Tag: Major Updates

Last Chance to Transfer Your Miles: Capital One Losing Two Transfer Partners

May 12, 2020 19

Capital One has quietly shared the loss of two mileage transfer partners—Hainan Airways and Qatar Airways—effective May 13, 2020. If you've been meaning to transfer Capital One Miles to either of these partners, you'd better do it right away!

Patrick Stouffer

AA Adds GOL Airlines as a Mileage Earning, Redemption Partner

May 9, 2020 24

American Airlines has just added GOL Airlines—Brazil's largest domestic carrier—to its AAdvantage® partner airlines, opening the door to earning and redeeming AAdvantage® miles on GOL itineraries. But now that you can use AA miles for flights with GOL, the question is: should you?

Patrick Stouffer

American Express Adds a Slew of New Perks For Travelers Stuck at Home

May 2, 2020 28

American Express offers one of the largest collections of travel-oriented credit cards—some of which involve a significant annual fee. With travel at a standstill, many cardmembers are debating whether their travel cards are still worth the annual fee. In response, Amex just released the most comprehensive list of cardmember benefit updates we've seen yet.

Patrick Stouffer

American Express Membership Rewards (Temporarily) Loses a Transfer Partner

May 1, 2020 20

American Express Membership Rewards is widely regarded as one of the most-valuable transferrable currencies thanks to having over 20 transfer partners and lucrative transfer bonuses. However, the program just lost a little luster with the loss of one of its airline transfer partners.

JT Genter

United Eliminates Partner Award Chart, Makes It Harder to Earn Elite Status When Flying Partners

April 29, 2020 31

Over the last few days, United has made earning elite status harder and removed partner award charts from its website. Both without any notice whatsoever. They say bad things come in pairs. In this case, they were right. In this post, we go through what this means for you.

Patrick Stouffer

American Airlines Moves Morocco To Europe, Decreasing Award Prices and Increasing Routing Options

April 28, 2020 29

Overnight, American Airlines moved the entire country of Morocco from Africa to Europe—at least for the purposes of award travel. Believe it or not, the impacts of this change are largely positive for award travelers traveling between many regions—including from the U.S. to Europe. Read more about the impacts on mileage costs, possible routings, and award ticket taxes and fees.

Ross Denkin

Citi ThankYou^® Points Adds Emirates as 16th Airline Partner

April 19, 2020 27

While Citi ThankYou® Points isn't known for being the most valuable transferrable currency, it just added its 16th airline transfer partner: Emirates Skywards. This new partnership means you can now book Emirates' legendary first-class product to Europe for just 135,000 Citi ThankYou Points round-trip, or fly to Europe in Emirates business class for 90,000 points round-trip.

JT Genter

Big Changes Announced for the Citi Premier® Card

April 9, 2020 17

Citi just announced a major revamp of the Citi Strata Premier. Among the new features are raised earning rates for restaurants and groceries as well as a new $100 hotel credit. In this post, we're digging into the new card benefits to see if the value proposition has improved or gotten worse.

Patrick Stouffer

Air France, KLM, and Virgin Atlantic Launch New Award Partnership

February 26, 2020 26

Air France and KLM recently launched a new partnership with Virgin Atlantic, making both Flying Club and Flying Blue miles even more valuable. You'll now have the ability to book partner awards on either airline using the other's currency. In this article, we're digging into the new partner award options to highlight the best values.

Patrick Stouffer

American Airlines Drops Close-In Booking Fees!

February 15, 2020 39

American Airlines has dropped its $75 close-in booking fee for awards ticketed less than 21 days from the date of travel. At this point, this seems to be a genuinely positive change, without any obvious downside. Still, the lack of fanfare from American's PR team leaves us wondering if the other shoe is still waiting to drop.

Sam Helmy

Korean Air Announces Changes to SKYPASS Program

January 1, 2020 33

Korean Air has announced massive changes to its loyalty program, SKYPASS. These changes involve major price increases in award redemptions. In this article, we're going to walk you through all the changes and how they will affect you as an award traveller.

Patrick Stouffer

Major Overhaul of American Express Card Benefits in 2020

December 16, 2019 57

American Express has announced sweeping changes to benefits across almost its entire range of business and personal cards, set to take effect on 01/01/2020. There are positive and negative changes and the updates affect both credit and charge cards. Check out the post for all the details.

Jess Farley

Major Overhaul of Delta Cards for 2020

October 22, 2019 73

Delta has announced sweeping changes to its co-brand card lineup for 2020. We cover all the details in this comprehensive guide.

Jess Farley

Citi Cutting Key Benefits on September 22, 2019

September 19, 2019 100

On September 22, 2019, Citi is cutting key travel and purchase protection benefits across its entire range of rewards cards. In this post, we revisit some of Citi’s most popular card benefits, and detail the best alternative cards and card issuers for each one.

