Weekend News: New Hilton Benefit, Rethinking Miles Purchases, and Airline Updates

1. Do this now: Enroll your American Express Business Platinum cards in the new $50 quarterly Hilton credit. A quick Q&A:
   
   – Will this work with HiltonGiftCards.com? Probably
   – Will this work buying gift cards at a hotel? Yes
   – Will this work at Hilton restaurant? Probably, stick to resorts to be sure
   – Will this work for a regular hotel to pay your bill? Yes
   – Is AmEx going to raise the annual fee? Probably not in 2025, but yes
   – Is Dell going away in 2H2025? We can only pray
   – What’s America’s favorite fruit? Banana
   – Did anyone make it this far? Yes
   
   If you’ve got a bunch of business Platinums, just make sure that you get an email for each card. Sometimes the site enrolls the wrong card, or reenrolls a card that you didn’t select.
   
2. Avianca LifeMiles can be purchased for as little as 1.27 cents each with a sale running through the end of December.
   
   Conventional wisdom in the hobby says “never buy miles except to top-off your account for a redemption.” The wisdom is showing its age when transferable points are cashed out easily into interest bearing accounts, and points costs have dipped below 1.3 cents. For example, yesterday I was looking at an ANA First Class redemption that was 114,000 LifeMiles. I could have paid about $$1,447 to buy those miles directly rather than transferring miles in. Obviously, there’s more to come on this topic in the future.
   
3. Southwest has extended its schedule for fall travel including Labor Day weekend through October 1. Booking a cheap flight that’s far out and within two weeks of a more expensive flight that you actually want to take is a great way to hedge booking costs, assuming flight schedule change between then and now.
   
4. AA is retooling its AAdvantage program for 2025. The quick summary:
   
   – New million-miler tiers at four (Platinum Pro) and five (Executive Platinum) million miles
   – Systemwide Upgrades will last through the end of the elite year after March 1, 2025
   – Redeem miles for inflight food, probably at a terrible rate
   – New Loyalty Point awards, all low value
   
   You still can’t earn million-miler tiers with Loyalty Points, only with flown miles.
   
5. Giant, Giant Foods, Martins, and Stop & Shop stores have 8x-10x points on Lululemon and Barnes & Noble gift cards, depending on chain through Thursday, December 19.

$50 breakfast at a Hilton Garden Inn in Lubbock (prolly, I can’t be bothered to fact check).