After my talk on award booking at the Chicago frequent flyer seminar last month, I committed to putting together much of the advice that I shared in the form of blog posts. That takes a good long time, the reason I haven’t shared my talks here on the blog in the past is because I’ve never written them down, I tend to sketch out an outline and just talk. In order to keep things sufficiently interesting (for me, in the writing!), I won’t be writing up the different sections in order. But I’ll piece it all together in the end. Delta Skymiles are often referred to as “SkyPesos” because they are less valuable and more difficult to use than miles in major competitor programs. I’ve found this to be true for several reasons. Their pricing…
40% Off Purchase of SAS EuroBonus Points
Here’s one for some of my European readers mostly, SAS EuroBonus is offering points purchase at 40% off through December 5. THe points aren’t cheap even with bonus (but then to me almost anything priced in Euros is expensive, maybe I should wait until Greece, Italy, and Spain default?), but if you need to top off towards an award this would seem to be a good time. Plus SAS EuroBonus has the distinction amongst European frequent flyer programs of not pushing their members with fuel surcharges on award redemptions. (HT: Milepoint)
Bits ‘n Pieces for 11-5-2011
Live and Let’s Fly says there’s progress on what an Amtrak-United relationship will look like come 2012. While transferring points between programs will go away, train codeshares will continue and it should be possible to earn miles on some Northeast corridor trains. Matt M. passes along an old Forbes piece but a conceptually useful one on cell phone taxes. I’m home sick on this Saturday morning and my project is going to be figuring out whether AT&T bases its cell phone tax calculations based on my phone’s area code or my billing address, at least as of this six year old article different companies use different methods. If they are calculating taxes based on billing address, and especially since I use paperless billing, it’s especially easy to create a virtual move – say to Nevada…
Award Wallet OneCard Giveaway Winners Announced
And the winners in the Award Wallet OneCard giveaway contest are: Commenter #75, Len Williams… … and Commenter #230, Alexi from AwardWallet.. Oops! He’s not actually eligible. Plus he didn’t follow the rules, his comment didn’t describe how he tracks his miles! (I could guess…). He was responding to another commenter’s query about the website, fair enough and always good to see customer service showing up on my blog! But it did mean that I had to re-draw. The real second winner, then, is #119, Harvey: I’ll be in touch with both winners so that they can claim their Award Wallet OneCard.
Bits and Pieces for the Morning of 11-4-2011
As expected in yesterday’s post (where I speculate on the future of Diamond Club), British Airways parent IAG has agreed to acquire bmi. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012. Sadly, I expect my Diamond Club miles become Avios points and some likelihood that I become a British Airways Gold member. Here’s hoping for a Star Alliance-wide status match offering for bmi members. Cranky Flier travels with Allegiant and Spirit and lives to tell the tale. Conde Nast Traveler has redesigned their website, introducing a group blog on their home page called The Daily Traveler. I’m a featured contributor, and a couple of my short pieces are up so far. Look for me to contribute a “Milepoint.com Tip of the Week” there as well. UnRoadWarrior reports that the Amtrak-Continental relationship…
What Does a Pending Sale of bmi Mean for the Diamond Club frequent flyer program?
I’ve been watching the moves across the pond that Lufthansa has been making with british midland with some interest, bmi has been a money losing operation and Lufthansa wants to unload it. There’s movement along that front, what interests me most is what becomes of the Diamond Club frequent flyer program, all the commentary that I’ve seen to date says something along the lines of “we don’t know and I won’t speculate.” I’ll offer a slightly different formulation: we don’t know, but I will speculate. First came reports that Lufthansa was offloading bmi’s regional operation. My thought at that time would be sell off the pieces, and shut down what remains, transferring bmi’s Diamond Club members into the Miles & More frequent flyer program. There’s good and bad to that outcome, the good is that…
Kingfisher Now Available for American AAdvantage Redemption
I knew that American AAdvantage’s Kingfisher Airlines partnership was coming, and indeed that Kingfisher will be joining oneworld, but somehow I missed that earning and redemption between American and Kingfisher began yesterday. Thanks to reader Dan for the heads up! Coming right on the heels of the addition of Etihad as a frequent flyer partner of American, not to mention the addition of Air Berlin, AAdvantage is really boosting its award travel offerings. Unfortunately, it isn’t a simple matter to search Kingfisher award availability. It used to be shown on Expertflyer, but no longer is. It isn’t available through the KVS Tool either. Here’s one Kingfisher route map, I haven’t paid attention to whether it’s up to date but gives you an idea of where they fly. I’ve generally found their award availability to be…
5000 Free American Express Membership Rewards Points
Last week I outlined an American Express offer of 5000 Membership Rewards points for signing up for their pay over time option. (You don’t actually have to use pay over time, I don’t and I wouldn’t, but adding the feature to your card for free will earn Amex points.) At the time the website seemed not to be working, some folks had success calling up and adding the bonus to their accounts but others were met with frustration. The website, however, now seems to be working.
Don’t Try to Scam AAdvantage Lifetime Elite Status
In the desperate days before American Airlines changes the way they count miles towards lifetime status (no longer counting miles earned from any source beginning December 1), some folks are turning towards sketchy ways of bumping up their lifetime mileage balances. One way, and several folks this past weekend at the Chicago Seminar mentioned this, I’ve known about it for a long time but never felt comfortable doing it myself — the lifetime miles counter increments upward when you earn miles, such as via their shopping portal, but when miles are taken away out of your account after merchandise returns that lifetime miles counter doesn’t drop. You can imagine that there are some folks attempting to exploit this loophole in the AAdvantage IT system. So I thought it important to pass along a warning. JonNYC…
American Airlines 50,000 Mile Credit Card Bonus and $150 Statement Credit
Over the summer I took advantage of the Citibank offers of 75,000 miles for new American Airlines credit cards, though I was a frequent churner of these cards in the past I hadn’t applied for one in about a year and a half and I had no problem getting the bonus. Fortunate for me, it’s put me right on the cusp of 3 million mile status with American, right before American changes the criteria for awarding lifetime status thresholds. I’m already lifetime Platinum (2 million) and the next incremental million only earns me additional confirmed international upgrade instruments. But I’d like to reach that plateau before only flown miles count towards status. As it stands now, I expect to make my 3 million miles lifetime on the Oneworld Mega DO charter. I’ve considered dropping some…
