Category Archives: Uncategorized

Well, the reviews are in, and everyone absolutely LOVES Delta’s revamped website. Everything works perfectly, the award calendar is flawlessly smooth, and the Sky Miles rewards program is more lucrative then ever.

Haha, LOL JK ROFL, right? In fact, when searching for transatlantic business class awards lately, if the award calendar doesn’t crap out halfway through the search, I get this beautiful mosaic of insultingly-priced awards that torpedoes the value of Sky Miles so much that continuing to call them “Sky Pesos” is honestly insulting to the peso.

One particularly annoying trend is Delta showing awards on the calendar that extend past their booking window, meaning you can see them sitting there but can’t actually use your miles to book them. Take for instance this search for DTW-AMS (which is a prized route for saver awards, given that it is served by Delta’s “suite”-equipped A350).

There’s something approximating a saver award on Tuesday June 25th, but if you click on it to try to book, you get an error that takes you back to the search page. Turns out the 24th is the last day of the booking window, so all the inventory loaded past that date can’t actually be booked.

There’s a workaround, though, which is to start your itinerary on the 24th, which will then show the leg on the 25th that you actually want. By adding a redeye from LAX to DTW, you can see that there are three saver seats available on the A350, which I would definitely book if it wasn’t about a week too late for the trip I’m planning.

Then, once this is booked, you can always call to change it (maybe by lopping off the LAX-DTW leg) at some point within 24 hours after booking, since Delta offers free changes/cancellation within a day of booking.

There you have it. Like I said, I would have already booked this itinerary if the dates lined up for me, but my loss is (potentially) your gain. It’s annoying that Delta has this discrepancy between what award inventory is shown on their calendar versus what you can actually book, but if dealing with Sky Miles awards wasn’t a painfully annoying process, it just wouldn’t feel like Delta anymore.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

Well, the reviews are in, and everyone absolutely LOVES Delta’s revamped website. Everything works perfectly, the award calendar is flawlessly smooth, and the Sky Miles rewards program is more lucrative then ever.

Haha, LOL JK ROFL, right? In fact, when searching for transatlantic business class awards lately, if the award calendar doesn’t crap out halfway through the search, I get this beautiful mosaic of insultingly-priced awards that torpedoes the value of Sky Miles so much that continuing to call them “Sky Pesos” is honestly insulting to the peso.

One particularly annoying trend is Delta showing awards on the calendar that extend past their booking window, meaning you can see them sitting there but can’t actually use your miles to book them. Take for instance this search for DTW-AMS (which is a prized route for saver awards, given that it is served by Delta’s “suite”-equipped A350).

There’s something approximating a saver award on Tuesday June 25th, but if you click on it to try to book, you get an error that takes you back to the search page. Turns out the 24th is the last day of the booking window, so all the inventory loaded past that date can’t actually be booked.

There’s a workaround, though, which is to start your itinerary on the 24th, which will then show the leg on the 25th that you actually want. By adding a redeye from LAX to DTW, you can see that there are three saver seats available on the A350, which I would definitely book if it wasn’t about a week too late for the trip I’m planning.

Then, once this is booked, you can always call to change it (maybe by lopping off the LAX-DTW leg) at some point within 24 hours after booking, since Delta offers free changes/cancellation within a day of booking.

There you have it. Like I said, I would have already booked this itinerary if the dates lined up for me, but my loss is (potentially) your gain. It’s annoying that Delta has this discrepancy between what award inventory is shown on their calendar versus what you can actually book, but if dealing with Sky Miles awards wasn’t a painfully annoying process, it just wouldn’t feel like Delta anymore.

The AvGeek blogosphere is awash in stories of new startup airlines lately, if by “awash” you mean “there are two new startup airlines in the AvGeek blogosphere right now.” One sounds incredibly promising, while the other looks like a whole lot of empty promises. We’ll start with the good (bad name notwithstanding): Moxy Airlines, proposed by JetBlue founder and aviation guru David Neeleman. The basic plan is to fly C-Series aircraft between secondary airports for less than major carriers charge. There’s more to it than that, but not by much: it’s a beautifully simple proposal that could present another compelling option in a market dominated by airlines that are increasingly indistinguishable from one another. AURA, on the other hand, is founded by a guy you’ve never heard of, and its plan is to fly between a few cities in 2019, with more cities to come in 2020. On the surface, AURA seems way more thought-out than Moxy, having already announced its initial routes as well as the planned expansion, pricing on all routes, cabin design, seat maps, menus, etc. However, after spending more than thirty seconds poking around AURA’s slick new website, it becomes very clear that this airline is basically the Fyre Festival with wings (AKA “all sashimi and no sizzle” (because they advertise a menu chock full of sashimi, get it?)).

While Moxy is more of a general idea at this point (although I’m sure Neeleman is drumming up investors behind the scenes), AURA already wants customers to give them money, in the form of a $100 membership fee that locks in a rate of $100 per month once AURA actually starts flying. See, this is a good deal, because AURA’s membership fee will be $250 per month for anyone who didn’t get in on the ground floor. Imagine how dumb you’re going to feel when AURA launches and you’re stuck paying a $250 per month membership fee when you could have given a sketchy company $100 just days after they launched and years before they provide any service!

