Many in the points community were disappointed when MGM Rewards and World of Hyatt ended their partnership. In its place, MGM Rewards has partnered with Marriott Bonvoy.
While some had hoped that this would allow Marriott elite status holders to match to MGM status, that's not the case. However if you have MGM status, you can match to Marriott status.
Marriott elite will receive some benefits at MGM properties. The frustrating part for many will be that only Marriott Ambassador status will provide waived resort fees as a benefit. Staying 75 nights and earning Marriott Titanium won't be enough.
One Mile At A Time: "Today (Tuesday, January 16, 2024), the Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club has opened at New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA). The two-floor Chase Sapphire Lounge New York LaGuardia is 21,800 square feet, and it’s the largest lounge in the network to date."
"Well, it seems to be like the Chase Sapphire Lounge New York LaGuardia really takes the lounge network to the next level — the lounge is massive, and features complimentary spa treatments, amazing food and drinks, and even barista coffee. While I haven’t visited the lounge yet, this sounds to me like it might just be the best credit card lounge in the United States to date."
Chase Sapphire Lounge Access Rules In The U.S.
Two cards provide unlimited access with two complimentary guests via Priority Pass:
If you have a Priority Pass membership via another credit card or that you've purchased, you can access a Chase Sapphire Lounge in the U.S. once per calendar year. Additional visit will cost $75 as will guests. Without Priority Pass, you can pay $100 per visit.
Finally, you can only access a Chase Sapphire Lounge within three hours of departure. However, this restriction is waived if you are connecting.
If you'd like to get a jumpstart on earning top-tier World of Hyatt Globalist status, this one is for you.
Before we get into the details, please note that this is a targeted offer that's only available to select members via their employers. To register, you'll need to use your corporate email address. If I were to guess, employees at companies with a corporate rate for Hyatt will be the ones who are eligible for this promo.
Promo Details
If eligible, you will be given Explorist status for 90 days.
To retain Explorist status until February 2026, you must stay 10 qualifying nights at Hyatt properties within that 90 days. Even better, if you stay 20 qualifying nights, you will earn Globalist status until February 2026.
Please note that the qualifying nights must be earned via hotel stays. Elite nights earned via credit card spend on the World of Hyatt Credit Card or World of Hyatt Business Credit Card will not count.
You must register by December 31, 2024. Ideally, you'll do this early in the year so you can earn and then enjoy Globalist for as long as possible.
You may only register for a promo from Hyatt Sales Force once every three years.
You can purchase $300 in Mastercard gift cards and get a $15 discount at Office Depot/Office Max. The promo runs January 14-20, 2025. In-store only. May be limited to one per household, but your mileage may vary.
Points Wire Note: You can earn 5x Ultimate Rewards points with the Chase Ink Business Cash Credit Card.
Southwest is offering double points on flights through May 22, 2024. To earn double Rapid Rewards points, you must register then book by January 14, 2024.
The points you'll earn is determined by the base fare (excludes taxes) and fare type you book:
For example, a Wanna Get Away ticket with a $100 base fare would earn 1,200 Rapid Rewards points during this promo instead of the usual 600 points.
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American Express is running two Amex Offers that can help you save on Marriott stays. Unfortunately, these offers are targeted so not everyone will see them. I didn't get them on any of my cards. Hopefully, you'll have better luck!
On personal cards, you can find an offer to get $100 back after spending $300+. On business cards, there's an offer to get 20% back up to a $60 back which you'd hit after spending $300.
Important terms for both offers:
You can get extra perks via Marriott STARS and Marriott Luminous when booking participating properties!
Book your luxury hotel stay with perks!
Points Wire Note:
If you're like me and don't enjoy manually adding every Amex Offer one by one, take a look at CardPointers+. I use their Chrome extension to automatically add all of my Amex Offers to each card so I never miss an offer.
The Aeroplan Credit Card's current two-part sign-up bonus is expected to end shortly. If you've been thinking about applying, I would make a decision now. With the current bonus, you can earn:
While the first part of the sign-up bonus is obviously worth earning, the second part depends on your current situation.
If you would put that spend toward other sign-up bonuses, it would be hard to justify earning ~1.5x on the remaining $16,000. However, if you don't plan on getting another card for a bit or you have enough spend for both, this could be worth considering.
Keep in mind that the Aeroplan Card earns 3x on dining and at grocery stores. If you were to spend the remaining $16,000 on 3x categories, you'd earn ~4.5x when you factor in the 25,000 bonus points. If you need Aeroplan points, this could be a great way to supplement your balance.
Not bad for a card with a $95 fee.
Other Aeroplan Card Benefits
Of these benefits, my favorite is the 10% transfer bonus since it can be stacked with an Ultimate Rewards transfer bonus. For example, Chase is offering a 20% bonus for transferring points to Aeroplan through January 15, 2024. If you transfer 50,000 Chase points, you'd get a 30% bonus. That would bring you to 65,000 Aeroplan points.
Marriott Bonvoy has officially changed Suite Upgrade Awards to Night Upgrade Awards.
For context, Marriott Platinum members get a Choice Benefit when they hit 50 nights and one of those options has been 5 Suite Upgrade Awards. Additionally, if you earned Marriott Titanium status, you'd get another Choice Benefit at 75 nights. Again, you could choose 5 Suite Night Awards.
Each one could be used to upgrade a single night of a hotel stay, in theory. However, many hotels rejected requests to use them and some hotels weren't even eligible. Thus, this "benefit" was often frustrating to use for members.
As of today, Marriott has moved to Night Upgrade Awards which allow you to request upgrades to higher category rooms in addition to suites. I imagine they're hoping this will help more upgrades clear to limit customer frustration. However, I would expect properties to clear upgrades into nicer rooms while still playing games with upgrades to suites.
On the positive side, Night Upgrade Awards will be available at five additional brands:
Members will now receive a confirmation or denial of an upgrade three days prior to arrival. Previously, it was five days prior to arrival. One would hope that later notice will mean that properties will be able to more accurately project what rooms/suites will be available. Though, I wouldn't be surprised if they still choose to leave suites empty and try to upsell people at check-in.
As with many program changes, we'll see how it's implemented.
"As a Mastercard® holder you can enjoy 15% on savings on room stays in South East Asia, Korea, Japan, Micronesia, Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific Islands and 20% discount on dining at participating properties in South East Asia. Book and stay by 31 December 2024."
Points Wire Note:
Please note that it's 15% off the Best Flexible Rate. You may find that it a Member Rate is a better deal or you might prefer to book via IHG Luxury & Lifestyle to add perks such as free breakfast and a $100 property credit.
We've known Emirates Skywards was going to devalue its partner award rates since October of last year, but it still stings. If there's a silver lining, it's that economy awards haven't been devalued - pretty weak silver lining, if you ask me.
Only the business class redemption rates took a hit. I'm sure they'll spin at as a 9-25% rate increase, but only flights of no more than 250 miles were increased by 9%. All of the other rates were increased by 19-25%. For the math nerds among us, the median increase is 21%.
Alas, this means we can no longer book Korean Air to Seoul or Japan Airlines to Tokyo in business class from Los Angeles for 88,000 Emirates miles one-way. Instead, we'll now need 105,000 miles. Ouch.
While Emirates publishes an award chart for all of its partners, the chart is actually the same. Here's a link to an example.
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