We’ve gotta give Barclays some props for what they’re doing in the US credit card market, as they’re slowly starting to give American Express and Chase a run for their money as far as their sign-up bonuses go. In this case they just increased the sign-up bonus on the Lufthansa Premier Miles & More World MasterCard.

The official version of the increased sign-up offer is for 20,000 miles after the first purchase and an additional 30,000 miles after spending $5,000 on the card within 90 days.

However, there’s an unofficial sign-up offer which is also for 20,000 miles after the first purchase and an additional 30,000 miles after spending $2,500 on the card within 90 days. The catch is that if you’re not approved for the Premier card and are instead approved for the Platinum card (which sometimes happens with Barclays) you get only 5,000 miles, which isn’t the case with the official offer, which gives you the 50,000 miles for both offers. Furthermore, there’s no landing page to this offer, and in the past Barclays has sometimes auto-declined applications for unofficial links, so there is some risk with this offer.

Through both offers there’s an annual fee of $79, which isn’t waived for the first year. The card offers two miles per dollar spent on airline purchases and one mile per dollar spent on everything else, so really isn’t very attractive beyond the sign-up bonus. The card also comes with a companion certificate valid on coach fares, though unfortunately it’s only for higher fare tickets, so probably isn’t of much value to most of us.

In terms of redeeming Lufthansa miles, they have a zone based award chart, which can be found here. As you can see the redemption rates aren’t especially attractive. The other catch is that they impose fuel surcharges on award redemptions in most cases when the operating airline would as well. Miles & More miles are valid for 36 months from the date of issue.

Given that, there are only thress instances where Lufthansa miles are notably worthwhile:

For travel within the US

Lufthansa charges just 25,000 miles for a roundtrip domestic US coach award, or 35,000 miles for a roundtrip domestic US business class award. They even offer one-way awards at half the cost of a roundtrip.

While 25,000 miles is the standard roundtrip coach award cost, the 35,000 miles for a domestic business class award is pretty damn good. It’s worth noting that Lufthansa will charge the business class price for United domestic three cabin business class or United domestic two cabin first class, both of which book into the “I” (business class) award fare bucket. Unfortunately US Airways first class awards book into “O,” which is the first class award fare bucket and wouldn’t be eligible for those rates.

For travel in Lufthansa first class

Nowadays Lufthansa only releases first class award space to Star Alliance partners at most 15 days out. The only way to snag it before then is to redeem through Miles & More. A one-way first class ticket between the US and Europe costs 85,000 Miles & More miles, plus fuel surcharges.

This sign-up bonus gets you a good ways towards that, and given that you can transfer in points from Starwood it might not be too expensive to make up the difference.

For travel in Swiss first class

If you think Lufthansa is restrictive with releasing first class award space to Star Alliance partners, take a look at Swiss’ policy. They don’t release any first class award space to Star Alliance partners anymore. Not even a day before departure.

Despite that policy, they actually release a good amount of first class award space to Miles & More members, often a handful of seats per flight:

And Swiss does have one of the world’s best first class products, in my opinion, with amazing in-flight catering. So if you haven’t yet flown Swiss first class and want to use miles, Miles & More is your only option for doing so.

Is this a better deal than the Barclaycard Arrival?

The sign-up bonus was also recently increased on the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard which offers a 40,000 mile sign-up bonus, good for up to $440 towards the cost of travel. Earning the sign-up bonus on that card requires just $1,000 worth of spend within 90 days, and while there’s an $89 annual fee, it’s waived the first year.

So which should you sign up for — the Arrival card or the Lufthansa card? Well, you can actually get approved for more than one Barclay credit card at a time, so if you wanted to you could pick them both up at once. And since most people are limited in inquiries with American Express and Chase, both of these sign-up offers are valuable if for no other reason than that they’re not American Express or Chase cards.

But if you wanted to get just one, which is a better offer? To simplify the offers, as I see it, you can get two roundtrip domestic coach tickets or three one-way domestic United first class tickets with the Lufthansa sign-up offer, and it’ll cost you $79. The alternative is more or less $440 of travel cash without an annual fee the first year and with a lower spend requirement, with the Arrival sign-up offer. Assuming you’d have no problem redeeming for three domestic one-way first class tickets with United, I’d say the Lufthansa card is a better offer. That being said, if you don’t have a specific use in mind I’d probably go with the Arrival card given how much more flexible the miles are, the lack of an annual fee the first year, and the lower spend requirement.

