Airlines often issue travel waivers for weather events, ATC strikes, political unrest, and airframe issues. We’ve talked about gaming them for other reasons in the past, but there are more games too. Let’s use the current Alaska Airlines systemwide travel waiver as an object lesson:

Alaska’s Waiver

Boeing’s 737-9 MAX’s planes have been emulating warm champagne bottles with loose cork cages, so much so that Airbus probably should issue a press release that says “It’s only an exit door plug if it comes from the ‘Exit Door Plug’ region of France. Otherwise, it’s just sparkling terror.”

Given that the 737-9 MAX is a big part of Alaska’s fleet, they have a systemwide flexible travel policy in place through Saturday.

Travel regions: Any
Ticket purchase time: Any
Original travel date: January 6 – January 13
New travel date: January 6 – January 20

The policy allows you to cancel your flight without a fee, or more interestingly, change your trip without a fee to any other flight(s) with the same origin and destination through January 20.

The Game

Let’s say you want to travel on the direct Alaska Airlines flight from San Diego, CA to Honolulu, HI in first class on Saturday, January 20. The ticket is a whopping $1,409 per passenger. If however you booked the direct flight leaving tomorrow, it’s $674 in first class, or a $735 savings over the Saturday flight.

See the angle here? To save $735, book tomorrow’s flight for $674, then change your flight online or call Alaska and ask them to switch you to Saturday, January 20’s flight for no additional charge. Easy peasy.

Caveats

Some travel waivers have additional restrictions, like requiring that a ticket be purchased before the waiver was issued, or that it has the same routing as the original ticket. Like all things in airline life though, these rules really ought to be called guidelines. Most agents are willing to color outside the lines a bit with waivers, especially so if you hold status.

Happy hacking!

Exclusive: The comprehensive airframe Quality Assurance test report for the incident Boeing 737-MAX 9.

I think the title speaks for itself today, but here we go:

  1. Southwest has a fare sale for flights booked by tomorrow night for travel from January 30 to May 22 using promo code WOW. There’s an embarrassingly long list of blackout dates, cities, and flights so make sure your booking expectations are tempered in the same way that your flying expectations are tempered with Southwest.

    I checked my existing bookings, and 25% of them (2/8) were included in the sale, but none of the sale bookings were the expensive tickets.
  2. AA’s frequent flyer program has changed slightly for 2024. The major updates:

    – Redeem miles for upgrades on some partner airlines
    – Apply systemwide upgrades (SWUs) online
    – An option for Loyalty Points as a redemption reward at various point thresholds

    Most of the other changes linger on having an AAdvantage account for certain benefits, but I’d be shocked to the core if anyone in this group is flying AA without an AAdvantage or partner frequent flyer account.
  3. Do this now: Check for targeted Q1 Marriott Bonvoy promotions. Offers vary from account to account, and holding status seems to make you less likely to be targeted this round. We’ve seen:

    – Double elite qualifying nights for 60 days
    – 4,500 bonus points after two stays

    I was targeted for literally nothing, which somehow beats my normal experience with Marriott.
  4. Do this now (if you use Amtrak): Register for a free round-trip ride between July 1 and August 31 after three round-trips between January 3 and February 29. (thanks to MtM)

Another mildly interesting promotion: You can redeem Kool-Aid points for a winter hat.

  1. There are a few shopping portal bonuses for the new year, but only some airline portals have recovered from their drunken New Year’s stupor:

    – AA: 1,000 bonus miles after $400 in cumulative spend through January 17
    – United: 1,000 bonus miles after $300 in cumulative spend through January 17

    I’ll be knocking both of these out with giftcards.com. If you’re doing the same, double check in 15 days that the orders have tracked and open a case if not. The AA portal in particular has had widespread tracking issues since December with giftcards.com.
  2. American Express has a business checking account sign-up bonus for 50,000 Membership Rewards running through March 31. Bonus requirements:

    – $5,000 deposit in 30 days
    – $5,000 average balance after depositing for 60 days
    – 5 transactions within 60 days

    These are limit one per business and one per login, so to scale you may need more of each. The account earns a 1.30% interest rate, so you’re losing approximately 370 basis points, or $36, as compared to a high yield savings account over two months.
  3. Breeze Airways has a promotion for 35% off of roundtrip fares with promo code GETFRESH booked by Friday for travel from January 15 to May 22.

    If you want a Breeze Airways line in your travel log, what better reason could there be to fly from Provo, Utah to San Bernardino, CA? That’s right, none.
  4. Chase Offers and BankAmeriDeals have 10% back on Hyatt Place properties on between $100 and $400 in spend through March 3. The catch? Hyatt Place. Notably for reader Dean who is overnighting in Lubbock later this week, Hyatt Place Lubbock isn’t excluded.

