Once you’ve flown just about every first class product, you’re probably looking for a new “high.” One such “high” which I’ve experienced a few times in my life is having a first class cabin all to myself. I had it three flights in a row, actually — first between Chicago and Zurich, then between London and Istanbul, and finally between Istanbul and Hong Kong. It’s pretty damn awesome when that happens, if not a bit awkward.

So here’s a mostly theoretical question (and I realize the question is making several assumptions, but play along with me for a minute, please).

Would you rather –

A) Fly Lufthansa’s old first class and be guaranteed to have the cabin all to yourself

or

B) Fly Lufthansa’s new first class with six out of eight seats occupied

What would you do? I ask because my opinion on this is different than everyone else I’ve asked this, so I’m curious to see if I’m totally off base.

Let me know in the comments section, please!

While Hyatt and Starwood do a lot to differentiate between mid-tier and top-tier status, Hilton and Marriott are kind of the opposite — they don’t do enough to differentiate between mid-tier and top-tier status.

Last year I got the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card (affiliate link), which comes with Hilton HHonors Gold status for as long as you have the card. That’s a huge benefit for a $95 annual fee, given that Gold status gets you complimentary internet and breakfast/lounge access. As far as I’m concerned those are the single most valuable hotel benefits, and justify the annual fee after just one or two stays.

Conrad Singapore Executive Lounge

But the card also offers Diamond status after spending $40,000 on the card in a year. While having the card for Gold status is a no brainer, for the better part of a year I’ve been pondering whether it makes sense to put $40,000 of spend on the card for Diamond status. As far as I’m concerned the two most valuable benefits of Diamond status are as follows:

• Gold members only get access to the club lounge if they get upgraded to a club room, while Diamond members are guaranteed lounge access (though it’s worth noting that if you don’t get upgraded to the club level as a Gold member you get restaurant breakfast, which many would consider superior).
• The terms & conditions of the program give Diamond members suite upgrades at the hotel’s discretion. This is different than Starwood where Platinum members get guaranteed suite upgrades based on availability at arrival, but instead with Hilton it’s entirely at the hotel’s discretion. I don’t think there are many Hilton Diamond members getting suite upgrades anywhere close to a majority of the time, though.

In retrospect I should have probably just been happy with Gold status, though I had started working towards the $40,000 of spend before the HHonors devaluation was announced, and at that point figured I might as well go all the way, and now I’m a Diamond member. If it proves worthwhile, great. If it doesn’t, at least I can report back and suggest others don’t go for Diamond status.

I’ve actually had very good luck as an HHonors Gold member. I’ve never been denied lounge access. That being said, I can appreciate the peace of mind of knowing it’s guaranteed. But the suite upgrade benefit is what confuses me, and what I’d love to hear from existing Diamond members about. I also have top tier status with Hyatt and Starwood, and their room upgrade policies are straightforward. Hyatt upgrades you to the best available non-suite, though also gives you four confirmed suite upgrades annually that can be used to lock in a suite at the time of booking. Meanwhile Starwood upgrades you to the best available standard suite at check-in, meaning if a suite is available you’re entitled to it (not saying it always goes that smoothly, but that’s the policy). If you get 50 elite night credits with them, they also give you 10 suite night awards, which can confirm a suite upgrade five days out.

Then you have Hilton, which has this confusing benefit (bolding mine):

Complimentary room upgrades for Gold and Diamond HHonors members may include the next-best available room from the room type booked. Upgrades may also be rooms with desirable views, corner rooms, rooms on high floors, rooms with special amenities, or rooms on Executive Floors, as identified by each property. Room upgrades, for Diamond members only, may also include suites.

The suite upgrade benefit is actually new as of last year. So if my interpretation is correct you receive suite upgrades at the hotel’s discretion. It doesn’t matter whether there are 100 suites available, what matters is the mood of the front desk agent. So, Diamond members, how do you approach suite upgrades at Hilton hotels. Do you:

a) Not care and let them assign you whatever they want?
b) Ask nicely at check-in whether they might have any suite upgrades available?
c) Be a bit more suggestive and say “I noticed online that you’re still selling suites for tonight, do you have any suite upgrades available?”
d) Pull out your Diamond card and pet giraffe, and refuse to move until they give you the presidential suite and waive the pet cleanup fee?

And how often do you actually get suite upgrades?

Staying at my first Hilton abroad as a Diamond member next week, so I want to be sure I’m using the right approach.

