Search Results for "ASIA".
A few commenters have argued that Visa charges more for foreign currency conversion than MasterCard — that a Visa with ‘no foreign currency conversion fees’ isn’t really because Visa marks up their exchange rate by 1%.
I’m testing this out on a few trips. I mentioned in the comments that I’m experimenting with comparisons, and I’ve had a couple of folks ask about the status of this in the comments and also by email, so I thought I’d provide an update.
Alaska Airlines is offering up to a 40% bonus when you purchase or gift miles.
That’s actually a pretty good deal compared to other airlines with similar bonuses, because the starting price on their points is lower.
Korean Air has the absolute best first class award availability. Most Korean flights will feature at least 2 first class award seats, but 3 and 4 is common on some routes. They offer great value Europe business class awards on partners and Hawaii awards on partners.
They also have one of the most generous policies that lets you put an award on hold without the points yet in your account. That gives you time to transfer points in from a credit card partner after you’ve already secured the award.
American AAdvantage appears to have cleaned up its region definitions.
The number of miles for an award in a zone-based award chart is based not just on whether there’s saver award space, but the regions you are flying between.
If you want to fly from New York to London, you look up the saver award price for “Contiguous 48 U.S. states” to “Europe.” It thus matters what region a country is assigned to, as it affects the price of an award.
A couple of weeks ago I pointed out outstanding Japan Airlines first class award space between the US and Tokyo.
Now award availability is wide open from March through December in first class between Tokyo and Sydney. Here’s award availability for four passengers which is half the cabin (some dates may have more space than that).
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Los Angeles is a hyper-competitive market. There’s no more high revenue market than New York – Los Angeles, with New York – San Francisco following it.
That’s why the routes are so competitive, not just with so many airlines offering service but also with a better product than what’s offered domestically on other routes.
United is introducing 3-cabin Boeing 777 service between Newark and both Los Angeles and San Francisco and between Washington Dulles and those two cities.
Citi’s ThankYou Rewards program has added Wonder as a way to use points to cover part or all of digital gift card purchases (which are made via the Wonder app). It’s both a convenient platform for points redemption and a way to broaden out options for retailers from which to obtain gift cards.
Citi has done a lot to build out the points-to-miles transfer program for their premium ThankYou cards. It’s nice to see them building out options which will appeal most to the rest of their members too. (More choices are good for premium card members too of course — it’s just that those cardmembers already have better redemption options than this.)
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
In mid-November American offered a purchase miles bonus that I thought was a bit disingenuous to tie to ‘Cyber Monday’. It was still a good deal as far as purchase miles bonuses go, just not credible to call a “second half of November sale” a Cyber Monday deal. And indeed they extended the offer through January 4.
Now US Airways Dividend Miles American AAdvantage is back selling miles at a discount, and again with a bit of a confusing offer — this time offering a stackable bonus and a discount, which I suspect just makes things more confusing, but does allow you to buy 142,500 miles at 2 cents apiece.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
