March 1, 2015

Point & Center: Marriott Stinks, US Airways 50% Bonus, American Express Premier Rewards Gold Improved & Lots More

There was a TON going on last week in the points & miles but yours truly was dealing with audit deadlines and other work requirements so posts were on the light side last week. With most of that now past me, here is a quick roundup of the big items from last week.

1) Marriott Devalues Twice In One Week – I admit “devalues” might be too harsh a word here but that gives you a sense of what I think about Marriott and their loyalty program. This week they announced their annual hotel category changes that affects over 36% of their hotels with many more hotels increasing a category level (27%) than decreasing a category (only 9%). Of course, they didn’t give us a nice way to sort or look through all the changes – you need to look on this page and search for the hotel you are interested in. You have until March 18th to book awards before the devaluation occurs. This also effects the annual free night from the Marriott Rewards credit card as that can only be booked for a level 1-4 category hotel and you now have less options as more hotels shift out of a level 4 category. I very much prefer the annual free nights from the IHG or Hyatt credit cards.

On top of that, they also announced they will begin enforcing their point expiration policy which is that points will expire after two years on inactivity. That’s really not a big deal except they specifically prohibit transfers from external parties such as Chase Ultimate Rewards as a form of qualifying activity to extend the life of the points. Yes, there are still plenty of other ways to extend the life of points but transferring points from flexible rewards currencies to either airlines or hotels is such an easy & quick way to extend the life of points in most cases. The only Marriott points I have are from the Ritz Carlton 140k credit card offer (yes I used my Marriott # and the points were deposited into my Marriott account, not a Ritz Carlton account) so I once I burn these points, along with my wife’s 140k points, on an air and hotel package, I am officially done with Marriott in any capacity.

2) American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card Improved – Last year, American Express eliminated the extra 15,000 point bonus for spending $30,000 or more on the Premier Rewards Gold card in a year but now they have made some improvements designed to make this card more competitive. Each year, cardholders will be entitled to a $100 airline credit that works in the same way the $200 airline credit works on the Platinum card. Additionally, you will now earn 2x points at US restaurants and there are no longer any foreign transaction fees on the card. The downside to these changes? The annual fee is increasing from $175 to $195, though effectively it is $95 if you use the airline credit correctly each year. This card is now more designed to compete with the Chase Sapphire Preferred though I still don’t think this card is a keeper after year one.

Side note: If you decided to apply for this card, you might be able to get a 50,000 bonus by clicking through CardMatch or trying this link (https://www304.americanexpress.com/credit-card/premier-rewards-gold/25330) in an incognito browser. DO NOT signup for this card with a 25,000 point bonus despite the claims from other bloggers calling the 25k offer a “no brainer”.

Don’t Do It!

Here are some items you should know about:

3) 50% Bonus on Spending on US Airways MasterCard – If you have the US Airways credit card (and you should by now since there is maybe a month or so left to get it before it is gone for good), you can earn a 50% bonus on all spending until you’ve hit an extra 10,000 miles. Miles4More has the details but this card is coming out of the safe for a while for me so I can earn 1.5 future AA miles per dollar. This offer is available to all US Airways cardholders so if you don’t see it when you log in to your account online, call or message Barclays to get the offer.

4) Starwood Category Changes – Just like Marriott, Starwood also announced their annual hotel category changes but thankfully they are much more reasonable in scope. About 22% of their hotels are changing categories but there are actually more hotels decreasing a category than increasing, which is a great for SPG members. You can check out the full list here but I find these changes reasonable compared to Marriott’s changes.

5) SPG & Uber Partner Up – More Starwood news includes a new partnership with Uber in which you can earn Starpoints on every Uber ride (in addition to the points you already receive from your credit card on Uber). The one downside – you do not earn any Starpoints until you’ve had at least one stay with Starwood in the calendar year. After that, you earn 1 SPG point per dollar on Uber with additional points for elite members if they use Uber while staying at an SPG hotel. You need to first link your SPG and Uber accounts here before you can earn additional Starpoints on Uber.

6) IHG PointsBreak – Several times a year, IHG announces their PointsBreak hotels in which you can book hotels for only 5,000 points per night. While that is obviously a great value, I’m never excited by this promotion as the hotels are just really random and almost never in places I have an interest in going to. I’m sorry but places like Candlewood Suites Huntsville – Research Park don’t excite me. However, if you do find yourself in these random areas, then do book these awards.

