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!

Do Now (if you haven’t already)

• Free-quent Flyer Book reminds us of the latest Hilton promo.

On Blog Content, Copycats, and Credit Cards

• Loyalty Lobby puts in a lot of time writing his posts, putting things like IHG PointsBreaks posts together. Apparently some leverage his work without giving credit.
• MilesAbound weighs in on TravelBloggerBuzz’s new credit card links. Scroll down a bit on this TBB post and you can see his response.

Nonsequitars

• This borders on last week vs. this week, but paying it forward is something I always like to highlight. Wandering Aramean did just that on Halloween in Air World.
• American Express opened their latest Centurion lounge at SFO (I think they’re up to 4), Travelskills offers a review. While I’m not a huge wine fan (I whine enough on Sundays, right?), the wine wall looks pretty cool. In other news, I’ll be visiting their lounge at DFW a couple times in the next few days.
• Airlines tend to distinguish in the types of wines they offer in First and Business Class. Not surprisingly, first class passengers are looking for validation, but apparently “the trolley [in business class] is usually empty by the end of the flight.” I’ll test that one this weekend.
• It looks like Wandering Aramean made it on Etihad Residences before One Mile at a Time did.

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!

Do Now (if you haven’t already)

Canadian Kilometers highlights a glitch on Aeroplan’s website where awards price at the first segment (rather than the entire trip). I’m not an Aeroplan guy, nor do I have sufficient miles in my AMEX Membership Rewards account to transfer them over at the moment (I know, tisk, tisk), but, if you do, its worth taking a look.

For Manufactured Spenders

• Doctor of Credit posts on what credit cards are churnable.  For that matter, he’s also celebrating his one year anniversary.
• Marathon Man on the other hand is not happy. I can’t say I blame him, a lot of MS deals have died over the past few months, but the die hards will undoubtedly persevere, hopefully it takes more time for the big timers to parse it into bite sized pieces.

Nonsequitars

• Hack My Trip became Travel Codex
• Will Run for Miles is learning a very important lesson, one I think everyone with the miles and hobbies should read.
• I posted on a different type of Mileage Running earlier in the week. If you’re looking for a resource to help fuel that approach, check out FlyerTalk. Hint – if you do it today, you can find 2 day turns and see some Pyramids and some awesome rooftop bars, or visit hotels like this.
• Kenny of Miles4More highlights how a positioning flight can either be, or make a great deal (e.g. if you can find award availability from an airport not your own). This has worked for me most notably b/w DC and New York.
• American Airlines (and US Airways) announced the 2015 AAdvantage program. I don’t see this as a major change for American Flyers, Carolina Travel Girl thinks this is a big change for US Airways elites. I think this is an interesting experiment, because its just about the opposite of what happened with the United-Continental Merger, and as a 1k member of United (the larger of the two), I lost out so much that I defected to American (where I’ve been happy). Only time will tell.

For AvGeeks

• Last weekend was the last commercial flight of the MD-11 (flown by KLM). WanderingAramean was on it and shares his experience.

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!

Great Flights (some left, some not, and they do exist)

• This was a fantastic week of flight deals. For example, there was $400-700 from Washington DC and others to Europe; and New York and others to India from $200.
• Oh, and if you are curious where most of the flight deals come from, here’s an interview with The Flight Deal team.

Nonsequitars

• For Southwest Airline fans – a major provision of the Wright Amendment has passed, as Seth of Wandering Aramean provides some of the story, but, fair warning, it is a bittersweet story. I’ll give you the brief bit – Love Field is still limited to 20 gates, so in effect, this effect makes Southwest a powerhouse there with 16 of those gates. As Seth posted last month, there is no Love for Delta, or is there?
• BigHabitat poses the question – is earning 7,500 AAdvantage miles worth the time it takes to test drive a Cadillac? I think so (but, hey, I also wouldn’t mind test driving a Caddy for kicks).

Manufacturing Spend

• Maximizing Money alerts us to a limited duration promotion where AMEX Blue Cash cardholders can get an extra 2% at Whole Foods. I’ve never been in a Whole Foods before, but I see myself visiting there a whole lot now.

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!

On Blog Content

• Saverocity Welcomes Dia, The Deal Mommy! I’ve had the chance to meet Dia in person, and while I’m more apt to vendoming, I do enjoy her writing. In fact, my wife and I are very much looking forward to attending FT4RL2 in Charlotte.
• Wandering Aramean shares the Big Business of Credit Card Marketing. Just when I thought I grasped how big affiliate link revenue is, I’m blown away again.

Miles and Points Programs and Portals

• This week was like the tail of two cities, there were positives of the week, such as a continuation of shopping portal news. Frequent Miler reports that AMEX Giftcards return, and he also launched Frequent Miler’s Portal Alerts.
• Of course the week also saw a couple of changes to American Express Membership Rewards and the Premier Rewards Gold Card, courtesy of Travel Summary.
• Oh and there’s a 70,000 Ultimate Rewards sign-up bonus for the Chase Ink Plus. As an added bonus, current cardholders can provide referrals for the 70k UR bonus. Aptly, there is a conga-line on the Saverocity Forums.

Award Redemptions

• You’ve probably seen the great trip report about flying Singapore Suites (I originally got this link from my Brother but its every it seems). Mighty Travels wrote an interesting post on why customers who make redemptions are better customers. Perhaps even more interesting, was a report he linked to.
• Pf Digest adds that one third of loyalty earnings go unused. I think a little piece of me died inside.

Reselling

• Dia, The Deal Mommy reports that Kohl’s Yes2You Rewards program is now nationwide. This is a great way to get another 5% on Kohls, especially if you add that to Kohl’s other stackable offers.
• In case you missed it, I shared the math that makes Kohls work, and some great tools for reselling.

#Avgeek

• This was a big week for Airbus. They had the first A380 flights for Qantas Sydney to Dallas-Fort Worth, Emirates Dubai to Dallas-Fort Worth, and British Airways to Washington-Dulles.
• Airbus also received their type certification for the A350-XWB and decided to do some photo shoots (courtesy of Airlinereporter)