Tag Archives: AMEX Membership Rewards

Best in Miles, Points, Credit Cards, Travel and More: Around the Web: 12.05 — 12.11, 2021

Facebooktwitterrss

 

Welcome to my weekly miles, points, credit cards plus other travel news from the blogosphere. Here are some topics:

  • 32,000 miles for Business Class to Europe
  • Aeroplan Elite Status Guide
  • American and JetBlue reciprocal award redemption
  • New York passes a consumer-friendly credit card points law
  • Covid medical repatriation insurance
  • How to Spend 36 Hours in Las Vegas (without gambling)
  • And more!

To access publications hidden behind the paywall, I have three words for you: Firefox. Bypass. Paywalls. Seriously, no need for any kind of trickery (beyond that 🙂 ). 

Planes

Save 30% On Turkish Airlines Award Flights, by Frequent Miler. You have until New Year’s Eve to book travel through May 15, 2022, and these are truly remarkable, Unicorn-grade values (or almost Unicorn, since Turkish adds moderate “fuel” surcharges. Still, getting to Europe for 32,000 miles in Business Class is kind of insane, and Turkish has pretty decent Business Class availability, which greatly adds to the value of this promo.

Delta won’t let you earn miles for flying in Basic Economy anymore — a good write-up by VFTW. I personally wouldn’t give any airline a chance to squeeze me in a middle seat, so I couldn’t care less anyway. However, if you’re not a big fella and do care about earning Delta miles this old-fashioned way, well, you won’t be happy. Gee, Delta? I’m shocked, I tell you.

American & JetBlue reciprocal award redemptions, by OMAAT. To be honest, I’m a little surprised it hasn’t drawn more attention from the Web. I would honestly pay slightly more to fly JetBlue rather than American, so to me this is a welcome development. Unfortunately, though, both airlines are merrily fleecing poor souls who’d rather not arrive at their destination at ungodly hours.

OK, I almost never care about revenue deals, but this one I like. You can fly between Rio and Lisbon with a free stopover in Madrid for $945 in LATAM Business per round trip, by Loyalty Lobby. Now, all you need is to find a deal between the U.S. and Rio and you’re set for a fabulous vacation.

Since the new Chase card comes with the entry-level Aeroplan 25K Elite status (and a spending option to achieve higher levels, too), here is the Aeroplan Elite Status Guide to Qualifying and Privileges, by Prince of Travel.

And this is my detailed review of the Air Canada Aeroplan program: Are Air Canada Aeroplan Points More Valuable Now? A Fresh Look!

Hotels

New York Hilton Closed, Won’t Honor Reservation, by Loyalty Lobby. Absolutely outrageous, and I would make it into a little project. Fire off a few emails to Hilton execs, then a few snail mails; if it still doesn’t work, book on your own and sue in SCC (although you’ll probably have to go to an arbitrator). I mean, seriously, for them it’s a numbers game. Stiff a hundred customers, and only one or two will sue. Huge savings!

Hotel Rates Among Biggest Price Hikes in the U.S., by Skift.

Credit cards

Awesome Credit Card Combos — interesting round-up from Frequent Miler.

This is potentially huge: New York Passes Law That Credit Card Companies Must Give 90 Days to Use Points After Account Closure, by MilesTalk. Although I didn’t like the loophole language like “misuse” or “improper.” Corporate lawyers are pretty good at loopholes, you know.

Covid-19

This is the first time I’ve heard about anyone who provides Covid medical repatriation insurance with no geographical restrictions, by TPG. The service is certainly pricey, but might be totally worth it if you can’t miss your flight home under any circumstances.

‘Science is flawed’: COVID-19, ivermectin, and beyond: a great interview with Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Australian epidemiologist.

Here is a CNN interview with a scientist who accurately predicted the number of Covid deaths after 1.5 years of the pandemic.

Other tidbits

Believe it or not, but my last visit to Sin City was over 10 years ago. If you, like me, could use a refresher, here is a good start: How to Spend 36 Hours in Las Vegas (without gambling).

Croatia To Join the Schengen Zone, Which Will Create Easier Travel, by Running With Miles.

