Travel Codex: "Alaska Airlines has a one-day flash sale to the Bahamas and Latin America to bring in the New Year. To book your 24% off sale price, use the discount code HELLO2024. This deal may be targeted as it just appeared in my email."
Some terms to note:
Skift: "With airport security lanes getting clogged in the U.S., UK and elsewhere, the Department of Homeland Security is slated to begin a series of tests of self-screening lanes at several airports, with Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas the first on tap in January."
Points Wire Note:
As with any new system, I imagine there will be growing pains. I'm curious just how much of an impact these growing pains will have in the early stages.
One Mile At A Time: "Royal Air Maroc’s Safar Flyer program is offering a status match opportunity at the moment, which can easily score you valuable status (and lounge access with oneworld)."
"There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that you’re eligible for this offer even if you took advantage of the last one. The bad news is that there’s a substantial cost to take advantage of this, higher than the cost of any status match opportunity I’ve ever seen before."
Cost to match:
Points Wire Note:
Oneworld Sapphire is the sweet spot for most people, but the cost of this match is steep. Plus, you need a qualifying flight on Royal Air Maroc within 6 months to maintain the status for a full year.
For most people, I don't think this match will be worth the cost and effort. However, if you can take the qualifying flight and have a decent bit of domestic travel on American and Alaska, the access to AA's Flagship Lounges and Alaska Lounges could be useful.
You can earn 25,000 Membership Rewards points when you spend $1,000+ with All Nippon Airways (ANA). This offer appears to be targeted. Some important terms:
"Excludes the following: (i) in-flight purchases of WiFi, entertainment, or phone service, (ii) standalone hotel bookings and car rentals, (iii) purchases through third parties or affiliated agents, (iv) code share flights or ANA flights operated by partner airlines, (v) duty free shopping and orders, (vi) travel insurance/trip protection, Mobile Rental Service, and Bid My Price."
Points Wire Note:
The ideal card for this Amex Offer is the Amex Platinum as you'll earn 5x on the purchase directly with the airline and you'll get trip delay coverage.
Award Wallet: "The biggest hassle in using this free night certificate — besides finding award availability — is that you've needed to call Hilton Honors to redeem it. If you're traveling overseas, that could be an expensive call. Or, perhaps it's inconvenient for you to make a phone call. Maybe you just prefer not to talk on the phone."
"Well, the good news is that you can now book Hilton Free Night Rewards via Hilton's website chat function."
Points Wire Note:
While the Hilton free night certs are the most valuable hotel certs you can earn via credit cards, the fact that you can't easily redeem online is so strange. Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott all issue free night awards from credit cards and as elite status benefits while allowing members to use them via the usual online booking process.
One Mile At A Time: "Between December 14 and December 28, 2023, LifeMiles is offering a promotion on purchased miles. The program is now incentivizing purchasing miles in a unique way."
"OMAAT readers who register can receive 10% of their redeemed miles back if they purchase any number of miles with the current promotion."
To be eligible for the 10% discount, you must meet these
Flights on Avianca are not eligible.
Points Wire Note:
This is a great opportunity to save some miles when booking business and first class award tickets, especially if you're booking for multiple people. By buying just 1,000 LifeMiles, you can get the 10% rebate. That means you can transfer Amex, Bilt, Capital One, and Citi points to get the remaining miles you need.
For example, 63,000 LifeMiles for a one-way business class award ticket to Europe will earn a 6,300-mile rebate. If you were to book two round-trip tickets, you'd get 25,200 miles back.
Two days ago, JT Genter reported that stays at the Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn would only earn 5x points instead of the usual 10x points. This change was buried in the terms.
From Loyalty Lobby, we've learned that "Marriott confirmed that Fairfield branded hotels in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa won’t earn 10 points per USD and full elite qualifying nights, like is currently the case with Protea, City Express, and Four Points Express hotels."
"Now, Fairfield branded hotels in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa have their points earnings cut in half (5 per USD), and you only earn an elite qualifying night for every two nights consumed."
Points Wire Note:
Sadly, this is yet another no-notice change that didn't even come with an announcement. I imagine some Marriott elites are going to be confused and unpleasantly surprised by these changes. Plus, this only adds even more confusion to benefits at Marriott brands. There's already so much inconsistency regarding what elites get at each brand in each region.
Turkish Miles&Smiles is offer 50% off economy award tickets from New York and Beijing which means you'd only need 15,000 Turkish miles for a one-way ticket. You must book by December 23, 2023 and travel between January 16 and May 31, 2024. Dates between March 27 and April 15, 2024 are excluded.
Disclosure: I serve on an advisory board for Bilt. These are my thoughts and they have not been reviewed or endorsed by Bilt.
Bilt is revamping the requirements to earn status and the ways in which you can earn status. Until now, you've earned status based on the number of points you've earned from your Bilt Card spend including rent payments.
Going forward, you'll earn status based on non-rent card spend or points earned during the year. You'll also earn spend on a linked card to Bilt Dining, SoulCycle classes booked via the Bilt app, and if you've linked Bilt to your Lyft account even if the linked card isn't the Bilt Card.
2024 Status Requirements
Milestone Rewards
Bilt will continue to offer tiered transfer bonuses based on your elite status. However, they will be launching Milestone Rewards (not unlike their partner Hyatt) for every 25,000 points you earn. Right now, we don't have specifics on what will be included in these Milestone Rewards.
Points Wire Note:
In 2023, the major benefit to Bilt status was larger transfer bonuses and those transfer bonuses were amazing. However, that was the only practical benefit to earning status. Sure, you could transfer a minimum of 1,000 points instead of 2,000 points, but how many people actually transfer so few points?
Given that they've made status tougher to earn going forward, it will be interesting if that will be offset by valuable Milestone Rewards. How they handle that aspect will play a big role in how I feel about status being tougher to earn.
They at least have a history of coming up with fun promos so I'm cautiously optimistic they'll come up with something useful.
Important context: Loyalty programs are focused on creating something that 99% of society will like. If you're reading Points Wire, that places you in the 1% of credit card users. That makes you impressive, but you're also part of a small segment of their customers.
Seal The Deal Travels: "You’re now excluded from the Amex Marriott Bonvoy Bevy’s signup bonus if you ever have the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card. If you have a clean slate with Marriott cards and want the signup bonus from all personal Amex Marriott cards, then you’d have to signup for the Bevy first before applying for the Brilliant."
Points Wire Note:
It's been a year of Amex card family restrictions. First there were restrictions across the various personal versions of the Amex Platinum. Next, Amex stopped allowing people to get the Amex Gold bonus if they'd previously opened an Amex Platinum (any of the personal versions). Now, they're restricting co-branded Marriott cards.
Things have certainly tightened up this year and it's made putting together a card strategy even more important if you want to maximize your points earning. Learning each bank's application and bonus rules is more important than ever.
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