Delta is offering its elites and co-brand credit card holders a discount on award redemptions booked through September 23. Naturally, the more you dig in though the tougher this gets. Here are the discounts: So it’s 4000 miles off domestic roundtrip awards, though you get 8000 miles off if you’re booking at the more expensive medium “standard” (cough) price. Still, that means you can get decent availability for only a modest premium off of the ‘usual’ Delta domestic award pricing. And 10,000 miles off a roundtrip to Southern South America, Europe and Asia. Of course, this is for: Delta flights only, no partners, not even 49%-owned Virgin Atlantic Economy only No discounts are available to “Hawaii; Alaska; Canada; Africa; the Middle East; Caracas, Venezuela; Cancun, Mexico; Rio De Janeiro, Brazil; and Sydney, Australia.” International tickets…
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Travel Tips to Save Money, Earn Miles, And Fly for Free
In early July I wrote a post about the most useful and interesting developments in miles and points over the previous month> It turns out, surprisingly, that the feature was really popular, at least judging by the emails I got — people that don’t read the blog every day really appeciated the recap and not having to dig through all of the posts to find the most enduring ones. I didn’t do a similar feature in August, but I thought I’d revisit the 170 posts I wrote in August. I hope you were happy with some of the posts and got something out of them. These are some that were my favorites from August. Saving money Always enter car rental confirmation numbers into AutoSlash for free and easy savings. Get instant free status from Avis…
How’s the American Airlines Merger Doing?
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker gave good marks for merger progress so far with plenty of work to do. He cited progress implementing “the world’s largest code-sharing arrangement” between American and US Airways; US Airways joining oneworld and the transatlantic joint venture ith British Airways, Iberia, and Finnair; and re-banking the Miami hub to make for more attractive flight connections. They’ve co-located facilities for the two airlines at 80 airports are “are negotiating for new contracts covering workers from both carriers.” (I’m not sure how it’s an accomplishment already to be negotiating as opposed to, say, ‘have negotiated’). The airlines are profitable, though there are certainly some gaps in the operation like weakness in South America that American has bet heavily on. I’d paint a slightly different picture.
Free $600 Cell Phone Protection and 25,000 Bonus Miles: Today’s News You Need to Know
News and notes from around the interweb: Up to 25,000 bonus Cathay Pacific miles (HT: Frequent Flyer Bonuses) Wells Fargo will insure your phone up to $600 against damage or theft if you pay your monthly bill with one of their credit cards. Austin MegaDO schedule released I once wrote time management tips for part-time bloggers but these simple tips seem indispensable. Citibank launches two new Expedia co-brand cards. Unfortunately Expedia Rewards has become awful. Which is sad, because it didn’t used to be. But with multiple revamps in just its first two years, I don’t have a high level of confidence in the program going forward either. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day)…
Being Bad By Doing Good: How An Airline Can Be TOO On-Time
I’ve heard American Airlines CEO Doug Parker say that the most important thing, and almost the only thing, that matters for an airline is to run a safe on-time operation. US Airways has a tendency to start boarding early, and over the past six weeks or so I’ve noticed that American has started to do the same thing. I’ll show up at the gate 30 minutes out and they will already have started the boarding process. My flight this morning boarded a few minutes early. Boarding was complete more than 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure. And we pushed back early. That’s awesome, right? Not really, at least to me. I want an airline to run on its schedule, to do what it says it is going to do, to be predictable — not to…
Buying Your Airline Tickets Outside the U.S. to Save Money
Reader Andy G. passes along this article that talks about how you can ‘buy airline tickets international’ — getting the best deal on airfare based on the country in which tickets are purchased. I think it overstates the case a bit (“once I was in Bangkok, that same flight that was once $300 would fall to $30 almost inexplicably”), but it’s worth understanding what ‘point of sale’ means for airfare purchases. It’s often cheaper to buy tickets “in-country” in South America and in Asia than it is to buy those same tickets abroad. The same phenomenon is true for buying train tickets in Europe versus online in English.
SPG Pro: Starwood’s New Points and Status Earning for Meetings, Agents, and Company Travel Assistants
I spoke with Chris Holdren and with Krystal Zell from Starwood Preferred Guest yesterday about a new initiative they’re rolling out: SPG Pro. This program continues the high level activity we’ve seen from Starwood over the past two and a half years since they: Introduced a new slate of elite benefits like Suite Night Awards, 24 hour check-in, breakfast, more bonus points, and free internet for Golds — plus lifetime elite status. Joined forces with Delta to offer each others’ elites more points and upgrades Partnered with Caesars in Las Vegas to offer reciprocal points-earning (plus limited elite qualifying night earning) Chris opened by saying he wanted to prove me to I was wrong about a blog post I wrote five weeks ago.
Sarcastic Shocker: US Airways 100% Bonus on Purchased Miles is Back
US Airways is offering a targeted bonus of up to 100% additional miles when you buy miles through Seotember 30. The offer is targeted, then you go to the buy miles page you have to enter your account information to see whether you’re being offered a bonus. (And there may be other, smaller, bonuses targeted to some accounts.) At least I’m suggesting it’s targeted because of the requirement to verify your account information — although it does look like the details of the bonus is itself in the background, which suggests to me that the bonus may not vary although it’s possible some won’t be eligible. If the offer is available to you, buying miles at a 100% bonus means buying them at a cost of 1.88 cents per mile. US Airways is almost always…
The Most Useful Advice from this Blog
Doctor of Credit asked me for my ‘most underrated blog posts’ and I admit I had a hard time figuring out what to share. Does that mean things I think are great but that didn’t get much notice? (That probably means I was wrong about their being especially good…) You can generally find many of my best posts using the left hand sidebar of the side, and also archives of my trip reports — flights, hotels, lounges, food, and activities. Thinking on my favorites, though, I’d suggest my primer on American financial reviews. There’s also the basics of throwaway ticketing, constructing awards with American AAdvantage miles, and making sure you actually have a ticket when you redeem United miles on partners. For best advice there’s probably hang up, call back, how to upgrade, and how…
Booking Star Alliance Awards Using Amex Points And No Fuel Surcharges With Aeroplan
Aeroplan is an American Express transfer partner. Points transfer instantly in my experience over the years. The Aeroplan program is great for booking awards on Star Alliance partners. Nearer Europe is just 45,000 miles each way in business class. But not all partners are created equal when using Aeroplan to book awards — because three years ago they started adding fuel surcharges onto awards booked with some airline partners. Aeroplan does not impose fuel surcharges on all of its airline partners, though.