AmEx buried Greg, the Frequent Miler. I laughed so hard that I was thinking about putting it in my Just for fun section, but decided on the Tidbits instead: Becoming undead and grabbing over 250,000 points.

To all mad rocket scientists out there: DARPA AND NASA SCIENTISTS ACCIDENTALLY CREATE WARP BUBBLE FOR INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL.

TBB

My favorites:

  • The most dangerous woman in San Francisco
  • The Depths She’ll Reach
  • The Many Worlds of Enough
  • 52 things I learned in 2021

And now just for fun

But it’s still in the United Kingdom!

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

How “Unnecessarily” Complicated Are AmEx Platinum Benefits?

    Breakage is a term used to describe revenue gained by retailers through unredeemed gift cards or other prepaid services that are never claimed. In these cases, the company pockets the money paid for these items, without actually providing the service or item for which the customer initially paid. Investopedia I wrote my lastContinue ReadingContinue Reading

Best in Miles, Points, Credit Cards, Travel and More: Around the Web Sep 5 — Sep 11 2021

  Here are some interesting points, miles, credit cards and other travel-related articles and posts from around the blogosphere. Planes An interesting Miles to Memories idea on how to transfer AmEx points to United. As a reminder, United is not an AmEx transfer partner, so a direct transfer is not in the cards, but youContinue Reading

Best in Miles, Points, Credit Cards, Travel and More: Around the Web Aug 15 — Aug 21 2021 August 15, 2021

  Here are some interesting articles and posts from around the blogosphere. Planes The 25% Citi transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles has been extended until Aug 27. Here is a brief post from Doctor of Credit to remind us that this bonus is not an isolated case (historically speaking), LOL. The post below is aContinue Reading

Back to the Basics: Cheapest Miles to Europe in the Post-COVID-19 World

    UPDATED 12.21.2020 (see Cheapest miles to Europe in Economy, #2) Whether you’ve noticed or not, I’ve taken a hell of a sabbatical lately on my blog. I’ve been fortunate so far because while I’ve lost some writing gigs, they’ve been mostly replaced by others. But I haven’t traveled since February, and my heartContinue Reading

Back to the Basics Part 2: Cheapest Miles to South America in the Post-COVID-19 World

  My previous post on the best airline programs to fly to Europe: Back to the Basics: Cheapest Miles to Europe in the Post-COVID-19 World December 10, 2020 is a big day. Mark your calendar. On that day the CDC will decide the fate of the emergency authorization of the new Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.Continue Reading

Deals and Unicorns in the New 25% Citi Transfer Bonus to Flying Blue — Part 1: USA to Israel

Return availability from Israel is equally good (at the time of writing). Your final round-trip ticket will cost as much as the journey between Chicago and Tel Aviv: 64,000 Citi points! For 64,000 points, even I would be fine with the ~$500 copay, and you know how much I hate fuel surcharges! Unicorn #3: HoustonContinue Reading

Save 25% on Your Business Class Award to Asia With the Bonus for Transferring Amex points to LifeMiles and the Latest LifeMiles Sale

UPDATE 3.22 Just a few hours left for Award Sale Update 3.22: The $40 Close-in Fee is no more! HT: Nick from The Frequent Miler Nick has also found some Unicorn anomalies in the LM chart: New York to Zurich: 16,500 miles JFK to Brussels on Brussels: 22K miles JFK to Lisbon on TAP: 23.5KContinue Reading

Ebates: Amex Membership Rewards Points and Another Look at the Ebates Credit Card

The Ebates / Amex Membership Rewards new partnership offers an exciting way to rack up super-valuable Amex points, transferrable to 16 airline and 3 hotel programs. If you’ve been reading this blog long enough you know that I hate regurgitating the same old stuff you can read pretty much everywhere else. And I can’t oftenContinue Reading

My Annual State of the Hobby Address and Happy 2018!

  I do these kinds of rants every year, but this year is different. There is already a guy pretending to be a president, so I feel like an impostor. Well, too bad, I’ve been here first. Yeah, cheap shot, but I couldn’t resist. Just… couldn’t. Anyway, I have some Bad News, and I haveContinue Reading

Copyright © 2025 lazytravelers.net. 2013-2020 All Rights Reserved. 

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers