As expected in yesterday’s post (where I speculate on the future of Diamond Club), British Airways parent IAG has agreed to acquire bmi. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012. Sadly, I expect my Diamond Club miles become Avios points and some likelihood that I become a British Airways Gold member. Here’s hoping for a Star Alliance-wide status match offering for bmi members. Cranky Flier travels with Allegiant and Spirit and lives to tell the tale. Conde Nast Traveler has redesigned their website, introducing a group blog on their home page called The Daily Traveler. I’m a featured contributor, and a couple of my short pieces are up so far. Look for me to contribute a “Milepoint.com Tip of the Week” there as well. UnRoadWarrior reports that the Amtrak-Continental relationship…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for November 2011.
What Does a Pending Sale of bmi Mean for the Diamond Club frequent flyer program?
I’ve been watching the moves across the pond that Lufthansa has been making with british midland with some interest, bmi has been a money losing operation and Lufthansa wants to unload it. There’s movement along that front, what interests me most is what becomes of the Diamond Club frequent flyer program, all the commentary that I’ve seen to date says something along the lines of “we don’t know and I won’t speculate.” I’ll offer a slightly different formulation: we don’t know, but I will speculate. First came reports that Lufthansa was offloading bmi’s regional operation. My thought at that time would be sell off the pieces, and shut down what remains, transferring bmi’s Diamond Club members into the Miles & More frequent flyer program. There’s good and bad to that outcome, the good is that…
Kingfisher Now Available for American AAdvantage Redemption
I knew that American AAdvantage’s Kingfisher Airlines partnership was coming, and indeed that Kingfisher will be joining oneworld, but somehow I missed that earning and redemption between American and Kingfisher began yesterday. Thanks to reader Dan for the heads up! Coming right on the heels of the addition of Etihad as a frequent flyer partner of American, not to mention the addition of Air Berlin, AAdvantage is really boosting its award travel offerings. Unfortunately, it isn’t a simple matter to search Kingfisher award availability. It used to be shown on Expertflyer, but no longer is. It isn’t available through the KVS Tool either. Here’s one Kingfisher route map, I haven’t paid attention to whether it’s up to date but gives you an idea of where they fly. I’ve generally found their award availability to be…
5000 Free American Express Membership Rewards Points
Last week I outlined an American Express offer of 5000 Membership Rewards points for signing up for their pay over time option. (You don’t actually have to use pay over time, I don’t and I wouldn’t, but adding the feature to your card for free will earn Amex points.) At the time the website seemed not to be working, some folks had success calling up and adding the bonus to their accounts but others were met with frustration. The website, however, now seems to be working.
Don’t Try to Scam AAdvantage Lifetime Elite Status
In the desperate days before American Airlines changes the way they count miles towards lifetime status (no longer counting miles earned from any source beginning December 1), some folks are turning towards sketchy ways of bumping up their lifetime mileage balances. One way, and several folks this past weekend at the Chicago Seminar mentioned this, I’ve known about it for a long time but never felt comfortable doing it myself — the lifetime miles counter increments upward when you earn miles, such as via their shopping portal, but when miles are taken away out of your account after merchandise returns that lifetime miles counter doesn’t drop. You can imagine that there are some folks attempting to exploit this loophole in the AAdvantage IT system. So I thought it important to pass along a warning. JonNYC…
American Airlines 50,000 Mile Credit Card Bonus and $150 Statement Credit
Over the summer I took advantage of the Citibank offers of 75,000 miles for new American Airlines credit cards, though I was a frequent churner of these cards in the past I hadn’t applied for one in about a year and a half and I had no problem getting the bonus. Fortunate for me, it’s put me right on the cusp of 3 million mile status with American, right before American changes the criteria for awarding lifetime status thresholds. I’m already lifetime Platinum (2 million) and the next incremental million only earns me additional confirmed international upgrade instruments. But I’d like to reach that plateau before only flown miles count towards status. As it stands now, I expect to make my 3 million miles lifetime on the Oneworld Mega DO charter. I’ve considered dropping some…
SeatGuru Redesign in the Works?
A reader sends me to this link, which looks like a cosmetic refresh in the works for SeatGuru. Though personally I’ve found several inaccuracies in their seatmaps over time, shared several with the SeatGuru folks, and they haven’t corrected them. I’d rather see the investment go into keeping things accurate and up-to-date rather than cleaning up the interface, but I realize I’m in the minority of a minority of a minority of travelers, and won’t generate enough ad views on the site to justify any sort of investment to meet my needs… Still, there’s no question that SeatGuru (and SeatExpert) represents a really useful tool in the traveler’s bag of tricks in order to stay informed and improve the travel experience.
Hertz Offering Status Matches
Many airlines and hotels have long offered status matches (you’re an elite customer of one travel provider, they’d be happy to have you as their customer and will make the transition easier by giving you comparable status in their program). More recently several programs have moved towards challenges, either expedited ways of earning the status or temporary status while you fly or stay a certain amount to keep that status. Back in August I noted that National Car Rental is running a status match program through January 31. It was the first time I remembered seeing a formal status match offer from a rental car company, in the past when I’ve inquired about those I’ve been told by the major rental companies that they do not have anything of the sort. Now Hertz has a…
Award Wallet Drawing Reminder
This week I’m giving away Award Wallet OneCards. Just go to the official entry thread and leave a comment telling me how you track your miles, and I’ll draw winners after noon Eastern on Friday. I’ve purchased my OneCard, a single card listing frequent flyer numbers and phone numbers and with a magnetic stripe to use at airport checkin kiosks. But you might gets yours for free 🙂
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