Making the Most of Evolving Airline and Hotel Reward Programs

I'm looking at an American Airlines AAdvantage statement that I still have from 1987. Here are some highlights of the award schedule, as printed on the back of the statement:
120,000 miles for TWO Business class tickets on British Airways between any US gateway and Great Britain or France.

20,000 miles for an upgrade on QANTAS from a paid coach fare to business class.

110,000 for a companion Concorde ticket between New York, Miami or Washington and London.

My how times have changed.

You fail to mention that United Airlines, as of 3/1/15, awards mileage based on ticket prices for most passengers. I received an award of about a quarter of my actual miles for a flight from SFO to EWR. I could not find any mention of this on United's web site or on links from its web site. (This could be considered an hidden, added cost to a low price ticket.) This is discussed on their semi-secret web site, mileageplusupdates.com.

I think many seasoned traveler remember the go-go days of laughably easy upgrades. Long gone now. Based in Vienna and traveling mostly around Europe, I mostly have to book through Austrian/Lufthansa/Star Alliance but the accumulation is terribly slow and I have never, ever gotten an upgrade. I continue to use the Austrian Mastercard (Amex is little use in many countries) and at least can use the first/business lines and the Austrian/LH lounges. That gets me TSA when flying on UA in the US, too--a definite plus! In Europe, the best hotel point system in Holiday Inn. I need $89 rooms for work and HI Express now competes hard against Motel One and other hip German chains. I do nab free rooms from time to time by being loyal--and their hotels are clean, in city centers and offer all that a biz traveler needs: free internet, an ironing board,a desk and surprisingly good fresh croissants each morning. Free.

If you have $100,000 in a no load IRA you can transfer it from your current custodian to Merrill Lynch (no cost/no fees) and in return you'll receive a 2.63%, on all purchases, Bank of America no fee Travel Rewards Visa Card plus a free no minimum B of A interest bearing checking account, free checks and a free safe deposit box. I've traveled all over the world ever since American instituted the first airline rewards program but sadly American's new program rules have put the final nail in the coffin of airline loyalty for the average traveler. If you're currently hoarding American miles book a trip before March or you will receive a bad case of sticker shock.

just try to book an exit row seat and stop worrying about the rest of the perks. There is no worse airline insult than being a platinum (or 75000 mile equivalent) and being told you get nothing for it other than early boarding. It's just not worth the sweat and aggravation to game these airline programs. And let them know, too, that you're playing the field from now on.

Who could possibly have thought I would miss US Airways? Not the world's greatest airline, but a stable and predictable rewards program and a decent chances at upgrades at the higher tiers (like the movie says, it's not about the miles). As executive platinum (what a name!) in American, they are grabbing back all the perks as fast as they can - this article only scratches the surface. 20 years absolute loyalty to US Airways, flew 150,000 miles this year on American, destroyed in a year by Doug Parker and his merry band.

My god, how much do I have to pay *not* to do this stuff?

As others said, generic card are good. CapitalOne has a super easy 'redeem' option for any travel. You can 'pay with points' directly or up to 90 days later. Also little stuff: 2000 points for a $20 taxi.
They do not make me buy overpriced brands and do not charge a foreign transaction fee.

Schwab has no point program (that I know of), but they even reimburse any domestic or foreign ATM fee (saved me over $50 the last trip) + no foreign Transaction fee.

After retiring from a job where I was required to travel, we are making every attempt to use every airline and hotel point as soon as possible as the intent is to always devalue these points. At that point, we will use B&B's, or other type rooms whenever possible. We are also planning on using more airlines that are from countries outside the USA if possible (for example Icelandic Air to fly to Europe). We are also going to fly less and spend more time in each location as air cost is so much of the expense now (and not good for climate change). It seems to be the best we can do for "rewards" programs that are less valuable every year.

I second the recommendation of online shopping through an airline's portal. I'll do this simply to keep an account active and not lose my miles. Snapfish recently offered FIFTEEN miles/dollar spent!

Rewards programs are still helpful if you fly frequently or far. The miles you may or may not find useful, but there are other benefits. On United for example, the early boarding, expanded seat selection, priority of TSA screening, and baggage allowance can make for an easier experience-- particularly when you fly internationally, and can use gold or higher status for access to a Star Alliance lounge.