    Gaming one of these offers won’t exclude the other. The most above board way to game is to pick up a gift card at the Hyatt Place front desk for resale or future use, but make sure to call and check that they’re sold at the property before you make a trip. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. American Express Offers has offers for both Marriott and Hyatt:

    – $250 statement credit with $1,000 in spend at Marriott Homes & Villas through April 15
    – $100 statement credit with $500 in spend at Hyatt Canadian properties through April 30

    Gaming with gift cards? Ibid. Gaming in other ways? Possible. (Thanks to Jen T and GetFreeCash)

November’s Hyatt Place Lubbock fires may have scorched their gift card supply, so call ahead!

Comenity Bank probably doesn’t qualify as a FinTech given that they’ve been around since the 1980s and have major co-branded card contracts like AAA, Victoria’s Secret, the Texans NFL card, and the Houzz (?) Mastercard, but they do provide an object lesson in how FinTechs and some banks can provide unique backdoors into the financial system. Specifically, today we’ll focus on the Comenity Shopping Cart Trick.

The Shopping Cart Trick

It’s probably already familiar to seasoned churners that sometimes you’ll get a better offer for an airline credit card when you’re making a dummy booking or when you’re applying for a card from an in-flight application. What’s probably less obvious is that sometimes your account or credit profile will be impacted differently based on how you apply too. Specifically:

With Comenity co-branded cards, if you add a dummy item or two to your shopping cart and then apply for the card during check-out, they’ll almost never perform a hard-pull of your credit report.

Of course if you have bad credit or no credit, this is an enticing proposition. For most of you reading the blog, at face value there’s not much there other than as a mental insight into bank processes.

The Lesson

The public facing side of credit cards, like lifetime language, sign-up bonus terms, and which card has the worst design, aren’t the only aspects of a card and its impact on your finances. Instead, credit reporting, unregulated debit payments, and pseudo-loan like products play a role in the immediate enduring value of a card too. Always be probing!

Happy Monday!

Pictured: SideShowBob233 attempts the Fluz shopping cart trick.

EDITORS NOTE: In 2024, I’m going to try and have a guest post on Saturdays, and today marks the first ever Saturday post at MEAB 🎉. Today’s post is from John at Miles Mastery. John produces great travel hacking reference content and a weekly news roundup, and we’re lucky to have him for the first ever Saturday post!

The start of the new year always brings in new opportunities to spend those hard earned churned points that you’ve been accumulating! However, before you jump in guns blazing and transfer all your points for a unicorn 20 cpp redemption, let’s talk about one of the worst things that can happen to churners besides a shutdown: phantom availability.

What Is Phantom Availability?

It’s basically the award travel equivalent of getting catfished.

In all seriousness, it’s when an airline program shows a certain flight award available to be booked but that award in reality does not exist. This is commonly seen when booking partner awards through an airline program. A notorious example of this is when trying to book ANA awards through Air Canada Aeroplan.

How Do I Avoid Phantom Availability?

Glad you asked. It’s quite simple actually. You just need to cross reference with different airline partners to verify that the award is available to other partners as well. Usually if at least 2 partners can see the exact flight you want, there’s a high chance that the program is showing real award space.

You cannot use the award airline’s own program to verify space because there is no guarantee that partner airlines will have access to the same availability. So if you’re trying to book United Polaris via Air Canada Aeroplan, you cannot go to United’s website to verify this award space.

So let’s get into the best ways to verify award availability for each alliance.

Star Alliance

United is usually not the best way to book Star Alliance awards but it ironically is one of the best ways to verify partner award space. The other two good airline programs to use are Air Canada Aeroplan and Avianca Lifemiles. You can use a combination of the 3 to check if coveted awards like ANA business class, Eva business class, or Lufthansa first class awards are real.

BONUS TIP: Air Canada has a strange partnership with Singapore Airlines where Aeroplan will sometimes have more access to Singapore Airlines award space than Singapore Airlines’ own program. There may be instances where Singapore Airlines award flights don’t show up on United and show up as waitlisted on Singapore’s website but are actually bookable with no waitlist via Aeroplan. However, this is definitely the exception and not the norm.

OneWorld

British Airways and Cathay Pacific are the two best ways of verifying OneWorld partner award space. While Alaska Airlines and American Airlines are two of the best programs to book OneWorld award flights they unfortunately also often show phantom availability and shouldn’t be trusted without additional verification.

SkyTeam

Delta is the best program to verify SkyTeam award space. Air France Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club are good programs to use as well but they often don’t show all of the partner space. Delta is the most reliable in showing the partner availability online.

In general, you can always call the program you’re trying to book through and ask the agent to see if they can find the award space you’re looking at. If they do, you can then transfer over your points to complete the booking since almost all programs except for a few (ahem looking at you Singapore Airlines and Chase), will have the points immediately transferred.

