1. Morgan Stanley has announced that they’ll no longer accept applications for new Access Investing accounts starting on December 1. We care because the Access Investing account is a cheap, backdoor way to get access to the American Express Morgan Stanley Platinum card. That particular variant is interesting because:

    – It gives a free Platinum authorized user card, which also gives that authorized user access to Delta SkyClubs and a Priority Pass membership
    – It usually has retention offers
    – It’s mostly churnable

    In other sort-of-related news, Credit Suisse account holders with the co-branded Credit Suisse American Express Platinum may lose everything at around the same time 😬, so I guess cash out those airline credits?

  2. October’s AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue promo awards have been released for travel through March 31, 2023. This round has discounted economy with good availability and some spotty discounted business class redemptions too. The awards are for travel to and from Europe and LAX, JFK, MIA, IAD, SFO, or SEA.
  3. Chase’s credit card IT systems are currently preventing product changes. This should be cleared up quickly, so don’t lose sleep over it. Update: We now have reports that some product changes are working again, no surprise (like Credit Suisse?)
  4. Check your AmEx offers for 20,000 Membership Rewards or $200 back on $1,000 or more at AirFrance/KLM. Normally I’d say that you should buy in a foreign currency to break the correlation thanks to variable foreign exchange rates, but the T&C specify that the transaction has to be in US Dollars so you’ll need to use another method, and believe me they offer plenty.

Exclusive picture of the Credit Suisse American Express Blue card, as seen in December, 2022.

In case you hadn’t heard before now (maybe you didn’t read this post’s title), Virgin Atlantic announced yesterday that they’re joining SkyTeam. What that probably means:

  • Delta award availability will get better, but cost more (#bonvoyed)
  • ANA, Singapore Airlines, and Air New Zealand award redemptions will go away since each of these airlines is in Star Alliance, a SkyTeam competitor
  • Virgin Atlantic award availability will probably get better for SkyTeam partners
  • The 50,000 Virgin Atlantic mileage redemption for Delta business class to and from Europe loophole will likely be closed

As a result, I’d do the following, and do it quickly:

  • Book any ANA business class or first class round-trip awards to Japan and South Asia now, especially since Japan is opening on October 11. At 90,000-95,000 points round trip for business class, and 110,000-120,000 points round trip for first class, it’s hard to find a better redemption in any program
  • Book any Delta business class award tickets to and from Europe right away, again assuming that you can find availability
  • Book any Air New Zealand awards to Australia and New Zealand right away, also assuming you can find any availability

Don’t forget that American Express has a 30% transfer bonus for Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic that runs through Friday. Good luck!

Act fast on V05 too. Soon you’ll lose access to use it a toothpaste and mouthwash.

  1. The AirFrance and KLM FlyingBlue program has great economy award availability for 15,000 miles each way or 30,000 miles round trip between the US and Europe. I’m a diva when traveling internationally though, and because economy doesn’t start with a “J” or an “F” I’m not personally interested.

    If you want good availability direct to CDG or AMS, look for plane+train tickets and accidentally miss the train portion of your travel.

  2. Do this now: Register for IHG’s September promotion. The promotional offer is varied, my offer was:

    – 10,000 bonus points for staying 5 nights
    – 20,000 bonus points for staying 10 nights
    – 30,000 bonus points for staying 15 nights

  3. Apparently Chase business credit card applications are occasionally being denied based on erroneously tagging your IP address as outside of the US. If you’re affected by this, apparently you can get it straightened out by calling (888) 270-2127 and asking to speak to the New Account Lending Department.

A traveling diva.

