Year: 2024

  1. There’s now a public, safe version of an upgrade link to a Business Platinum for Business Gold and Business Green American Express card holders with 120,000 bonus Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in 90 days.

    This one is safe for anyone to use, potentially unlike the one made public last week which was dubious at best and err, scary at worst. Why was that one dubious? It was a manufactured link specifically constructed with two contradicting offers that happened to pass through the application system in an unintended way. Side-note: That fact that this link is dubious still isn’t noted on other blogs, hopefully because they just don’t know. Always know the province of links before diving in. (Thanks to reb702)
  2. Southwest has a 40% fare sale for selected flights booked by tomorrow night for travel between October 29 and January 31, 2025 with the typical blackout dates that you’d expect using promo code SAVEWOW.

    I got approximately 25,000 Rapid Rewards points back by grooming by existing bookings, though most of those existing bookings are backup flights so the expectation value for my actual cost is lower than 40%.
  3. Marriott Bonvoy has a transfer bonus of 15% to AirCanada Aeroplan miles through the end of October. Points transfer at a 3:1 ratio and if you transfer in 60,000 point increments you get a bonus 5,000 miles too, which means you’ll earn:

    (60,000 * 115% * 1/3) + 5,000 = 28,000 miles

    Which increases the normal transfer ratio to 2.143:1. (Thanks to TheSultan1)
  4. AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue program has released its promo awards for October for travel through March 31, 2025 to and from Europe. US cities include Dallas, Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, and Detroit. US-lite cities include Havana and Toronto.

    There’s a ton of economy space at 15,000 miles in this month’s drop, more than I’ve ever seen in-fact. Discount business class space is almost non-existent this year and barely-existent next year.
  5. American Express has 100% off of purchase fees with promo code 100AMEXGIFT. The main use for these is shifting spend to a later time while earning the sign-up bonus now, but only if your manufactured spend-fu can’t support immediate spend needs. (Thanks to GCG)

Calendar view of discount business class inventory in this month’s FlyingBlue promo awards.

  1. Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub will be moving to a spooky dynamic award chart on October 30 for Virgin metal awards, and apparently will offer a new saver level of awards that prices similar to saver level flights today. Somehow the new saver level is different than the old saver level though because #marketing.

    Partner award flights are purportedly unaffected.
  2. The United MileagePlus shopping portal has a spooky 500 bonus miles after $150+ in spend through October 7. The actual spooky part of this story is that giftcards.com remains absent from major airline shopping portals.
  3. Futurecard, a debit card with capped 5% cash back in some spend categories, added Amtrak as a 1:1 transfer partner. Major banks haven’t been able to pull off a direct transfer to Amtrak in modern history, and indirect transfers via JetBlue TrueBlue and Points.com are only a 2:1 ratio.

    I guess now we’re getting excited about a debit card with a $5 sign-up bonus because of course 2024 brought that too.
  4. JetBlue has an award sale for economy travel on Etihad for travel though October 31. Where does spooky fit into this one? Long-haul economy, duh. (Thanks to Gary)

More October spookiness.

Apropos of nothing, do you have an American Express Platinum or Business Platinum card? Hmm, interesting. That probably means you shouldn’t worry about Bilt’s stupid elite status challenge tomorrow, right? Still, I bet you can find a few tens of thousands of words written about the match between Friday and now though. Yay marketing!

  1. Do this now (if you have the Schwab American Express Platinum card): Cash-out as many Membership Rewards today as you can physically bring yourself to do; this applies especially if you’re sitting on 10 million or more points with no redemption plan (if you think I might be talking about you – you’re right, I am).

    Today’s the last day of unlimited 1.1 cents per point cash-out. Starting tomorrow, you’re limited to 1 million per calendar year though points cashed-out today don’t apply to that limit.
  2. Do this now: Cash out any Ultimate Rewards points in increased value pay-yourself-back categories, all of which are set to expire today and may or may not be refreshed or replaced tomorrow.
  3. Do this now (if you have a Chase United card): Check for a spend bonus on spend through December 15. I had three choices:

    – 1,000 bonus miles after $1,000 spend (extra 1x)
    – 7,500 bonus miles after $5,000 spend (extra 1.5x)
    – 18,000 bonus miles after $9,000 spend (extra 2x)

    Even though United MileagePlus miles suck, the third one is a big enough bonus on top of base spend that I’ll hit it.
  4. Meijer Perks has $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards in-store through Saturday with clipped digital coupon. This type of coupon can usually be re-clipped after each use.

    Meijer carries both Pathward and Sunrise gift cards.
  5. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Both variable and fixed load cards work
    – Look for lower fee Everywhere cards if you know how to liquidate them
    – Try for multiple transactions back to back

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to Will)
  6. Turkish Airlines has 40% off of economy award flights booked by Wednesday for travel from November 1 until March 31, 2025. Most of Turkish’s network is included.
  7. Weis Markets have 8x points on One4All and Choice gift cards through October 9. Some Choice cards can be easily converted to high resale rate bulk brand gift cards. (Thanks to GCG)

Too soon, or too not soon enough?

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s double points promotion on stays in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa between October 7 and December 20.
  2. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for 7,500 bonus points on paid 2+ night stays with Wyndham, and a bonus 5,000 points if you hold a Wyndham credit card. There’s a whopping limit of 15,000 bonus points if you don’t have a credit card, or 20,000 points if you do.
  3. Transfers between Alaska MilagePlan and Hawaiian HawaiianMiles are now live and must be done in 500,000 or fewer mile increments. Sorry to all of you that are moving 37 million miles, that’s a lot of clicking. Also, is this a good time to remind everyone that Barclays Hawaiian card members can transfer miles to immediate family members? No reason.

    Unfortunately Membership Rewards transfers to HawaiianMiles are currently being rejected and refunded, so that’s great. #bonvoyed
  4. The Chase Aeroplan Visa, notable for 3x earning at grocery stores, has an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 bonus Aeropan miles after $4,000 spend in three months, and another $16,000 tiered spend in 12 months. The $95 annual fee is not waived. (Thanks to DDG)
  5. Southwest said a lot of words yesterday, but the salient points you probably care about are:

    – Flights with assigned seating will be sold in late 2025 for flights in 2026 and beyond
    – Checked bags remain free
    – Southwest will partner with IcelandAir in 2025
    – A-List Preferred elites will get free preferred seating selection at booking
    – A-List elites will get free preferred seating selection at T-48 hours

    They’re also scrambling to avoid massive losses by trimming markets and selling aircraft so I expect these details to change somewhat as they continue to focus on top line revenue and making the bottom line turn black. No word from Southwest on the diagonal line.
  6. Citi has a new card linked offer for 4% back at Giftcards.com with up to $30 cash back two times by November 10. Historically these promotions ironically haven’t worked when buying Visa and Mastercard gift cards, but in 2024 they’ve been working as you’d expect. (Thanks to GCG)
  7. Reader Mike let me know about a deal at Aloft Hotels via Wells Fargo Deals through September 30. When I went looking for it, I found a few other good ones, all expiring the same day:

    – 10% back at Renaissance Hotels up to $75 cash back
    – 10% back at Hilton Garden Inn up to $65 cash back
    – 10% back at TownPlace Suites up to $57 cash back
    – 10% back at Aloft Hotels up to $57 cash back

    Wells Fargo offers are gamble in the same ways as Chase and BankAmeriDeals.
  8. Wells Fargo points can now be transferred to Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Red at a 1:1 ratio.

BankAmeriGuy is upset that Wells Fargo offers is encroaching his territory.

Introduction

One of the most click-baitey articles that travel bloggers write is: “What is [Airline] Status Worth? [Year] Edition”. I’m sick of seeing these articles, so I decided it was time to come up with the equivalent of the Drake equation, but for airline status because that’s apparently the best I can do with my life, and also it marks the first time that my astrophysics training has a real world application (except not really, see below).

Background

The Drake equation calculates the probability of finding alien life, provided that you’re willing to make a bunch of hand-wavey assumptions and then plug them into a formula. This, it turns out, is exactly what those “What is [Airline] Status Worth?” articles do too, except they calculate a dollar amount instead of probability.

So, in an attempt to make “the one airline status value formula to rule them all”, let’s, shall we say, go.

The Status Equation

\$V_{status} = n_{phone}
 ⋅RH+n_{UI}
 ⋅UI+BM+n_{FPS}​	
 ⋅FPS+n_{up} 
 ⋅FU+BT+ANC+ SSW

Where:

  • nphone = The number of times you’ll make a call to the airline
  • RH = The value of reduced hold time
  • nUI = The number of upgrade instruments you’ll earn and use
  • UI = The value of an upgrade instrument
  • BM = Bonus redeemable miles you’ll earn for holding status
  • nFPS = The number of free priority assigned seats you’ll get
  • FPS = The value of a free priority assigned seat
  • nup = The number of times you’ll be upgraded
  • FU = The value of a free upgrade (unironically abbreviated, I promise)
  • BT = The value of your elite brag tags, you know, like this
  • ANC = The value of ancillary benefits, like rental car status (that you probably already get from a credit card)
  • SSW = The value of your increased sense of self worth for holding elite status

So, just like the drake up equation, make up a bunch of numbers for what could happen and you’ll come up with the dollar value of your status. For example, I decided that my AA Executive Platinum Status is worth $3,430, but that’s mostly because of SSW. Remove that, and it’s probably worth $500.

