Posted by Seth on September 15, 2010 under News | 
Continental Airlines and American Express’s Membership Rewards programs have been closely partnered for several years. From point transfers to lounge access for premium cardholders, the relationship was quite beneficial for both parties. At least it seemed to be. The partnership is coming to an end on September 30, 2011.
This move is not much of a surprise to most folks following the merger between Continental and United Airlines or even just the recent moves by Continental with respect to their credit card choices. Indeed, the Continental – American Express relationship has been softening for nearly five years at this point, with fewer promotions between the two programs during that time. Across the same time period the relationship with Chase has been strengthened significantly, with several new products launched. Chase is the issuing bank for both Continental and United’s affinity cards and both carriers recently launched cards that include many similar benefits to those of the premium American Express cards, including airport lounge access and a premium hotel program.
So no more lounge access to Continental Presidents Club lounges (they likely won’t be called that in September 2011 anyways given the merger) and no more transfers to the OnePass program from Membership Rewards. How will AmEx keep the value proposition up for the folks paying $450 or more every year for the card? The company has announced two significant additional benefits that will be added to their portfolio, effective December 1, 2010.
- $200 Airline Fee Credit — Cardmembers can check a bag or enjoy an in-flight meal on American Express. Every year American Express will cover up to $200 of incidental airline fees that are charged on the Cardmember’s enrolled Card on a selected airline. The $200 Airline Fee Credit can apply to fees such as baggage fees, flight change fees, in-flight food and airport lounge day passes.
- 20% Travel Bonus — When Cardmembers use Membership Rewards Pay with Points to pay for part or all of their travel including airlines, hotels, cruises and vacation packages, they will get 20% of those points credited back to their account. For example, if a Cardmember redeems 30,000 points to pay for an airline ticket, American Express will credit 6,000 point to the Membership Rewards Cardmember’s account.
While the Pay with Points program is often a poor value proposition, increasing the yield by 20% is a nice touch. It should be noted that the 20% credit will be issued after the fact rather than as a discount from the original purchase. Minor detail but it can make a difference if you’re just on the cusp of a redemption level.
The Fee Credit is a very nice offer, particularly given the broad range of things that it can be applied to. While some of the fine print remains to be seen (I’m particularly concerned with the “a selected airline” phrase) the idea looks to be pretty solid.
This was a change in the program that is not particularly surprising. And there is over a year to work out the details of how to handle points and annual fee renewal decisions. Plus AmEx came through with some additional benefits to offset the loss. Overall I’d say that both programs handled this about as well as could be expected in the situation.
Posted by Seth on June 17, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Finding reward seats is always the harder part of playing the mileage game. Earning enough for a great reward is one thing but once you have the miles being able to actually find a reward seat can be incredibly difficult. Fortunately there are a few tools out there which help the process for certain carriers. For Star Alliance searches ANA provides the best engine for searching. You have to have an account with them but otherwise it is wide open.
Well, it used to be.
ANA has changed their policies recently to require that one have points in their ANA account in order to search partner award inventory. Seeing as how their site has become the go to source for Star Alliance reward searches, including some folks who have built web applications leveraging that source (not my tools; I don’t have *A reward availability in my set) it is not too hard to se how the load on their systems is not consistent with their actual user base and the volume of bookings they’re handling. It gets expensive to maintain and run systems and this is no exception.
At least for now there is a workaround to the issue, identified by a user on FlyerTalk, but the expectation is that the loophole will close soon enough. Getting miles into ANA isn’t all that hard. They partner with American Express Membership Rewards and a number of hotels and rental car companies as well. The miles will expire after 3 years but that is a small investment to make for the phenomenal search engine that ANA provides.
Some coverage of the issue from Lucky here.
Posted by Seth on January 6, 2010 under News |
A couple changes coming out from the American Express Membership Rewards program here in early 2010, one good and one bad.
First, the bad news. Southwest Airlines will no longer be a transfer partner for the Membership Rewards program as of July 1, 2010. They’ve given ample notice which is nice but the loss of a partner is unfortunate. The Rapid Rewards program never did anything good for me but I understand that a lot of folks do enjoy the program, especially with the companion ticket program. So that’s an unfortunate loss of benefits.
And, now, the good news. The American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts program now has an online booking engine. Finally. The new website allows US-based Platinum and Centurion card-holders to research rates, benefits and availability online. Members can also complete bookings directly through the website. The site is a bit slow, flash-based (which I find annoying since it adds no value) and doesn’t display rates at all until you click through to the individual properties. Still, it is a nice improvement from the old system of having to call in. Also, the functionality is set only at the Platinum cardholder level. For Centurion members to receive their added benefits (time-of-booking upgrade and better rates) they will still have to call.
Posted by Seth on December 18, 2009 under points |
American Express announced several months ago that they would be adding British Airways as a transfer partner for their Membership Rewards program by the end of the year. They pushed that “end of year” bit almost to the limit, but as of earlier this week they’ve finally opened up the partnership.
Even better, there is a bonus available for folks who make a transfer before the end of January 2010. It is 5,000 BAEC points for any transfer and the minimum transfer amount is 1,000 so that’s not too bad a deal.
Of course, they might be going out on strike over Christmas ruining travel plans. Or they might arbitrarily decide to cancel a ticket that you bought ruining travel plans. Or you might have to pay the exorbitant fees that they charge for fuel surcharges and taxes on reward flights. But if you can get over that stuff this seems like a decent deal.