Follow-Up

Last month we discussed getting an upgrade for each elite and +1 as part of a big group on Delta and it generated a few common questions:

  • Q: Why would you split off an elite and a single companion?
    A: The most common case is parents up front, kids in the back
  • Q: What are upgrades like with a companion, all-or-nothing?
    A: Ymmv. Before the day of departure, it’s an all-or-nothing proposition. On the day of departure you’ll both be upgraded if space is available. If there’s only one seat, then some gate agents will call you up and ask what you want to do, and some will just upgrade the elite only. If the outcome matters to you, I’d let the gate agent know ahead of time what you want to happen

Related Hack

There’s a related hack that we didn’t discuss: On Delta, Platinum and Diamond medallions are eligible for an at-booking upgrade to Comfort+ for the elite and a single companion. What if you want to get a whole group into Comfort+ though? Easy in-principle, slightly annoying in-practice:

  1. Book a ticket for the elite and a single companion
  2. Select the companion’s seat in Comfort+ after booking
  3. Call or chat with Delta to cancel the elite’s ticket only, leaving the companion in place
  4. Start over for each companion in your group

The caveats from the prior post apply here too: Schedule changes and IROPS could leave a mess for you to clean up, and aircraft swaps might cause lost seat assignments. The flip-side is Delta is the friendliest US airline for patching up stuff like that, so #slay I guess?

Have fun out there!

Getting everyone in Comfort+ doesn’t get you out of this gate mess though.

  1. The Alaska Airlines Business card has an increased 70,000 mile sign-up bonus, made really interesting because there’s no hard-coded limit on the number of these that you can open in a day or on the total number you can have, and Bank of America business cards lack any real churning restrictions.
  2. Staples is again offering fee-free Visa $200 gift cards Sunday through the following Saturday, limit five per transaction. If your Staples doesn’t seem to have any stock:

    – Ask an employee to open the rack and grab new ones
    – Look for another rack behind the customer service desk
    – Look for another rack in the back of the store

    These are Metabanks, so have a liquidation plan. (Thanks to GC Galore)

  3. If you need to cancel a Marriott booking made with a certificate, it:

    – May or may not error out
    – May or may not return your certificate

    There’s a workaround that will reliably allow you to cancel and return your certificate:

    Visit your reservation confirmation
    – Click “Change”
    – Select the same room type and same dates
    – Choose points when the system asks how you want to pay

    After you’ve done all that, the certificate will be reliably returned and you’ll be able to cancel your reservation, which makes this ever so slightly better than Citi IT.

Candid shot of Marriott’s development staff during reservation management coding sessions.

Delta’s Medallion elite members are eligible for complimentary upgrades to First Class and Comfort+ seats when traveling alone or with a single companion on non-basic economy fares, but if you have three or more people booked on the same PNR (passenger name record / confirmation code), then no one is eligible for an upgrade.

There’s a simple travel hack to get around the limitation and as long as you’re willing to split a group’s reservation, it’s easy for a companion to get an upgrade along side every traveling Medallion member.

The Trick

To get an upgrade for an elite and a companion as part of a larger booking, all you need to do is contact Delta over the phone or chat and ask them to “split the PNR for the Medallion member and a companion” from the rest of the group. On splitting, the Medallion member and companion will get a new PNR and the rest of the group will remain on the old PNR. The new PNR will be eligible to add to both the First Class and Comfort+ upgrade lists like any regular booking.

Notes

  • You can split a PNR multiple times, especially useful with multiple elites and multiple companions
  • You can’t ever recombine a split PNR
  • During normal schedule changes Delta tends to rebook automatically in chunks via PNR so there’s a small chance that you may end up with separate flights for each PNR after a schedule change. For this reason, I’d only split the PNR right before your upgrade window starts unless you like dealing with Delta over the phone
  • During IROPs, the same automatic rebooking engine could split you across different flights, so caveat emptor
  • The companions left without a medallion in their group will lose priority access on their boarding passes, but they can still board with the elite (just say: “they’re with me” at boarding)

Good luck and happy upgrades!

Using ultra-high speed cameras, science captures the exact moment that a Delta PNR splits.

