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Qatar Business Fare, Possible Increased Delta AMEX Bonus

August 1, 2017 By Trevor Leave a Comment





It was a pretty hectic weekend and start to the week, so here’s a few highlights:

  • There was a pretty phenomenal Qatar Airways Business Class sale from Vietnam a couple nights ago. Could it have been a mistake? Could it have been a expertly crafted and targeted great deal? 
  • Treating people with kindness is always important, but this flight attendant went above and beyond the call of duty.
  • God Save The Points writer Gilbert Ott has an amazing marketing push going on at the moment, and he’s even gotten British Airways to play ball with him, giving away free upgrades. Miles from Blighty happened to see him. 
  • Malaysia is looking to put lay flats on their 737s.
  • There might also be a better sign-up bonus for a Delta American Express card coming – so if you’ve been holding off, it may be a good time to monitor.

Filed Under: Weekly News Roundup Tagged With: Delta, Malaysia, Qatar

Earn 8,000 bonus miles from Airline Shopping Portals!

July 26, 2017 By Trevor Leave a Comment

It is back to school season, and so it is yet another opportunity to earn extra miles through airline shopping portals! I’ve written a bunch about the power of shopping portals, and how you can increase your miles and points balances through shopping portals. This is a great opportunity to do just that, thanks to American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines.

Delta SkyMiles Shopping 

Delta is unfortunately the least rewarding, requiring up to $350 spend to earn 1,000 miles, that’s only slightly more than 2x.

airline shopping portals

 

AAdvantage eShopping 

American Airlines is offering up to 2,000 bonus miles for shopping now through 18 August. Total spend is only $500, so you’re essentially getting an extra 4x miles if you get to that level.

airline shopping portals

 

Rapid Rewards Mall

Southwest is only slightly less rewarding, offering 2,000 after $550 spend, which is slightly less than 4x.

airline shopping portals

MileagePlus Shopping

United is the most rewarding offering 3,000 miles after $600 spend, or  5x.

airline shopping portals

Final Thoughts – Earn 8,000 bonus miles from Airline Shopping Portals

While 8,000 bonus miles is not a ton, every little bit helps toward accruing enough miles to redeem for awards. More importantly, shopping portals are in general a great way to keep miles balances active too, and with these bonuses, you get a little extra bang for your buck. 

Filed Under: Cashback Portals Tagged With: AAdvantage, Delta, Shopping Portals, Southwest, United

Travel Hacking, JAL 787, Hyatt Credit Card Devaluation, Cashback Monitor

June 23, 2017 By Trevor Leave a Comment

The Weekly Travel News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

  • Dia shares what can be considered an under appreciated travel hacking tool.
  • Japan Airlines released their 787-9 and it actually looks like a #PaxEx improvement!
  • Visa Signature Card holders get a third night free at Waldorf Astoria, Conrad and Curio hotels for weekend visits. We’ve seen the fourth night free on the Prestige card, so this is a pretty cool opportunity if you ask me.

Miles and Points:

  • Virgin Atlantic has devalued their Delta partnership effective September 1. 
  • The Hyatt Visa Signup bonus will change drastically June 29th. Right now it gives you 2 free nights at any Hyatt Hotel in the world. I used my 2 nights for the Park Hyatt Sydney. Soon it will be a whopping 40,000 Hyatt points, which wouldn’t be sufficient for two nights at the Park Hyatt Sydney. Consider your travel schedule, this may be one to jump on (on the other hand, it might not be).
  • Double dip rewards are always the best. Link your credit card on the Drop App to earn rebates. If you choose to sign up, definitely consider using Chuck’s referral code (author of the link), or consider using mine: xff78. Either way, both you and whoever’s referral code you use will earn 1,000 points, worth $1 in a variety of gift cards.
  • Did you know that Cashback Monitor only updates their portals once per day? Neither did I.