AURA’s promotional renderings do look very cool, but the problem is that anyone proficient in design software can make the inside of a plane look cool. Actually making all that stuff out of real materials is a different story, and given how long any product that goes into a commercial airplane takes to engineer, it seems ludicrous that AURA would claim that their first flights will be in 2019.

Also, let’s look at this list of shit AURA is proposing that has never been used on a commercial aircraft before (except maybe in the new Emirates first class suite):

• Free virtual reality headsets

• A five-course meal prepared on board

• Zero-gravity seats

• Self-cleaning lavatories

• OLED augmented-reality window displays

• An OLED panel spanning the entire length of the ceiling that projects images of flames for some fucking reason

They promote a partnership with an interior design company called Yasava, who designed this interior for private jets but doesn’t say anything about whether it can even be manufactured. Design is great and all, but there’s a wide gulf between sketching out how something will look and actually making it work. (For one example among many, remember that design firm PriestmanGoode wasn’t in charge of manufacturing United’s Polaris seats — that job went to Zodiac, whose delays contributed to the slow rollout of Polaris. It should be noted that Yasava’s CEO is also the head of design for AURA’s parent company.

The whole Fyre Festival comparison starts to make sense when you realize that every aspect of AURA has been thought out except the operational realities that are necessary to launch an outfit like this (oh, and also that the CEO is a 21 year-old with a business degree). Talk about putting the cart before the horse — it doesn’t much matter what types of sushi you offer when you’re going back and forth with the FAA about what type of seatbelt these seats require (something that will probably come up at some point, given that the seats in the renderings don’t have any belts at all) or how fire-resistant your giant flaming OLED panels are.

I hate shit like this. I would love this plane if it were real, but it isn’t, and all this design effort is purely in the service of ginning up interest and a bunch of $100 subscriptions from the same people that rented luxury yurts because Ja Rule promised them a kickass festival. The fact that articles like this one talk about AURA as if the fleet is ready to fly only adds to the deception. (Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about: “To create AURA, ZED Aerospace collaborated with Swiss interior design firm YASAVA Solutions to formulate a flight experience like no other, outfitting a fleet of CRJ700 Bombardier aircraft with a suite of high-tech features”) If AURA actually does fly in two years, maybe I’ll kick myself for not getting in earlier, but I’m not holding my breath.

As for Moxy, aside from the name, I couldn’t be more excited. In fact, there’s a lot of stupid branding I’d put up with in order to fly a CS300 between Oakland and Gary, IN. The CS300 looks like an amazing plane (from what I’ve seen in trip reports so far on Swiss and Air Baltic), and as an added bonus, it’s a real airplane and not a graphic rendering. Oakland is a way more convenient airport for me than SFO, and it also has a solid lounge option (the Escape Lounge, open to Amex Platinum customers).

Here’s what it really comes down to, though: innovating the very top of the market, like what AURA is trying to do, has very little impact on most passengers. AURA is trying to be a boutique offering for a tiny slice of the overall flying public, so it’s difficult to say that they’re actually revolutionizing air travel. Flying a very expensive plane for very rich customers paying very expensive fares is great for press; not so much for effecting lasting change in the industry.

On the other hand, airlines like Jet Blue brought live TV and better legroom to secondary airports at very low prices, and then they introduced an excellent first class product on long flights at a fraction of the cost of the legacies. The introduction of Mint not only spurred other airlines to up their transcon game, it also had a lasting effect bringing prices for business-class transcons well under $1000 on a routine basis. This is what I hope Moxy can accomplish — offering a state of the art aircraft and improved passenger experience options and prices at or below the going rate from the big carriers. It may not be as flashy as an OLED screen or onboard sashimi bar, but I still can’t wait to fly Moxy. Just please pick a different name.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

The AvGeek blogosphere is awash in stories of new startup airlines lately, if by “awash” you mean “there are two new startup airlines in the AvGeek blogosphere right now.” One sounds incredibly promising, while the other looks like a whole lot of empty promises. We’ll start with the good (bad name notwithstanding): Moxy Airlines, proposed by JetBlue founder and aviation guru David Neeleman. The basic plan is to fly C-Series aircraft between secondary airports for less than major carriers charge. There’s more to it than that, but not by much: it’s a beautifully simple proposal that could present another compelling option in a market dominated by airlines that are increasingly indistinguishable from one another.

AURA, on the other hand, is founded by a guy you’ve never heard of, and its plan is to fly between a few cities in 2019, with more cities to come in 2020. On the surface, AURA seems way more thought-out than Moxy, having already announced its initial routes as well as the planned expansion, pricing on all routes, cabin design, seat maps, menus, etc. However, after spending more than thirty seconds poking around AURA’s slick new website, it becomes very clear that this airline is basically the Fyre Festival with wings (AKA “all sashimi and no sizzle” (because they advertise a menu chock full of sashimi, get it?)).

While Moxy is more of a general idea at this point (although I’m sure Neeleman is drumming up investors behind the scenes), AURA already wants customers to give them money, in the form of a $100 membership fee that locks in a rate of $100 per month once AURA actually starts flying. See, this is a good deal, because AURA’s membership fee will be $250 per month for anyone who didn’t get in on the ground floor. Imagine how dumb you’re going to feel when AURA launches and you’re stuck paying a $250 per month membership fee when you could have given a sketchy company $100 just days after they launched and years before they provide any service!