For years American offered a round-the-world first class (with like 5 stops) for 180,000 miles, an incredible deal. I did that 3 times. It's gone for good now. Nothing even close is left. Glad I didn't hoard.

I recently upgraded to an American Express Delta Platinum card from a gold card. 3 months later I had not gotten any of the "perks". 60,000 miles and a $100 credit for spending money on Delta. I called and they told me I had a Platinum in 1994 and would bot be eligible for the perks. 22 years ago. I explained that the card I had was an additional card on my husbands business card and I never received any of the benefits. Didn't matter. I canceled the card because why should I pay that kind of an annual fee for nothing. Its in the fine print. Goodbye American Express, no longer a customer.

I have been an UA MileagePlus for many years. I have reached platinum a few years in a row. But UA has continued to alter their program to trim down the benefits. Last year, I missed only $25 qualifying dollar to become "platinum", because UA refused to grant me the status since I purchased the ticket from Expedia instead of their own website, despite that I indeed flew UA from Beijing to SF! Now, any tickets, even for airlines within the Star Alience, not purchased from UA website do not count towards MileagePlus status. Of course, you can only bring one person to the Economy Plus seating, and you have to qualify for both miles and dollars. Yes, their so called "improvements" of MileagePlus program is just to reduced benefits, and to make travel more miserable for their loyal customers.

I gave up on ever using my United miles fly. Instead, I redeemed the miles for a nice set of knives. Sure, the points I cashed in for those knives made the knives expensive, but at least I got something for them and it was something I wanted.

The bottom line here is that merger and consolidations in an "E Pluribus Unum" fashion, i.e. out of the many one, eliminates competition and with it any rationale for a mega-company to cater to a consumer. Why should they, the consumer now has little to zero choice of vendors. Not to mention their wink-wink collaboration such as airline executives at recent meetings talking about enforcing "discipline" in their market on limiting capacity so fares can remain high. And the government either winks at the collusion or is asleep or is counting their lobbyist contacts and future big paycheck job opportunities post-government. Forget getting on the hamster-wheel of so-called reward programs and get on the path of demanding government intervention into this new corporate travel gilded age.

Forget the airline miles credit cards. Get a good 2% cash back card with no annual fee. Then you have the freedom to spend your rewards on whatever you want. Airline miles are valued at around a penny or less per mile and devalue every time they announce "improvements" to their programs.

A 2% cash back card seems to give you more than these confusing mile reward cards.

We have tried for years to use miles on United. There are never seats available, even though we can be spectacularly flexible on dates, times and even destinations. We have concluded that it is pointless to even try; miles have become worthless to us.

Completely agree with Mr. Kelly's ending quote, even though we have several thousand miles (awaiting use on an international trip). Two years ago, in order to stay in mid-town Manhattan, I elected to spend 60,000 Aadvantage miles. That hurt the hoarder in me, but the logic prevailed--why did I accumulate these miles? To use them, of course. And if using them for flights becomes impractical I will fly the cheapest carrier and use the miles for hotels and rental cars. When you save money it's all the same color green.

Delta Gold much harder to reach and not worth a great deal after having reached it.

After being an American Airlines Platinum level flyer for the last few years, I am not sure being involved in the program is worth the time and effort any longer.

For instance, I accumulate "segments" (sometimes known as "stickers") which I can use to upgrade based upon seat availability. Even though I fly about 75,000 miles a year and despite my elite status, I think I have been offered an upgrade once or twice in the last 2 years. What good are the rewards if they cannot be used?

I also feel airlines try to discourage flyers, at least in the case of AA, from redeeming mileage awards in deceptive ways. For example, there might be plenty of award flights to Europe, but they always seem to want to route you through London where the taxes and fees are so high, it hardly makes sense to redeem miles for the flight. On domestic flights, they restrict many award flights to undesirable multi-stop itineraries.

Steve
www.travelingprofessor.com

No matter what this article recommends, it doesn't make any sense to use an airline-specific card since that restricts redemption to a particular carrier. Plenty of credit card companies have rewards programs where accumulated points can be swapped for all kinds of merchandise including airline tickets on ANY airline.

Look at the checks you write every month for groceries, mortgage, car payments, clothes, cable TV, etc. If your bank credit card has an awards program, pay ALL those bill with the card and write just ONE check to the bank at the end of the month. Points will accumulate rapidly and your credit rating will look terrific.