Weekend Quickies

We’re all over the map today, but it’s good stuff so hang in there.

1. American Express has a 30% transfer bonus from Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic through the end of March. Sweet spots:

• ANA round-trip business class (90,000 miles) or first class (110,000 miles) awards to Japan
• Delta one-way business class non-stop awards to or from Europe (50,000 – 65,000 miles)
• Domestic delta economy and first class awards (various)

This transfer bonus pairs well with item #4 too. (Thanks to DoC)

2. American Express has bumped up the offers on Delta co-branded credit cards, and based on the deluge of articles about it they’ve likely bumped the commission paid to affiliates too. These offers are great for just the sign-up bonus if you’re not looking for Delta status:

• Business cards
• Consumer cards

They’re less great if you want status though, because typically you get MQM as part of the sign-up bonus for the Platinum and Reserve cards and it’s absent in these offers. If you are going to apply, check for a referral offer from P2 or another friend as a way to boost the sign-up bonus even more.

3. There are multiple reports of Public giving everyone a hard time after loading $5,000 with PayPal Key and then trying to withdraw their money a week or so later. If you’re still going to do this deal, I’d prepare to let your funds sit for a month before you try and withdraw unless you want to fight Public.

4. The 2021 DOT statistics for airline commercial operations came out two days ago. There’s plenty of useful data inside, but I’m most interested in the on-time percentage by marketing carrier:

• Hawaiian: 90.14%
• Delta: 88.22%
• Alaska: 83.17%
• AA: 81.58%
• United: 79.81%
• Spirit: 76.74%
• Frontier: 76.64%
• Southwest: 75.78%
• JetBlue: 72.31%
• Allegiant: 68.26%

Unless you live near LAX or JFK it’s probably interesting for you too. I’d save this list away for when you need a positioning flight to another airport for a big award redemption.

5. Reader Pavel shared a link for a no-lifetime language American Express Business Platinum 150,000 Membership Rewards after spending $15,000 within three months, and another 10,000 additional points for adding an employee card and spending $1,000 within the same timeframe.

Have a nice weekend!