Have a nice Thursday friends!

What’s the additional value of being served in a Delta branded cup on an AA flight? Science still doesn’t know.

  1. Southwest will be opening their schedule this morning for travel through June 4, 2025. That travel window probably will include some aircraft with premium seats and probably will have aircraft with at least some reserved seating too, but so far we know nothing about either. (Thanks to Brian M)
  2. American Express Offers has a few new offers:

    – $140 off of $350+ at most North American Marriotts through November 23
    – 4x or 10x Bonvoy points at grocery stores, up to 7,500 bonus points
    – $75 off of $275+ at Radisson and Choice Ascend properties through November 30

    (Thanks to DoC)
  3. One of my favorite old promotions dates back to when you could buy Sears gift cards through a portal for 10x-25x, then use those gift cards to purchase merchandise for another 10x-25x, netting a total of 20x-50x for things that were marked up only 5-10%.

    This ain’t that, but Giftcards.com has a smaller scale version through September 27:

    – Start at a shopping portal
    – Buy Giftcards.com gift cards, limit 2x$100 for 10% off with promo code GCC10
    – Go back to a shopping portal
    – Use the Giftcards.com gift cards to buy other gift cards (except Visa/MC)

    Most giftcards.com promotion limits are per transaction, not per account; this one is more finicky in that it comes and goes throughout the day.
  4. Alaska has a fare sale for flights booked by tomorrow night for travel between October 5 and March 5, 2025. I’m seeing great pricing, specifically:

    – Transcons for 7,500 miles each way
    – Hawaii for 7,500 miles each way
    – Short-haul for 4,000 miles each way

    There’s some weird medium-haul pricing at 20,000 miles though, so not everything is peachy-keen or even flam-flam strawberry jam.
  5. Southwest has 30% off of flights booked by tomorrow night for travel between October 24 and January 31, 2025 with promo code FRIENDS. Holiday blackouts apply as you’d probably expect.

Bruceville Indiana is always peachy-keen, even though it’s not serviced by any major airline.

  1. Do this now: Register for a targeted promotion for 50 or 100 American Airlines Loyalty Points earned per 1,000 miles redeemed through the end of the year, but only on new flights booked by October 7.
  2. There’s been a 120,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in 90 days link for upgrading an American Express Business Green or Gold card to a Platinum card floating around in the darker corners of the internet, and it’s now public. A few notes:

    – If you have a Green or Gold to upgrade, get employee cards first (see item #3)
    – Do the upgrade
    – Order 5 more employee cards with the new POID

    Don’t forget that spend on employee cards counts toward upgrade bonus spend. Also note that this link is of dubious origin so calibrate the reward to your risk tolerance scale. I went for this, but just because I did something doesn’t mean you should too; it might mean that you shouldn’t.
  3. The American Express Hilton Aspire resort credit now only works at a specific set of listed properties, providing further evidence that it’s easier to game these credits than to use them as intended.
  4. MasterCardGiftCard.com has a promotion for 100% off of purchase fees with promo code 100MCGIFT. There’s currently no expiration listed, but the email promoting the code has a copyright date of 2023 which should tell you something about Incomm gift card brands.

    These are Vanilla gift cards.
  5. Some Bank of America payment systems were offline yesterday and may be today too. It’s not you, they’re the problem it’s them.
  6. Amtrak has a promotion for a mystery, per-account bonus multiplier on fall travel through October 31 with registration. I got 2x on my account which means I’ll probably earn 2*0=0 points between now and Halloween. (Thanks to frequentflyerbonuses)

Obligatory photo of Bank of America’s payment processing data center.

  1. Meijer MPerks has $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards in-store through Saturday with a clipped digital coupon. This type of promotion usually lets you re-clip the coupon after each transaction, so four dozen MPerks accounts aren’t needed for scale even though a banana still might be.

    Meijer typically carries both Sunrise and Pathward gift cards.
  2. Reportedly Citi is discussing how much it’ll have to pay to become the sole issuer of AA credit cards in contract negotiations for a new co-branded credit card deal, and rumors say that the Barclays AA portfolio would be purchased by Citi under the new contract.

    If you’re banned by Citi and not by Barclays, I think getting a Barclays AA card now is your best chance to get back with Citi with minimal hassle; of all banks with bad IT and poor practices around closures and blocklists, Citi ranks first. At least Citi ranks best at something right? If you can count on anything in churning, it’s that #CitiGonnaCiti and the most logical, simple thing will never be the one that happens.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Remember that fixed and variable load cards work
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. IHG has a targeted fast-track promotion for Diamond Elite status, requiring only 10 mattress-runs nights between October 1 and December 31 to earn and keep status through the 2025 Elite year.

A readable Citi error message shows that not everything at Citi is dysfunctional.