(In the interest of full disclosure I earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through the official Lufthansa card link as well as the Arrival card link, though I don’t earn a bonus for anyone that’s approved through the unofficial Lufthansa link. Regardless of which links you use, thanks for reading!)

Ever since I got into this mileage hobby over eight years ago I’ve been traveling mostly to Asia. There are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, growing up I did a ton of travel within Europe. My family is from Germany so we used to spend several weeks there each summer visiting family, and my parents always made a point to travel around while we were over there so we could experience different countries. Up until I started the mileage hobby I had never been to Asia, so obviously I had a bit of “catching up” to do there. But the other reason is that Europe is so damn expensive, while there are so many destinations in Asia that are cheap.

But over the past eight years I’ve visited most major cities in Asia. Certainly not all of them (I still really want to visit Hanoi, Taipei, and Jakarta), though I’ve been to Hong Kong and Singapore over a dozen times, and have visited Bali, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Nagoya, Osaka, Seoul, Tokyo, etc.

And as I look at places I want to visit I’m realizing that Europe’s on my mind. Growing up I visited most of the “big” cities in Western Europe, and also smaller cities within (easy) driving distance of Germany. But I haven’t done Iceland (which I’m dying to visit, and plan on going to this summer), most of the Northern European countries, as well as Eastern European destinations like Budapest and Prague.

The truth is, though, if you’re trying to redeem miles and are a maximizer you’re at such a huge disadvantage going to Europe and not Asia.

American miles

It’s extremely difficult to feel like you’re getting good value out of American miles when traveling to Europe. There are huge fuel surcharges for travel on British Airways, Air Berlin has a sub-par business class product, Finnair releases very little premium cabin award space, and Iberia releases some space though not much. And, well, they’re Iberia. And while American used to at least have good award space on their own flights, that’s not really the case anymore, and it’s really difficult to find premium cabin award space on them across the pond.

So not only is it extremely difficult to find award space without huge fuel surcharges, but compare all that to redeeming miles for Cathay Pacific’s amazing first or business class without fuel surcharges.

Delta miles

Delta miles used to almost exclusively be useful for travel to Europe. Back when Air France released the same award space to Delta as they gave their own members, award space was extremely easy to come by, and it was one of the few good uses of Delta SkyMiles. However, nowadays Air France only releases a subset of their award inventory to Delta, and at times space is blocked off literally for months at a time. So Delta miles really can’t be reliably redeemed to Europe anymore.

Conversely China Southern started A380 service between Los Angeles and Guangzhou with a very nice business class product, so it’s now extremely easy to redeem Delta miles for that flight. Similarly Delta stopped imposing fuel surcharges for redemptions on Virgin Australia, so their miles are almost most valuable for travel to Australia.

But if you want to go to Europe, Delta simply isn’t a great program.

US Airways miles

You can redeem 100,000 US Airways miles for travel between the US and Europe in business class, and even have a stopover at a Star Alliance hub or transatlantic gateway city. So that gets you two places in Europe for a reasonable cost.

But why not save 10,000 miles and fly to North Asia in business class with a stopover in Europe? It’s extremely difficult to justify not doing that. The issue is that while it gets you one stopover in Europe, it’s not very practical if you want to go beyond a gateway city. For example, if you want to visit Prague or Budapest, you won’t be able to get a stopover there enroute to Asia using US Airways miles. So do I spend an extra 10,000 miles not to go to Asia so that I get one more destination in Europe? As someone that in part reviews airline products for a living, that’s kinda tough to do!

United miles

United is the one program where you can route from the US to Asia via Europe, and actually have a stopover at just about any city you want. The catch is that while US Airways gives you a 10,000 mile discount for continuing to Asia, United charges you an extra 20,000 miles in business class. So it’s still a good deal, but neither is the best value available on their chart.

Anyway…

Given the above, what I’m leaning towards is booking a 100,000 mile US Airways business class award from the US to Iceland via Oslo, with a stopover there. Seems like the best of both worlds given how expensive it is to otherwise get to Iceland in the peak of summer.

But it doesn’t change the fact that I think the tourism boards of Asian countries are bribing the people in charge of airlines’ mileage programs. Anyone else generally challenged with booking awards exclusively to Europe?

