Wednesday Quickies

Today’s news items dropped into a nice list neatly, a little too neatly for comfort frankly:

1. Southwest has an award and paid flight sale with promo code SPLASH through tomorrow night for travel from March 19 to May 22. There are a few blackout dates, but my existing bookings had a roughly 50% rate of being included in the fare sale.
   
   What everyone seems to forget to mention when these fare sales drop is that you’re still flying Southwest and the discount better be big as a result. This is extra acute to me with six flights in the last 30 days on Southwest.
   
2. Hyatt has announced its annual award chart recategorization.
   
   You have through March 26 to book at the old rates. If you book a property that goes down in price after March 26, your points will probably be automatically refunded.
   
3. American Express Membership Rewards has a targeted15% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles through March 15. Sweet spots:
   
   – Star Alliance business or first class from the US to Europe and Africa
   – Short haul domestic first class
   – Flights to and from the Caribbean in cattle class Southwest class economy
   
   This transfer bonus is mid at best unless you were going to book something anyway.
   
4. American Express offers has two new sort-of gamable offers:
   
   – $200 statement credit on $1,000+ at about three dozen properties through May 15
   – $100 back on $500+ in Alaska flights booked through AmexTravel.com through May 26
   
   Gaming on the first one is typical, on the second probably is only really doable by refunding the right type of your fare to an Alaska wallet.
   
5. The Motley Fool has an increased AA eShopping portal sign-up bonus of 6,700 miles for a $99 subscription, bigger than what it was on January 17 too. An American Express Offers $50 off of $99 is still around through May 15 too.
   
   Combined, the two promotions mean you’re buying 6,700 AA miles at for a net cost of $49, or 0.73 cents per mile. It’s untested as far as I know, but you probably can’t do this again on the same AA eShopping account as the one used in January. (Special thanks to David)

The laundry equivalent of today’s news items coming neatly packaged out of the box.