Chris R. emailed me this morning to bring a Milepoint.com post to my attention where United announced changes to elite status qualification beginning in 2014.

The following revenue requirements — in addition to the standard mileage or segment flying to reach status — apply to accounts with addresses in the United States only.

• Silver: $2500 minimum qualifying revenue
  
• Gold: $5000 minimum qualifying revenue
  
• Platinum: $7500 minimum qualifying revenue
  
• 1K: $10,000 minimum qualifying revenue

In addition, you can’t earn status entirely on most of United’s partners. Earning status will require flying at least 4 qualifying segments operated by United, United Express, and/or Copa Airlines

U.S. members who charge $25,000 to a co-branded United Chase credit card during the calendar year are exempt from the revenue requirement for that year if qualifying for Silver, Gold, or Platinum status. But there’s no spending exemption or US members reaching 1K status.

So far they are only promising this exemption for earning status during 2014 (which is either because it’s a test period or there are contractual elements with Chase involved).

An alternative, just idle speculation, is that for 2014 the threshold is set at $25,000 regardless of elite tier. Perhaps future years they would tweak the threshold amount, or create a sliding scale for different elite tiers.

Although the $25,000 amount really is not a surprise — higher amounts feel unattainable, while lower amounts likely mean the co-brand product isn’t really top of wallet for the median elite frequent flyer.

This component of the new requirements reminds us that United is an airline that was at least once more or less in effect a wholly owned subsidiary of Chase, and flew through its bankruptcy in order to support the underlying credit card business.

What revenue counts?

You’ll earn credit for base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges. So fuel surcharges, which are really a part of the ticket price, count. But taxes do not.

This applies to all flights flown by United, United Express, and Copa Airlines — and to Star Alliance and United partner airlines when flying on a United ticket.

Like Delta, partner flights on partner-issued tickets won’t count. So a Lufthansa ticket across the Atlantic on a ticket purchased from Lufthansa won’t count — which in a way is odd considering United and Lufthansa are joint venture partners. So I have to assume that the reason here is technological, that United will get a report of miles from Lufthansa if crediting to a MileagePlus account. But they won’t see the revenue information, so the revenue can’t count.

Finally they’re letting economy plus purchases count, which in some way is a fare buy up but also underscores the importance of the revenue stream derived by their extra legroom seating. (Although existing elites won’t often pay for the privilege.)

When do these changes go into effect?

The change starts in January 2014. That means your flying in 2013 is how you qualify for 2014 status. It becomes a combination of flying and revenue you provide United in 2014 for 2015 status.

Who can get out of this requirement?

Anyone with an address outside of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia is exempt. Military and diplomatic (APO, DPO or FPO) addresses are exempt from the revenue requirement. I predict a mass exodus from the United States. Presumably United will then have some sort of account auditing, putting themselves in opposition to some of their elite members.

If your address subjects you to the revenue requirement, then you can become an elite still by:

• Spending the required money with United
  
• Spending $25,000 on a co-branded Chase United credit card — as long as you’re only looking to achieve Platinum status, this won’t help you with 1K.
  
• Legacy Presidential Plus cardmembers, regardless of how much they spend on their card — as long as they’re only looking to achieve Platinum status, this won’t help with 1K.

These exemptions only apply to the revenue requirements and do not apply to the four segment minimum flown on United (or COPA) requirement.

How onerous are the new requirements?

United has set the bar at spending a consistent 10 cents per mile minimum. That’s the same amount that Delta is using with its tiers (Delta’s top tier is earned at 125,000 miles and has set the bar for that at $12,500.)

Interestingly this is a higher amount per mile than when United was rumored to be looking at making similar changes two years ago. I wonder how much of that is based on the current ticket pricing environment, rather than looking at the value of a customer over a longer time horizon.

Roughly speaking tickets do cost that much for most people. A cross country ticket most of does run $500, for a little under 5000 miles earned. Which means — and even though most elites probably don’t really it or add it up — that I’d imagine most customers won’t be materially affected by the change. They’ll fly their miles, and by virtue of having done so they will have spent enough money with United to achieve their status.