Right now the The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN (affiliate link) has a promotional sign-up bonus of 50,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $5,000 on the card within three months, so I figured it might be fun to make a post with five ideas for redeeming 50,000 Membership Rewards points. Keep in mind the card offers triple points on airfare and double points on shipping and gas stations, so if you put your minimum spend in the right categories, you could be looking at up to 65,000 Membership Rewards points.

In no particular order, here they are:

1. 50,000 British Airways Avios for Aer Lingus Business Class Boston to Dublin roundtrip

One of the very best uses of Avios is roundtrip business class between Boston and Dublin for just 50,000 Avios and about $150 in taxes/fees/fuel surcharges. I did this exact trip last year, and outlined the process here. I loved Ireland, and actually quite enjoyed the business class product offered by Aer Lingus as well.

Best of all with the 35% transfer bonus from Membership Rewards, you’d have more than enough Avios left over to connect elsewhere in Europe after a stopover.

2. 25 nights at the Doubletree Beijing

People say I don’t spend enough time at destinations. With 25 nights at the Doubletree Beijing for just 100,000 HHonors points, I might as well move there.

Membership Rewards is transfer partners with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, and points can be transferred at a 1:1 ratio. Then Virgin Atlantic is transfer partners with Hilton at a favorable ratio of 1:2. So you can convert 50,000 Membership Rewards points into 50,000 Virgin Atlantic miles, and then convert those into 100,000 Hilton HHonors points. The Doubletree Beijing is just 5,000 points per night, and as an elite member every fifth night is free, meaning 25 nights would cost you just 100,000 points.

Compared to the revenue rate of over $4,100USD+, I’d say that’s a hell of a bargain.

3. 59,000 British Airways Avios for LAN Business Class Miami to Cuzco roundtrip

Since British Airways has a distance based award chart they charge just 25,000 Avios one-way for business class between Miami and Lima on LAN. Then you can add on a tag flight to Cuzco for just 4,500 Avios. Travel destinations don’t get hotter than Machu Picchu right now, so that’s a great deal under which to get there.

And while I didn’t find the service on LAN to be amazing, the fully flat bed is pretty tough to beat.

4. Jet around Asia in Business Class

With the current 35% transfer bonus from Membership Rewards to British Airways, 50,000 Membership Rewards points gets you 67,500 British Airways Avios. That’s more than enough to fly from Tokyo to Seoul to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Singapore in business class on Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific, with stopovers in each city for as long as you’d like. I can’t think of any other mileage program that will give you that many segments with stopovers at such a low cost.

5. 63,750 Singapore KrisFlyer miles for Singapore Airlines Suites Class Hong Kong to Sydney via Singapore

I know I said 50,000 points earlier, but we’re talking about Singapore Suites here, probably the most coveted airline product in the world. Find a way to get an extra 13,750 points (or complete the minimum spend in the right categories and you’ll already have enough points) and redeem for Suites Class between Hong Kong and Sydney. This gets you two segments in Suites Class and a visit to “The Private Room” in Singapore.

This is the ultimate redemption when one first class suite simply isn’t enough anymore.

Anyway, those are just five possibilities, though there are dozens of other great ones out there.

Through my award booking service (and my personal travel) I’ve booked hundreds of millions of miles worth of award tickets. Despite that I learn something new all the time and frequently deal with challenges I’ve never dealt before that leave me shaking my head. After all, we are dealing with the airlines, and without a good bit of cluster@#$%ery, would they really be the companies we love oh-so-much?

But I’m facing an issue on an award ticket right now that I’ve never faced before. And the funny thing is that the entire situation got to where it is because an airline was actually being proactive, which I supposed they should be commended for… kind of. Let me explain.

I have a couple booked to Europe over the summer in business class, and their return is from Nice to Vienna to Chicago to Savannah. The catch is that one passenger booked through United and one through Aeroplan (Air Canada’s spun off loyalty program). I do this frequently for people that have diversified miles, since sometimes they won’t have enough miles in a single program for two awards, but fortunately many programs have similar partners.

This was booked months ago and everything was fine. Fast forward to last week where I get a “what the heck, dude?” type email, because the wife (booked through United) still showed the same itinerary, while the husband (booked through Aeroplan) showed a return routed Nice to Munich to Charlotte to Savannah.

My first reaction, naturally, was “hmm, how drunk was I the night I booked that ticket?” Okay, not really. But I’ve never just miraculously seen the routing and airlines change, especially when partner airlines are involved. I called up Aeroplan, they opened up a case, and I got a call back the next day.

As it turns out the Chicago to Savannah flight had a schedule change, and now leaves about four hours earlier than originally scheduled. It was supposed to be about a five hour layover, but instead turned into a 42 minute layover, which clearly isn’t legal for an international to domestic connection. So Aeroplan proactively booked him on a completely different routing and he wasn’t actually informed of this. The catch is that meanwhile the wife is still booked on the original routing with a 42 minute connection, and United hasn’t contacted here.

Now I’ve written before about alliance liaisons, and basically how they’re able to help when situations involving multiple airlines in an alliance get “sticky.” But this situation just got stickier than the bathroom of a Bangkok nightclub, and the options are fairly limited.

On one hand I’m impressed by Aeroplan. Amazingly enough they found award space on Lufthansa (I’m shocked it was available in the peak of summer), but at the same time I don’t think they should have assumed the passenger would be willing to switch to Lufthansa, given that Austrian and Lufthansa have completely different business class products. And the problem is that once they “released” the Austrian seats to instead pick up the Lufthansa ones, the Austrian seats disappeared.

Meanwhile Chicago to Savannah would have been available the next morning, so in the end we would have just kept the itinerary the same and only changed Chicago to Savannah to the next morning. But now we have a situation where there’s no more award space on either routing, so the husband and wife are separated.

So in this case what could a Star Alliance liaison do? Here are a few general thoughts about how this works:

• Usually the airline through which you booked would be able to open up award space on their own flights (for example, if you book an award through United and a schedule change puts you in a situation where there are no alternatives, United will almost always open up award space on their own flights… but only if you booked through them). The catch is that since Aeroplan is a spun off loyalty program they don’t really have the ability to open up Air Canada award space, and for that matter since one ticket is booked through United, that still wouldn’t help get both passengers on the same itinerary.
• There’s no way to get from Nice to Savannah on a single Star Alliance airline. So even if a liaison were able to open up award space (which requires putting in a request with a single airline at a time), this would still be booked on more than one carrier, so it would be more difficult than a request with a single carier. And not only would this require travel on two airlines, but we’re ticketing through two airlines as well.
• We could try to find a different routing altogether that has award space for two passengers. This would be the ideal scenario given that we’re ticketing through two carriers, and getting a change fee waiver would of course be easy.

Anyway, in the hundreds of millions of miles of award tickets I’ve booked, this is the most complicated schedule change I’ve had to deal with. So while I think Aeroplan had the right intentions with rebooking the passenger on an alternative routing around the same time, I think it was a bit presumptuous, and for that matter I’ve never seen an airline do that before.

So how am I hoping to solve this? I think there are only two routes we can go:

• Have Aeroplan contact their alliance liaison and have them open up the Austrian award space from Nice to Vienna to Chicago again, and then we can add on a Chicago to Savannah segment the next day. Meanwhile on the United ticket (which currently has an illegal connection) we’d just have to switch the Chicago to Savannah segment to the next day.
• As stated above, find an alternative routing with award space available for two and book them both on it.

So this is certainly an adventure to untangle…

Of the millions of miles I’ve flown, my most memorable trip ever had to be the one I took with my mom the summer after I graduated from high school. We went to Australia and New Zealand, and not only is New Zealand probably the most beautiful place I’ve ever been, but we had a lot of fun as well. And I actually love traveling with my parents — they couldn’t be more supportive of what I do, and when I first told them I wanted to do “my own thing” after college they were more convinced in it than I was, and that’s despite the fact that my dad doesn’t even know how to turn on a computer, much less know what a “blog” is. If you ever meet my dad and want some quality entertainment, ask him what I do.

Anyway, sadly I haven’t been able to travel with my parents the past few years as much as I’d like to. They own a small business that requires them to open and close it every day, so taking trips is for the most part off the table. That being said, my mom has a big milestone birthday coming up next month, which may or may not be similar in number to one of my favorite Kuala Lumpur clothing stores.

She has worked her ass off and deserves a trip, and I’m scrambling to figure out where to take her. While she says she just wants to go to Germany, she has never been to Asia before, so I’m really thinking I should take her there, or somewhere else she hasn’t been.