Cashback Monitor

Tagging Miles:

  • Silver Car being bought by Audi.
  • June 18 Southwest turned a year older.
  • Thank you for three great years.
  • Alaska Miles for 2 cents per point
  • Hosted Media Previews
  • 10 percent cash back on Walmart.com

 

Filed Under: Weekly News Roundup Tagged With: Cashback Monitor, Delta, JAL, Japan airlines, Travel Hacking

FT4RL Recap, Meet-ups, AMEX Platinum, Noise Cancelling Headphones

May 14, 2017 By Trevor Leave a Comment

The Weekly Travel News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

  • A recap of FT4RL 6 — I cannot highlight enough, the importance of networking, you may not realize it, but it will completely change how you travel!
  • GeekyPizza5! Join Us For The Next DC Frequent Traveler/Travel Meet-Up On May 30th. You know what I think of meet-ups!
  • A post from The Gate that I had in my queue to read for quite some time – How to be happy. I find Richard Branson to be very insightful normally, so this was a worthwhile read.
  • Delta and Aeromexico have inked a joint cooperation agreement; the value for consumers is dubious though.
  • Do you use noise cancelling headphones? Do you notice any discomfort? 
  • A huge warning. Cancel, don’t change fully refundable itineraries with Southwest. Historically, Southwest has been very customer friendly with their policies, but moving to Amadeus, apparently has been a net loss for the customer.

Industry:

  • Jeff Zidell is leaving Hyatt! He has been the face of World of Hyatt, Gold Passport, and has really been about as great a face of a loyalty program as you can get. I think he even came up with the “But I’m a Diamond” video.
  • Unaccompanied Flyer, who sounds awfully like a college student, had the chance to interview Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines. I’m pretty impressed with American being cool enough to accept such a student and writer in. The first segment is cool.
  • Interesting news in in loyalty programs. Air Canada, which had spun off Aeroplan, will be dumping the idea in 2020.

Miles, Points, Reselling:

  • Frequent Miler reports that CVS has stopped selling paypal cash cards. This was an important tool for many manufactured spenders, although, to be honest, I never really utilized them.
  • Another perspective on the American Express Business Platinum card and whether it’s a keeper. Especially meaningful considering American Express killed the 50% pay with points rebate.

Tagging Miles Posts of the Week:

  • Southwest Rapid Rewards Program
  • 3 times when it makes sense to buy miles
  • Ebates Birthday Week – 15% cashback at tons of stores including Staples!
  • Southwest’s Reservation System Upgrade
 

Filed Under: Weekly News Roundup Tagged With: Aermexico, AMEX Plat, Delta, FT4RL, Meetups

Is Elite Status Becoming Unobtainium for the Frequent Leisure Traveler?

October 27, 2016 By Trevor 6 Comments

I’ve held top tier elite status in hotels and airlines for the better part of the last decade. While I started out earning status mostly from business travel (aka Other People’s Money), I came to appreciate the top tier status at Marriott, then Hyatt, and United, then American. As I came to appreciate that status, I was more willing to spend a little extra to get that extra elite qualifying night or stay, and even have done a crazy mileage run or two.

Changing Tides – Airline Elite Status

The trend started in 2013, when Delta introduced their Medallion Qualifying Dollars requirement. United quickly followed suit, with their Premier Qualifying Dollar requirement. Both have programs tweaked their spend requirements over the years, but they remain largely intact. Starting in 2017, American will have an Elite Qualifying Dollar requirement. It has long been clear that airlines prefer passenger’s money over their loyalty. Gary Leff has often stated: “I am not my fare” yet the airlines clearly don’t care how many of us say it. They’re more thinking:

Airlines and Hotel programs say "Show me the Money" for Elite Status

Thus my point – Airlines are essentially telling us, that unless you are wealthy enough to spend significantly, or have access to Other People’s Money (OPM), you aren’t valuable to them. How much do they want you to spend? $12,000 or more. Wow.

Changing Tides – Hotel Elite Status

In 2012, Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) introduced a bunch of new benefits, many geared toward members that qualified via Nights rather than Stays. They didn’t take anything away, necessarily from those Platinum members who qualified via 25 stays, but they certainly added benefits for members who stayed 50 or 75 nights. A year or two later, they introduced a 100 night level, where you get Starwood Ambassador status, including access to a single point of contact with SPG for all of your needs. This was and continues to be a positive.

