- As American Express courts ordinary spenders, rivals poach its wealthiest clients by Bloomberg. Skip the video, the host saying “I’ll pull out my Costco Visa card” shows that those in the video are pretty uninformed. The article itself is interesting. Households that make $125,000+ annually hold at least one American Express card 59% percent of the time (no growth year on year) whereas 58% hold at least one Chase card (up from 52%).
- More Problems from Expedia’s Sale – Some Reservations Are Being Cancelled Without Notification by Miles to Memories. I really hope some of these large buyouts get blocked, having less competition is never a good thing and these mass market companies operate with impunity when it comes to actually honoring deals. Hotel booking websites are the biggest rort for consumers and the hotels themselves, I hope somebody comes up with a new model that doesn’t suck so bad.
- New Company Will Buy Your Miles for 1.5 Cents Apiece… in Bitcoin by View From The Wing. This should go without saying, but sell at your own risk. Lots of reports of accounts being shut down, flights being cancelled etc when you sell miles. 1.5¢ per mile isn’t also the best value, if you’re going to sell do your due diligence first and make sure you’re getting a good rate.
- Update: Free 1,000 Hilton HHonors Points For Changing the Password to Your Account by The Gate. I’ll make sure I post here when you can actually get the free 1,000 Hilton points.
- $20 For Using Carpool App – Tripda by Will Run For Miles. This isn’t like Uber, it’s more for long distance road trips. I’ve used a similar service (although much more informal) in Germany before and I really enjoyed myself.
- Free Night (Up to 8,000 Points) After Two Stays With Choice Privileges by Miles Remaining. Probably my favorite new new blog at the moment. The credit card also requires a Choice stay, so this could be a good combination.
- Delta Guarantees Bags in 20 Minutes or Get 2,500 Miles by Michael W Travels. I think he was the first to post about this, but I could be wrong. Only runs until the 31st of March, I think Delta is going to be paying out a lot of miles. As mentioned in the post Alaska runs the same program, the main difference is that flying Alaska is actually an enjoyable experience.
- Topic of the Week: At What Point Does Spirit Become a Threat? by Cranky Flier. Interesting comments as per usual, I’m surprised there aren’t more ultra low cost carriers in the US. I actually don’t mind flying spirit too much or low cost carriers in general. I’m short and I can sleep almost anywhere, so I am probably the exception rather than the rule but price is really the driving factor for me. There is also a credit card offer of 15k miles + $100 statement credit on the Spirit credit card.
- How Would You Like a 3% APY Checking Account? & Another High Yielding Checking Account and a Clarification About My LMCU Post by Lazy Travelers. The more bloggers talking about this sort of stuff, the better. I’ll be doing more posts on high yield checking accounts and prepaid accounts in the future.
- Etihad Airways Offering Status Match to Their Gold Elite Level by View From The Wing. If you value loyalty, this might be a good option for you.
- Walmart May Be Hardcoding Registers Against Gift Cards to Load Bluebird/Serve by Miles to Memories. I always take a wait and see approach to these types of rumors. Ben’s intell is usually top notch, so I have little reason to doubt him but fingers crossed he is wrong in this instance.