February 15, 2015

Point & Center: Book AA Off Peak Awards with US Airways Flights, Two New Hyatt Diamond Benefits & a Southwest Devaluation

It was an exciting week in the points and mile world, highlighted by the craziness of the United first class mistake fare and then the announcement United will not honor those fares. Here is a quick look at what else I missed last week that you should know about:

1) American Airlines Off-Peak Awards Now Include US Airways – I saw this post last night, which now shows that American Airlines off-peak awards, which are a fantastic value, can now include flights on US Airways metal instead of just American Airlines. As a reminder, here is the list of off-peak award destinations and dates:

The best values to me are the Europe off peak awards since the off peak period is 7 months or over half the year, including early spring which is a great time to visit Europe. By including US Airways flights now, this opens up a lot of options to Europe from either Philadelphia or Charlotte. I also like the two month window for the Caribbean/Mexico in early fall and Hawaii isn’t bad as well though from the east coast. If you live on the west coast, Avios are a better and cheaper option.

2) Hyatt Adds Two Benefits for Diamond Members – In a time when you see programs devaluing, it is nice to see a positive announcement from Hyatt that Diamond members will get two new benefits starting March 1st. The first benefit is called “Guest of Honor” which allows Diamond members to book award stays for others and the guests actually staying will have Diamond status for the duration of their stay. Hyatt is basically encouraging Diamond members to treat non-Diamond members to award stays and will give non-Diamond members “a taste of the good stuff” which includes breakfast, chances at upgrades and a check-in amenity among other benefits. Hopefully you have some friends who are Diamond :).

The other benefit for Diamond members is 2 United Club one day passes annually. Certainly not a huge benefit but its nice to see Hyatt get involved with other partners in the travel space to offer a non-traditional benefit that could benefit some flyers.

3) Potential Southwest Devaluation – It’s never a good sign when an airline announces changes to its frequent flyer program, especially if the changes mentioned are little too vague and don’t give much insight to the actual changes. Southwest announced the following last week:

“Beginning April 17, 2015, the number of Rapid Rewards Points needed to redeem for certain flights will vary based on destination, time, day of travel, demand, fare class, and other factors. However, there are still many flights which will stay at the current redemption rate. And don’t forget that when fares go on sale, so do the points needed for redeeming for a reward flight on those fares”

To me (and other bloggers seem to be in agreement), this news isn’t good news for the value of Southwest points. Southwest points have a fixed value of about 1.4 cents per point when used towards “Wanna Get Away Fares” but this announcement indicates there will no longer be any standard value for points. Southwest will now have the ability to increase the points required for a flight based on “other factors” so my guess is flights to popular destinations (i.e. international destinations) will now cost more and offer a poorer value on a per point basis.

4) Daily Getaways Return Early This Year – The Daily Getaways program, which is a program initiated by the US Travel Association to get more people to travel by offering discounted rates on hotels, car rentals, amusement park tickets and even the opportunity to buy point at a discounted rates, is returning this year on March 23rd. In the past, the Daily Getaways have been offered later in the spring into summer and American Express is usually listed as a sponsor which would entitle American Express cardholders 10% off on any purchase. This year the sales are moved up to the end of March and it appears you can longer save 10% by using an American Express card. The deals and packages should be unveiled by March 16th and I will cover any solid offerings on the blog.

Enjoy the rest of this long weekend!

February 10, 2015

Good Deal Alert: Take $100-$200 off Most Hotels on Expedia with No Minimum Amount!

Update: Dead! As I mentioned, when a deal like this sounds too good to be true, it will get pulled way earlier than the stated end date. Congrats to those who took advantage!

Expedia is running a promotion in which you can instantly save $100-$200 on most hotels with NO minimum dollar amount for the hotel. However you do have to stay at least 3-5 nights at the hotel for the discount code to be applied. That means if you were able to find a cheap hotel (say $100/night), on a 3 night stay, it is like buying two nights and getting one free! This will also work best for hotels in SE Asia, Las Vegas and other parts of the world where hotels are generally cheap to begin with. You must book by March 15th and travel must be by August 31st but I sincerely doubt this code will last that long!