Jess Farley

Aeroplan Program Changes: Everything You Need to Know

August 5, 2019 30

Ahead of the launch of its new loyalty program in 2020, Aeroplan announced a slew of changes to its award program. We outline everything you need to know about the changes.

Elina Geller

Singapore Star Alliance Partner Award Devaluation Coming in April

March 28, 2019 55

Singapore KrisFlyer has announced a devaluation to its Star Alliance partner awards. The new award chart will come into effect on April 16, 2019, so there is still time to book an award with the old pricing before the change takes effect.

Sam Helmy

Lufthansa Award Chart Devaluation Coming in May 2019

March 22, 2019 68

Lufthansa has announced an award chart devaluation that will come into effect May 9, 2019. The changes are widespread and affect flights operated by Lufthansa and Star Alliance partners. Although this is bad news, most changes are moderate.

Sam Helmy

IHG to Devalue Over 500 Properties Worldwide

January 22, 2019 86

IHG is changing the number of points needed to redeem a free night at nearly 700 of its hotels on January 25, 2019. Although some properties will cost less, nearly 80% of the changes are price increases, so it's a good time to review your travel plans and see if there are any stays you should book in the next few days.

Sam Helmy

Singapore Devalues Premium Awards, Changes Waitlist Rules and Updates Award Search

January 7, 2019 59

Singapore KrisFlyer has announced a significant price increase starting January 24th for premium-economy, business, and first-class award tickets on Singapore and SilkAir-operated flights. Mileage upgrades and the waitlist process are changing too, so now is a good time to check your travel plans and see if you can book before this devaluation kicks in.

Jess Farley

Arrival Plus Offers Largest Ever 70,000 Miles Sign Up Bonus

November 19, 2018 16

Arrival Miles earned with the Barclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard® can be used to erase any travel purchase greater than $100 charged to the card. Discount airfare, train tickets, ferries, cruise charges, Airbnb, purchases from online travel agents and discount travel websites — all can be wiped with your Arrival Miles.

Rachel Berkey

Capital One Announces Lucrative Airline Transfer Program

October 27, 2022 22

Capital One has announced a new airline transfer program which will join its fixed-value redemption options. We’re huge fans of flexible rewards currencies and, from first impressions, Capital One has produced a well thought out milage transfer program featuring high-value partners and transfer ratios that will encourage many cardholders to move significant spend onto Capital One cards.

Jess Farley

Chase Adds JetBlue As An Ultimate Rewards Transfer Partner

August 27, 2018 27

Chase has added JetBlue TrueBlue as a transfer partner of Ultimate Rewards as of August 26, 2018. The move comes unannounced the day after Chase dropped Korean Air as a transfer partner, and does restore some value to Ultimate Rewards especially if you're a JetBlue loyalist. This won't get you to Australia in suites, but it could help you help you top off an account to try Mint service on a transcontinental flight.

Sam Helmy

Marriott Rewards & Starwood - Everything About the Merger

October 27, 2022 102

Marriott may be a touch confused as to when Marriott Rewards and SPG will be rolled into a single loyalty program, but for all intents and purposes, any day from August 1, 2018, we can expect to see Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest combined into a single entity. Here is everything we know/don't know.

Jess Farley

Details of New Combined Marriott and SPG Loyalty Program

October 27, 2022 75

It’s been a long time coming, but Marriott has finally announced the key features of the combined Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty programs that will launch August 1, 2018.

Jess Farley

Changes Coming To Hilton Honors In 2018

January 12, 2018 48

Hilton Honors has brought in 2018 with a slew of changes to their reward program. While in 2017 Hilton brought in some valuable changes (the ability to pool points), and some which were pretty worthless (using Hilton points to shop at Amazon), the changes in 2018 are more sweeping and adds value to those loyal to the program.

Sam Helmy

Singapore Devalues Star Alliance Award Chart And Introduces Online Bookings

December 3, 2017 20

Singapore has announced a devaluation to its Star Alliance partner award chart. The change will come into effect starting December 7, 2017.

Sam Helmy

Big Changes to Flying Blue Coming April 1, 2018

December 1, 2017 18

Flying Blue has announced major changes to the program that will come into effect April 1, 2018. At that time we'll see a shift to a revenue-based loyalty program. As of now, Flying Blue has outlined the changes it is making to earning miles, as well as tier miles needed to move between levels.

Sam Helmy

Delta Devastates Partner Awards with Massive Price Hike

April 8, 2017 31

Delta Air Lines doesn't publish an award chart for SkyMiles redemptions. This lack of transparency allows Delta to make changes without notice, at any time and we're on our own to identify how much we'll pay for a ticket using miles.

Sam Helmy

Upcoming Changes to Singapore's KrisFlyer Program

March 22, 2017 13

Changes to the Singapore Air KrisFlyer program go into effect March 23, 2017.

Jess Farley

World of Hyatt as of March 1, 2017

February 26, 2017 40

As of March 1, 2017, Hyatt's loyalty program is known as World of Hyatt. There are significant changes from the previous program, how will they impact you?

Sam Helmy