Watch for a barrage of promotions over the holiday weekend, especially for the gift card resale markets. In the mean time, there are a few interesting promotions to kick off the weekend:

  1. Starting today and running through July 15, the OnJuno debit card has 10% cash back on spend of up to $1,000 provided that’ve set your spending source to USDC. Effectively any manufactured spend should work to meet this promotion.
  2. Many Hilton free night certificates are expiring today thanks to past COVID extension policies. Some customer service representatives will extend these for you, and I have multiple reports of successful reinstatement and extension of the certificates if you call the day of expiration and ask to use them.

    You may have to try a couple of different times to get a representative who knows how to extend though, and you shouldn’t sleep on this if you’re affected because it’s not likely to work after today.

  3. Yun was the first to let me know that the Upgrade rewards debit card has a new referral bonus program of $100 for the referrer and referred after three debit card transactions within 60 days. Upgrade’s debit card pays:

    – 2% at drug stores, gas, subscriptions, restaurants, and utilities
    – 1% everywhere else (including PIN transactions)

    Nearside’s 2.2% cash back debit card is currently more interesting, but at the end of 2022 their rewards rate will also be 1% so it may be worth grabbing a $100 sign-up bonus from Upgrade in anticipation of that if you’re in the rewards debit game.

  4. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, a MEAB Unsung Hero, has a new targeted offer for 15% back in statement credits on gas, grocery, and restaurant spend up to $90 for each month between July and September. (I got and maximized the same offer for April through June too.)

    Check your inbox for email with the subject: “[NAME], activate your limited-time statement credits offer now”

Finally, I’m going to be like a normal blogger for a second and vent about something that none of you care about and isn’t related to the site’s mission — sorry in advance: The Crown City Classic is a 7.4 mile race for July 4 (7/4), and it’s something that P2 and I have participated in for years. This year though, they moved it to July 2 because reasons, and we didn’t figure that out until a week ago after our travel was already booked. Why do I bring it up? Always double check dates for events that you’re traveling to. I wish I had.

Have a nice holiday weekend!

The Crown City Classic race organizers trying to figure out exactly when 7/4 is.

Today we’re going off the beaten path:

  1. I haven’t written about the Albert debit card prior to today because I genuinely didn’t think that it was going to work out for anyone involved, but it turns out that my spidey-sense was wrong on this one. There are now multiple reports of $500 referral bonuses being paid to both the referrer and referred, and Miles notes via MEAB slack that Albert has CashApp-like boosts for 10-20% back at major retailers that are paying out too.

    The sign-up bonus is only available by referrals — so if you know someone with a $500 referral than it’s probably worth your time to go for it. The terms for the $500 bonus are three consecutive months with $200 in direct deposits (I scheduled these) and three months of $100 in spend on the debit card too (I scheduled these too with a bill pay service). The best public bonus I know of is currently $150.

  2. Virgin Atlantic has announced that Gold Elite members can book any flight for double the saver level at least 60 days in advance, up to eight segments per year. There’s a very specific traveler that this will work well for: If you’ve got a fixed vacation schedule, for example because you’re a teacher or have kids in school, you can still book relatively low cost awards even during peak travel times when normal award space might be non-existent.

    Fortunately Virgin Atlantic status is easy to get (eventually) with the Bank of America Virgin Atlantic credit card because spending $5,000 per month for 12 months on the card will earn you enough tier points for Gold Elite status. But, spending more than $5,000 per month on a single card doesn’t get you tier points any faster so you’re looking at a year to turn this into reality without flying. If you apply for this card I’d suggest getting a few Alaska Airlines cards and some Business Cash Rewards cards at the same time.

    Bank of America IT is rooted in the 1970s, so my hunch is that if you hold multiple Virgin Atlantic cards you’d be able to get the monthly tier point spend limit on each card, but I have no data points to support or reject that hypothesis. UPDATE: Reader Miles has experience with multiple Virgin Atlantic cards and confirms that two cards will allow earning tier points at twice the rate, and you can stack the companion and upgrade certificate from each card too.

Our journey to find today’s obscure news.