Here are the offers with coupon code:

Save $100 on any stay of 3+ nights using coupon code: DISCVR105

Save $150 on any stay of 4+ nights using coupon code: DISCVR151

Save $200 on any stay of 5+ nights using coupon code: DISCVR201

One Example for a Cheap Vegas Hotel

The great thing about this promotion is most hotel chains are included (except Accor hotels) which is generally not the case with these type of promotions. As a reminder, you won’t earn hotel points and may not have elite benefits recognized if you book a chain hotel this way but the savings should outweigh the hotel points earned, especially if you are an infrequent traveler or not chasing elite status.

Here are the full terms and conditions.

(HT to BRG)

January 31, 2015

Quick Deal: Free Shutterfly Hard Cover 8×8 Photo Book & 250 JetBlue TrueBlue Points

If you are a member of JetBlue’s frequent flyer program, you may have gotten an email from JetBlue offering you a free 8×8 hard cover photo book, 50 free prints and 250 JetBlue TrueBlue points for signup for Shutterfly and purchasing the “free” photo book. You must signup via the link below by February 1st and this is for new Shutterfly accounts only (hint: use a different email address if you already have an account).

Offer Landing Page

Here is a direct link to the offer.

The “free” photobook will cost actually cost you $7.99 in shipping fees but considering the normal price of a Shutterfly 8×8 hard cover photo book at $29.99 (currently on sale for $22.49) this is actually quite a good deal. The 250 JetBlue points are icing on the cake to me but not worth doing solely for the points. This could be a nice way to print out some memories from your travels and earn some extra points on top of it.

January 20, 2015

Point & Center: $400 Flights to Italy, American Express Transfer Bonus to Virgin America, Last Call for Hyatt Reservations & More!

Sorry for the lack of post the past few days – I was down in Aruba for the long weekend and my schedule didn’t allow me to post any of the news going on from the past week or so. Here is quick roundup of some of the more notable news and developments that I missed.

1. 35% American Express Transfer Bonus to Virgin America – American Express is offering a 35% transfer bonus for all transfers of American Express Membership Rewards points to Virgin America. The normal transfer ratio is 2 Membership Rewards points to 1 Virgin America Elevate point (2:1) so with this promotion, it becomes 2:1.35. Virgin America points are worth ~2.2 cents each since that is the approximate rate they can be redeemed for travel on Virgin America. As in most cases when there is a transfer bonus (with perhaps the exception of the current 40% British Airways transfer bonus), I would not make any speculative transfers unless you needed to top off your account for an award you about to book. In general, I don’t recommend taking advantage of this offer for most people.

2. ~$400 flights New York to Milan on Emirates & United – Emirates is running a promotion in which you can snag a non-stop flight from JFK to Milan for only ~$400 a person roundtrip. United quickly matched the fare for Newark to Milan though availability seems to be more limited than Emirates. The catch for this promotion is this is valid for only groups of exactly of 2 people (Emirates) or 2+ people (United). A single traveler will price out at ~$660. You can travel from February to May though you will need to search to see what dates are eligible for the $400 fares. Here is more information from The Flight Deal.

3. No Foreign Transaction Fees on Barclays US Airways MasterCard – I recently received an email from Barclays informing me that they will no longer charge a foreign transaction fee on purchases made outside of the United States. Previously they would charge 3% for this but in what I’m guessing is an attempt to lure more customers to acquire the US Airways MasterCard before they are unable to offer it anymore, they have removed this fee completely. I’m glad to see another credit card offer no foreign transaction fee but there are much better cards to use for foreign purchases already so this announcement doesn’t make a big difference to me.

4. Last Call for Hyatt Reservations for Affected Hotels Before Award Category Changes on 1/22 – I posted last month a list of some of the key hotels that are changing categories (Park Hyatt Maldives, Andaz Amsterdam, Park Hyatt Seoul, Baha Mar and more) in the Hyatt Gold Passport Program as a result of Hyatt’s annual evaluation of category levels. The change in award category will occur on 1/22 so if you are targeting a reservation at one of the affected hotels, I recommend booking them now even if you don’t exactly have firm dates. There is no cost to cancel award bookings (as long as you do it before the hotel’s cancellation deadline) and generally, Hyatt has allowed you to change dates to a reservation made before the category change without charging you the increased amount of points (though this is a YMMV situation). Basically, I see no downside to making a speculative reservation now to save points.

