If you’re not already using Air France and KLM’s Flying Blue rewards program, you should start thinking about getting familiar with it. Flying Blue is a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points and Starwood Preferred Guest points and offers some incredible sweet spots. Let’s take a look at some of Flying Blue’s best sweet spots.
Citi recently implemented a massive wave of changes to its flagship Prestige card. Most of these were announced last year year but did not become effective until this week. Just ahead of the July 23rd implementation, Citi announced some meager positive changes to put a positive spin on things. While most of these recent developments are barely worth mentioning, there is one legitimate bit of good news: the sign-up bonus on the Citi Prestige card has gone up to 75k points.
There is no such thing as a perfect airline frequent flyer program, which is why rewards programs like Starwood Preferred Guest are so great. They allow you to transfer points to the airline of your choice when the need arises and when an award ticket you’re looking for costs less with one airline program than another. Here are a few examples of some goal-oriented transfers that can save you a great deal of miles.
American may not have been on the cusp of the inflight dining scene, but with its merger with US Airways, many changes were made for the better. American, unlike US Airways, operates both a business and first class cabin.
A lot happened in the world of frequent flyer programs this year. Not surprisingly, award chart devaluations were the norm, particularly for premium cabins. The news wasn’t all bad, though. Some redemptions actually dropped in price, and airlines and credit card issuers introduced new partnerships, giving members more redemption and transfer options.
Hawaiian Airlines’ reward program doesn’t get as much attention as some of the larger airlines, but it has some unique features that make it useful for many travelers, especially those planning a trip to Hawaii or between various Hawaiian Islands. Let’s take a look at Hawaiian’s award chart, award booking process and ways to rack up Hawaiian miles yo help you get familiar with the Hawaiian carrier.
When United recently overhauled its award ticket rules this past summer many saw it as a massive devaluation. United had relatively friendly award routing rules that allowed one stopover and two open jaws on roundtrip award tickets.Those rules are gone now though and have been replaced by the “Excursionist Perk,” which is essentially a free segment on an international itinerary. It comes with new rules. We bring you workarounds. Read on.
Earlier this year American Airlines made the latest copycat move in the world of frequent flyer program devaluations when they announced the addition of an Elite Qualifying Dollar (EQD) requirement beginning in 2017. EDQ requirements mean that you must spend a certain amount of money with the airline in addition to flying a certain number of miles or segments to qualify for elite status.
Allegiant Air’s reward program, myAllegiant, is a bit unusual. You can’t earn points by flying and the airline doesn’t offer elite status. In fact, the carrier’s gone out of its way to say that its program is for “infrequent flyers.”
Allegiant Air is a Las Vegas-based carrier that primarily focuses on holiday travel and smaller regional airports. With its current fleet of 81 aircraft, the airline serves 117 destinations with both scheduled and charter flights. Tickets are typically cheap, making the carrier a good budget option if you happen to live in an area it serves.
The dust has settled from United Airlines’ new award booking rules which went into effect on October 6. While the news was worse than originally thought, there are some tricks that allow for creative award routings. In United’s zeal to create a mechanical computer-dependent system, it seems they did not program in enough rules to prevent travelers from hopping around the globe with complex itineraries that provide tons of value for MileagePlus members.
Anytime an airline announces changes to their award program, the changes are usually worse than the airline tries to make them sound. In August, United announced major changes to award booking rules as well as to their online booking engine. These changes became effective last week on October 6 and now that we have had some time to test out the new booking engine, we can confirm the devaluation is worse than expected and that United’s original announcement was a bit deceptive.
Chase Ultimate Rewards is a great program with many fans. Just like the American Express Membership Rewards and Citi ThankYou programs, Ultimate Rewards offer multiple ways to redeem points. It is the only program that allows easy cash redemption at 100:1, but it mostly shines on travel redemptions.
If you like to travel, you might want to avoid some common mistakes in order to stretch your dollars. These mistakes are easy to make because the Ultimate Rewards earning structure is a bit complicated.
Have your hopes for a dream vacation ever been ruined by a lack of airline award availability? Do you have miles in a bunch of different programs but not enough in any particular one to book an award? Do you find yourself confused by complicated airline award charts and routing rules? There is a great way to add simplicity and flexibility to your travel rewards portfolio: fixed value points.
American Express is one of the most restrictive card issuers in terms of application rules. Not only does Amex limit how many cards you can have and how often you can apply, but it also has restrictions on who qualifies for sign-up bonuses. Let’s take a closer look at these rules and see if you’ll get a bonus with your next card.
In a previous post we discussed Chase’s recent expansion of the 5/24 rule to all of its cards.
American Airlines recently announced more changes to the way flyers will earn miles and elite status, and it’s getting more complicated than ever to figure out what a trip will yield when it comes to mileage rewards.
Delta SkyMiles members have been jerked around a lot over the past few years. Delta was the first of the major airlines to go revenue-based creating a domino effect with other airlines and limiting the mileage-earning potential of frequent flyers.
El Al is the flag carrier of Israel. It flies to Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Matmid, El Al’s loyalty program, has two award redemption charts. One is for the those who live in Israel and have the airline’s co-branded credit card, as well as Executive Circle elite status holders living outside of Israel. The other chart is for everyone else.
Middle East Airlines, or MEA, is the flag carrier of Lebanon. It flies to 39 destinations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa out of Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport. MEA does not fly to the United States.
Thai Airways, the flag carrier of Thailand, is based at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. The airline flies to 78 destinations in 35 countries. In the United States, it only flies to Los Angeles, but that route will be eliminated in October 2015.
