Most of the time what I write on a given day is really just ‘whatever pops into my head’ although sometimes the very best pieces are those prompted by reader questions.
You’re always welcome to email me of course, but what I’d love is for you to share what’s on your mind here in the comments.
- What would you love to understand better? What do you want to know?
- What do you think I could do a better job of covering for you?
- What would you like to see me write about?
- What’s on your mind?
I won’t promise up front to cover everything, though I’ll read and ponder everything that’s written here in the comments. It may take me awhile to work through it as well, goodness knows there are things I’m behind on.
But I’d love to hear from you!
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Gary – thought of another one. How about a primer on Diner’s Club? I know the program has fallen out of favor somewhat, but I know of folks sitting on a couple hundred thousand points, and they have transfer partners such as Alaska, BA, and others. What I don’t know is how long it takes for the points to transfer, and if there are any outsized benefits (e.g. like SPG’s 5k bonus for 20k transferred).
Due to all the recent hotel loyalty devaluations, I would like to see a post comparing hotel programs. From the credit cards offered for each of them, which one is better for international vs. domestic only travel, best perks, most flexibility, etc.
1. Route suggestions for each alliance, esp to Asia. I’m used to use AA to fly CX from JFK-HKG. I would like to see other options / suggestions.
2. Summary of stopover / open jaw / 1-way awards for each alliance. I’m still learning, and found that I have to read a lot of threads to truly understand. I understand it’s very complex, but a simple chart can help me / newbies to start.
3. Best use for Chase UR points.
Thanks.
I would love to see more info on lounges – your blog has occasional reviews of specific lounges, but I am sure many of your readers have lots of lounge access through Priority Pass select, Lounge Club, and United Club one time passes due to the benefits of some of the better credit cards. Maybe a lot of the basic US lounges are similar in their weak benefits and maybe the first class lounges that these cards do not provide access are probably all pretty good, but… there is tremendous variation between lounges that memberships like Priority Pass Select get you into. The Hub lounge in Seoul had a great buffet available for free all day. Yet I am sitting in the Tokyo Narita airport now and the 2 lounges I have been two are both pretty useless. It would be so helpful if there was a site full of reviews of lounges or that just objectively stated things like whether there is hot food available or if the internet is really bad. Maybe you can put the challenge out to one of your readers to set up some sort of database that we can all contribute to, if it does not yet exist. I have not been able to find much of anything online about most lounges.
I also would love an up-to-date review of the rules (practices, actually, since they differ sometimes) of the various cards for churning opportunities. Thanks.
Would it be possible for you to give your best shot at explaining why airlines and hotels do not award points for no-shows? The customer has paid for the product so I wonder what rationale the airline/hotel uses for not awarding the points/miles. Thanks
Would you provide an analysis of the value of having elite status in one member of an alliance when using another member? For instance, you’ve noted that Aegean Airlines provides the easiest Star Alliance gold status. How much is that value when flying United? For instance, I already can visit the United Club and get a checked bag free. The same idea if USAirways joins Oneworld – how would buying up to Chairmen’s Preferred benefit someone who flies American Airlines and Cathay Pacific?
I would like to learn about some of the “sweet spots” in the award redemption world. For example, you can book a business class seat to Europe through Korean for only 80,000 miles (vs say 100,000 on DL). Could you do a comprehensive look at those spots in each alliance?
I’m 50 years old and quite my job a little over a year ago to travel the world indefinitely. With my travel I have plenty of time, but of course I have to watch my money and I travel a lot slower than most of your readers (deeper instead of wider)
What could be really helpful to me and others like me is every now and then doing a round up of the cheapest ways and point sweet spots to connect the major travel zones. For people like me, if we want to go to (for example) Argentina, we’re happy to fly into Lima if there is a $192 ticket from the USA and then gradually make our way out to Buenos Aires over land, enjoying seeing lots of other cities, towns and sites on the way over the course of weeks or even months.
So if there were a round up every now and then of “best current way point and pricewise to connect to Europe, South America, Africa, various Asian zones etc.” that would be very helpful for getting us in the general area we want to explore.
Update and expansion of your advice on using the Vanilla/Bluebird combination would be greatly helpful. I’ve found a source of some “Vanilla Prepaid Cards” (unfortunately not an office supply store where I can get Ink bonus miles) The cards are $4.95 each, limit $500 per card.
1. Are these the reloadable cards you’ve referenced, or are those different?
2. How do you reload them? When you do, do you pay a fee? If I get 1.25 miles/$ on my credit card, do you think that’s a good deal?
3. Your 8/10/13 post on Bluebird answers fully how to transfer dollars from Vanilla to BB. How do I transfer $ from BB to my bank account in order to pay the credit card bill? Or can I pay the credit card bill successfully directly from BB?
Hi Gary,
Could you comment a bit on best frequent flyer programs for people based in Asia?
I’m currently based in Beijing so I am with Air China (this is based more of inertion rather than on any logical decision); I normally fly about 100-150K miles per year. My flight patterns are similar to most other Asia-based expats – quite a few inter-Asia flights, 4-6 flights to US, and a couple of flights to Europe per year.
I have been considering to switching to ANA for a while already (since I like its service much more than Air China’s, and I don’t mind stopping by in Tokyo and grabbing some real sushi on my international flights), but what really pushed my timetable forward was domestic SHA->PEK flight on 777, where I was seated in business class seat although I had first class ticket. This seems to have been 777 configured for international flights (3 cabin classes) and from what I saw only airline employees hitching a ride were in first class. I generally only expect business-class level of service for first class tickets on domestic flights, but seeing that this flight had actual first class seats that were mostly empty and I was not offered one really annoyed me.
Thanks for any advice you might have,
Tom