Award Wallet: "JetBlue just added the ability to book Hawaiian award flights online, making the booking process much more convenient. This new functionality comes just a week after JetBlue added online booking for Qatar awards — marking the first time TrueBlue members could redeem points for partner awards online."
"However, it's not all good news. Along with making Hawaiian Airlines awards bookable online, it seems JetBlue has revamped its unpublished award chart for Hawaiian flights, making some awards a lot more expensive to book."
One Mile At A Time: "Long story short, at the moment there seem to be no opportunities to redeem partner points currencies for travel in Etihad first class or business class on long haul flights. There’s long haul economy award space and there’s a limited amount of short haul business class award space, but there’s no medium or long haul first or business class award space."
"What’s interesting here is that this wasn’t an overnight change. For several months now, Air Canada Aeroplan has been having issues with booking premium Etihad award space. Then a few weeks ago, American AAdvantage seemed to lose access to most premium Etihad award space."
If you're interested in the Amex Business Platinum, there's a 190,000-point offer available. The minimum spend is $15,000 in 3 months as is generally the case for this card. Typically, we see a 120,000-point welcome bonus so this is much better.
On top of the welcome bonus, the lounge access with this card is second to none. While the annual fee is $695, the annual $200 airline free credit and $400 Dell credit ($200 Jan-Jun and $200 Jul-Dec) can help offset the fee.
Direct link to offer
Points Wire Note: In 2022, we briefly saw a welcome bonus of 250,000 Amex Membership Rewards points. Otherwise, this is as high as the welcome bonus has ever been.
Pontos pra Voar reports that Iberia Plus has launched a 50% off award ticket promo. Unfortunately, this is a targeted offer so only some accounts can book with the discount.
There isn't a promo page so you'll only know you have the offer if you search for award space and see the award rate is cut in half.
It's worth a quick check to see if you have the 50% discount if you want to book flights to Europe.
The one-way business class award rate of 34,000/50,000 Avios (off-peak/peak) one-way from the east coast and Chicago drops to 17,000/25,000 Avios. Economy class awards drop from 17,000/20,000 Avios (off-peak/peak) to 8,500/10,000 Avios.
View From The Wing: "Although American’s website remains glitchy for showing Etihad award space, the AAdvantage program retains access to seats that are made available by the Etihad – even while Etihad’s partner Air Canada Aeroplan frequently does not."
"However if things go wrong with your Etihad award redemption, American is telling its own agents that they just aren’t going to be able to help."
You can now book Southwest flights via the Chase travel portal. I saw this shared by Redditor Scolor and was able to confirm with my own search on the Chase travel portal.
Points Wire Note: If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you might get slightly more value out of your points by booking through the portal instead of transferring points to Southwest Rapid Rewards. When Southwest devalues in early 2024, this will become more common.
Award Wallet: "Not many people are familiar with Condor, a German airline focused on leisure routes. Condor isn't a part of an airline alliance and, until recently, you could only book Condor using miles through the airline's partnership with Alaska Airlines."
"However, Condor and Emirates just struck a new partnership agreement that allows Emirates Skywards members to earn and redeem miles on Condor-operated flights."
Frequent Miler: "Alaska made a splash yesterday with the release of its new “unified award chart,” which takes affect in March, 2024. This has been in the works for awhile, but it was something that many Alaska frequent fliers (and points and miles enthusiasts) had a fair bit of trepidation about."
"There are losers to this new award chart, for sure. However, I think that it strikes a sensible balance between pricing and increased utility. It’s not as fun as the old motley patchwork of different award charts for each partner (that also created some incredible values). But, going forward, I think it will make it easier for more people to use Alaska miles more frequently and at reasonable prices."
You can use 50,000 Alaska miles to book Qantas business class one-way between the US and Australia. You can include domestic connections on Alaska and connections within Australia or to New Zealand on Qantas for no additional miles. Plus, you can include a stopover on a one-way award for no extra miles so you can see two cities for the price of one.
Your only options for earning Alaska miles with credit cards are their Bank of America co-branded cards or transferring points you earned with the Marriott Bonvoy cards.
Unfortunately, Alaska Mileage Plan is revamping their award chart as of March 2024 and this rate will jump to 85,000 miles one-way. It's not an entirely unreasonable award rate, but it's a huge jump.
Live And Let's Fly: "The new Capital One Lounge in Denver is nice…I don’t think there is any way to objectively deny that. The food is great and the service was even better. I appreciated the restrooms and shower suites and the large selection of to-go food."
"As a Capital One Venture X cardholder, I will use this lounge when flying through Denver (DEN) as long as there is no waiting list. However, if this lounge becomes so popular that extended waiting lists become the norm, I will use the United Club just a few paces away."
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