But the one thing I’m dying to do — and I’m trying to figure out whether this is a good idea or not — is make this a surprise trip. I’m sure we’ve all had the desire to do this at some point. Book a trip for a loved one and tell them to show up at the airport without knowing where they’re going. On one hand it seems exciting for both parties involved, but I wonder, does that actually maximize the happiness derived from a trip?

I’ve read plenty of articles saying that the most happiness derived from a trip comes from the anticipation as opposed to the trip itself. Is that taken away or increased when it’s a surprise?

And for that matter, where the heck should I take her? I should have probably planned this a year out.

PS: Mom, if you’re reading this, the post is obviously a joke. I planned this trip a year out and everything is set in stone, and I’m just posting this to throw you off. Yeah, let’s go with that.

I’m often asked about award space on Qantas between the US and Australia. They’re one of only two airlines offering a first class product between the US and Australia, and there’s no doubt their product is heaps better than United’s. But is finding award space on them in first class downright impossible?

I just did a quick little test and searched award space on them in first class between Los Angeles and Sydney/Melbourne, which are their two A380 routes to the US. Here are the dates I found available (and only two of those dates had two first class seats):

Los Angeles to Melbourne: August 13, March 4
Los Angeles to Sydney: none

Melbourne to Los Angeles: none
Sydney to Los Angeles: February 19, March 11, March 12, March 18, March 19, March 27

So is first class award availability on Qantas a myth? There’s no doubt it’s really, really difficult to come across, but I’d go with no, based on the above.

There are a few things to understand about how they release award space, which make them quite different than other carriers. First of all, unlike many other carriers they won’t release award space close to departure just because their cabins are empty. Many carriers, like Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa, release almost all their first class seats close to departure. Not Qantas. For example, take a look at tonight’s Los Angeles to Sydney flight:

Even though it has at least nine first class seats left for sale, there’s no award space. The same goes for the flight on Monday, which also has at least nine first class seats left for sale:

So unlike with other carriers there’s no hope in “holding out” and hoping they release more space.

Does that mean it’s impossible to find award space less than 11 months out (and we’ll get into actually finding award space 11 months out in a moment). In my experience, no. If somebody cancels an award seat with them it always goes back into award inventory, in my experience. This means that if somebody snagged an elusive first class award seat and decides to cancel closer to departure, I find that the seat goes back into award inventory, even if other factors have changed (unlike other airlines, where that often doesn’t happen, especially if there’s a long period between when you book and when you cancel). And that’s the reason it’s probably worth monitoring for availability almost up until the departure date, because if someone cancels an award, that seat will more than likely go back into inventory.

But how do you snag seats when the window opens? Are they in reality releasing first class award seats a year out, and people are just snagging them at midnight the night they become available? The short answer is no. They’re not releasing first class award space on a majority of their flights, though when they do, they’re almost always snagged within hours of being released.

But if you’re redeeming American miles you’re at a bit of a disadvantage to begin with. American only has access to Qantas award space ~331 days out, while members of other programs, like British Airways and Qantas, get access to space earlier.

For example, Qantas has already released award space for two between Los Angeles and Melbourne on April 7, 2014 (as shown below on both the British Airways website and ExpertFlyer), though it’ll be over a week before AAdvantage members can snag that space.

The problem is that it’s a lot more expensive to book through British Airways or Qantas than through American. For example, a one-way first class award between Los Angeles and Melbourne would cost you 72,500 AAdvantage miles plus $2.50, while the same award would cost you 150,000 British Airways Avios plus $430.50 in taxes/fuel surcharges.

So if you do have hopes of snagging Qantas first class using American miles the key is to start looking more than 331 days out. Use ExpertFlyer, the Qantas website, or the British Airways website to look at availability. If you find it, cross your fingers and hope that members of other programs don’t snag it. Then exactly 331 days out be there the minute the space is released to American. I don’t know at what time that is, but refresh your screen every five minutes that day if you have to. I’ve found this to be just about the only award in the world where it’s crucial to book the second it becomes available.

And if all else fails, keep in mind that ExpertFlyer will let you set availability alerts for Qantas first class award space, if you want to hold out hope…

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

Do you know of any ways to see LAN availability for AA members within South America online? I’m trying to book some short hops in Chile / Argentina, and the smaller airports (IQQ, ARI, etc.) don’t show up on the BA site.

