proposition. And I’d even bet that if Jeff had his druthers, Delta would make a whole lot more award seats available at ‘low’ or ‘saver’ mileage levels. Because those saver seats don’t cost the Skymiles program very…
Voting Has Launched for the Frequent Traveler Awards!
I shared the announcement last month about the coming launch of the awards. Well, voting has begun and will be open for a month. The Frequent Traveler Awards fill an important niche. Instead of awards bestowed by a group of self-appointed experts, the Frequent Traveler Awards represent the collective judgment of the traveling public. Instead of an award for best airline product or nicest resort hotel, the Frequent Traveler Awards represent the best in loyalty programs. When voting ends on October 15, real travelers will have spoken. And on November 4 in Houston we’ll all know which programs are the best. There are (3) distinct regions, you select one region you wish to vote in: Americas Europe and Africa Asia Pacific and Middle East Then you will have an opportunity to ‘rank order’ first through…
US Airways 100% Bonus on Purchased or Gifted Miles is Back… Again!
US Airways is back with their 100% bonus on purchased or gifted miles between September 16 and November 15. When they ran the bonus from mid-August through mid-September the full 100% bonus was only available on larger mileage purchases, this time the full 100% bonus is offered regardless of quantity of miles purchased. And 50,000 bonus miles is the most that can be earned from the promotion, except that the gift miles offer is stackable with the 25% bonus running all year for elites gifting miles. So elites doing the gifting will generate an extra 25% bonus for mileage recipients, on top of the bonus of up to 100% under this offer. US Airways accounts have to be at least 12 days old before buying or gifting miles, so if you’re even thinking about using…
American Express and Continental Lounge Access and Points Transfer Relationship to End September 30, 2011
[Details in this post are no longer current.] American Express has announced that their relationship with Continental will end on September 30, 2011. Currently, the US Membership Rewards program offers the ability to transfer points into Continental Onepass. And the American Express Platinum and Centurion lounge benefit includes access to Continental clubs (when flying Continental same-day). Both of those benefits will cease. Two months ago when American Express added US Airways to its roster of lounges providing access to Platinum and Centurion members, I said that it meant the Continental relationship was dead in the water. When the United-Continental merger was announced, the end of the Amex relationship was almost a foregone conclusion. In many ways, United exists today in order to support Chase’s credit card business. The issuer of the United Visa provided debtor-in-possession…
The Challenge of Continuing to Encourage Incremental Business from Elite Members that Have Already Requalified for Next Year’s Status
One challenge that loyalty programs have in their elite tiers is what to do to continue incentivizing business after a customer has reached all of the thresholds they have to offer? Some programs like United and American have offered continued bonuses, though not additional elite tiers, for travel beyond their 100,000 mile top status level. So there’s an opportunity to earn more international upgrades or bonus miles or to gift status to others. It’s not always as rich a benefit as it might be, but it’s something. Both Marriott and Delta have pursued a rollover concept — stays or miles above the level of status you qualify for count towards status in the next year. So you can keep flying or spending hotel nights and that activity counts towards status… next year. That’s attractive, it…
New “Priority Club Anywhere Challenge” Photo Up — Guess Today for 2000 Points (And This Thread May Contain the Correct Answer….)
Last week I outlined Priority Club’s weekly giveaway of points for naming the geographic location that ties to a photo they put up on their site. Each Tuesday for eight weeks they’ll offer a new destination. If you guess correctly on the first day you earn 2000 Priority Club points. Each successive day they add a photo and clue, and the points reward goes down — 1500 points on the second day (Wednesday), 1000 points on the third day (Thursday), and 500 points on the fourth day (Friday). Fortunately I can outsource my guessing to the folks over at Flyertalk, since I’m not especially good at this. (I rarely guess right when Lucky posts a photo..). The consensus seems to be that the new photo which went up today is of the Chitwan National Park,…
Wing and a Prayer Blog is Back… and Acerbic as Ever
After a long hiatus, Gray Roberge returns to blogging. And his first post after declaring his return lambasts Flyertalkers and travel bloggers for caring about their travel experiences on the days before and after the anniversary of September 11, failing to appreciate its importance, and being overall self-centered on the important occasion. Here’s what he had to say about yours truly. And finally, the King of Excess Himself, His Holiness Gary Leff of View From the Wing, writes on September 12 with a speculation of whether a double elite qualifying mile promo may occur. Just a few days before, he got in one of his trite cracks at unions, one of American industry’s main checks on corporate greed. And since he criticizes my blog posts a week before and a day after September 11, just…
Ritz-Carlton Introducing Loyalty Program with Points Earning/Burning
Luxury chains have for the most part eschewed points, the belief was that they provide recognition not freebies and compete to offer the best luxury experience not guest kickbacks. Though that’s long seemed a mistake — first, because giving folks formalized tiers and defined benefits means setting clear stretch goals fro your customers. How can you incentivize someone to achieve something if they don’t know what they need to do in order to get something they’re not aware of? Meanwhile, many luxury hotel guests are indeed staying on other folks’ dimes, which means they’re just as susceptible to anyone else to making their stay decisions based on the ability to garn personal rewards later for directing others’ resources today. And Ritz-Carlton is now jumping on the bandwagon with Ritz-Carlton Rewards. Barbara DeLollis previews the program…
Are Loyalty Programs Really Worthless? (Only if you’re disingenous…)
Chris Elliott has another column on how awful frequent flyer programs are, how we’d be so much better off without them. Which seems crazy to me. Some people may not get full value out of them, some people may be confused by them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still worthwhile — both to those of us who maximize them, and even some value to those that do not. Chris presumably believes that the programs are costly, that if travel providers got rid of the cost they would lower prices. But he fails to understand first, that the programs themselves are profitable (rather than being a cost center) and second, that they are a marketing device without which there would still be a need to spend resources in marketing — presumably less effectively, at higher…