– John at Miles Mastery

Be careful out there and don’t get catfished by the airlines

Editor’s note: I have a few straggler guest posts ready to go and a few more on the way, so for January and perhaps beyond we’ll be doing guest post Saturdays, making this a six day a week blog, or a 20% increase in content. Hooray for progress science math Stanley cups guest authors!.

  1. Hilton Honors has a promotion for free Silver status through April 29, and you’ll earn Gold status if you stay eight times through the same date. Gold status lasts through March 2026. Silver status gets you fifth night free on award stays, and not much else really.

    Don’t forget that most of you probably have Gold or Diamond from a Hilton card, or are eligible for instant Gold status by holding an AmEx Platinum.
  2. Staples has a promotion for fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting on Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction.
  3. Dell.com is 9x for accessories on the AA eShopping portal as of this writing, which is a nice way to top off any Loyalty Point gaps between now and the end of the current elite year in conjunction with American Express Business Platinum credits. For those keeping score at home, the end of the loyalty year is obviously February 29, duh.

Have a nice weekend friends!

The AA elite calendar.

Editor’s note: I have a few straggler guest posts ready to go and a few more on the way, so for January and perhaps beyond we’ll be doing guest post Saturdays, making this a six day a week blog, or a 20% increase in content. Hooray for progress science math Stanley cups guest authors!.

  1. Do this now: Check for targeted spending bonuses on your Chase cards, both co-brand and first party. Offers reported:

    – 10x points at grocery, gas, and Amazon for up to $1,000 in spend
    – 5x points at grocery, gas, and Amazon for up to $1,000 in spend
    – 10,000 bonus points on $110 or more in hotel bookings in 2024
    – $35 back on HBO Max after $99 in cumulative spend through September 🤡🤡🤡

    It’s best practice with these to use a new incognito tab for each card in your portfolio. (Thanks to TIP)
  2. Alaska has a paid and award flight sale, and it’s one of the better ones in recent memory. I’m seeing:

    – Short-haul to medium-haul domestic: 4,500 miles
    – Long haul domestic: 9,000-10,000 miles
    – Hawaii: 9,000 miles
    – Mexico: 9,000-10,000 miles

    Book by tomorrow night. The sale seems to cover travel through the end of March, but I can’t find that written anywhere so look around.
  3. Southwest also has a paid and award flight sale running through tomorrow night, but it’s not a heavy-hitter sale like Alaska, but more of a lightweight 90 pound hot-dog leg kind of sale. This one is valid for travel between January 26 and May 22.

    For those keeping track at home, I repriced six upcoming flights all booked in the last week. Two were significantly cheaper, two were the same price, and two were slightly more expensive.
  4. Kroger is running a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visas and Mastercards Friday through Sunday, and brokers are lining up with fresh inventory like Starbucks shoppers lining up for pink Stanley cups I expect rates to be strong.

    Side note: I was today years old when I learned what a Stanley cup was, hockey jokes aside.

Happy Thursday!

Southwest’s award sale in humanoid-food form.

  1. Rakuten In-Store has 1% cash back or 1x Membership Rewards at Food Lion stores, apparently valid for 75 days. An hour after making an in-store transaction, you have to re-add the offer to continue earning. Food Lion of course sells items other than food and lions despite its name.
  2. Yesterday we discussed the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard‘s targeted monthly for the entirety of 2024. I wasn’t targeted then, but yesterday I got my own targeted offer via email and so did others. The offers are all good once per month each month of 2024, and are for cumulative spend at restaurants, groceries, and gas. We’ve seen:

    – $200 back per month on $2,000+ in spend, up to 12x
    – $150 back per month on $1,500+ in spend, up to 12x
    – $100 back per month on $1,000+ in spend, up to 12x
    – 20,000 ThankYou Points on $2,000+ in spend, up to 12x
    – 15,000 ThankYou Points on $1,500+ in spend, up to 12x

    For those of you who can’t math, the best version of this offer is worth $2,400, and that stacks with other category and spend bonuses throughout the year. There’s a reason that this card is the best Unsung Hero. (Thanks to Doug, FlashStash, Brooke, jeff2486, and Tom)
  3. AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue program, the Technotronic of frequent flyer programs, has released its January promo award cities for discounted economy and business class point redemptions.

    Unfortunately, like the band Technotronic, there aren’t any US cities on this month’s tour. Montreal, Ottowa, and Toronto are included though, so there are still options for those of you in the Northeast (for flights, not a Technotronic concert. Sorry).
  4. American Express Offers has a card linked offer for $60 back on $300 or more at National Car Rental.

Happy Wednesday!

KLM’s answer to Eva’s Hello Kitty 777, the Technotronic livery, now flies twice weekly to Belgium.