When it comes to searching OneWorld award availability I find the American website to be the easiest to use. The catch is that they only show award availability on a handful of their partners, including British Airways and Qantas.

If I’m looking to search award availability on Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, LAN, etc., I’ll usually just use the British Airways website. But a while back it became a lot less user friendly for actually searching award space on many LAN flights. I’m not sure if this is a real glitch or a convenient “glitch” given that many of these redemptions represent an excellent value and they don’t want to make it easy to book them, but regardless there’s an easy way to get around it.

Say you want to fly from SCL (Santiago, Chile) to ARI (Arica, Chile) — a route operated by LAN — as Daniel does. Usually you’d go to the BA website and enter the origin, destinations, and dates first.

However instead of the next page giving you the results as would usually be the case, it returns an error message saying that destination doesn’t exist, and suggests other logical alternatives, like Molde, Norway.

But there’s a way to trick the system into showing you the space. The website seems to validate the destination airport though not the origin airport at the time of the search. In the last search the system recognized SCL though didn’t recognize ARI. So instead try making ARI your origin and SCL your destination. Just enter an arbitrary outbound date and the return date you were originally looking for.

The search will now return results for both directions without giving you a hard time.

This works for just about all the routes that LAN operates that otherwise don’t display. At the very least the website recognizes Santiago, Lima, and Buenos Aires, out of which LAN operates most of their flights.

While this is useful for searching space, unfortunately it doesn’t really help with booking one-way awards, since the results you’ll get will be roundtrip and originate at the destination. That being said if you wanted to use British Airways Avios to make the booking I’d suggest calling them up and explaining the website wouldn’t let you book the itinerary because it didn’t recognize the cities, and they should hopefully waive the phone booking fee.

For the month of April, AviancaTaca is offering a 100% bonus on purchased miles.Through this promotion you can essentially purchase a maximum of 100,000 miles for 1.5 cents each, including all taxes and fees. The major restriction is that you have to be a program member before the start of the promotion to qualify, so if you’re not a member already, be sure to sign-up so you’re eligible the next go around.

There are some things I love about Lifemiles, including:

• They allow one-way awards at half the cost of a roundtrip
• They don’t impose fuel surcharges on award redemptions
• They have competitive redemption rates (you can find their Star Alliance award chart here)
• As long as you have 40% of the miles needed for a redemption, you can purchase the remaining miles for 1.275 cents each, payable at the time of ticketing

And then there are two things I hate with a passion about Lifemiles:

• Their call center is HORRIBLE, so if your redemption requires servicing over the phone, you might as well forget about it
• They don’t allow mixed cabin awards, meaning if you book a business class award all segments have to be in business class

That last point is probably the single most ridiculous policy of any airline. Basically if you’re redeeming miles for business class and your itinerary requires a connection on a plane with only a coach cabin, you have to book two separate awards. I don’t know of any other airline with a policy that ridiculous.

So I’m kind of surprised that I speculatively purchased Lifemiles and also recommend others do the same, since I do think there’s a ton of uncertainty with the program. They could impose fuel surcharges at any point, get rid of the option to purchase the remaining 60% of miles at the time of ticketing for 1.275 cents each, or at the very least increase the cost, or they could raise their redemption rates without notice, as we’ve seen them do in the past.

But here’s the beautiful thing about buying miles with them — you only take on 40% of the “risk” that you usually do when you purchase miles. For example, purchasing just 26,000 miles will give you the flexibility to book a one-way business class ticket to almost anywhere in the world. At the time of ticketing you can purchase the remaining 60% of the miles needed for a redemption, which is just a really useful benefit.

While Lifemiles isn’t great for an aspirational 16 segment award with a stopover, I think we’ve just about all been in a situation where we just need a nonstop international first or business class flight, and Lifemiles is tough to beat for that. Assuming a ratio of 40% miles purchased in advance at 1.5 cents each and 60% miles purchased at the time of ticketing for 1.275 cents each, that’s an average of 1.365 cents per mile. They charge 52,500 miles one-way to Europe, so that’s ~$716 worth of miles, while they charge 62,500 miles one-way to Africa, Asia, or the Middle East, which is ~$853 worth of miles.

While there’s some risk with the program, that’s a rate at which I’m willing to gamble a bit.

Yesterday American published their 2013 Elite Rewards, which no doubt modified my travel plans for the rest of the year, as I’ve decided I have to go for 150,000 elite qualifying miles with American this year to earn 100,000 bonus redeemable miles (or some other combination of rewards).

