Feb 04 2016

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.)

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Feb 03 2016

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.

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Feb 02 2016

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.

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Feb 01 2016

Yesterday I wrote about changes you will be able to make to American AAdvantage awards after award chart price changes go into effect March 22 without having to pay additional miles.

Readers had several questions about what this means in practice, so I sought additional clarification. And it turns out to be better than I thought.

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Jan 29 2016

American said to expect more premium cabin award availability, that there’s be more to come beyond what we’d already seen, and that it would be noticeable.

There’s a ton of flights with at least 4 business and 4 first class award seats available to a variety of destinations. And it is interesting that we are seeing this before premium cabin award prices go up on March 22 even!

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Jan 28 2016

There is plenty of first class award space on Japan Airlines for New York JFK – Tokyo and Chicago – Tokyo over the next 6 weeks. There’s also a new pattern for American’s Dallas and Los Angeles – Tokyo flights releasing premium cabin award seats.

When there’s first class available it’s on JAL’s Boeing 777-300ER which has their new first class suites. American charges 62,500 miles each way between the US and Japan (as well as Korea). Make Tokyo your connection and continue on in Asia and first class awards are 67,500 miles each way.

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Jan 21 2016

United has soft launched a meet and greet airport assistance program with Global Airport Concierge that so far is available at Newark and Chicago O’Hare.

At departure they’ll meet you curbside. On arrival they’ll meet you on the jetbridge. They’ll monitor your flight and assist with rebookings. You get priority check-in and premium security line access. You’ll get escorted to and from your gate.

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Jan 19 2016

What is the value of miles and points by airline, hotel and credit card program? Miles used to be thought to be worth 2 cents. I think that conventional wisdom developed out of the idea that a cross country flight cost about $500… or 25,000 miles. 20 years ago that was generally true, and award availability wasn’t really a problem either.

I’m going to share my own rough and ready number for several different programs. And I’m going to explain how I think about the value of miles — why they are different for different people, and for different circumstances of how you plan to use them.

Here’s how to think about the value of miles and points by airline, hotel and credit card program.

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Jan 19 2016

Delta’s astonishing arrogance is covered in a piece by Benét Wilson for Airways News that basically asks whether Delta CEO Richard Anderson is an evil genius.. or just evil?

While frequent flyer programs may have been overly generous, especially coming out of the Great Recession, and no longer need to be as rewarding to fill incremental seats on planes — and Delta could extract surreal amounts of cash from American Express after their co-brand issuer lost its deal with Costco — research suggests they may have wrung out way too much value from the SkyMiles program and could be on the verge of hurting themselves by it.

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Jan 18 2016

Fuel surcharges don’t matter much to most consumers. They’re advertised as part of the paid fare when buying a ticket. They even earn credit in revenue-based frequent flyer programs. They really only matter to consumers who have airfare discounts that don’t apply to the surcharges, and to frequent flyers booking awards.

Since fuel prices have dropped, and fuel surcharges are now absurd on their face, several airlines have just renamed ‘fuel surcharges’ as ‘carrier-imposed surcharges’. In the US that’s important because in the US fuel surcharges unrelated to the price of fuel are considered by the DOT to be illegal.

Now there’s literally no justification for the surcharges. They’re just a fee for nothing. They’re ‘carrier-imposed’ (of course, who else sets fares?) but don’t cover anything in particular. That begs the question, why do airlines do this?

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