Reader Brad sent me an email asking the following:

I just tried to book an award ticket using American miles from Los Angeles to Hong Kong by way of New York. In a previous post you wrote this should be allowed since it does not exceed the MPM by more than 25%, yet the agent told me that routing would require two awards. Any clue why?

I believe Brad is referring to this post, in which I covered three major topics related to redeeming American AAdvantage partner awards, which I’ll very briefly recap:

1) American will let you exceed the maximum permitted mileage (MPM) for a city pair by up to 25% on an award reservation. For example, from Los Angeles to Hong Kong the MPM is 8,698 miles, and 25% more than that is 10,872 miles. Los Angeles to New York to Hong Kong is 10,547 miles, so in theory it should be allowed.

2) In order for an award routing to be legal, the transoceanic carrier has to publish a fare between the origin and destination. For example, Etihad publishes a fare between New York and Male, but not between Tampa and Male. So if you want to fly to Male using American miles on Etihad, you’d have to book your ticket from Tampa to New York separately.

3) On an award you can’t transit a third region (other than the region of your origin and destination), unless it falls on the exception table, listed in this post.

But back to the point of this post. Should Brad be allowed to route from Los Angeles to Hong Kong via New York since it exceeds the MPM by less than 25%? Sort of.

American has seemingly contradictory policies. On one hand they say you exceed the MPM by up to 25%, but on the other hand they also say say that “passenger must travel the most direct routing.” Those two seemingly contradict one another, don’t they?

That’s because American’s award routing rules are based on intent and not necessarily numbers. Back in the day mileage running was great because most airlines would let you make three or four connections in each direction on a domestic ticket. Why? Because the assumption was that nobody on earth would want to fly more than they have to, and that if someone was making multiple connections it was out of necessity based on availability. Of course we proved them wrong, and over the past few years airlines have tightened up the fare rules on domestic tickets, now that they’ve seen some of us actually do like making extra connections to earn more miles.

I think what it all comes down to is this clause from a memo on flex awards that’s posted on Traveling Better, which I think seems to apply to most American awards nowadays:

The number of awards assessed should be determined by the customer’s intentions. If the indirect routing is booked at the customer’s request, multiple awards should apply using Pricing Override Options – Force Fare Breakpoint. If the routing is booked based on lack of award availability on direct routes, then an exception may be made, allowing Sabre to price as one award.

So basically you should be allowed to exceed the MPM by up to 25%, but only if it’s not your intention to do that. So if you’re still intent on routing via New York, perhaps approach this a bit differently. When you call American don’t say “I’d like to fly from Los Angeles to Hong Kong via New York. I have the flights that are available, so may I give them to you?” Perhaps instead ask what’s available, and when they can’t find anything, say “shoot, I really need to fly on those dates, do you mind maybe checking award space via another Cathay Pacific gateway city?” See if they’ll suggest New York, which they might if they’re creative. Otherwise it can’t hurt to suggest it at that point if they don’t.

So it’s odd for a company this big to have rules based on intentions and not purely what the computer will price, though hopefully by understanding this you can modify your approach towards booking a “complex” routing using an AAdvantage partner award.

Link: Business Gold Rewards Card by American Express (deal is dead)

Last week American Express published an amazing 75,000 Membership Rewards point sign-up bonus on the Business Gold Rewards Card, which lasted for less than 24 hours. In retrospect it was probably an error, given how quickly they pulled it and that we had never seen a public 75,000 point sign-up bonus with such a low minimum spend before.

Well, the 75,000 point offer is back through May 17, though with a $10,000 minimum spend requirement within four months.

I tend to think a $5,000 minimum spend within three months is manageable for just about anyone given that you can easily generate $1,000 of spend per month through Amazon Payments, meaning you only otherwise have to spend $2,000.

$10,000 is tougher, though shouldn’t be too tough even for the average person with a bit of creative spend. If you can complete the minimum spend I’d definitely jump on this offer, because I doubt we’ll see another 75,000 point bonus with only a $5,000 minimum spend anytime soon (while we’ll likely see this offer being promoted for a limited time again in the future). Anecdotally I find the Business Gold Rewards Card to be one of the easiest business credit cards ot be approved for as well.

Links:

• Chase Ink Plus® Business Card — Credit Card
• Chase Ink Bold® Business Card — Charge Card

Reader Rich asked the following on the “Ask Lucky” page of the blog:

Does Chase handle business cards/reconsideration the same as they do with consumer cards? I currently have the Ink Bold and would like to get the Ink Plus.