Well, today we learn of rumors of Hyatt changes that I think people with OPM will like, however, for leisure travelers–and even folks who travel a bunch but are hamstrung by Hyatt’s smaller footprint–are sure to be disappointed. This new program, World of Hyatt is reported to have four membership tiers. For the top tier, what once required 50 nights or 25 stays to qualify for, will no require 60 nights or 100,000 base points. How do you earn base points? Well, you get 5 for every dollar spent. So, you can get World of Hyatt’s Top Tier Globalist status for either 60 nights (figure $6-10k if you vary it up), or $20k spend at Hyatt.

I think on the surface, this is a big indication that earning status through stays is likely going away as soon as the Marriott-SPG merger figures out things.

What does this mean going forward?

These developments hurt the frequent leisure traveler the most. For those that don’t have a business travel budget, and are not independently wealthy, the idea of having and maintaining status becomes significantly more unobtainium. To simply maintain airline status and Hyatt status, one would be looking at $20,000 in travel spend per year, and that doesn’t even include the time commitment that is also required — e.g. 100,000 equivalent miles flown, and 60 nights in a Hyatt.

The fact is, the economy is doing well–for the time being–and loyalty programs see that this is the time where they can make changes, and identify and best reward their absolute highest spenders. From a business standpoint, that’s great. My concern though, is that all of these negative changes will no doubt turn off loyal customers, who go out of their way to fly the airline that they’ve been loyal to for so many years, or who consider a destination based on the hotel chain they have loyalty to.

Loyalty may not be dead for the frequent leisure traveler, but, it is not for lack of trying.

What do you think? Do you still stay loyal to an airline or hotel?

 

Filed Under: Airline Programs Tagged With: Airline Elite Status, American, Delta, Elite Status, Hotel Elite Status, Hyatt, Loyalty, spg, United

Necker Island, Delta’s Transcon Strategy, Oddest Emotional Support Animal

October 21, 2016 By Trevor Leave a Comment

The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

  • I’m sure many have seen emotional support dogs on planes, or read about them in the news or on twitter. But have you ever seen an emotional support duck?
  • Don’t try taking your Samsung Note 7 on a plane, it’s banned by DOT now, and well, you put every single other person on the aircraft at risk by bringing it.
  • Cranky Flier weighs in on Delta’s transcon strategy, and why its unlikely we’ll see American upgrade their DCA-LAX flights.
  • Frequent Miler is enjoying the week of his life with Richard Branson – check out all the videos and posts from the week!

Miles and Points:

  • Will the Amex Platinum 5x work for Mileage Plus X apps? And if so, for how long?

Credit Cards:

  • Doctor of Credit confirms that Chase will launch an inferior Ink Business Preferred.

Tagging Miles:

  • Is it time to get more strategic about credit card applications?
  • Westin Playa Conchal, Costa Rica:
    • Resort Amenities
    • Arrival Experience and Room
  • And if you missed it last week – The Plastic Merchant

 

Filed Under: Weekly News Roundup Tagged With: Chase, Delta, Emotional Support, Weekly Roundup

More Amazon Seller news, 5 Years of Frequent Miler, Farmer’s Almanac for Airline Winter Planning

September 9, 2016 By Trevor Leave a Comment

Things are a bit light this week, because we’ve been anxiously preparing for ResellingDO this Sunday!

Travel:

  • Cracky Flier reports that Delta and Gogo are reporting pockets of turbulence. It’s great to see technology being used to increase safety and efficiency. I just hope to see this expand beyond just Delta.
  • United’s CEO referenced the Farmer’s Almanac for United winter planning. It was a joke, but, it was one of the top trending stories earlier this week.
  • A very important reminder, don’t move your seat if you think your phone may have been lost in it. Nearly any smartphone in service now a days has a battery that if punctured, could cause a fire. Needless to say, fires at 35,000 feet are very dangerous.