AURA’s promotional renderings do look very cool, but the problem is that anyone proficient in design software can make the inside of a plane look cool. Actually making all that stuff out of real materials is a different story, and given how long any product that goes into a commercial airplane takes to engineer, it seems ludicrous that AURA would claim that their first flights will be in 2019.

Also, let’s look at this list of shit AURA is proposing that has never been used on a commercial aircraft before (except maybe in the new Emirates first class suite):

• Free virtual reality headsets
• A five-course meal prepared on board
• Zero-gravity seats
• Self-cleaning lavatories
• OLED augmented-reality window displays
• An OLED panel spanning the entire length of the ceiling that projects images of flames for some fucking reason

They promote a partnership with an interior design company called Yasava, who designed this interior for private jets but doesn’t say anything about whether it can even be manufactured. Design is great and all, but there’s a wide gulf between sketching out how something will look and actually making it work. (For one example among many, remember that design firm PriestmanGoode wasn’t in charge of manufacturing United’s Polaris seats — that job went to Zodiac, whose delays contributed to the slow rollout of Polaris. It should be noted that Yasava’s CEO is also the head of design for AURA’s parent company.

The whole Fyre Festival comparison starts to make sense when you realize that every aspect of AURA has been thought out except the operational realities that are necessary to launch an outfit like this (oh, and also that the CEO is a 21 year-old with a business degree). Talk about putting the cart before the horse — it doesn’t much matter what types of sushi you offer when you’re going back and forth with the FAA about what type of seatbelt these seats require (something that will probably come up at some point, given that the seats in the renderings don’t have any belts at all) or how fire-resistant your giant flaming OLED panels are.

I hate shit like this. I would love this plane if it were real, but it isn’t, and all this design effort is purely in the service of ginning up interest and a bunch of $100 subscriptions from the same people that rented luxury yurts because Ja Rule promised them a kickass festival. The fact that articles like this one talk about AURA as if the fleet is ready to fly only adds to the deception. (Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about: “To create AURA, ZED Aerospace collaborated with Swiss interior design firm YASAVA Solutions to formulate a flight experience like no other, outfitting a fleet of CRJ700 Bombardier aircraft with a suite of high-tech features”) If AURA actually does fly in two years, maybe I’ll kick myself for not getting in earlier, but I’m not holding my breath.

As for Moxy, aside from the name, I couldn’t be more excited. In fact, there’s a lot of stupid branding I’d put up with in order to fly a CS300 between Oakland and Gary, IN. The CS300 looks like an amazing plane (from what I’ve seen in trip reports so far on Swiss and Air Baltic), and as an added bonus, it’s a real airplane and not a graphic rendering. Oakland is a way more convenient airport for me than SFO, and it also has a solid lounge option (the Escape Lounge, open to Amex Platinum customers).

Here’s what it really comes down to, though: innovating the very top of the market, like what AURA is trying to do, has very little impact on most passengers. AURA is trying to be a boutique offering for a tiny slice of the overall flying public, so it’s difficult to say that they’re actually revolutionizing air travel. Flying a very expensive plane for very rich customers paying very expensive fares is great for press; not so much for effecting lasting change in the industry.

On the other hand, airlines like Jet Blue brought live TV and better legroom to secondary airports at very low prices, and then they introduced an excellent first class product on long flights at a fraction of the cost of the legacies. The introduction of Mint not only spurred other airlines to up their transcon game, it also had a lasting effect bringing prices for business-class transcons well under $1000 on a routine basis. This is what I hope Moxy can accomplish — offering a state of the art aircraft and improved passenger experience options and prices at or below the going rate from the big carriers. It may not be as flashy as an OLED screen or onboard sashimi bar, but I still can’t wait to fly Moxy. Just please pick a different name.

If you’re just now reading about Iberia’s recent Avios promotion, I’m honestly confused about how you’re removed enough from the hobby to not have heard about it from a million other blogs yet somehow aware that my blog exists. Anyway, you can read more about it on Doctor of Credit (get ready for a SURGE in traffic, Doc). I appreciate DoC’s title on that post (“New Iberia Promotion But Don’t Do It It’s Pretty Bad”) rather than some variant of “OMG GET 90,000 AVIOS FOR ONLY $350!” I’ll start off by saying that I’m not against buying points on principle. I don’t think points are about “free” travel; I use them as a way to enhance travel and a fraction of the actual retail cost. If buying points gets me an amazing redemption I couldn’t outright afford, I’ll do it. However, points are a terrible investment, so I only buy points if I have an immediate use for them and the opportunity is unusually good and/or unlikely to be repeated. The Iberia definitely struck me as one that’s unlikely to be repeated (probably due to the person who thought of it getting fired), but I still pretty much ignored it. There are a few reasons why:

First, the December 1st expiration date. Just speaking personally, I’d struggle to use up 90,000 Avios by then, given that I already have travel planned for this fall and don’t have enough time off work to take any surprise trips.

Second, I don’t know Iberia from a Spanish hole in the ground. Overall, my Avios game is very weak. I have a handful of British Airways ones and an account with Aer Lingus, but I’ve never gotten around to creating an Iberia account. I don’t know their chart very well, I’m not familiar with their terms, and it seemed like a stupid idea to invest a bunch of money in a currency I don’t understand. Plus, the major benefit of Avios is that they can be transferred among Aer Lingus, British Airways, and Iberia… although the terms of this promotion specifically exclude them from inter-program transfers.

