Category: Airlines

  1. Chase made all the United cards dumber this week. The major changes:

    – Every card with an annual fee gets a bigger annual fee
    – The no-annual fee Gateway card doesn’t get XN inventory access unless you have $10,000 in annual spend
    – One time lounge access passes are no longer transferrable
    – You can now earn 1K status with nothing but spend on either of the ridiculously priced $695 personal and business Club cards
    – There are new credits on the annual fee cards, most of which are annoying, carved up throughout the year, and less valuable than they seem
    – Lounge access gets more restrictive without massive spend

    DD has a good rundown on the details of the changes if you care to read more.
  2. Southwest is releasing its winter schedule for travel between November 2 and January 5 today, which means today is statistically speaking the best time you have to game holiday travel, or just to play it straight to book holiday travel directly.

    Now’s a good time to book for other reasons too, like avoiding change fees on cheap tickets and paying bag fees, all of which will be implemented soon. Unfortunately double secret Rapid Rewards redemption values already quietly launched yesterday.
  3. On Tuesday, Bilt will have a transfer bonus of between 50% and 100% to British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Ibera Avios, depending your status level. Because Avios can be transferred freely amongst airlines, this is good for Qatar, Vueling, and FinnAir too.

    Why mention this early? So you can earn Bilt points before then.
  4. Accor ALL has new Q2 promotions for:

    – 2x-3x points on stays 3+ nights in many countries through June 8, valid for two stays
    – 4x points at new properties through September 7, valid for one stay

    You’ve got to book by April 27 and May 11 respectively, so these suck for last minute travel. (Thanks to FM)
  5. Breeze has 45% off of fares booked today for travel between April 9 and September 2 with promo code VACAY. There are a few blackout days around Easter, Independence Day, and National Peach Cobbler Day, but in general Summer travel is wide open.

    We haven’t played Breeze Dartboard Bingo™ for a while, but in honor of National Peach Cobbler today, we’ll take another round. [drumroll] Today’s draw is: Pensacola, FL to Norfolk, VA, PNS-ORF! If you hit Bingo, come see the MEAB front desk for your prize.
  6. AA’s shopping portal has a 500 mile bonus for the referrer and 1,000 mile bonus for the referred, as long as the latter makes a $75+ purchase by April 6 through the portal. The referral bonus is limited to 10 per account.

    With GiftCards.com’s current annoying portal rules, having multiple players with multiple shopping portals is one of the methods for scale (like banana).

Happy Thursday friends!

The other way of scaling.

I’m allergic to booking airfare for my own travel with third parties as a general rule, but the American Express Business Platinum’s 35% Membership Rewards rebate for points bookings (~1.54 cents per point) on your selected airline, or on any first or business class seat, is valuable enough that I use their third party platform anyway. When you book via third party it’s rather hard, or sometimes impossible, to get an airline to help you when:

  • Schedules change
  • You need to make a non-trivial itinerary change
  • You want to pre-pay for services
  • You want to take advantage of travel waivers
  • You want to play games with frequent flyer numbers

But, it’s possible with many airlines to take advantage of American Express Travel’s rebate and to funnel that booking into a different ticket booked directly with the airline. Today, we’ll focus on how to do it with Alaska:

  1. Book a non-basic economy Alaska flight with AmEx Travel
  2. Wait 48 hours
  3. Contact Alaska, and tell them you’d like to refund to flight credit
  4. Wait 2-3 days for the flight credits to come via email
  5. Apply the flight credits to your Alaska wallet
  6. Book airfare directly with Alaska using your wallet

You’ll end up with the best of both worlds, a regular, first party booking but also a 35% Membership Rewards rebate. Of course, it’s possible that airfare prices change between steps 1 and 6, so factor that risk in as necessary.

Good luck!

Next time: An entirely different type of Alaska Airlines game.

Summer travel makes up the bulk of airline profits outside of a few weeks around the holidays, and Summer demand means that award availability and sales are scarced between Memorial and Labor Day, at least usually. Enter Summer 2025 travel bookings, in which:

  1. Frontier swipes at Southwest with free seat selection, free cary-ons, and free flight changes through August 18, and you can get free checked bags with promo code FREEBAG on flights between May 28 and August 18 too. You’ve got book by March 24, unless they extend it like they suggest in their hints.

    There are two ways to read into this: (1) Frontier sees a hole in the market left by Southwest, is shrewd, and wants to take Southwest’s traditional customer base; or (2) the low cost carrier summer booking demand-o-meter is flashing red, and management has decided that some revenue is better than no revenue. I tend to think it’s the latter disguised as the former, but what do I know?
  2. Breeze Airways has a 50% off base fare sale for bookings by tomorrow night and travel between March 25 and June 18 with promo code SCENIC. This, for those keeping score at home, is the second 50% off sale in the last 10 days.