Still, in an aviation market different than the one we’re currently in — in a pricing environment that’s more like what the airlines saw 3 and 4 years ago — ticket prices are lower and folks aren’t just hitting these minimums. So it could be a real future problem, although in that case if elite numbers drop I would expect to see “double premier qualifying dollar” promotions the same way we’ve seen double miles promotions.

I don’t like penalizing people for buying the very tickets an airline is offering. Ben Baldanza, who now runs Spirit, used to describe customers flying cheap fares — buying what his airline US Airways was selling — as not the kind of loyalty they were looking for. It took a decade, but the industry has begun to agree. And in the current environment that means not rewarding the customers who fly only cheap fares.

Getting $25,000 spend on a United co-brand credit card isn’t hard. If you need a spouse’s help to do it, that’s fine — get them an authorized user card on your credit card account and their spending will count towards the requirement. Two people sending $1000 a month back and forth on these two cards via Amazon Payments can generate $24,000 per year in spend if need be.

Since this new regime doesn’t begin until January, there’s reasonable notice in my opinion. People haven’t flown half the year only to find their benefits changed for next year. If United wants to do this, I don’t think they’re being unfair.

As I said when Delta announced similar changes in January, “Ultimately though I don’t think the requirements are that onerous, especially with the choice to spend with Delta or on the co-branded credit card.”

What should we ask of United in return?

If United is making elite status a more rarified thing, a higher value proposition for the airline, then I think it’s also reasonable to expect a better product in return.

MileagePlus is already a very good program, but I think they ought to respect status more. Currently they privilege full fare passengers over status for upgrades, so a Silver flying full fare trumps a 1K on a mid-tier fare. I didn’t like it (especially in DC with a huge concentration of YCA government fare flyers at the Silver level) but I at least saw the argument that higher revenue was more important than status which might be achieved cheaply. But now all elites with US addresses will have a high value. Treat them as such.

And at a minimum, invest some of this incremental revenue into the very broken IT infrastructure that can’t even manage to ticket partner awards correctly a not insignificant amount of the time.

What this will mean for interacting with United going forward

Thinning out some of the elite ranks makes those who remain a bit better off for upgrades. But that’s always true. They could say that upgrades are only available for customers flying full fare, and it would be true that those customers on those given days would have a better shot an upgrade. Ultimately this is a question of what loyalty is all about.

For now, the spend thresholds and the ability to buy out of them via a credit card relationship make this not a deal killer, but the architecture here certainly could change in the future.

It also means that Delta is unlikely to roll back their changes (not that they were going to), since United has effectively “matched.” It also increases the probability that the new American/US Airways program adopts some sort of revenue requirement for status.

Lifetime status also goes up in value, since lifetime elites are no longer on the spending treadmill (and they’ll be competing with marginally fewer folks for upgrades). It’s about time that Lifetime elites got some sort of a break from United!

And customers who aren’t going to make the spending threshold will probably be less loyal, at least on paid tickets, there’s no longer a loyalty program reason for them to stick with one airline.

In fact in some ways rather than doing away with gaming, these changes encourage it and with less revenue to the airline — it encourages members to do more manufactured spend, earn more miles by credit card, buy out of the requirements, and it encourages them to earn miles and redeem for free tickets instead of striving to earn elite qualifying miles through paid tickets.

And free tickets or using miles for confirmed upgrades actually cuts against the higher revenue flyers from getting complimentary domestic upgrades, at least given United’s current stance towards taking any revenue for a first class seat rather than offering that seat as a free upgrade. Perhaps that’s another thing that United’s high revenue elites should now demand change.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

No Annual Fee Chase Freedom Cards Can Give You an ‘Extra’ 24,000 Points Per Year, Each Year

You can register for the 3rd quarter’s special 5 points per dollar earning categories starting today.

The Chase Freedom® Visa offers 5 points per dollar in a rotating set of categories which change each quarter.

You have to register anew each quarter for the bonus, and then you can earn the 5x offering on up to $1500 in spend for that quarter.