Third, similar to the American Airlines Flight Cents program, it’s not like you could just plunk down $350 and get the 90,000 Avios — you had to actually book ten flights first. I was feeling pretty lazy this weekend, so this might just be me, but that seemed like a lot of work. And that’s coming from a guy who made 600 separate $1.01 Amazon gift card reloads in order to game Flight Cents.

To be honest, given the work involved in maximizing the promotion as well as the ultra-short timeframe to redeem the miles, I’m kind of surprised this took off like it did. As I’ve documented in the past, I have a horrible barometer of what will or won’t be popular among churners, but are there really that many people who have an immediate use for 90,000 Avios that can only be used on Iberia? (Apparently so… One justification I heard is that Iberia’s partner chart for American Airlines domestic awards is really good, although any promotion dependent on American Airlines releasing saver award space should be taken with an entire salt mill, to say nothing of the quickly impending expiration date.)

However, even if the above issues weren’t a problem, there’s the question of whether Iberia actually honors this. I’ll be shocked if they do. I understand that Iberia keeps saying on Twitter that you’ll get the miles even if you don’t fly, but I trust an airline’s Twitter account in situations like this about as much as I trust that email about the forty-seven Russian teens who wanted to Skype with me. Say Iberia did back out of the promotion after you had spent a bunch of money, requiring you had to call in and plead your case… and your big argument in your defense was, “BUT THEY SAID SO ON TWITTER!” Not exactly bulletproof.

I’ve also read that Iberia would want to avoid the PR nightmare that resulted from changing the terms or weaseling their way out of it. How anyone can possibly believe this in 2018 is beyond me (cognitive dissonance is a helluva drug, I guess). Does IAG strike you as the kind of airline conglomerate that gives a fraction of a percent of a fuck about PR? I feel like British Airways accidentally canceling all of their flights out of LHR one day and then trying to back out of EU261 compensation the next speaks to their general contempt for their passengers (at least at the corporate level – their flight attendants have been nothing but wonderful in my experience)… and as PR fuckups go, that’s probably a little worse than not giving tens of thousands of frequent flyer miles to people who booked a bunch of flights they never intended to take. I know it’s easy to feel wronged when you have $350 on the line, but you have to realize your case won’t play very well with a jury… I’m waiting for the story of the person who couldn’t visit her dying grandparent somewhere in Spain because all the inventory was sucked up by churners. There’s probably a bigger downside PR risk if Iberia honors the promotion, to be honest.

Bottom line, something about buying ten flights I don’t intend to take doesn’t sit right with me. (I’m not talking about from an ethical perspective.) Even if Iberia honors the promotion this time, the way airlines track passenger behavior, I’d be worried about having my account canceled or something. Maybe that’s just my paranoia carrying over from banks cracking down on churning, but it seems like a pretty blatant tempt of fate for not that much payoff. Best case scenario I lose $350 and get 90,000 miles that have to be used right away. Worst case scenario I lose $350 and my Iberia account (and whatever collateral damage with other IAG airlines). So that’s why I skipped it.

If you went all-in, I hope for the best for you — I don’t want to be the asshole gloating on Twitter about how I knew better all along, and it will be shitty of Iberia to screw people over when it was their stupid mistake that led to this situation in the first place. Just like with the Swiss/Aeroplan first class debacle, I always want the company to stand up and own their shit, rather than weaseling out of it. But until it all goes to shit, I at least want to get my prediction on the record that it’s all going to shit.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

If you’re just now reading about Iberia’s recent Avios promotion, I’m honestly confused about how you’re removed enough from the hobby to not have heard about it from a million other blogs yet somehow aware that my blog exists. Anyway, you can read more about it on Doctor of Credit (get ready for a SURGE in traffic, Doc). I appreciate DoC’s title on that post (“New Iberia Promotion But Don’t Do It It’s Pretty Bad”) rather than some variant of “OMG GET 90,000 AVIOS FOR ONLY $350!”

I’ll start off by saying that I’m not against buying points on principle. I don’t think points are about “free” travel; I use them as a way to enhance travel and a fraction of the actual retail cost. If buying points gets me an amazing redemption I couldn’t outright afford, I’ll do it. However, points are a terrible investment, so I only buy points if I have an immediate use for them and the opportunity is unusually good and/or unlikely to be repeated. The Iberia definitely struck me as one that’s unlikely to be repeated (probably due to the person who thought of it getting fired), but I still pretty much ignored it. There are a few reasons why:

First, the December 1st expiration date. Just speaking personally, I’d struggle to use up 90,000 Avios by then, given that I already have travel planned for this fall and don’t have enough time off work to take any surprise trips.

Second, I don’t know Iberia from a Spanish hole in the ground. Overall, my Avios game is very weak. I have a handful of British Airways ones and an account with Aer Lingus, but I’ve never gotten around to creating an Iberia account. I don’t know their chart very well, I’m not familiar with their terms, and it seemed like a stupid idea to invest a bunch of money in a currency I don’t understand. Plus, the major benefit of Avios is that they can be transferred among Aer Lingus, British Airways, and Iberia… although the terms of this promotion specifically exclude them from inter-program transfers.

Third, similar to the American Airlines Flight Cents program, it’s not like you could just plunk down $350 and get the 90,000 Avios — you had to actually book ten flights first. I was feeling pretty lazy this weekend, so this might just be me, but that seemed like a lot of work. And that’s coming from a guy who made 600 separate $1.01 Amazon gift card reloads in order to game Flight Cents.