    Breeze historically was an investor garbage fire for capital, but turned things around for profitability last year. Just like Frontier though, I think Breeze’s summer demand-o-meter is blinking red too.
  3. Yesterday, Avelo Airlines had $30 off of round-trip bookings for travel between March 26 and August 28 with a few small blackout windows (the promo was SOAR30). There’s a good chance they replace it for something else today, and while the discount wasn’t big enough to talk about in a normal post while the sale was still running, but it is telling that the sale ran right over the whole Summer season.

What about the big three US airlines? Well, they’ve already told us Summer looks bleak, especially for non-premium cabin traffic.

Ok, so what’s the action item on today’s post if you’re a first class diva don’t fly any of those “lesser” airlines? Well, if you’re an active investor, evaluate your positions on airlines. I’m not an investment advisor and I’m definitely not your investment advisor, but I’d say being long airline stocks through Q3 reporting is a bold strategy, Cotton. On the other hand if you’re looking for award bookings for Summer travel, watch for more inventory to open up.

Happy Wednesday!

Another bold strategy.

  1. Yesterday’s post mentioned in fake-shakespeare obtuseness that Rapid Rewards points value shifts based on demand; based on questions and comments I got yesterday, that wasn’t clear to many. To speak in ye-new-modern-day-English: Southwest Rapid Rewards points will no longer have a fixed redemption value for each class of ticket, but rather the redemption value will vary based on demand.

    In other words, Rapid Rewards which already had dynamic pricing based on ticket value, will now have a dynamic redemption value per point too. To quote the quiet grandmaster churner RabbMD, “double secret dynamic” pricing.
  2. Harris Teeter stores have a coupon for fee-free variable load Mastercard and Visa gift cards when loaded with $150+ through Tuesday, limit one per Kroger account. (Thanks to GCA)
  3. Rakuten’s In-Store card linked program has offers for several grocery stores:

    – 1% or 1x at Giant
    – 1% or 1x at Giant Food (different than the above, duh)
    – 1% or 1x at Martins
    – 1% or 1x at Food Lion

    These are valid for 75 days after clipping the coupon. But after first use, the coupon is only valid for another hour, at which point you can reclip it as long as the promotion is still going. Why so complex? Well, remember that Rakuten is the company that bought Buy.com for $250 Million and decided that Buy.com was too hard for Americans to pronounce and remember, so just migrated it to Rakuten.com.
  4. Some discount airlines, sorted in order of recent annoyingness, are running promotions:

    – Breeze 50% off: Book by today, fly between March 18 and June 18 with promo GROW
    – Frontier award sale: Book by Monday, fly through August 18
    – Alaska international sale*: Book by April 11, fly through July 31
    – [this space left intentionally blank]
    – [this space left intentionally blank]
    – Southwest sale: Book by today, fly between April 1 and June 11

    *The Alaska sale includes Premium Economy, which is weird because Alaska doesn’t really support partner Premium Economy bookings for the partners you need to get to these destinations. #AlaskaGonnaAlaska
  5. The Wyndham shopping portal has a bonus of 2,000 points after a single purchase through April 9. (Thanks to FM)

Don’t blame Rakuten, after all, Rasputin was once named Bryce right? (Don’t check)

You’ve no doubt heard that Southwest announced they’d be moving from a mediocre product offering to a bad product offering yesterday because literally every news outlet, blog, skywriter, and mommy stroller affiliate site wrote about it. I tried to ignore it here, but instead decided to write a quick summary in iambic pentameter to keep it fresh:

On fares most cheap, a fee doth now descend,
for Wanna Get Away, a basic name doth lend.

Flight credits, once free, now swiftly fade,
yet open boarding’s chaos still we’ve made.

Elites and cardholders find some gentle aid,
yet still, no first class seats or distant shores are displayed.

Midway’s woes persist, a traveler’s plight,
even Spirit offers more comfort in its Big Front Seat’s light.

Rapid Rewards points now face variable fate,
their value shifting with each flight’s demand and date.

Sorry, even I feel dirty after that one.

When non-travel sites cover travel stories:
Do they mean that (a) Southwest will charge the bag’s battery, or (b) that they expect the bag to pay?