Based on past experience with Chase non-business cards usually I have to call and move around some credit limits, should I expect to do the same with the business cards?

I only have 2 business cards (Ink bold and one Citi card) and do have a legitimate business.

I get a lot of questions similar to this, so I’ll address it in general terms here so I can refer people to it in the future.

The sign-up offer

In my opinion the Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus cards offer the single best consistent sign-up bonus in the industry at the moment, with 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5,000 on the card within three months. While the annual fee on the card is $95, it’s waived for the first year. The cards are also extremely rewarding for everyday spend given that they offer 5x points on the first $50,000 spent annually at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services, and 2x points on the first $50,000 spent annually at gas stations and on hotels. That translates to some amazing bonuses on everyday spend, especially given how many purchases can be made at office supply stores with a bit of creativity. Best of all you can actually have both cards, and earn the sign-up bonus on both of them as well.

There are also no foreign transaction fees, and since the card accrues Ultimate Rewards points, they can be combined with those points earned through the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Visa and Chase Freedom® Visa Card. Given the sign-up bonuses and bonuses  on everyday spend offered by these cards, I find Ultimate Rewards points to be one of the easiest currencies to rack up, not to mention one of the most valuable.

The Chase “country club”

Chase reminds me a bit of a country club. I find they’re the issuer where it’s toughest to initially be approved for a card, as they have pretty high standards for issuing credit. However, once you have your first card (and are in the “country club” so to speak), it’s not tough to get additional approvals.

They’ll almost always let you swap out cards once you have your first card, or reallocate credit. Basically if you have four cards and apply for a fifth and don’t automatically get approved, the reconsideration line will usually be willing to either close an existing card in favor of the new card, or typically at worst reallocate some of your credit lines (meaning they might take $5,000 of credit line from another card and apply it to your new account). The fact that the reconsideration line is staffed by intelligent people in a position to make decisions really makes me love Chase.

But how does the business approval process work?

Business credit cards are a different beast… sort of. You can’t generally transfer a credit line from a personal card to a business card, since they’re different types of accounts. But that’s also good news because even if you have “maxed out” your personal credit with Chase, they may still be willing to issue some business credit.

Though there’s one more complication, at least in theory. Like most other cards the Chase Ink Plus is a credit card, meaning you have a credit line and can (though shouldn’t) finance charges over time. The Chase Ink Bold, on the other hand, is a charge card, meaning it doesn’t have a pre-set credit limit and the balance on the card has to be paid off in full each month. So even if it were a personal card where a credit line could be transferred, you couldn’t do that because there’s nothing to be transferred — the card doesn’t have a credit line!

Fortunately it’s not that tough

While there are some complications in theory, I’ve found they’re actually quite flexible. So while technically you can’t transfer credit lines between personal and business cards, I’ve actually found them to be more flexible than you’d think.

For example, I got easily approved for the Chase Ink Plus card without having to switch around any credit.

However, when I applied for the Chase Ink Bold card they didn’t automatically approve it, so I called the reconsideration line. But since it’s a charge card and not a credit card, how could they switch around credit lines when there’s not a credit line on the card?

In my case they were willing to approve the Chase Ink Bold card if I was willing to lower the credit line on one of my personal cards by $5,000, which I was of course happy to do. The other option they gave me was to close one of my existing personal card accounts.

When my dad applied for the Chase Ink Plus card, which is a standard credit card, he was also given the option to lower his credit line on an existing card in order for it to be opened, which he gladly did.

Bottom line

So if you don’t have both Chase Ink cards you’re leaving 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points on the table. I wouldn’t suggest applying for both of them at the same time, but if you have one you really should consider getting the other, and if you have neither you should consider getting started by applying for one.

I’ve had a business credit card since long before I was officially incorporated as a way of separating my personal and business expenses, and had no problems being approved. You can apply for one as a sole proprietor and enter your social security number in the field that asks for your tax ID, your business name can be whatever you’d like it to be (including your name), the business address can be your home address, the number of employees can be just one, and your business revenue can be whatever it is. There’s no reason to lie. If you don’t get instantly approved I’d suggest calling the Chase business reconsideration line at 800-453-9719, as it can otherwise take a long time for Chase business applications to be processed.

(In the interest of full dislcosure I earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through the above links. Thanks for your support!)