7) Hilton HHonors Double Points or Miles Promotion – Pretty straightforward promotion from Hilton to earn either double Hilton HHonors points or double miles on Hilton stays from now until May 31, 2015. You can register here and I highly recommend choosing double Hilton HHonors points for the stay. As usual with Hilton, there are a ton of non-participating properties, including one I have a planned stay at in the next two months. That said, still register as you never know when you might actually stay in an eligible Hilton Hotel.

8) Save $25 on Virgin America Flights – Virgin America is now the first airline to accept Visa Checkout for payment and as an incentive to get customers to try it out, you can save $25 on your next Virgin America flight. You must book by July 31st to take advantage of this offer.

That’s it, enjoy your Sunday!

February 12, 2015

10 Free Gogo Passes for American Express Business Platinum Cardholders Now Available

Last year, American Express announced a new benefit for American Express Business Platinum Cardholders of inflight internet via Gogo and you can now signup to get your free internet passes! Cardholders are entitled to 10 free passes annually which are deposited into your Gogo account for future use. Here is the link to signup for the 10 free passes.

I just got my Business Platinum only a few months ago with a 100k offer described here so I tried to signup for my passes last night to see how smooth the process was (I should also mention that certain corporate American Express cardholders get this benefit as well). It took me all of one minute to enter my card information, log into to my existing Gogo account (or create a new one for new Gogo members) and then see the 10 free internet passes now stored in my account for the next time I want to use Gogo internet on a plane. The passes expire December 31, 2015 which makes sense since this is an annual benefit and I should get 10 new passes for 2016.

Success!

They all expire 12/31/15

Just remember that Gogo is only on certain airlines including Air Canada, Alaska, American, Delta, United, US Airways & Virgin America (along with a few others). This is a great new perk for travelers (especially bloggers who want to stay connected) and I was impressed on how easy it was to signup and obtain my passes. Kudos to Gogo and American Express for that!

(HT: Doctor of Credit)

February 9, 2015

Point & Center: Free Alitalia Miles, Free Etihad Miles, 25% Bonus on Redemptions for Airbnb Gift Cards and More!

In case you missed it, the big news last week was the removal of the Delta SkyMiles award chart. I wrote my angry rant about that on Friday, which I recommend reading but for this post, let’s cover what else went on last week.

1) Free Miles from Alitalia & Etihad – I love free miles, especially when there is little to no work involved. The first offer is from Alitalia for 4,000 miles for joining their frequent flyer program. The link to do so is here.

The second offer is from Etihad which requires just a bit more work. You will receive 1,000 Etihad miles for signing up for their frequent flyer program as well but you need to have some sort of qualifying activity to activate those miles. The easiest way to do this is to do a hotel review on HolidayCheck which should only take a few minutes. You will receive 150 miles per hotel review and that activity will trigger the 1,000 welcome bonus on your Etihad account, so you will end up with a total of 1,150 miles. (HT to Euflyer)

2) 25% Bonus on Redemptions for Airbnb Gift Cards – American Express is currently offering a 25% bonus for redeeming American Express Membership Rewards points for Airbnb Gift Cards. I wrote about this new redemption option from American Express when it became available and suggested it wasn’t a great use of Membership Rewards points since it valued them at only a penny per point. The normal redemptions amounts were 10,000 points for a $100 gift card and 25,000 points for a $250 gift card.

With this sale, you will still use the same amount of Membership Rewards points as before but earn a 25% bonus on the gift card amount, so now the gift cards are worth $125 or $313. This offers a 1.25 cents per point in redemption which is obviously better but still not my preferred way of utilizing Membership Rewards points. I generally prefer to transfer points to airlines or hotels where I will get more value out of my points.

That advice also holds true for the 25% Discount on Membership Rewards Redemptions for Hyatt Gift Cards.

3) American Express Transfer Bonus to AeroMexico – I admit I know next to nothing about the AeroMexico frequent flyer program, Club Premier, but American Express is offering a 20% transfer bonus to AeroMexico which is good until March 6th. Instead of the normal transfer ratio of 1:1, the transfer ratio is now 1:1.2.

I won’t be making a transfer during this bonus period but if you are considering it, Travel Summary has a great writeup on the AeroMexico program. There are some hidden gems such as 67,000 miles roundtrip for a business class ticket to Europe.

4) Amex Business Gold Changes Effective Now – Late last year, I wrote about how the earning structure of the American Express Business Rewards Gold was changing for the better in which you could select the category that earns 3x bonus points. Well, American Express has rolled out this change and cardholders are now eligible to make their selection for the 3x category.

The following categories are eligible to be chosen for 3x points and the ones not chosen will earn 2x points.