  1. The AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue Bank of America Mastercard has two new increased sign-up bonuses:

    – 70,000 FlyingBlue miles and 100 XP after $3,000 spend in three months
    – 60,000 FlyingBlue miles, a $100 statement credit, and 100 XP after $3,000 spend in three months, presented during checkout with a dummy flight booking

    This card is interesting for status chasers, especially because you can have multiple and the anniversary XP bonus stacks.
  2. Alaska has an award sale for fares booked by tonight, but generally only for travel starting in late march and ending in late May . I’m seeing:

    – 4,000 miles for short-haul and some flights to Mexico
    – 7,500 miles for west coast to Hawaii
    – 7,500 miles for transcontinental flights

    You can still transfer Membership Rewards to Alaska via Hawaiian, though hopefully (?) that dies soon.
  3. Southwest Wanna Get Away and Wanna Get Away Fare Plus fares earn fewer miles per dollar spent. Why mention it here? It slightly changes the calculus Chase Sapphire Reserve point bookings versus transferring to Rapid Rewards and booking with points through Southwest.
  4. The Southwest Rapid Rewards shopping portal has 1,000 bonus miles with $300 spend through March 17. Something something points calculus.
  5. Harris Teeter stores, the zombie stepchild of Kroger has 4x fuel points on all third party gift cards excluding Amazon through Tuesday.
  6. Reportedly the Capital One Travel portal has a promotion for 20x points on a hotel booking for those who haven’t booked a hotel through the portal before, with a maximum bonus of 50,000 points through April 15. (Thanks to FM)

Happy Thursday!

Kroger affiliates: Harris Teeter (left), the others (right).

Before we dive in, let me answer a few frequently asked questions about yesterday’s post:

  • No, I’m not building an alternative gift card marketplace
  • I think the opportunity for someone who successfully builds one is huge though
  • Yes, there are probably a bunch of mid-tier gift card resellers that you don’t know
  • You can find a recent-ish list of reputable gift card buyers here
  • No, I wouldn’t recommend starting new with Pepper any more, if you’re still there, float what you’re willing to lose based on your risk tolerance
  • No, I haven’t tried the Campbell’s ghost pepper soup, but yes, I do have a reader review ready

And now, today’s news:

  1. Chase has been accidentally reporting open business credit cards to TransUnion for a relatively small set of churners, but seemingly only if cards were opened with a social security number as the primary tax ID (versus an EIN).

    This seems to be an error on Chase’s part, and they’re fixing it within 10 business days if you call and ask. In theory . So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to check your TransUnion credit report and put a ticket in with Chase if necessary.
  2. FlyingBlue Promo Rewards for March have been released for travel booked in march and flown through August 31. The promotional US cities are Detroit, Seattle, Washington DC, Boston, and Austin.
  3. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios through the end of March. As usual, this is effectively a transfer bonus to all carriers that use Avios as their currency.
  4. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. VanillaGift.com has fee free Vanilla Visa gift cards with promo code VGWOMEN through Saturday. Purchase limits for Incomm sites are $10,000 per account per rolling 24 hours.

    These are Incomm gift cards. Incomm sites won’t earn points or count toward a sign-up bonus on American Express first party cards.
  6. The Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex cards have two bonus 5x categories in March: Insurance and tax preparation services, no registration necessary.

    The original $1,500 spend across all 5x categories for the quarter remains.

Happy Tuesday!

Your next mission: Fly for 12 hours in this.

  1. Do this now: Register for AA’s widely targeted promotion for 500 Loyalty Points for each AA flight in March, up to 5,000 bonus points total. Flights need to be booked (or rebooked) after registration to be eligible. (Thanks to VFTW)
  2. Capital One has a widely targeted offer for 5,000 bonus miles with a 1,000+ mile transfer to JetBlue TrueBlue. The transfer ratio is awful other than the bonus, so your best bet is to transfer 1,000 miles exactly and earn 5,600 TrueBlue miles. On the plus (?) side, 5,600 miles is enough for some short-haul basic economy tickets.
  3. The American Express Hilton cards have an increased sign-up bonus:

    – Honors: 70,000 points and a free night certificate after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Surpass: 130,000 points and a free night certificate after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months

    In case you’re in pop-up jail on those and don’t know how to get out, you can find smaller bonuses that are mostly popup immune for the same cards here.
  4. Staples.com now sells virtual Visa gift cards with gargantuan fees, topping out at $9.95 for a $300 virtual Visa. I guess maybe you can make this make sense if you’re good at alt portals.

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. The Chase United Quest’s $125 annual United credits are changing to TravelBank credits in March, which makes one of my least favorite cards slightly more attractive.
  6. Breeze Airways 45% off of base fares with promo code ESCAPE for travel from March 5 through September 9, and it must be booked by tomorrow.

Happy Thursday friends!

JetBlue basic economy still includes a circa 2012 screen with at least one burnt out color channel and complimentary screen covering.