Miles and Points:

  • Frequent Miler looks back at his 5 years of blogging.
  • Milenerd got an offer to sellout, and he’s not taking it!

Tagging Miles:

  • Positive news for long-term Amazon Sellers, less positive for newer sellers
  • Hyatt Zilara Cancun, Mexico:
    • Arrival Experience and Room
    • Hotel Amenities

Filed Under: Weekly News Roundup Tagged With: Delta, Gogo, smartphones in flight

Breakup at 40k Feet, Target Cartwheel App, Delta SunTrust Debit, Taxes, MS, & Reselling, and #Avgeeks celebrate KE’s first 747-8i

August 28, 2015 By Trevor 2 Comments

 The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know!

Travel

  • Warning this one starts a video (sorry!), and only loosely falls under travel, but over the past weekend, a trio of Americans traveling via train from Amsterdam to Paris, subdued a gunman who stepped into their train carriage.I do not believe the word “Hero” for these three gentlemen is an overstatement.
  • What do you get when you combine a mid-air break-up with inflight wi-fi and social media? A live-tweet of an awkward mid-air breakup.
  • Pizza in Motion reviews the new Hyatt Regency Tyson’s Corner, VA. It’s coming up Diamonds (pun intended).
  • Dia shares an easy way to find a company’s foreign website, which can generally be very good to use for some purchases. I’ve spoken about that here and here.

Miles and Points

  • BigHabitat offers a Target Cartwheel App Primer. I’ll just say this: Even if you aren’t reselling, the Cartwheel App makes sense, now, if you are doing reselling, it makes even more sense.
  • Dr. Evil…. I mean, PF Digest shares a how to guide for United, the only thing he left out, are the circles and arrows.
  • From Gary Leff, the Delta SunTrust Debit card is back! But, it’s approaching useless, as its limited to 48,000 miles per year at best.
  • From Pizza in Motion – Korean Air Skypass transfer from Ultimate Rewards is unavailable. This happened last year too, and hopefully we’ll see them return. Update: Via Gary Leff in the comments, Korean Air Skypass transfers are back.

Reselling

  • Points for Later has a post on Taxes and Reselling, I dare say it may have perhaps even partially spurred by mine. I think it’s pretty clear though that for the most part, cashback just decreases your cost of goods sold. Now, Manufactured Spending is a different story, and I just have a hard time agreeing with Noah of Money Metagame. But I also don’t yearn for an IRS ruling on MS, because that would just be bad all around.

#AvGeek

  • Via Airways News, Korean Airlines took delivery of their first 747-8i. I don’t know about anyone else, but I love the fact that at least some airlines are still somewhat committed to the Queen of the Skies.

Tagging Miles Posts of the Week

  • A few weeks ago, my wife and I had the chance to visit and review the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake.
  • How hotels communicate hotel etiquette, is it their responsibility even?
  • Are Miles, Points, and Cashback taxable by the IRS?
  • To finish off the week, I have posted the first in a new series: The Intermediate Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon: Dealing with Returns.

Filed Under: Weekly News Roundup Tagged With: Cartwheel, Delta, Hyatt Regency, Korean Airlines

So, a group of bloggers take on an @Delta 757…..

May 3, 2015 By Trevor 5 Comments

and everybody won! Ok… maybe not, but, there’s more to the story.