Advertising in Select Media
Gas Stations
Airfare (when purchased directly from the airline)
Shipping
Hardware, Software and Cloud Computing purchases from select vendors

I’m not a current cardholder of the Business Rewards Gold but if I were, I’d probably choose gas stations since I don’t spend much money in the other categories.

February 8, 2015

25% Discount on American Express Membership Rewards Redemptions for Hyatt Gift Cards

While I am not someone who redeems my points for gift cards, American Express is having a sale on Hyatt gift cards by offering a 25% discount on Membership Rewards redemptions for Hyatt gift cards. This sale is offered through March 31st and since these are gift cards (not gift checks), they can only be redeemed at Hyatt properties in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.

Normally, you can redeem Membership Rewards points for Hyatt gift cards at the following rates, which is a redemption rate of ~.83 cents a point – not a good redemption at all.

$50 Hyatt Gift Card – 6,000 points
$100 Hyatt Gift Card – 12,000 points
$250 Hyatt Gift Card – 30,000 points
$500 Hyatt Gift Card – 60,000 points

And with this sale, the amount of Membership Rewards points needed drop to the following, offering a slightly better redemption value of ~1.1 cents per point.

$50 Hyatt Gift Card – 4,500 points
$100 Hyatt Gift Card – 9,000 points
$250 Hyatt Gift Card – 22,500 points
$500 Hyatt Gift Card – 45,000 points

I’ll be the first person to tell you that you should generally never redeem points for gift cards as transferring points to various airlines or hotel programs offer much more value. However, I know some people whose goal is simply to redeem points at a better than a penny per point and this offer qualifies on that basis. I’m not personally redeeming my points this way and don’t recommend it for many people. That said, I could see a scenario where someone is flush with Amex points and doesn’t have or exhausted all their Chase Ultimate Rewards points and wants to save some money on their upcoming Hyatt stay.

January 31, 2015

Today is the Last Day for the 40% American Express Bonus Transfer to British Airways

A quick reminder that TODAY is the last day you can transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to British Airways and receive a 40% bonus on the transfer. As I mentioned when I first posted about this promotion, this is historically one of the highest transfer bonuses in recent memory so I am personally taking advantage of it. One new element to consider before you make the transfer is the recent British Airways Avios Devaluation which was announced this week but doesn’t take effect until April 28th.

Last call for 40% Transfer Bonus

There have been many opinions and thoughts on the devaluation (there is a good summary of the various opinions here by Miles to Memories) that range from bloggers calling this awful and suggesting to not transfer Amex points over to British Airways while others called this a “good thing”. Here are my real quick thoughts on the devaluation:

The majority of the “sweet spot” rewards stayed intact. You can still fly short non-stop flights for 4,500 to 12,500 Avios in economy one way. This is unchanged and this is how the majority of people from the US redeem Avios for flights on American or US Airways.
If you want to fly business or first class, the amount of Avios has gone up if the flight is over 2,000 miles. This is the only bad news to me but it is really not that big of a deal. For example, JFK-LAX in business class now will cost 37,5000 Avios instead of 25,000 Avios. The simple solution is to book with American Airline miles at 25,000 AA miles instead of 37,5000 Avios. Done. The same goes for JFK-Vancouver on Cathay Pacific which is the only award I’ve ever booked with Avios that would now increase.
A lot of bloggers are crying about losing Boston to Dublin on Aer Lingus for 25,000 Avios one way in business class which will now cost 37,500 Avios. My thoughts? Unless you live in Boston, why do you care? You’d still have to pay or use extra miles to get to Boston and frankly unless you have a need to continuously go to Ireland, how many times would you have taken advantage of that flight at 25,000 Avios each way?
Some of the devaluation has to deal with earning less miles when you fly paid tickets with British Airways. Since I don’t pay for any British Airways ticket, this has no impact to me.
There is now peak vs off peak pricing. All partner awards default as peak and as mentioned, the economy rates didn’t go up. The peak/off peak only matters if you fly on British Airways metal and I won’t due to their crazy fuel surcharges.
Lastly, the changes don’t take affect until April 28th, so plenty of time to book trips under the old award chart if you would be affected by the changes.

New British Airways Award Chart

In short, these changes to the British Airways program will not change my focus on how I redeem Avios. I use them for short haul flights on American/US Airways to domestic destinations, Canada or the Caribbean. For example, NY to Antigua (or most of the Caribbean) will still be 20,000 Avios roundtrip. It is still 9,000 Avios roundtrip to Canada or other spots within 650 mile radius of JFK/LGA. All of these prices are still less than what other programs charge so I’m actually thankful British Airways didn’t mess with these award redemptions.

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