The US Airways Mastercard offer is currently up to 25,000 miles. The offer changes occasionally, this time no annual fee waiver (or 50% bonus on spend). But it’s as rich a first-use bonus as you get, and there’s no minimum spend requirement to get it. Plus the card comes with a club pass and $99 companion ticket that’s actually usable in my experience. Well worth the $79 annual fee in my view. And there are reports that it’s churnable. This on top of the 25,000 mile offer for the Bank of America Visa and 25,000 mile offer for the Juniper Bank US Airways Business Mastercard. Now, all come with fees, but that’s 75,000 miles for three credit cards none of which have a minimum spend requirement. And since you can churn Bank of America as…
Double Miles for Delta Mileage Purchases (First-time Buyers Only)
Delta is offering double miles on mileage purchases through August 30th for first-time buyers. So if you buy 10,000 miles, you get 20,000. That brings down the effective cost of purchasing miles from 3 cents apiece to 1.5 cents. I haven’t ever purchased Delta miles before, so I’m eligible for the bonus, but 1.5 cents is still more cash than I’d part with to acquire Skymiles. Still, if you need to top off an account for an award this could be just the ticket. Presumably folks that have purchased miles in the past will be receiving a promo to buy miles again in the near future, since the offer says Already a Buy Miles customer? Then make sure that you have added an email address in your account profile so you don’t miss out on…
United (re-)introducing Star Alliance Upgrades?
Inside Flyer ran an interview in its August issue with Michael Schutzbank, the Director of Loyalty for Star Alliance. The news? Mr. Schutzbank says that United Mileage Plus members will soon (again) be able to use their miles for upgrades on participating Star Alliance airlines. We have made some major enhancements and we believe we have fixed the problems we had with UA, and we are currently testing the system. If it works satisfactorily, I expect UA Mileage Plus members to be able to upgrade in the next six to eight weeks. This was a feature of the Mileage Plus program and then pulled ‘due to technical difficulties’ and sure the technical challenges are great but at least half of Star Alliance airlines managed to make it work… Once re-implemented, it’ll take close to full…
Half-Priced OpenSkies Mileage Redemption
British Airways is offering half-priced redemption on OpenSkies between New York-JFK and Paris-Orly for awards booked by August 22 for travel through October 15. It’s 50,000 British Airways Miles round-trip business class or 37,500 BA Miles round-trip in Prem+. If you’re like me, you get your BA miles by transferring Diners Club points during 50% transfer bonus periods, which equates to 25,000 Club Rewards points ultimately scoring a business-like product (Prem+) for transatlantic travel. That’s what happens when you start a new airline and loads are understandably light. So I’ll be looking at whether a weekend in Paris makes sense (I didn’t manage to arrange my schedule for the inaugural flights, alas). In order to get the discounted pricing you need to book at ba.com and choose JFK and ORY airports.
Fight for Your Right to Party (with a free cup of coffee)
Starting today US Airways is charging for non-alcoholic drinks. For most people. Those that get confrontational, flight attendants are allowed to give those passengers their drink for free. Just don’t get too confrontational or they may have law enforcement meet your plane on arrival.
Continental to Restrict “EasyPass” (aka RuleBuster/Standard) Awards for Non-Elites
Continental seems to be dribbling out their Onepass program changes rather than announcing everything at once. In July it was no more award holds and greater fees. Now they’re putting an end to last seat availability unless you’re an elite member of their program. Used to be that if you were willing to spend additional miles (and recently on Continental it’s been a lot more miles) you could get any seat on any Continental flight. According to Continental’s Scott O’Leary in a post on Flyertalk they’re taking this away. For non-elites, EasyPass Rewards will have some capacity controls and may not be available on certain flights where demand is high. In these cases, availability of EasyPass rewards on Continental will be based on R class availability for front cabin rewards and M class for main…
Delta Miles for Free Hair Loss Consultation
Through August 25th you can receive 20,000 Delta miles for a free hair restoration consultation. If you actually graft (the minimum required amount of) hair onto your head that’s another 150,000 miles. But the consultation is free, and over at Flyertalk there are reports of folks with full heads of hair getting the consultation done in 10 minutes without pushback (“I have lots of hair but a family history of hair loss, I’m worried and thought I’d should talk to someone early.”).
Delta Second Checked Bags Will Be $50
Joe Sharkey points out Delta’s announcement that they’re doubling the fee for domestic second bags to $50. Gee, maybe they’d make even more money if they increased the checked bag fee to $1 million. These changes will apply to customers who purchase a ticket on or after July 31, 2008, for travel on or after Aug. 5, 2008.
OpenSkies Kills Coach to Expand “Prem+” Cabin
OpenSkies, which announced plans to fly between New York-JFK and Amsterdam in addition to its Paris-Orly launch destination, is now planning to remove all its (30) coach seats. This makes it exclusively a premium class carrier — pulling 30 seats in back in favor of 12 additional “Prem+” seats which are akin to previous generation business class seats still being flown across the Atlantic by Delta (and others). Of course, their business class product is similar to the big brother British Airways’ ‘next generation club world’ lay flat seats. Every Friday, Flyertalk is giving away Prem+ tickets. Two OpenSkies inaugural flight trip reports can be found here. Personally I’m in favor of anything that increases international premium class lift. More supply pushes down price and make it more accessible, including spreading out demand and freeing…
Hotels.com New Frequent Guest Program
Loyalty Traveler outlines the new Hotels.com rewards program called Welcome Rewards. Basically one free night up to $400 for every 10 nights booked at an eligible property (each of wihch must be at a rate of at least $40). That’s pretty good value for folks who aren’t brand loyal. In most cases you give up in-hotel points-earning in a hotel’s own program for the rate booked at Hotels.com. So these can be either-or, Hotels.com program OR Starwood points/stay credit. Folks coveting elite status for the upgrades won’t find this useful. But if you bounce around chains, you may see a free room night more quickly via Hotels.com than from your various hotel loyalty programs. And you can chase the best rate, independent of brand loyalty now. Loyalty to the booking site matters under this program,…