A couple of weeks ago, Ed at Pizza in Motion put together a team of crack bloggers, literally, titans of BoardingArea, augmented by a few other titans in the miles and points world and media. We had the one, the only, Tommy777, who most may know for taking the ice bucket challenge in the tub of a the Park Hyatt Vendome, Mr. Delta himself, Rene of Delta Points, Matthew Klint, of Live and Lets Fly, Michael W Travels, Marshall Jackson (although, I’m sure he was probably thinking of the high seas), Frequent Miler Puller who was already trying to calculate the fair trading value of the SkyPesos we’d earn from the 10 or so foot pull, Angelina Aucello, who is not Just Another Points Traveler, she pulled a plane after all, Seth Miller the Wandering Aramean, who, oddly enough, knew what time zone he was in, despite some crazy travel this month, and, because this sentence is almost as long as the rope we were pulling, I’ll keep going: Melinda Danielsen, who writes Magic of Miles, and in general, we think keeps Tommy out of trouble, Stefan Krasowski, Mr. Rapid Travel Chai (and we were really relying on the rapid part!),  Jamie Larounis, who was probably wishing he was in the Forward Cabin after the pull, Brian Cohen of The Gate, Jeanne Hoffman, the most Chic Geek of the team, Kathy Kass, who will not only run for miles, but will pull for a plane for charity! And our Anchor? I don’t know, to be honest, I was up front, but if I were to guess, I would think it was probably Ben Schlappig, who, was probably more focused on one foot at a time in this particular instance, as opposed to his normal One Mile at a Time, but it might’ve been our fearless leader, Ed “the Hashtag” (see photo below) Pizzarello, who was definitely in motion. We were further augmented by such heavyweights as Scott Mayerowitz and a couple others that, I’m sorry to say, I didn’t get the chance to chat with.

Now that I’ve set the stage with the titan team, let me set the other side of the stage, our adversary. A Delta Boeing 757. Fearless when looking down upon this crack team of word wranglers.

20150501_090835

The other competition, of course, was rather concerning as well. We had heard of Samoans from Salt Lake City, and Ed had run into a pretty beefy team from Seattle. We saw some pretty dedicated teams.

There were also some Angry Birds.

20150501_091314

At one point, a few of us conceded, could we even move this Delta 757, which we were hoping was closer to 127,520 pounds (its empty weight), rather than its 255,000 max take-off weight.

We watched a couple more teams pull the plane, in times ranging from just over 9 seconds, to as much as 16 seconds.

And then it was our turn. We were able to move that bird, and it only took 12.100 seconds!

Team #GlobalHashtags, courtesy of Delta

Team #GlobalHashtags, courtesy of Delta

According to Ed, we didn’t actually win anything in the plane pulling competition, but, if you ask me, we’re all winners, because we actually got the plane to move. Even more fortunate, the team was able to raise over $5,000 for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. Now that is a win.

Filed Under: #Avgeek Tagged With: Charity, Delta, Delta Jet Drag, Plane Pull

Delta’s most recent move

February 6, 2015 By Trevor 4 Comments

 

Let me be clear from the onset: I am not a Delta guy. In fact, I’ve flown like 5 Delta segments in my life, 4 of the 5 were on awards.

To recap what others, like One Mile at a Time have written about: Delta has pulled their award charts. The general sentiment is that Delta will price awards as the computer prices them and that is that.

I have two opinions on this. First, its customer unfriendly, second, I’m not sure how much I agree with it, because they still have an award calculator (a la British Airways).

Delta Award Calculator

Further, you can even get the award costs:

Delta Screen Shot

So, yeah, I’m not sure how much I agree with the concerns here.

But then I got into what may become an infamous twitter argument with @Milestomemories – discussing whether Delta’s changes may warrant government intervention. My opinion is simple: We–travel hackers–treat airline miles as “currency.” Banks pay money for these miles. In fact somewhere (which I haven’t been able to find in a quick search), View from the Wing has highlighted Chase paying, I *think* millions of dollars for United miles, when United made its way out of bankruptcy. The fact of the matter is though, that frequent flier miles are not true currency. There are few regulations, airlines can change the terms any time they want, and frequent flier miles are not regulated by any government body.

You know what? I’m comfortable with that. In fact, I would prefer not having government involvement in frequent flier miles. But my concern with folks that are highlighting it, is that someone will take notice. I would propose to you, that if politicians take notice, and there is government intervention, we all lose.

So, next time you see a devaluation, consider how much you publicize it. Have United’s or Delta’s devaluation hurt? Yes. Have they materially hurt you? I question that. I’ve paid 2x for a United award already, but I don’t feel like that experience warrants pushing it to government intervention.

What do you think? Will government intervention kill loyalty programs, or do you feel it is the answer?

Filed Under: Airline Programs, Awards Tagged With: award chart, Delta

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