To be honest, given the work involved in maximizing the promotion as well as the ultra-short timeframe to redeem the miles, I’m kind of surprised this took off like it did. As I’ve documented in the past, I have a horrible barometer of what will or won’t be popular among churners, but are there really that many people who have an immediate use for 90,000 Avios that can only be used on Iberia? (Apparently so… One justification I heard is that Iberia’s partner chart for American Airlines domestic awards is really good, although any promotion dependent on American Airlines releasing saver award space should be taken with an entire salt mill, to say nothing of the quickly impending expiration date.)

However, even if the above issues weren’t a problem, there’s the question of whether Iberia actually honors this. I’ll be shocked if they do. I understand that Iberia keeps saying on Twitter that you’ll get the miles even if you don’t fly, but I trust an airline’s Twitter account in situations like this about as much as I trust that email about the forty-seven Russian teens who wanted to Skype with me. Say Iberia did back out of the promotion after you had spent a bunch of money, requiring you had to call in and plead your case… and your big argument in your defense was, “BUT THEY SAID SO ON TWITTER!” Not exactly bulletproof.

I’ve also read that Iberia would want to avoid the PR nightmare that resulted from changing the terms or weaseling their way out of it. How anyone can possibly believe this in 2018 is beyond me (cognitive dissonance is a helluva drug, I guess). Does IAG strike you as the kind of airline conglomerate that gives a fraction of a percent of a fuck about PR? I feel like British Airways accidentally canceling all of their flights out of LHR one day and then trying to back out of EU261 compensation the next speaks to their general contempt for their passengers (at least at the corporate level – their flight attendants have been nothing but wonderful in my experience)… and as PR fuckups go, that’s probably a little worse than not giving tens of thousands of frequent flyer miles to people who booked a bunch of flights they never intended to take. I know it’s easy to feel wronged when you have $350 on the line, but you have to realize your case won’t play very well with a jury… I’m waiting for the story of the person who couldn’t visit her dying grandparent somewhere in Spain because all the inventory was sucked up by churners. There’s probably a bigger downside PR risk if Iberia honors the promotion, to be honest.

Bottom line, something about buying ten flights I don’t intend to take doesn’t sit right with me. (I’m not talking about from an ethical perspective.) Even if Iberia honors the promotion this time, the way airlines track passenger behavior, I’d be worried about having my account canceled or something. Maybe that’s just my paranoia carrying over from banks cracking down on churning, but it seems like a pretty blatant tempt of fate for not that much payoff. Best case scenario I lose $350 and get 90,000 miles that have to be used right away. Worst case scenario I lose $350 and my Iberia account (and whatever collateral damage with other IAG airlines). So that’s why I skipped it.

If you went all-in, I hope for the best for you — I don’t want to be the asshole gloating on Twitter about how I knew better all along, and it will be shitty of Iberia to screw people over when it was their stupid mistake that led to this situation in the first place. Just like with the Swiss/Aeroplan first class debacle, I always want the company to stand up and own their shit, rather than weaseling out of it. But until it all goes to shit, I at least want to get my prediction on the record that it’s all going to shit.

I got the no-fee Hilton Amex card last year when they were offering a limited time 80,000-point bonus. Although it has no annual fee, it’s also not really worth keeping long-term, since it still takes up an Amex slot I could use for another, better card. For whatever reason, Amex has decided to cap me at four credit cards, so I need to be judicious about which ones I keep. As it is, I haven’t been able to get the Blue Business Plus card, which is a fantastic card for everyday spend (earning two Membership Rewards points per dollar on the first $50,000 in spending each year). Therefore, before I get to any other considerations around the Hilton card, I need to keep in mind that keeping the card at all has an opportunity cost of .5 points per dollar on my everyday spend (the difference between the earning of the Blue and the Everyday Preferred card that I use for everyday spend now). The reason I’ve kept the card at all is that I wanted to see what kind of upgrade offer I would get once I had held the card for 13 months (the timeframe after which Amex starts sending upgrade offers for certain cards). Today, the offer came in, and it’s okay.

When the publicly available bonus on this card is 100,000 points and a free weekend night after the card’s one-year anniversary, why would I even consider this upgrade offer? Well, there are a few reasons.

First, as I wrote recently, setbacks in my churning game have caused me to reevaluate how aggressively I want to pursue additional sign-up bonuses. I’m still considering taking some time off and letting my credit reports cool down for a while. I don’t think I’ll be able to sit on my hands long enough to get back under 5/24, but if I chillax for 5-6 months, I might be able to take another crack at the Alaska Visa, for instance. While 100,000 Hilton points would be great, 75,000 points are almost as good without requiring me to start a new account.

Second, Amex is starting to get worryingly vague about whether they’ll even award sign-up bonuses to churners anymore. Like other Amex cards, the publicly available offer for the Ascend card contains their new “we can deny you a sign-up bonus for any reason and you can’t do shit about it” disclaimer. (For those who aren’t already well-versed in this stuff, this is the actual text of the disclaimer: “We may also consider the number of American Express Cards you have opened and closed as well as other factors in making a decision on your welcome offer eligibility.”) This new restriction has me on edge, since Amex is my golden goose. I need to be really careful that I don’t wind up on their dunzo list, or my last good churning avenue will be kaput.

