Monthly Archives for September 2016.
With US airlines regularly offering less value for their points, I’ve been putting together this series with background, tips, and tricks for frequent flyer programs programs whose points can be very useful to you and that you can earn easily by transferring in from bank rewards currencies.
Here are 16 things to know about the United MileagePlus Program:
I’ve signed up for scores of cards over many years and I still have an excellent credit score, it was nearly 800 FICO on the three major credit bureaus when I went to get my mortgage. In part because of signing up for more cards, rather than in spite of it.
It often surprises me though how many credit cards are approved for consumers with much lower credit scores than I’d have expected. It turns out there’s data for that.
Hyatt used to let you book a ‘studio’ room at their Hyatt Residence Club (timeshare) properties for 12,000 points per night — flat — regardless of property. The price was the same regardless of property and had remained fixed this way for many years. Higher level rooms were available at fixed prices as well.
When Hyatt made changes to award prices at several hotels August 1 they also made changes to the redemption structure for Hyatt Residence Club properties. Only they didn’t announce those changes in advance.
American Airlines was behind United and Delta in devaluing its award chart and its elite program because it had bigger fish to fry. Finishing the US Airways merger came first. The internal mantra was “integrate before we innovate.”
But key elements of backend integration are slipping, there are huge gaps in American’s IT that drive customer service costs and limit revenue growth, while American focuses on reprogramming who gets upgrades.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