Posted by Seth on December 22, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Sure, credit limits are being slashed all over the country, but that hasn’t hit me yet. What has hit me are cuts to the travel benefits that AmEx offers for their Platinum and Centurion (“Black Card”) members. The travel benefits were always of questionable value to begin with, depending on travel patterns and whatnot, but I’m pretty confident that they are truly losing most of their appeal, and doing so rather quickly.
The first benefit to go this year was one that was only recently introduced – a domestic 2-4-1 ticket deal for both Platinum and Centurion programs. The program was limited, with blackout dates, only 6 carriers participating (the major legacy companies) and ridiculous ticketing fees on both the “free” and the paid ticket. Still, I managed to use the program a couple times and saved $1-200 each time on flights I’d have taken anyways. Not a bad benefit to have. Sadly this one died about 5 weeks ago.
Next up were changes to the Mandarin Oriental benefit for the Centurion program. I’ve only ever once stayed in an Oriental property. We did so in Bangkok as part of our honeymoon. It was phenomenal. I’m not sure that I can really justify spending that much for hotel rooms on a regular basis (says the guy booking in to hostels for the next few vacation nights to save beer money) but it really was an impressive hotel. The Centurion program offers a BOGO deal at each participating property. Pay for one night and get a second night free, with a few minor limitations. That’s a phenomenal deal. The number of hotels participating continues to drop, however, and the substitute benefit is pretty miserable. You now get a $200 food/spa credit instead of a free night. Ouch.
And finally there is the fabled International Airline Program, AmEx’s 2-4-1 international premium airfare deal. This one is so fraught with caveats that it is almost never a good deal. You have to pay pretty much the highest fare available but inventory for cheaper fares needs to be available, and those discount fares can often be half of the top fare. The carriers and destinations are limited. And the free ticket collects no points. Still, every now and then there were deals to be found. Those diamonds in the rough are going to be harder to find if the rumors of airlines departing the program are true. It seems that Continental, Delta and Emirates are all departing the program.
There are a few new hotels joining the Fine Hotels & Resorts program, but that really only benefits folks spending a lot of money on hotel rooms, of which I am not one. I might be getting rid of the card when it comes up for renewal this year after carrying it for about 5 years. The value is disappearing pretty rapidly for me.
Posted by Seth on July 16, 2008 under Uncategorized |
The American Express Membership Rewards program has been around for a long, long time, allowing the accrual of points for redemption on a variety of airlines, hotels, stores and even casino chips at one point. The participating airlines seem to vary at any given point in time depending on whether AmEx is willing to pay and whether the airline is willing to sell the points. In the past week or so AmEx has quietly added a new airline transfer partner to the US-based Membership Rewards program – the Spanish carrier Iberia. Iberia is the second Membership Rewards partner to participate in the OneWorld alliance, bringing another means of accessing redemptions within that alliance to the Membership Rewards program. That’s the good news.
American Express will transfer your points to Iberia at a ratio of 1,400:100. The reward charts are pretty granular, with flights within Spain or to the Balearics or Gibraltar only 900 points for a round-trip ticket (so only 12,600 AmEx MR points) in “Tourist Full” class, which seems to have no inventory controls. Flights are 1/3 cheaper for “Blue Class” which is limited inventory from what I can tell. Flights from Spain to the USA, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America are only 4,750 points (or ~66,000 MR points), again in the “Tourist Full” class which seems to not be inventory restricted. They also offer one way rewards, with some fares just being 1/2 of a round trip and some (the transatlantics) having a premium attached. But these are only on Iberia-operated flights. When you start getting into partners the numbers go up pretty quickly, which is the bad news.
The redemptions are based on total miles traveled and class of service, with the breakdown looking like this:
| |
Miles Required
|
| Total miles traveled |
Coach |
Business |
First |
| 0 – 600 |
18,200 |
35,000 |
53,200 |
| 601 – 1,000 |
22,400 |
44,800 |
65,800 |
| 1,001 – 2,000 |
28,000 |
54,600 |
82,600 |
| 2,001 – 4,000 |
33,600 |
75,600 |
99,400 |
| 4,001 – 5,000 |
39,200 |
82,600 |
116,200 |
| 5,001 – 8,000 |
44,800 |
88,200 |
133,000 |
| 8,001 – 12,400 |
56,000 |
112,000 |
168,000 |
| 12,401 – 18,000 |
77,000 |
154,000 |
232,400 |
| 18,001 – 25,000 |
105,000 |
210,000 |
315,000 |
| 25,001 – 30,000 |
110,600 |
221,200 |
331,800 |
| 30,001 – 35,000 |
133,000 |
266,000 |
399,000 |
| 35,001 – 40,000 |
154,000 |
308,000 |
462,000 |
| 40,001 – 50,000 |
176,400 |
352,800 |
529,200 |
The numbers at the top of the chart aren’t terrible, but when you start getting into ‘Round The World ticket distances, particularly in the premium cabins, the numbers are pretty bad.
So if you’re looking to get around within Spain or between Spain and something nearby, this looks like a decent option. For longer flights or partner flights the numbers aren’t so great. Then again, the rates of redemption in Mexicana, the other OneWorld partner don’t seem to be all that great either (70K in coach between N. America and Europe versus 44,800-77,000 on Iberia), so this might not be so bad.
More options is always good, even if not all the redemption values are terrific.
Happy Flying!
