Tag Archives for devaluation.
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.
British Airways has raised the price of American Airlines and Alaska Airlines award travel up to 3,000 miles. Redemptions now cost as much as 11,000 points more each way – and that comes after a price increase that was put into effect just seven months ago.
Yesterday a Delta business class award from the U.S. to Europe would have cost 50,000 points and $5.60. Now there are $1,000 surcharges and prices up to 77,500 for non-stop flights. Los Angeles – New York – London can cost 127,500 points.
Virgin Atlantic has raised the price of ANA awards again. Last March they raised the price of ANA first class awards without notice by as much as 42%. This change focuses primarily on business class.
It began last week watching the prices for Lufthansa and ANA first class awards skyrocket but apparently United wasn’t done devaluing its MileagePlus miles.
Days ago business class intra-Europe over 800 miles was 27,500 miles. Now it’s 45,000 to 49,500. Short-haul business class is now 33,000 miles. The devaluation stretches to intra-Asia redemptions as well.
Lufthansa first class appears to have gone from 121,000 to 154,000 miles each way per person – meaning that a saver award now costs 308,000 miles roundtrip. That’s a 27% increase. And these are tough awards to book, because Lufthansa only makes them available to United’s program members within a few days of departure.
Meanwhile ANA first class from the Midwest and East Coast appears to have jumped to an eye-popping 242,000 miles – an instantaneous doubling in price.
JetBlue is looking for revenue anywhere it can find it. Not only are they struggling, and their business plan scuttled by back-to-back anti-trust rulings, but corporate raider Carl Icahn is breathing down their neck. He’s taken a 10% stake in the carrier, whose stock has cratered, and he controls two board seats. He could acquire more of the company.
That has had some readers worried about their miles.
Eleven years ago Delta Air Lines prepared to move to a revenue-based frequent flyer program and other airlines took notice.
American Airlines executives used to say that Delta management was who they admired most. The truth is that this was true across the industry. Everyone just assumed Delta was smarter than they were. If Delta did it, it must be the right thing to do. A decade later consultants are still selling it to… everyone.
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 »