There are other Amex cards I want in the future, like the SPG Luxury card that they’re releasing in a couple months. At least this is a restriction on sign-up bonuses and not approval for the card itself, but still… it would really suck to be ineligible for any Amex bonuses in the future. If I know I’m going to cancel an Amex card, I always keep it as long as I can while still getting the annual fee refunded, so at least it doesn’t look like I get the sign-up bonus and then cancel the card right away. I don’t know if that makes any difference, though, and until some more data points roll in regarding the new disclaimer, I’m happy to wait.

The bottom line is that I need to move forward carefully now, and it may not be a bad idea to sacrifice some points to avoid putting another tick in the “Amex card I’m definitely going to cancel after a year” column. Especially since I already have three Amex cards I’m definitely going to cancel this year.

I’m still on the fence, but at least I have a couple months to decide. Is it worth giving up 25,000 points and a free weekend night to avoid adding a new account having to cancel an Amex card after a year? Six months ago, I would have said no way. I always thought the people on Reddit who break out in hives at the thought of a “hard pull” were weirdos, but it’s becoming clearer that I’m the weirdo. Or at least that I’ve been cavalier in the past and should pay more attention to my pull in the future, however hard they may be.

Anyone else get this offer from Amex? You gonna take it or what?

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I got the no-fee Hilton Amex card last year when they were offering a limited time 80,000-point bonus. Although it has no annual fee, it’s also not really worth keeping long-term, since it still takes up an Amex slot I could use for another, better card. For whatever reason, Amex has decided to cap me at four credit cards, so I need to be judicious about which ones I keep. As it is, I haven’t been able to get the Blue Business Plus card, which is a fantastic card for everyday spend (earning two Membership Rewards points per dollar on the first $50,000 in spending each year). Therefore, before I get to any other considerations around the Hilton card, I need to keep in mind that keeping the card at all has an opportunity cost of .5 points per dollar on my everyday spend (the difference between the earning of the Blue and the Everyday Preferred card that I use for everyday spend now).

The reason I’ve kept the card at all is that I wanted to see what kind of upgrade offer I would get once I had held the card for 13 months (the timeframe after which Amex starts sending upgrade offers for certain cards). Today, the offer came in, and it’s okay.

When the publicly available bonus on this card is 100,000 points and a free weekend night after the card’s one-year anniversary, why would I even consider this upgrade offer? Well, there are a few reasons.

First, as I wrote recently, setbacks in my churning game have caused me to reevaluate how aggressively I want to pursue additional sign-up bonuses. I’m still considering taking some time off and letting my credit reports cool down for a while. I don’t think I’ll be able to sit on my hands long enough to get back under 5/24, but if I chillax for 5-6 months, I might be able to take another crack at the Alaska Visa, for instance. While 100,000 Hilton points would be great, 75,000 points are almost as good without requiring me to start a new account.

Second, Amex is starting to get worryingly vague about whether they’ll even award sign-up bonuses to churners anymore. Like other Amex cards, the publicly available offer for the Ascend card contains their new “we can deny you a sign-up bonus for any reason and you can’t do shit about it” disclaimer. (For those who aren’t already well-versed in this stuff, this is the actual text of the disclaimer: “We may also consider the number of American Express Cards you have opened and closed as well as other factors in making a decision on your welcome offer eligibility.”) This new restriction has me on edge, since Amex is my golden goose. I need to be really careful that I don’t wind up on their dunzo list, or my last good churning avenue will be kaput.

There are other Amex cards I want in the future, like the SPG Luxury card that they’re releasing in a couple months. At least this is a restriction on sign-up bonuses and not approval for the card itself, but still… it would really suck to be ineligible for any Amex bonuses in the future. If I know I’m going to cancel an Amex card, I always keep it as long as I can while still getting the annual fee refunded, so at least it doesn’t look like I get the sign-up bonus and then cancel the card right away. I don’t know if that makes any difference, though, and until some more data points roll in regarding the new disclaimer, I’m happy to wait.

The bottom line is that I need to move forward carefully now, and it may not be a bad idea to sacrifice some points to avoid putting another tick in the “Amex card I’m definitely going to cancel after a year” column. Especially since I already have three Amex cards I’m definitely going to cancel this year.

I’m still on the fence, but at least I have a couple months to decide. Is it worth giving up 25,000 points and a free weekend night to avoid adding a new account having to cancel an Amex card after a year? Six months ago, I would have said no way. I always thought the people on Reddit who break out in hives at the thought of a “hard pull” were weirdos, but it’s becoming clearer that I’m the weirdo. Or at least that I’ve been cavalier in the past and should pay more attention to my pull in the future, however hard they may be.

Anyone else get this offer from Amex? You gonna take it or what?

I never really paid much attention to Emirates’ loyalty program (“Skywards,” which I’m to understand is a combination of “Luke Skywalker” and “Backwards”), since the conventional wisdom is that it’s pretty lame. However, you may want to take a moment to familiarize yourself with it, since the contagion of devaluations spreading around Emirates’ various partners’ programs is making Skywards look better by comparison. Back in the day, Alaska was the program of choice to book Emirates awards, although a no-notice devaluation sent prices “skyward” (tee hee), and people took cover over at Japan Airlines — well, at least until JAL started levying huge fuel surcharges on Emirates awards, and certainly not now that JAL has announced a devaluation of their own. However, JAL was never great option for most people, since the only good way to earn JAL miles was via SPG. Great if you’re a frequent SPG guest, but not great if you’re trying to earn your miles by credit card spending alone. And even if Alaska had never devalued Emirates awards, their miles have become much harder to earn now that BofA is cracking down on churners and you can’t credit American Airlines flights to them anymore.

