As lucky notes, JonNYC — who is usually right about these things — posts over at TravelingBetter.com that American Airlines is going to start charging for their status challenges (accelerated periods in which it takes fewer miles to qualify for elite status). The price is expected to be $80 to sign up for a Gold challenge and $150 for a Platinum challenge. American Airlines challenges are explained on this old site by Flyertalk member FewMiles. In a nutshell, it’s the “back door to elite status”. Basically, you sign up for the Gold or Platinum Challenge under the premise that you can demonstrate a quantity of qualifying flight activity within a limited time period that justifies your request for fast-tracked elite status. Further details on the above-mentioned site. Me, I’m not an American Airlines flyer, really…
ANA Unique Value Partner Awards
One Mile at a Time points to some interesting redemption offers from ANA, which are especially useful as ANA is an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner. In addition to special awards discussed in the past on this blog and on lucky’s, like Virgin Atlantic Upper Class New York – London for 63,000 miles, this entry points out: New York-JFK or Washington-Dulles to Doha on Qatar in business class for 90,000 miles. New York-JFK or Newark to Brussels on Jet Airways in business class for 68,000 miles (or onward to Dehli for 105,000 miles). ANA does impose taxes and fees greater than US-based carriers, to be sure. And their phone agents aren’t always the best to work with. But they do have some unique partnerships and their distance-based award chart can be a blessing on…
Virgin America Launches Co-Branded Visa
Last week I outlined Virgin America’s award redemption offerings and noted that a co-branded credit card was on the way. Now details of that credit card are here. The card is a Visa Signature co-branded with Barclays bank, the same issuer as the US Airways Mastercard and comes with: 3,500 bonus points with first purchase. Apparently the ‘usual’ offer is intended as 2,500 bonus points, as the 3,500 offer includes 1,000 for ‘pre-registering’ on the credit card’s website. The card comes with a free one-way flight after first purchase, with details described as: [A]pply by November 30, 2008, and use the card to make a purchase by January 31, 2009. Travel must be completed by May 20, 2009. No annual fee. According to a PRNewswire release, additional details include: The card launches October 23rd. One…
American Express Platinum to Eliminate Domestic Companion Airfare Program
High Anxiety notes that American Express is terminating its domestic companion airfare program, about a year and a half after it started. A real bummer. The outsourced program (to API) was annoying to work with, very much non-transparent as to which flights were eligible and a cumbersome booking process (by phone, not the sharpest agents, and then the need to get transferred to reconfirm everything once the booking was over). But it was also a value that is being taken away from Platinum cardholders, and I will miss it. Fortunately there are still several companion airfare offers that are worthwhile, such as the Alaska Airlines $50 companion ticket that comes with the Bank of America co-branded credit card and the US Airways $99 companion ticket that comes with both the Bank of America co-branded Visa…
Free Hilton Gold Status is Back
Frugal Travel Guy reports that the old Citi Chairmans Hilton Gold offer is again (still?) available. In fact, the code is even still CTCH, just enter it at this link and open up a new account. That will open a new Hilton gold account for you, and if you already have a Hilton account you can combine the old one into this new gold one as well. At times in the past Hilton has removed the complimentary gold status from ineligible accounts, other times they haven’t, and even when they have they have not done so across the board to all accounts. So whether this sticks is ‘your mileage may vary.’ Still worth a try for those of you without Hilton Gold status already, it generally means free breakfast at least.
Tips for Successful Award Booking
Frugal Travel Guy offers his basic tips on award redemption, which start with being friendly to the agent on the other end of the phone (make them a friend willing to spend the time and do the work necessary to find you your award), be flexible in cities and dates, and be willing to overnight if necessary — plus know your possible partners and routes and suggest them to the agent you’re working with. All good tips, to be sure. But especially since I’ve been getting several requests for award booking assistance since the October 2008 issue of Conde Nast Traveler reprinted a comment I made on Wendy Perrin’s blog offering award booking help, let me outline my own award booking tips… Whose miles do you need, and how many? First, what miles are you…
A (Modest) Defense of AIG’s Post-Bailout $443,000 St. Regis Monarch Beach Retreat
The media is making hay over AIG executives participating in a retreat at the St. Regis Monarch Beach after being taken over/bailed out by the federal government. And it doesn’t look good, I suppose appearances do matter. But most of the criticism misses the mark. The conference was booked long before the bailout. Sure, the hotel bill (including payments by the hotel on behalf of the event to other vendors) was $443,000. But AIG had already provided a $403,000 deposit. They couldn’t just cancel, they’d have no doubt owed most of cost of the event if not the full expected cost, anyway. And in fact, it sure looks like executives stayed away — $58,000 (30%) of the hotel room charges were for attrition, meaning that they had committed to many more participants than ultimately actually…
Credit Cards I Don’t Use In Spite of 50% and 100% Everyday Bonuses On All Spending
I got an email over the weekend about the Virgin American co-branded American Express products from Bank of America. They’re tempting, to a certain degree. I blogged the cards when they were introduced in June. 1.5 miles per dollar on all spend is intriguing, but not all that desirable for me. (There are also some nice perks towards elite status as well, so this card may be indispensable for the regular Virgin flyer.) Their award charts are expensive, for awards beyond Heathrow in particular, and their fuel surcharges are noxious. Personally I prefer redeeming ANA miles for Virgin flights (transferred into ANA from American Express Membership Rewards): Washington-Dulles-Heathrow in Upper Class is 90,000 Virgin miles or 68,000 ANA miles, and ANA charges about half the taxes that Virgin does on the same ticket (so a…
United’s Interisland Hawaii Awards Doubling in Price
The old days of 5000 mile awards for interisland roundtrips are going away October 15th. Redemptions on IslandAir go up to 5000 miles each way. The same holds for new partner Hawaiian Airlines. It’s not surprising, really, as that’s a fairly standard price across other carriers for such awards and also because the price of interisland travel has risen somewhat since Aloha’s bankruptcy and closure. But sad nonetheless.
New Best Offer for Hilton American Express
The previous best offer that I was aware of for a Hilton American Express was ‘up to 52,500 points’ as a signup bonus: 10,000 bonus points at first purchase, 2,500 bonus points for each of your first four Hilton stays charged to the card, 30,000 bonus points for spending $1,500 on the card within 3 months of approval, and 2,500 bonus points for adding a free additional cardholder to the account. Now they’ve upped the ante a bit more with basically the same offer but an extra 10,000 Hilton points with first purchase, for a total of 20,000, bringing the total signup offer to ‘up to 62,500 points’.
