Hey folks!
I was doing my own app-o-rama today, and I had intended to apply for the 50,000 point offer on the CitiBusiness AA Platinum Select card. Unfortunately, I found that most existing links are dead (as mentioned by most of the blogosphere a few weeks ago).
After some searching, however, I found a working link to the offer, which should be valid through April 30, 2016. Enjoy!
Due to various sales ex-EU in the past, I have some experience dealing the American Airlines reservation systems for flights from the European Union. American Airlines uses Amadeus for certain countries in the EU (in this case Ireland) instead of their usual SABRE.
I would often book directly through American because either I could only find the best fare on American vs. OTAs, or I wanted to use the hold feature. Google Flights would direct me to the americanairlines.eu.amadeus.com link. And when I tried to search for the same flight on aa.com, I was quoted a slightly higher price due to currency conversion to USD. But when I put a reservation on hold through the americanairlines.eu.amadeus.com website, and later tried to find it on the AA.com site to pay for it, I would get this message “Please call to book your trip”
Hello from Queenstown, where you get to wake up to this every morning:
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies getting here due to a snafu we had at the airport with our checked bags. To put it simply, we ended up shelling out $120/bag per person as the result of a series of mistakes we made.
Let’s start at the beginning. We purchased our tickets through Amex Travel, and we bought them for a Virgin Australia codeshare operated by Air New Zealand. At the time of ticketing, there was a notation saying that checked baggage fees were not charged at the time of booking, but as far as I’ve seen it says that for all tickets, and since it was an international flight, we assumed that a baggage allowance was included in a ticket. Furthermore, Michael has Star Alliance Gold status through a status match to Copa Airlines, which theoretically entitles him to an extra checked bag. So we were doubly good, right?
Hello from Sydney!
I just got this email from American Express offering a 30% discount on Membership Rewards redemptions for paid international flights through amextravel.com. This yields a redemption rate of 1.43 (1.0/0.7) cents per point, which is better than the rate for both the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Citi Thank You Prestige (unless you redeem for AA flights, for which you’d get 1.6 cents per point).
Greetings from Sydney!
At long last, the whole DEM Flyers crew is together in one place traveling for two weeks, and we could not be more excited. Unfortunately, Michael and I are still sitting on the tarmac at Sydney as we wait for a truck to tow our 747 the last 500 feet to the gate. So close, yet so far….
I don’t typically write trip reports, but I figured this occasion was significant enough to warrant it. And besides, I don’t have anything better to do ????
Both the personal and business Marriott credit cards have recently increased their signup bonuses to 80k Marriott points after $3,000 in spend. This is the highest offer I’ve ever seen, though it looks like the annual fee of $99 for the business card and $85 for the personal card are NOT waived. I don’t seem to see a bonus for adding an authorized user for this offer.
Both cards earn:
5 points per $1 spent at Marriott properties
Tip 1: Be able to read Japanese
Okay, that’s not good advice. Let’s try again.
Tip 2: Have family or friends that can read Japanese
Okay, say you don’t have that either. What if you don’t know Japanese and would still like to experience an authentic Japanese ryokan experience?
The different types of Japanese style lodging
First of all, there are a couple of types of Japanese style lodgings. Ryokan are the full blown traditional Japanese style inn experience with Japanese style rooms. They will typically include dinner and breakfast. Often they will have either a private or shared bath (onsen.) Ryokan will usually be in the price range of 6,000 to 30,000 yen per person.
Now that I’m 24 hours removed from my mileage run to Dallas and have no further runs on the books, I figured it would be a reasonable time to reflect on my decision to do the runs in the first place, add some context where I omitted it, and decide if it makes sense to do again in the future.
For some context, see my post on The Case for Mileage Running, in which I outlined my initial rationale for spending three nights on a plane for no purpose other than to get on a plane in the opposite direction two hours later. For those new to travel hacking, also see here for a description of the difference between redeemable miles and elite qualifying miles.
Hello from the Centurion Lounge at San Francisco International Airport, which has been my temporary home for three of the past four Tuesday nights before a series of mileage runs to Dallas!
Yep, you read that correctly (although despite the fancy shoes, mileage running has nothing to do with actual running).
I write a lot about how I approach travel hacking, which is largely based on evaluating the (opportunity) costs of taking advantage of a particular hack and comparing it to the rewards I reap from it. So it may come as a surprise to hear that I have (not once, not twice, but thrice) opted to pay money to take an overnight flight to Dallas only to turn right around once I get there and arrive in San Francisco before it’s time to head into work.
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