Since that’s an extra 4 points per dollar on top of the standard 1 you’d earn with most cards and in most categories of spending, you pick up an extra 24,000 points per year with Chase Freedom. Which is pretty good on a no annual fee card. (The math is 4 extra points per dollar x $1500 per quarter x 4 quarters, so 4 extra points on $6000 spend or 24,000 points.)

To Get the Most Value from the Freedom Cards, You Need Sapphire Preferred, Ink Plus, or Ink Bold Too

The Freedom Cards are cash back cards only — 1% for normal spend, 5% for the 5x bonuses spend each quarter — unless you have one of the premium Ultimate Rewards cards.

If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred^SM , Ink Plus® Business Card or Ink Bold® Business Card, you can move your points earned with Freedom over to an account with one of these cards.

(And of course the Ink Bold and Ink Plus are offering a 60,000 point bonus after $5000 spend within 3 months this week only.)

When you have one of the premium Ultimate Rewards cards like Ink Bold, Ink Plus, or Sapphire, all of the points are transferable to miles and points with Ultimate Rewards partners.

• Airlines: United, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Korean Airlines, Southwest
  
• Hotels: Hyatt, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Priority Club
  
• Ground: Amtrak

That’s because you can transfer the points from your Freedom card to one of the other card accounts that allows transfers to miles and points.

All three cards have strong signup bonuses (40,000 points after $3000 spend within 3 months for Sapphire Preferred, 60,000 points after $5000 spend within 3 months for Ink Bold and Ink Plus this week only) and strong value propositions on their own — double points on travel and dining for Sapphire Preferred, quintuple points on office supplies and telecommunications for the Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards (plus double points on hotels and gas), and all three have no foreign currency transaction fees.

Upcoming 5x Opportunities

The 5x opportunities mean you can earn 7500 points each quarter instead of 1500 on the first $1500 spend in eligible categories.

The July – September 2013 5x bonus is for Gas stations, Theme parks, Kohl’s.

Bonuses for October – December will be select department stores and Amazon.com.

So if you have a Freedom card already, don’t forget to register for this quarter’s bonuses.

(Note that cards in this post offer credit to me if you’re approved using my links. I try to offer only the best available cards, and most lucrative deals available for those cards. So if you’re aware of better deals than I’ve featured please do let me know! The opinions, analyses, and evaluations here are mine. The content is not provided or commissioned by American Express, by Chase, by Citibank, US Bank, Bank of America, Barclays or any other company. They have not reviewed, approved or endorsed what I have to say.)

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

Travelocity $150 off a $750 air and hotel travel package on the first 3000 coupon uses through June 19 (tomorrow) when paying with American Express.

Here are the details:

• Search for a vacation package (Flight + Hotel or Flight + Hotel + Car). They have learned their lesson from past deals and now require the hotel to be in the same region as the destination airport… Hah!

• Enter promo code AMEXPK150 at checkout (valid on the first 3000 uses)

• Pay with an American Express card by 11:59 Central Time on June 19, 2013

Of course going to Travelocity via the Chase Ultimate Rewards mall should earn 2 points per dollar spent as well, and in my experience the use of a coupon hasn’t voided that points-earning. I’m curious to hear others’ experiences with Travelocity shopping portal credits and coupons.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

I first read it over at Wandering Aramean yesterday, that JetBlue points would no longer expire.

Previously you had to either fly or charge something to their co-branded American Express card every 12 months to keep an account active. That’s a rather stringent policy. In my post last month on how to keep your miles from expiring I surveyed the major frequent flyer program expiration policies and most allow you to keep an account active with any kind of activity every 18-36 months.

Delta miles do not expire, and when they rolled out the change they framed it as a ‘moral issue’ and yet they captured the financial benefits of having led the charge to shorten account expiration times and did not restore any of the miles they had taken away. Some moral stand.