But with the upcoming merger with US Airways, there’s lots of speculation about the implications of this promotion. Does the promotion tell us something about what we can expect in the combined airline?

Some of the speculation I’ve seen centers around things like:

• This year there are four “tiers” of rewards, while last year there were three tiers. Could this possibly align with the “new” AAdvantage program having four tiers instead of three?
• Why would American offer “sticker” upgrades as an option when it’s very likely they’ll be going away with the merger?
• Why would American offer systemwide upgrades as an option when it’s very likely they’ll be making changes to this benefit with the merger?

And these are all reasonable questions that I don’t know the answers to, so all I can do is speculate. Usually I’m the person that reads too much into things, though in this case I don’t think any of the above have implications. For that matter I don’t think American and US Airways are even far enough along in the merger process to know the answers to most of the above questions, let alone take them into consideration when designing a promotion.

While it’s interesting there are four award tiers instead of three, they would in no way align with potential four tier elite program. If the “new” American were to have four elite tiers they’d be at 25,000 miles, 50,000 miles, 75,000 miles, and 100,000/125,000 miles. So the reward thresholds of 40,000 miles, 75,000 miles, 125,000 miles, and 150,000 miles wouldn’t make sense, given that they’re designed to be “between” tiers.

I do think it’s fairly certain sticker upgrades will go away with the merger. Why are they offering them through this promotion? Probably because some people value them greatly for the time being, and it’ll likely be at least the end of the year before they even think of getting rid of them. They can be purchased for $30 a pop so I really don’t think they’re a good value given the other options, but then again not everyone chooses wisely, so…

The systemwide upgrades are the real surprise here. While I wish it weren’t the case, I’d be willing to bet almost anything that American will change their systemwide upgrade policy with the merger. Presently they give Executive Platinum members eight systemwide upgrades for qualifying, and they have no fare restrictions. Not only do they give top tier elites more systemwide upgrades than the other legacy carriers, but they also have by far the fewest restrictions. So when it’s a near guarantee that this will be changing in the next year, why are they potentially giving Executive Platinum seven extra systemwide upgrades, for a total of 15?

I’d say probably because they haven’t yet decided on what changes they’ll make to systemwide upgrades, and at the end of the day systemwide upgrades probably carry less liability than miles. After all, they’re space available upgrade vouchers, so to some degree what do they care if there are a few more out there in circulation?

There’s only one way I’ll read into this promotion, and it’s as follows. We’ve seen the Delta and Northwest merger. At the time it seemed like chaos. Then we saw the United and Continental merger, which was way more chaotic, and as a relative matter made the Delta and Northwest merger look like a piece of cake. American and US Airways know they have a long road ahead of them, and it’s easy to lose frequent flyers in the process, as “harmonizing” systems rarely goes smoothly. And let’s be honest, when mergers happen the airlines take the worst of both programs, so people consider switching their business for good reason.

Let’s say a majority of the American merger happens next year. Isn’t it almost in American’s best interest to throw their top tier elites an additional handful of systemwide upgrades with no fare restrictions to use during that time? Even if they want to leave, it’s unlikely they would with so many upgrades or other rewards. And as any elite member knows, once you’ve requalified you’re “hooked,” and it’s very tough to switch carriers.

So I really don’t think there’s too much to read into here, other than American perhaps apologizing in advance for what will be a rocky 12-18 months.

What do you guys think?

Small Luxury Hotels of the World is a group of over 500 boutique hotels that don’t otherwise belong to any hotel chain (you can see their locations here). They have a loyalty program, (not so) creatively called The Club of Small Luxury Hotels of the World.

It’s actually a pretty lucrative program, because even just for joining you get room upgrades on your first stay. Then after your first stay you become a “Loved” member, which gets you room upgrades, complimentary continental breakfast, and late check-out. Then after five stays you become an “Honoured” member, which gets you (in addition to the above) a free night, priority room upgrades, and early check-in.

While these benefits aren’t earth shattering, reader Stephanie points out that if you register now you can become a “Loved” member with your first stay, meaning you’re immediately eligible for room upgrades and complimentary breakfast. Just sign up through this link.

There’s definitely some overlap between the hotels here and those that participate in American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts and Virtuoso, though there’s no reason you can’t benefit from both programs.