Here is the complete list of affected hotels.

January 8, 2015

Point & Center: 100 Free American AAdvantage Miles, Only 26,250 Miles Roundtrip for a Award Flight to Europe and More!

Welcome to the first Point & Center feature of 2015. Let’s get to it with some real quick updates of what’s going on in the points/miles world.

1) 100 Free American AAdvantage Miles for Joining PointsHound – PointsHound, which is a site that offer miles or points for booking hotel rooms through them, is offering new users 100 Free AA miles simply for signing up – no purchase required. You will also get an additional 2,000 miles if you actually reserve a hotel room by March 31st. I definitely recommend signing up to get the free 100 AA miles but if you do book a hotel room through them, remember you will most likely not earn stay credit with the hotel program nor have your elite benefits recoginzed. I mainly use PointsHound if I have a non-chain hotel stay. (H/T View from the Wing)

2) How to Fly to Europe for 26,250 Virgin Atlantic Miles Roundtrip…with a catch – Virgin Atlantic is having an award sale that is discounting the amount of miles needed for an award flight by 25% for ALL destinations. If you orginate on the East Coast of the United States, that means a roundtrip award is only 26,250 miles but with one major issue – fuel surcharges of $500 per person. The other approach is to use this for a one way TO London where the cost would be 13,125 miles + $134 in fuel surcharges (its more expensive departing FROM London). You must book your tickets by January 22nd and this is valid for economy only. This is similar to their award sale last year that I wrote about here.

Cost of Discounted Awards

3) Starwood Best Rate Guarantee Improves – Starwood has one of the easiest Best Rate Guarantees as you don’t need even need a current reservation to make a best rate claim to get a cheaper rate at Starwood branded hotels. Starwood recently announced an enhancement to their best rate guarantee by now offering customers 20% off the lower rate if it is found outside the Starwood reservations channels (website, mobile app & phone reservations). The old discount used to be 10% off. You also still have the option to select 2,000 Starpoints instead of the 20% discount.

4) A Pretty Awesome Club Carlson Promotion – Club Carlson is enticing its members to stay at Club Carlson hotels (Radisson, Radisson Blu, Country Inn & Park Plaza) in Q1 2015 by offering 15,000 points after staying 2 nights or 30,000 points after staying 3+ nights for stays from January 12 to March 29. This promotion called “Extend Your Stay, Earn 30K” is by far the best promotion of Q1 across all major hotel chains. Additionally, some Club Carlson members were sent an email offering them an extra 10,000 points on top of the bonuses if they registered by January 12th. Here is the link to register.

5) Starwood Q1 Promotion – Starwood has also announced their Q1 promotion which is open for registration as well called the SPG Double Play Promotion. You can earn double points on stays of 2+ nights and 1,000 point bonus after every 5 nights. The 5 nights do not have to be consecutive to earn the 1,000 point bonus. Compared to the Club Carlson offer, this pales in comparison but is still worth registering for.

As always, I recommend registering now even if you don’t think you’ll have an applicable stay in the period because if the need for a stay unexpectedly arises, chances are you won’t remember to register for these promotions (this applies to the Club Carlson offer above as well).

6) Start Linking Your American & US Airways Frequent Flyer Accounts – The next step in the merger of American and US Airways is to combine the frequent flyer accounts of both program so members will have just one resulting frequent flyer program (which will be your American AAdvantage account and you will keep your existing AA number). However, before they can completely merge the frequent flyer accounts, American is asking members to link their AA account to their US Airways account.

Per One Mile a Time, American announced the following:

“The time has come – beginning tonight, members with accounts in both programs will be able to match their accounts on aa.com and usairways.com (full sites only; not on the mobile sites or the app). Members will automatically be presented with the option to match their accounts on either site when they log-in or by selecting the Match My Account link in the My Account section. Once a customer has successfully matched their account, they will see a success message online, receive an email and will see a success message in the My Account section on both sites. Matching accounts is simply a way to self-identify, so the process to merge the accounts in second quarter of 2015 is easier on the business.”

Hopefully this is a sign that members will soon be able to transfer miles back and forth between programs but this has not been announced yet. Here is to hoping its sooner rather than later!

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