In fact, I don’t think expiring miles are all that unreasonable. From a loyalty program’s perspective they want engaged customers. Asking for some kind of earning or redemption — even an online purchase, in some cases a single iTune through their shopping portal, or crediting one rental car — every year and a half is a fairly de minimus level of engagement. For the truly passive buying 1000 miles every year or so works too. Although I gave a list of 10 easy and inexpensive ways to keep accounts active with many programs.

But the truth is that since these programs are businesses, with budgets, they have to decide how to allocate their expenses cross their members and types of redemptions.

One kind of investment is to change expiration policies since that increases costs both at the accounting/balance sheet level (keeping big liabilities on the books due to loss of breakage assumptions) and at the cashflow level (more awards ultimately redeemed from accounts).

Increased costs for ending expiration of miles means not investing elsewhere in the program.

Choosing to invest in infrequent, unengaged members means not investing in more frequent customers.

So unless JetBlue’s model tells them — contra what the rest of the industry’s analysis concludes — that not expiring miles is revenue-positive because of future business from unengaged members that they wouldn’t otherwise receive, then this is a cost that could otherwise be spent improving the program for JetBlue’s loyal customers.

Now I’m not a regular JetBlue guy. This keeps the couple thousand points I’m tracking in my Award Wallet account active, and in fact they would have expired next month. So I suppose I should be happy, and selfishly I am. But people that actually pay attention to the JetBlue program are also the people least likely to benefit from this change. And are also the ones who should lament what else they aren’t getting from the program as a result.

Lucky has the most skeptical take I’ve read on this change, and even he says, “Look, this is obviously good news and a positive move.. So let me be clear, this is an extremely positive and customer friendly change.”

It may be obvious. I’m just not sure it’s accurate.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

All I’m going to ask you to do is leave a comment, the details of which you’ll need to read on for so you know what to say!

Last month I was at a conference where I walked away with a giveaway item of a Samsung Chromebook — courtesy of Gogo Inflight Internet.

Now, I love Gogo. Inflight internet has materially changed my life. I used to get off of a plane after a long flight during the business day and I’d be inundated with work, with messages, with ‘crises’ (manufactured or otherwise). Instead, I keep up with work from the air. I’m more productive, and landing after a long flight is no longer stressful. I currently pay for a ‘monthly pass’.

But I didn’t want anyone to think I loved Gogo because I received something in a giveaway. (Not that these things go out on the wire services, but bear with me.)

So I figured I would give away the device here. Plus, while it’s the latest and greatest and coolest in technology the Chromebook probably isn’t for me. I desperately want to be a one-device kind of guy. I use a high-end Lenovo Ultrabook. It’s not that much heavier, not that much bigger, than a Chromebook but serves as my desktop and my laptop and my tablet. So why not give it away?

Don’t know what a Samsung Chromebook is? Details here.

A sticker on the outside of the box reads, “Included with this device for 2 years is up to 100MB per month of Mobile Broadband service provided by Verizon Wireless.”

How to enter:

In the comments, answer the question “What is your all-time favorite View from the Wing blog post?” and include a link to that post in your comment.

This will serve two functions:

• It will help me better understand you (my readers), hopefully giving me relevant feedback on what you value most.
  
• It will help to introduce other readers to some of the posts I’ve written that they might enjoy as well.

Here are the rules:

• You may enter up to once per day — and I give you a bit of slack in this, I won’t disqualify any entry as long as you don’t make more than one entry per calendar day or as long as no entry is closer than 24 hours together from another one. And if you’re close, we’re cool. I’m not looking to disqualify people, just to make sure there’s no massive ballot stuffing.

• All entries (comments) must be received no later than Thursday, June 20 at 5pm Eastern time.

• I will draw a winner at random in the days following the close of the contest from those that meet these guidelines. Make sure you provide a valid e-mail address when entering to be eligible to win (you do not need to leave an email address in the comments, but along with your name where it asks for your email that email must be ‘real’ or I will have no way of contacting you).

• I’m the final arbiter in all matters related to this contest and in all matters of interpretation. There is no appeal. I’m doing this because there’s an opportunity to send out a pretty cool computer, and not taking anything in return, so please don’t give me a hard time in the process.

