In part two of the CNN Business Traveller “Mileage Millionaires” segment for January, I do feature somewhat prominently. Frequent commenter on this blog, Gene, makes an appearance talking about the recent US Airways 250% holiday shopping promotion.
I found interesting that at 4:25, Richard Quest does the elite status card throwdown. Assuming he was using his own cards for this, he’s got:
Hilton Hhonors Silver
Starwood Platinum
United 1K
Hyatt Diamond
Hertz Five Star
Intercontinental Ambassador
He opened by tossing out a Citibank American Airlines credit card. C’mon Richard, that had better not be your primary mileage accumulating credit card.
He also tossed out a card he identified as Platinum, it was blue in color and I couldn’t make out the program, it was right after Hyatt Diamond, before Hertz Five Star. Anyone catch what that was?
There were also two cards, identified as “Basic” and “Privilege” that weren’t shown on screen so I can only speculate.
He’s a United 1K. I respect that. His choice of hotels is clearly Starwood and Hyatt, again good choices. Hilton deserves to be only Silver. I guess I’m a little bit surprised that he’s only an Ambassador and not Royal Ambassador with Intercontinental. Perhaps he earned that through a promotion, or was a Royal Ambassador and received it free when he was downgraded…?
Well, following his tweets, he flew Thomson on a charter holiday to Luxor this week. Eugh and eugh!
I can assure you status makes no difference whatsoever on Thomson!!
Ha – I was waiting for this post.
Speaking of mileage accumulating cards, one of your celebrity fans, Tyler Cowen, is using a Visa. I reviewed your CC rundown, and didn’t see a worthy Visa candidate for day-to-day use.
@Erich, believe me, I have tried to get Tyler to optimize his accumulation and use of miles, to no avail…
Gary, nice teaser with you at the end of part 1, and great coverage in part 2. How long did it take to interview and film you?
I enjoyed the segment, nice work. For anybody looking, Lucky has the links to all three segments here
@Carol, they were in my office for a bit over an hour and interviewed me for over 45 minutes. They said something about using the clips for 2 different segments but I don’t really know about that.
The blue card looks like a Priority Club Plat.
But he also has an Intercontinental Ambassador card. The card seems to have quite a lot of yellow on it. I would think it’s a platinum for one of the other airline alliances.
He says “Platinum Elite” when he puts down the Starwood Platinum, then does some quick reordering and says “Platinum” when he puts down the unidentified card even though it says “PLATINUM ELITE” across the top. I guess consecutive Platinum-esque cards wouldn’t have sounded as good.
The unidentified card bears an image of a blue sky with fluffy clouds above a sandy island in a lighter blue sea. I’m pretty sure it’s Marriott Rewards Platinum. Evidence: his name is just visible under what looks like MAR … and there’s a logo that could well be the swishy E found at http://www.marriott.com/rewards/member-benefits/platinum.mi