Award Wallet: "Generally speaking, the pricing is a mixed bag. Award tickets to and from the United States — like on most Delta partner airlines — don't make sense to book unless it's a last-resort situation. Each U.S. gateway features similar pricing, give or take a few thousand miles depending on the class of travel. Business class awards are the most steep, coming in at 320,000 SkyMiles each direction."
Points Wire Note:
Business class award award rates with Delta SkyMiles rates are atrocious on itineraries that start or end in North America. If you want to get decent value for an aspirational award ticket, use your SkyMiles for flights that start and end outside North America. For example, a one-way business class ticket on El Al between Tel Aviv and Bangkok is 70,000 SkyMiles. Not bad for 11 hours.
You can get a 30% bonus when you transfer Amex Membership Rewards points to Hilton Honors. The standard transfer rate to Hilton is 1:2, so this makes it 1:2.6. Hilton points are worth about 0.5 cents per point.
Must transfer by December 31, 2023.
Points Wire Note:
It's not worth it, especially if you use points and miles for business and first class flights. When you need Hilton points, you'll often be better off buying them during a 100% bonus promo.
One Mile At A Time: "Unfortunately in recent months, it seems like actually redeeming partner miles for travel in Etihad premium cabins has become more challenging. At the time, I couldn’t figure out any rhyme or reason to when space was bookable with partner programs, and when it wasn’t. It looks like some trends are emerging, in the form of a possible new 60-day rule."
"American AAdvantage seems to have access to Etihad GuestSeat availability for first class and business class, but only within 60 days of departure."
Points Wire Note:
Air Canada Aeroplan continues to only see economy award space on Etihad.
One Mile At A Time: "In 2019, Air Canada Aeroplan and Oman Air launched a partnership. Unfortunately for the past many months, Aeroplan hasn’t had access to Oman Air award availability."
"There’s a positive update on that front — Oman Air awards are once again bookable through Aeroplan. You’ll find the availability directly on Air Canada’s website, and there’s space in all three cabins, including first and business class."
"I’m curious to see what happens with the Air Canada Aeroplan partnership when Oman Air joins oneworld. There’s nothing that precludes the airline from working with Air Canada and also working with oneworld airlines, though that’s not to say that this will necessarily happen."
Points Wire Note:
Aeroplan points are easy to earn as you can transfers Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One Miles, and Chase Ultimate Rewards. If you have the Aeroplan Credit Card, you can get a 10% bonus when transferring Ultimate Rewards points.
Loyalty Lobby: "IHG has struggled to roll out all the promised benefits properly, especially when it comes to Confirmable Suite Upgrades and Food & Beverage Rewards."
"The email that IHG sent out on Sunday was firm that these suite upgrade certs could be used towards award reservations, but IHG told something else to a reader on Saturday."
In an email from Finnair, they noted that "In the autumn, we told you about a new era for Finnair Plus program in 2024, and the targeted timeline for the changes was late January 2024. The technical work to implement the changes across our systems has progressed well, but we still need a little more time to develop and test the renewed services to ensure they work smoothly for you. Hence, the new era of Finnair Plus will start on 9 March 2024."
Points Wire Note:
Once this transition is complete, you'll be able to move Avios between Aer Lingus, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, and Qatar Airways.
Dan's Deals flagged that the new Delta-El Al partnership is now live. Unfortunately, this new partnership means El Al is ending partnerships with Alaska Airlines and American Airlines.
With the end of the Alaska Airlines partnership, we lose one of the best ways to book El Al with points and miles. The silver lining is that the partnership doesn't end until June 30, 2024.
Points Wire Note:
Alaska Mileage Plan's new unified award charts take effect in March. At that points, booking El Al will become a particularly useful sweet spot for the few months before the partnership ends. After that, using Qantas points will likely be your best bet to book.
Award Wallet: "In a bit of good news, you can now earn and redeem on Delta SkyMiles on ITA Airways flights, but there's a catch. You can only book business class seats, and ITA's entire route map hasn't been rolled out across Delta's website yet."
Points Wire Note:
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and Air France-KLM Flying Blue will most likely be a better option for booking with points and miles.
Turkish Miles&Smiles is running a flash sale for flights from Los Angeles and Venice. You can find awards with a 50% discount on dates between January 16 and May 31, 2024. Dates between March 27 and April 15, 2024 are excluded.
In my test searches, only discounted economy awards were available from Los Angeles.
Point.me is an award search aggregator that allows you to see current award availability across multiple airline programs. They've just launched an "Explore" feature which allows you look at award availability from a city to anywhere across the world, a specific region, or a specific country.
Now, the Explore feature doesn't show live availability so keep that it mind. It displays space based on recent searches from other Point.me members.
I'll be hosting an Ask Me Anything session with Tiffany Funk, one of the founders of Point.me, on Instagram at 8:30pm ET on Tuesday, December 19. Follow me on Instagram to join! Hope to see you there!
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