So if you want to look like this handsome fellow and fly Emirates first class without paying cash, it may be worth your time to check out Skywards.

It’s not like Skywards has suddenly become a great program or anything, but it is an Amex transfer partner, and Amex points are pretty easy to earn. Even if awards are more expensive through Emirates, it may end up evening out given that you can earn 2x points per dollar via Amex, which is something you definitely can’t do with Alaska or JAL. And sure, the fuel surcharges are a bitch, but there are ways to mitigate that with Amex points as well. (Don’t forget that Emirates awards booked through Skywards also include chauffeur service, which is a marginal benefit but still nice to have.)

I recently used 170,000 Amex points to book two first class awards from Milan to JFK this fall, and I felt like it was a pretty good use of points. That’s 85,000 points each, compared to 62,500 (and equivalent fuel surcharges) if I had flown Air France’s shitty angle-flat seats from Paris. Delta flies from Milan to JFK too, for anywhere between 70,000 and 465,000,000 points, depending on Ed Bastian’s mood on any given day. Being based in San Francisco makes it not as good of a deal, since I still needed to figure out a way to get from JFK to SFO in a flat bed, which of course I wouldn’t have had to do if I used those same 62,500 Flying Blue miles to book a ticket from Paris all the way home. But, I think my point still stands that 85,000 miles is a pretty reasonable cost for 8-9 hours in an Emirates A380 suite.

Given that Qatar and Etihad are in a race to see who can ratfuck their loyalty program faster, there’s a very good chance that Emirates will follow suit and render this post obsolete by doubling the cost of all their awards by the time I hit the “publish” button. But until then, my advice to you is to give them a look and price out some awards, since you may find something that works for you.

Here’s the wrinkle: unlike most programs that partner with Amex, Emirates will only accept transfers to the account owner’s Skwards account. I found this out when I tried to transfer 140,000 out of my wife’s account to my Skywards account. (Quick refresher for anyone that forgot: Amex will let you transfer points into a loyalty account that belongs to an authorized user on your credit card. While they don’t let you pool points with family members like Chase or Citi, the flexibility to transfer points to authorized user loyalty accounts is a suitable workaround.)

Amex kept giving me a confirmation that the points had been transferred, but as soon as I logged out and back into my Amex account, the balance would be the same. Eventually, I realized that this was due to Emirates rejecting the transfer, which was confirmed by the activity on Justine’s Membership Rewards account the next day.

I could always have created a Skywards account for Justine and booked her ticket separately through that account, but that wouldn’t help in situations where I have almost enough points for an award in my account and just need to transfer over a few thousand from hers to top up.

That’s why I was excited to find out that Emirates launched a new program that allows points pooling. Unfortunately, the scheme seems fairly convoluted — rather than transferring points between accounts (which they still allow for $15 per 1000 points), you have to create a family account, and then each family member decides what percentage of the miles they earn on future flights will go into the family account and what percentage will stay in the individual’s account. It makes sense for large families who fly Emirates a lot, since I’m sure it’s annoying for parents when odd amounts of miles are stuck in their ungrateful kids’ accounts. (I wouldn’t know, since I have no kids and my dog isn’t allowed to have her own loyalty accounts for reasons I won’t go into.)

The FAQ makes a point of saying that points earned before setting up the family account can’t be shared later, and that only points earned through flights will be shared. It doesn’t mention point transfers from Amex at all, so I realized the only way to know definitively would be to try it myself. Yes, I sacrificed 1000 hard earned Membership Rewards points just to find out something I was 95% sure was the case anyway. Who says I’m not committed to this blog?! I created an Emirates account for Justine, then went back into my account and invited her into my family (so romantic), making sure to set her sharing percentage at 100%. (She’s such a giving spouse.)

With everything set up, I transferred over 1000 points from Amex, and they instantly appeared in her individual account – not the family account. I tried chatting with a representative to innocently ask if there was a way to share those miles with the family, and there really isn’t. The rep actually told me that it was possible to do, but the instructions she gave me were basically just how to navigate to the page I linked to above that describes the program. I suppose there’s a sliver of hope that a competent phone rep could complete the transfer, but I doubt it. And anyway, Skywards is not a program where you’d ever want to strand a bunch of points, so transferring a big block of Membership Rewards points based on the hope that you get a good phone rep would be downright reckless.

That’s where I left it — 1000 points poorer in Justine’s Amex account and 1000 basically worthless miles in her Emirates account. Oh well. Does this knowledge help you in any way? Yes, I’m fully aware that I could have just tweeted this entire post thusly: “Bummed that Emirates family points pooling doesn’t solve the problem of Skywards blocking AU point transfers from Amex.” However, I felt like writing a blog post, so here we are 1200+ words later. You’re welcome?

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

I never really paid much attention to Emirates’ loyalty program (“Skywards,” which I’m to understand is a combination of “Luke Skywalker” and “Backwards”), since the conventional wisdom is that it’s pretty lame. However, you may want to take a moment to familiarize yourself with it, since the contagion of devaluations spreading around Emirates’ various partners’ programs is making Skywards look better by comparison.

