- How Delta is making it easier to upgrade using your miles by Delta.
- Southwest ‘close’ to ETOPS certification by Flight Global. I’ll be surprised if they get it before the end of 2018.
- Stop Thinking American Express Statement Credits Are The Same As Cash by Your Milage May Vary. I mean even Chase & Citi credits aren’t cash, especially considering you no longer earn points when making the Chase purchases now.
- Free Shows in Vegas for Total Rewards Diamond Members by Single Flyer. Anybody been to any of the available shows? Recommend?
Deals expiring at the end of today or starting today (view the full deal calendar here):
- Kroger 4x Fuel Points on Gift Cards (thru 12/11) + 15% Off Uber and Dozens More Gift Card Deals
- Synchrony & Stash To End Co-branded Relationship – All Accounts To Be Closed On 12/11/2018
Deals expiring at end of tomorrow:
- [Targeted] Citi Cards: Earn 5% on Paypal Purchases, Max $25
- Chase Pay: Load Starbucks & Earn Up To 475 Bonus Stars
- Citi ThankYou Points 25% Transfer Bonus To Avianca LifeMiles (1:1.25)
- Giant, Stop&Shop, Martin’s: Save $10 On Groceries When You Purchase $50+ Happy Giftcards (Get $40 Back In Groceries With $100+)
- Burger King App: Get a Whopper Sandwich for $.01 when Ordering Near a McDonald’s
- [YMMV] Venmo: Make 3 Purchases With Venmo Debit Card & Get $10 Bonus
- Atlanta Delta Flash Sale: Latin America & Caribbean From 14k Round Trip
Watch WOW in the RIO with Diamond TR,
its a great show, come in with low expectations, prepared to be blown away!
But the Delta article sneakily doesn’t explain HOW MUCH IT COSTS to upgrade. In case it costs 250,000 miles to upgrade from a 2 hour coach flight to Comfort+, that might be “easier” (as they tout), but ridiculously not worth it (which they don’t explain, it being Delta). “Easier” does not necessarily mean “worth it”!
The Flight Global article about Southwest was one of the most poorly written news stories I’ve ever read… I need to gouge my eyes out with a stick after reading it.
I covered the highest rated TR Diamond shows earlier this year.
https://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/total-rewards-free-ticket-shows/
Thanks, Mark. Will include in a later recap
Thanks – much appreciated 🙂
I completely agree with Your Milage May Vary sentiment on Amex premium Credit Cards. They are using an old business trick akin to buying the store extended warranty that has a hard time delivering value. I agree with your comment that the Chase travel cash back are actually credit and not actually cash but the difference is in the Terms and Conditions. Chase is not nearly as restrictive as Amex in using the card’s benefits. If I could pay the Amex Platinum card in installments of $46 per month similar to how they give me my Uber credit, then I would consider getting it again.
The YMMV article is incomplete and therefore misleading, but I wonder if it’s intentional (to avoid Amex seeing the truth), or just because of wanting to simplify, or just because of the writer not knowing the truth? With (only) 3 or 4 airlines, you can buy gift cards online (with various restrictions) to get the “incidental” airline credit. So it depends a lot if you can find a use for the those gift cards from those particular airlines as to whether you can get the full value of the credit “easily” or not. I use AA, because it accepts 8 gift cards per purchase, and buying at least $100 (lately apparently even $200) gift cards works for getting the Amex credit. DL is not as good, because they only accept 3 gift cards per purchase, and you have to buy separate gift cards of no more than $50 each to get the Amex credit with DL. So if you have a $250 airline “incidental” credit (from the Amex Hilton Aspire card), plus a $100 airline “incidental” credit (from the Amex Gold card), you can buy 4 or fewer AA gift cards which you’ll be able to use on just one (non-award) AA flight purchase, while with DL you’d have to buy 7 gift cards which you would have to spread over at least 3 DL (non-award) purchases. So as you can see, if you can figure out the rules and make use of what’s within them, and you pay for at least one flight a year which could be on AA, then it’s relatively easy to get $350 of airline “incidental” credit every year. But with each airline, the actual (unpublished) rules are a bit different, which can make it complicated if you only want to fly another airline. Finally, the article uses Amex Plat as the example. IMHO, that’s the hardest of the Amex cards that give airline credits on which to get close to $0 effective AF. With Amex Gold, if you “naturally” (without incurring unneeded expenses) can use the annual airline credit every year AND the new $10 Grubhub / Seamless / etc monthly dining credit every month, with the current AF of $195 you get to negative effective AF, and with the upcoming $250 AF you get to $30 effective AF. (And getting to negative effective AF is quite possible with the $450 AF Hilton Aspire card too, if you can use both these airline credits and/or resort credits and/or weekend free night cert to offset $450 with more than $450 in credits and/or cert value. But I don’t see any way for most people to whittle down the effective Amex Plat AF to anywhere remotely close $0 (let alone below it) every year (the Global Entry benefit being something any given person only needs once every five years or so) by using its credits. So how much credits can help offset an Amex AF varies widely from card to card, AND you need to do… Read more »
This is spoonfeeding and the type of long, public explanation that gets things shutdown.
MMV just stating the obvious. I don’t think your average joe Amex Plat user was saying “wow, a highly restricted airline credit and piecemeal Uber reward, that’s basically cash”.
I think you’d be surprised.