Tag Archives for devaluation.
Basic economy fares and changes to the validity of flight credits may be terrible for Southwest Rapid Rewards redemptions, on top of the reduction in points-earning and changes to how award tickets are priced.
Points currently have a fixed value, more or less, getting you the same amount of value towards any ticket you redeem them for. That is changing.
British Airways just treated its high-flyers like a bunch of proper numpties, saying, ‘bugger off, muppets.’ Lufthansa said hold my (German) beer, declaring: ‘Hau ab, ihr Trottel!’
While Marriott eliminated its award charts, that doesn’t mean the Bonvoy program can’t give members advance notice that they’ll be making major changes to the points price of a free night at its hotels, or at least communicate with members at all about their decision to gut the value of points. Yet they chose not to respect their members this way. That leaves us to analyze the data ourselves.
Marriott no longer publishes award charts or tells members when they alter their pricing models. They just increase the cost of award nights at their hotels whenever they choose, with no notice. This appears to be one of those times.
As I wrote that I suspected, there was not, actually, a devaluation of partner awards by Air France KLM Flying Blue.
Something strange is going on with Air France KLM Flying Blue partner award pricing
Hilton Honors quietly raised free award night redemption prices on the last Friday before the holidays. Since they stopped publishing award charts, they did not tell anyone that they did this, but your Honors points are now worth less than they were on Thursday.
Virgin Atlantic is making major changes to their frequent flyer program in one month but they refuse to give us the details of those changes.
Qatar Airways has had great award pricing for short-distance travel on American Airlines and Alaska Airlines. What’s more, their points are easy to come by. Unfortunately, Qatar has devalued these redemptions without notice.
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 »