Back in the day, Alaska was the program of choice to book Emirates awards, although a no-notice devaluation sent prices “skyward” (tee hee), and people took cover over at Japan Airlines — well, at least until JAL started levying huge fuel surcharges on Emirates awards, and certainly not now that JAL has announced a devaluation of their own. However, JAL was never great option for most people, since the only good way to earn JAL miles was via SPG. Great if you’re a frequent SPG guest, but not great if you’re trying to earn your miles by credit card spending alone. And even if Alaska had never devalued Emirates awards, their miles have become much harder to earn now that BofA is cracking down on churners and you can’t credit American Airlines flights to them anymore.

So if you want to look like this handsome fellow and fly Emirates first class without paying cash, it may be worth your time to check out Skywards.

It’s not like Skywards has suddenly become a great program or anything, but it is an Amex transfer partner, and Amex points are pretty easy to earn. Even if awards are more expensive through Emirates, it may end up evening out given that you can earn 2x points per dollar via Amex, which is something you definitely can’t do with Alaska or JAL. And sure, the fuel surcharges are a bitch, but there are ways to mitigate that with Amex points as well. (Don’t forget that Emirates awards booked through Skywards also include chauffeur service, which is a marginal benefit but still nice to have.)

I recently used 170,000 Amex points to book two first class awards from Milan to JFK this fall, and I felt like it was a pretty good use of points. That’s 85,000 points each, compared to 62,500 (and equivalent fuel surcharges) if I had flown Air France’s shitty angle-flat seats from Paris. Delta flies from Milan to JFK too, for anywhere between 70,000 and 465,000,000 points, depending on Ed Bastian’s mood on any given day. Being based in San Francisco makes it not as good of a deal, since I still needed to figure out a way to get from JFK to SFO in a flat bed, which of course I wouldn’t have had to do if I used those same 62,500 Flying Blue miles to book a ticket from Paris all the way home. But, I think my point still stands that 85,000 miles is a pretty reasonable cost for 8-9 hours in an Emirates A380 suite.

Given that Qatar and Etihad are in a race to see who can ratfuck their loyalty program faster, there’s a very good chance that Emirates will follow suit and render this post obsolete by doubling the cost of all their awards by the time I hit the “publish” button. But until then, my advice to you is to give them a look and price out some awards, since you may find something that works for you.

Here’s the wrinkle: unlike most programs that partner with Amex, Emirates will only accept transfers to the account owner’s Skwards account. I found this out when I tried to transfer 140,000 out of my wife’s account to my Skywards account. (Quick refresher for anyone that forgot: Amex will let you transfer points into a loyalty account that belongs to an authorized user on your credit card. While they don’t let you pool points with family members like Chase or Citi, the flexibility to transfer points to authorized user loyalty accounts is a suitable workaround.)

Amex kept giving me a confirmation that the points had been transferred, but as soon as I logged out and back into my Amex account, the balance would be the same. Eventually, I realized that this was due to Emirates rejecting the transfer, which was confirmed by the activity on Justine’s Membership Rewards account the next day.

I could always have created a Skywards account for Justine and booked her ticket separately through that account, but that wouldn’t help in situations where I have almost enough points for an award in my account and just need to transfer over a few thousand from hers to top up.

That’s why I was excited to find out that Emirates launched a new program that allows points pooling. Unfortunately, the scheme seems fairly convoluted — rather than transferring points between accounts (which they still allow for $15 per 1000 points), you have to create a family account, and then each family member decides what percentage of the miles they earn on future flights will go into the family account and what percentage will stay in the individual’s account. It makes sense for large families who fly Emirates a lot, since I’m sure it’s annoying for parents when odd amounts of miles are stuck in their ungrateful kids’ accounts. (I wouldn’t know, since I have no kids and my dog isn’t allowed to have her own loyalty accounts for reasons I won’t go into.)

The FAQ makes a point of saying that points earned before setting up the family account can’t be shared later, and that only points earned through flights will be shared. It doesn’t mention point transfers from Amex at all, so I realized the only way to know definitively would be to try it myself. Yes, I sacrificed 1000 hard earned Membership Rewards points just to find out something I was 95% sure was the case anyway. Who says I’m not committed to this blog?! I created an Emirates account for Justine, then went back into my account and invited her into my family (so romantic), making sure to set her sharing percentage at 100%. (She’s such a giving spouse.)

With everything set up, I transferred over 1000 points from Amex, and they instantly appeared in her individual account – not the family account. I tried chatting with a representative to innocently ask if there was a way to share those miles with the family, and there really isn’t. The rep actually told me that it was possible to do, but the instructions she gave me were basically just how to navigate to the page I linked to above that describes the program. I suppose there’s a sliver of hope that a competent phone rep could complete the transfer, but I doubt it. And anyway, Skywards is not a program where you’d ever want to strand a bunch of points, so transferring a big block of Membership Rewards points based on the hope that you get a good phone rep would be downright reckless.

That’s where I left it — 1000 points poorer in Justine’s Amex account and 1000 basically worthless miles in her Emirates account. Oh well. Does this knowledge help you in any way? Yes, I’m fully aware that I could have just tweeted this entire post thusly: “Bummed that Emirates family points pooling doesn’t solve the problem of Skywards blocking AU point transfers from Amex.” However, I felt like writing a blog post, so here we are 1200+ words later. You’re welcome?