Bank of America has a new bigger bonus for the Asiana American Express card. Here are the details of the bonus, for someone who won’t buy an Asiana ticket it’s 25,000 miles after $2500 spend within 90 days. Get up to 38,000 Bonus Miles after qualifying purchases! 10,000 miles after first purchase + 15,000 miles after $2,500 in purchases in the first 90 days + 13,000 miles after purchasing a qualifying round-trip Asiana airline ticket with your new card by December 31, 2014. I first became really interested in the Asiana program five years ago. See The Hidden Value of the Asiana Award Chart and Asiana American Express. The card at the time offered 2 miles per dollar on all spending, and a distance-based award chart. So spend $35,000 on the card for a roundtrip…
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Avoid Getting Taken! Plus What’s Killing Prepaid Financial Products?
News and notes from around the interweb: A good overview of Southeast Asia scams you’ll likely run into as a tourist. A good companion to my Common Tourist Scams and How to Avoid Them The taxi industry outspends Uber and Lyft on lobbying 3500:1 Hipster scarf saves an American tourist’s life in Germany The New York Times on how money laundering and fraud are causing the screws to tighten on prepaid financial products. Uber launching business accounts and partnering with travel and expense company Concur. The article notes that Uber’s cut of each fare is 20%. (HT: S.) 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) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can…
Thai Taste Really Tastes Great!
I had dinner last night at Thai Taste by Kob in Wheaton, Maryland with Tyler Cowen, MarginalRevolution.com commenter teatotaler, and “econ prodigy” Nathaniel Bechhofer. The restaurant opened earlier this year, about six months ago. They have a large menu. Tyler offered that I play dictator and order for the group, or at least make an initial proposal. But not knowing what they’re especially good at we decided to challenge the restaurant to simply bring us their best.
Maui Eats: Notable Meals from My Visit to Wailea
During my recent stay in Maui, where I discovered that I really much enjoy staying at the Andaz in Wailea, I had three dinners interesting in their own right. I thought I’d share them here, in case they help folks deciding to eat – or not eat – at one of these places, since Maui is such a frequent tourist destination. Scott at Hack My Trip says the Andaz Maui is “one of the few hotels where I felt I could stay there all week and never leave the property.” I could stay on property, to be sure, but I prefer leaving the property when on Maui – there are close and far off foods, lots of variety (though not all of it good) and certainly at a lower price point. Only one of the…
HOLY SMOKES That New Turkish Flight Is Giving Away Business Class Award Space
Last night I wrote that business class award space on the new Turkish San Francisco flight was wide open. And even so, at the time I wrote the post I didn’t even realize just how wide open it was. I showed that there were at least 4 business class seats available on every flight that Turkish would run on the route in April. They’ll begin San Francisco – Istanbul service April 13, 2015 — initially 5 days weekly. Here’s what availability looks like on those flights for seven business class seats: In other words, every single flight they’ve loaded has at least 7 business class seats available during that first month in which they’re operating. Remember, this is a business class cabin aboard the Boeing 777-300ER that only has 28 business class seats. This will…
Outstanding Award Availability for New Turkish San Francisco Flight
Chris McGinnis writes that Turkish Airlines is launching San Francisco – Istanbul service on April 13, 2015. Flights will initially be 5 times weekly, and then going daily May 11th. The Turkish 777-300ER has just 28 business class seats, so you’d expect business class awards to be difficult to get. Although right now — and this cannot last — business class award space is wide open.
Wide Open Award Availability: Japan Airlines First Class
Via Lucky, Japan Airlines is swapping out a Boeing 787 (angled business class, no first class) for a Boeing 777-300ER on their San Francisco – Tokyo Haneda route effective December 1. The Boeing 777-300ER has first class suites and true flat business class on this aircraft. And first class award availability is wide open from the time they make this switch through the end of the schedule.
American AAdvantage Revises Its Award Routing Rules with New Exceptions
Last month I wrote the Ultimate Guide to Constructing an International Award Ticket Using American AAdvantage Miles. It already needs to be revised!
Award Seats to Australia May Dry Up Afterall As the Best Option Ends a Route
Historically Virgin Australia has had amazing business class award availability to Australia. That’s been probably the best overall use of Delta Skymiles — searchable online, and without fuel surcharges — since Australia awards and especially during high season are one of the holy grails of mileage redemption. Space has been cyclical — 4 seats every day, then nothing, then wide open again. But will the space come back? Virgin Australia is cancelling their Los Angeles – Melbourne flight effective right as United starts up theirs. The North America – Australia and New Zealand route is served without a stopover in Tahiti or Fiji and without transiting Asia by: United Qantas Delta Virgin Australia Air Canada Air New Zealand New Zealand awards are harder than Australia awards. Air New Zealand used to open up business class…
New Points Earning Options for Booking Hotels
PointsHound now lets you choose to earn points or rebates for the hotel bookings you make for yourself or others in 18 different currencies. You can do bitcoin if you wish, basically just earning in a foreign currency. Or you can earn miles with a bunch of different programs. The newest options are Cathay Pacific’s AsiaMiles and JetBlue’s TrueBlue. I find the best rates of return to be Alaska miles and American miles (I generally choose to accrue with Alaska). You can sign up without a bonus, or the standard offer for being referred by an existing PointsHound user is 250 points each with your first booking. My referral link, though, ups that bonus to 1000 miles. My favorite things about PointsHound have been: That you earn miles when booking for someone else That they…
