The Mile Lion: "Last month, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles carried out a massive devaluation of its award charts."
"Turkish Airlines is now attempting a mea culpa of sorts with a 20% rebate on award tickets, valid for travel up till 30 June 2024. It’s a valiant attempt, but frankly speaking, the damage has already been done."
You must book by March 31, 2024.
Points Wire Note:
Please note that this is a rebate rather than a discounted award rate. You'll need to total number of miles required for a route as listed on Turkish's award chart and you'll get 20% of you miles back as a rebate.
You can transfer Bilt, Capital One, and Citi points to Turkish Miles&Smiles.
Loyalty Lobby: "This offer allows you to earn 4,000 bonus ALL points, worth 80 euros if you stay at Sofitel hotels twice during the offer period. There is no minimum stay requirement, so two stays for one night qualify."
You must complete your two stays by May 12, 2024.
Points Wire Note:
Accor doesn't get a ton of chatter in the US points community, but they have several nice brands including Fairmont, Raffles, and Sofitel. All three of these brands participate in Accor's STEP program which offers VIP benefits such as daily breakfast, a room upgrade, and a $100 property credit.
STEP bookings should be eligible for this promo since they're direct bookings. That means you can get the VIP benefits and earn 4,000 bonus points worth $85.
View From The Wing: "Starting this Friday, March 1 you must be an AAdvantage member to take advantage of free standby. So that’s a new restriction on standby, though of course people can join the program at the airport."
"What wasn’t previously announced, though, but American is now telling customers is that they won’t be able to get added to the standby list by a customer service agent or gate agent. Standby requests will be self-serve only:"
Professor of Points: "Both American Express and Capital One have been building lounges at Ronald Reagan National Airport. The American Express Centurion Lounge at DCA will be the traditional American Express lounge (although, presumably one of the smallest). Capital One is opening the Capital One Landing in collaboration with Jose Andres."
Disclosure: I serve on a Bilt advisory board and may earn a commission if you use the links below.
If you have a Bilt Platinum status, you can get Air France-KLM Flying Blue Gold status for 12 months with a simple status match starting February 29, 2024.
To activate the status match, you must transfer 10,000 Bilt Rewards points to Flying Blue. It can take up to three days for the match to process and for you to see your new Flying Blue Gold status.
Once active, your Gold status will be valid for 12 months. Since it's 12 months regardless of when you match, I would time this to line up with your travel plans on SkyTeam carriers. On international flights, you'll have SkyTeam lounges access regardless of what class of service you fly.
Even if you take advantage of this status match option, you will be eligible for future matches.
One Mile At A Time: "All Nippon Airways (ANA) has announced plans to significantly devalue award redemptions through its Mileage Club frequent flyer program."
"With this devaluation, we’re seeing changes to the ANA international award chart, as well as to the partner airline award chart. ANA Mileage Club has historically had really attractive redemption rates, among the lowest in the industry. With these changes, redemption rates will still be competitive, but just not as good."
Points Wire Note:
It's been a rough few weeks with devaluations. The silver lining is that the new redemption rates are still competitive generally.
Doctor Of Credit reports that Chase is making some changes to the no-annual-fee Marriott Bonvoy Bold Card. Unsurprisingly, these aren't positive changes.
Going forward, cardholders will receive 5 free elite night credits per calendar year instead of 15. The card will come with complimentary Marriott Silver status which requires 15 elite nights.
Considering the fact that the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless comes with 15 elite night credits each year and has a $95 annual fee, I can't say this changes surprises me.
The Bonvoy Bold card's 2x on travel bonus category will change to 2x on grocery store, rideshare, and internet/cable/phone service purchases.
The changes will take effect on July 10, 2024. More changes are expected to be announced.
One Mile At A Time: "The company has just unveiled a new loyalty program, named Brilliant by Langham, which is launching this week. Frankly, the program doesn’t seem particularly inspiring, especially since you’d think Langham would use this as a point of differentiation, given its small footprint."
View From The Wing: "Make no mistake, these are negative changes for members, they just don’t seem as bad as I expected from the headline number of properties changing category."
"Previously we’ve seen a lot of high end hotels become more expensive as redemptions. This time we’re seeing lower category hotels go up the most. The bulk of the action with these changes are in the bottom half of the chart’s distribution. The biggest grouping of changes is category 3 hotels becoming 4’s, while we also see 1’s become 2’s and 2’s become 3’s."
Points Wire Note:
There's no way around it, devaluations hurt. Some of the category increases sting more than others, while others make little sense to me - particularly a few a properties in Washington, DC that I know well. As categories change each year, we can't be surprised at the changes, but they definitely skewed heavily toward increased award rates this year.
Book before March 26, 2024 to lock in the current award rate before rates change.
View From The Wing: "Delta appears to be eliminating its checked baggage delivery guarantee (“Bags on Time”) program next month."
"Customers could claim 2,500 miles whenever their bags failed to show up on the carousel within 20 minutes of arrival on a domestic flight. You could request the miles on your phone while standing at baggage claim, and in my experience claims were approved instantly."
"The person who shared this with me attributed it to the high cost of the program driven by awareness in viral TikTok videos and increasing ‘gaming’ of compensation."
Points Wire Note:
Whether you think it was fair to check as many bags as you could and hope for a bag delay so Delta would have to give you 2,500 SkyMiles, I don't think anyone can be surprised by this. It's a reminder that taking things to extremes in points and miles without consideration for how it will look to a bank, airline, or hotel can have negative consequences.
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