Tag Archives for american express.
I was in the Phiadelphia airport’s Centurion lounge this past week. I hadn’t been since the lounge’s pre-opening event in October. It was packed.
They’re popular with travelers because they’re better than the lounges that were already in the airport before American Express opened them. However with high demand comes real wear and tear on the spaces.
When a loyalty program becomes less rewarding, it moves the needle with consumers less. That’s a fairly basic proposition.
It’s not any different than the idea that if you raise prices consumers buy less of your product. There are exceptions of course, where some goods become more desirable because they’re expensive, but those are real outliers. This works fairly consistently and reliably.
Delta saver business class awards between US and Europe are supposed to cost 70,000 miles each way unless you’re using SkyMiles to fly on a Delta airlines partner in which case they charge extra miles. At least that’s the theory.
Delta charges what Delta wants to charge sometimes. But you can do something about it when you book.
American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 25% bonus on transfers to Air France KLM Flying Blue through June 15. It may be targeted because it only shows up for me when I log into my account.
Here’s how to play it.
Singapore Airlines offers very good award availability to its own members, but not very good availability to partners. I’ve written about excellent first class award space Los Angeles – Tokyo and great business class space Houston – Manchester.
If you want to fly long haul premium cabin awards with Singapore, you need to use Singapore’s own miles. Chase, American Express, and Citi points all transfer to Singapore Airlines Krisflyer.
That’s literally a 114% increase for business class and 167% increase for first class.
Search Air China award space on the United, Aeroplan, or LifeMiles sites and then ring up Virgin to book. Have them set up the award over the phone and then transfer points online while you wait with the agent to issue tickets. I’ve only ever booked roundtrip but reportedly one ways are now possible.
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.
As a short hand expectation many people figured that would mean that applications for the Starwood Amex product – the one I’ve had for 17 years – would cease August 1. American Express, though, says “the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Consumer card will continue to welcome new Card Members now through August 2018, and beyond.”
Many people believe that means the card will continue to be offered indefinitely. I’m quite certain this is not the case.
Marriott did a deal with both Chase and American Express for credit cards. Chase gets the bulk of the personal business, but American Express gets to issue a premium personal card. American Express gets the small business cards. And cardmembers keep their legacy products.
Both banks are issuing new products, and making changes to existing card products too. So in addition to speaking with Marriott about the changes I reached out to Chase and American Express as well to learn more and they were both forthcoming.
Way back in November 2015 I suggested that an American Express Centurion lounge would be coming to LAX. All signs were it was about to happen. And then just a few days later the airport told employees in their newsletter that a Centurion Lounge was coming “to the south side terminals (between terminals 6 & 7).”
Two and a half years later the airport is finally ready to move forward — with space no one else wanted in the Tom Bradley terminal.
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 »
