View From The Wing: "American AAdvantage now has more access to Alaska Airlines award space. You’re going to have success finding seats with your American Airlines miles when looking for Alaska’s flights in and out of California, going forward. In fact, more often than not you’ll be able to secure awards – if you’re willing to part with more of your miles."
"However adding variable pricing for partner award tickets brings with it risk of undermining the great value in today’s program, which is inexpensive awards on airlines like Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways. A shift away from that fixed pricing model may not be good for members."
Skift: "Hilton revealed Wednesday that it had signed an exclusive licensing deal with Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH), a group of 560 boutique hotels unaffiliated with the major hotel groups."
"Hyatt is a loser here. Small Luxury Hotels is ending its multi-year partnership with the smaller hotel group. World of Hyatt loyalty members could use their reward points to book stays at the group of boutique hotels. Last year, Hyatt lost a loyalty licensing deal with MGM Resorts to Marriott."
Points Wire Note:
I would expect the number of Hilton Honors points needed to book many SLH properties to be high. If you want to earn Hilton points and elite nights on SLH stays, you'll need to book via Hilton.
However, if you're not chasing Hilton status, you can book SLH properties via their preferred booking program withIN and get perks such as daily breakfast for two, a property credit, and a room upgrade.
Disclosure: I may earn a referral bonus if you use the links below.
Update: This offer is now available via cardholder referrals. I've included mine below if you'd like to support my work.
The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless welcome offer is back up to 5 Free Night Awards if you spend $5,000 in 3 months. Each Free Night Award is worth up to 50,000 points. You can then top off your award with an additional 15,000 points.
If you're under 5/24 and getting Chase cards, I would still prioritize Chase Ultimate Rewards cards over this.
The Chase 5/24 rule applies to this card. If you've opened 5+ personal cards (plus select business cards) from any bank in the last 24 months, you won't get approved. Additionally, there are restrictions based on the Marriott cards you have or have had from Amex and/or Chase.
Keep in mind that Marriott Bonvoy doesn't publish an award chart so many of the nicer properties have pricey award rates.
ALL - Accor Live Limitless and Qatar Airways Privilege Club are running a promo in which you can earn bonus hotel points for flights and bonus Avios for hotel stays.
What You'll Earn
For Qatar Airways flights, you can earn 1 ALL Rewards point per 2 euro spent. You will still earn Qatar Avios for the flights For Accor hotel bookings, you can earn 10 Avios per 10 euro spent. You will still earn your usual ALL Rewards points for the stay.
However, there are several Accor brands at which you'll earn at a lower rate:
Important Terms
Additionally, if you've previously linked your ALL account to Flying Blue or Qantas, you'll need to specify which account you want to use to earn bonus points. If you've already link Flying Blue or Qantas, you need to wait 12 months to change it.
Points Wire Note:
Accor properties aren't usually top of mind for people in the points community. However, if you're paying cash, there are some great options. Specifically, you can book Fairmont, Raffles, and Sofitel properties via Accor's STEP program to get benefits such as daily breakfast for 2, a $100 property credit, a room upgrade, and more.
With the Chase Offer for Marriott Bonvoy, you can get 10% cash back when you spend at least $100 at Marriott properties up to $80 back. That means you can get 10% back on up to $800. I love that this offer can be used globally rather than only in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
This Chase Offer expires on March 11, 2024 and appears to be targeted.
You should be able to stack this with a Marriott STARS or Marriott Luminous booking so you can get extra perks and save a little bit.
Danny the Deal Guru: "BWH Hotels has launched a new promotion, offering Best Western Rewards members the chance to earn a free night after two stays. Your stays must be completed by May 5th, and you can then use your free night during the summer."
Points Wire Note:
It's probably not worth going out of your way to stay at a Best Western, but if you need a couple of stays, you might as well earn a free night from them!
One Mile At A Time: "As of April 1, 2025, British Airways Executive Club will create a single status qualification year. Specifically, you’ll be able to collect Tier Points between April 1 and March 31 of the following year, and status will then be valid through April 30 of the year after that."
Head for Points: "Virgin Atlantic made it difficult to book the Retreat Suite. It’s not clear if this was because of concerns over last minute aircraft swaps (which would require refunds) or because it wanted to create an air of excitement. You could only book the Retreat Suite from 14 days before departure. They opened up at 14 days, to the minute, before take-off."
"Quietly – and this is not currently reflected on the Virgin Atlantic website – the rules have changed. You can now lock in the Retreat Suite at the time of booking or at any point afterwards."
Frequent Miler: "American Express completely revamped its cobranded Delta credit cards yesterday, adding benefits while increasing both the welcome offers and annual fees. However, on at least two of those cards (the consumer Gold and Platinum) it’s possible to get a better offer when making a dummy booking on Delta’s website. These modified offers each include a $400 statement credit, but with 20K less SkyMiles."
Points Wire Note:
What's a dummy booking?
Sometimes, you can find better welcome bonus offers on co-branded airline and hotel credit cards on the checkout page of a booking. Whether you book or not, these offers can be displayed. Going through the booking process to find a card offer is often referred to as "dummy booking" since you're not actually planning to book a flight or hotel stay.
Amex has released a targeted Amex Offer in which you can earn 25,000 Membership Rewards points if you spend $1,000+ with All Nippon Airways (ANA). To take advantage fo the offer, you must make the purchase by March 10, 2024. However, you can travel after this date.
Important Terms
Points Wire Note:
ANA rarely has great fare deals out of the US, so I imagine this will be tough for many people to leverage. However, if you book two business or first class award tickets with ANA Mileage Club miles, you might hit the $1,000 in taxes/fees because of the carrier-imposed surcharges. Award tickets aren't explicitly excluded, so this might trigger the offer.
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