Any questions? E-mail me. And hopefully the winner will also follow up with me to let me know their impressions of the device. It looks great!

Hit the comments of this post to enter!

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

American Airlines and Marriott Rewards announced a partnership today, restoring a relationship which was severed back in June 2010.

Members will be able to earn AAdvantage miles for Marriott stays (rather than Marriott Rewards points) if they wish, and will be able to convert Marriott points to AAdvantage miles.

The conversions will take place at the ‘higher’ tier that Marriott offers, similar to transfers into Aeromexico, Aeroplan, Alaska, British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, GOL/Varig, Hawaiian Airlines, Iberia Airlines, United Airlines, US Airways, and Virgin Atlantic.

The conversion rate of Marriott Rewards to American miles (and to the mileage currencies of the other airlines listed above) is:

• 10,000 points = 2,000 miles
  
• 20,000 points = 5,000 miles
  
• 30,000 points = 10,000 miles
  
• 70,000 points = 25,000 miles
  
• 140,000 points = 50,000 miles

Other air transfer partners are less lucrative, e.g. 10,000 points to 1500 miles and 140,000 points to 35,000 miles.

You’ll also be able to redeem Marriott Rewards points for American miles as part of 7 night hotel stay plus miles travel packages.

Another option for Marriott stays and transfers is of course a good thing. I usually credit my hotel stays to hotel points, and only transfer Starwood points to miles or hotel points to miles when there’s a bonus for doing so or a promotion that requires activity with a variety of partners.

But I know that this is a very popular option. And in fact from speaking with the AAdvantage folks this morning about it they were very clear that it’s something that they were hearing across all channels from their members that not partnering with Marriott was a huge gap. I hear from customers in my award booking service all the time as well with Marriott points wanting to transfer to miles (and the travel packages are a reasonable deal). There was a ton of transferring three years ago right before the option shut down. No doubt many will sue this.

They’re promoting the new earn/transfer relationship with a 500 mile per stay bonus when you go into your Marriott Rewards profile and change your earning preference to American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

For stays which begin between July 15 and August 15, each stay earns 500 bonus points. There’s no limit (other than a calendar limit based on the duration of the promotion) and no registration is required. So an infrequent Marriott guest staying at a Marriott during this time could come out ahead.

It’s good to see this partnership back, members clearly value it. It’s good to see a bonus to promote it. For these two big travel providers, an airline and hotel chain, it seemed strange that they couldn’t work things out before so good to see that they now have.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

News and Notes from Around the Interweb:

• Passengers stuck on a plane for hours were charged for water. And it wasn’t even Spirit. Or an attempt to utilize the price system to ration scarce resources. (HT: sobore on Milepoint)

• Tasting notes on Hyatt’s private label Canvas house wines.

• If you didn’t win Briggs & Riley luggage in my recent giveaways, you can enter Points, Miles, & Martini’s TORQ bag giveaway. (Well, strictly speaking, you can enter there even if you did win here.)

• 20% off a Virgin America ticket valid for travel September 10 – November 6 by liking and entering info on their Facebook page.

• United partner Silver Airways introduces its own frequent flyer program that earns… United miles.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

Key links:

• Ink Bold® Business Card

• Ink Plus® Business Card

• Ink Cash® Business Card

Last week I passed along word that Chase would be offering special, limited-time bonuses for new Ink card signups this week. So I took down my links to the Ink cards right away — I didn’t want anyone applying when waiting a few days would yield bigger bonuses.

And now word is out, they have indeed increased the bonuses on these cards for this week only. And I’ve never seen stronger offers for them as you can get this week (during ‘small business week’).

It’s an extra 10,000 points for each of Ink Bold and Ink Plus, so 60,000 point signup bonus after $5000 spend within 3 months. And it’s an extra 5,000 points for Ink Cash, so 25,000 point signup bonus after $3000 spend within 3 months.

While I didn’t receive specific info on it, Ink Classic also appears to offer 25,000 points after $3000 spend within 3 months this week as well.

Here are the offers this week only that I’ve just received detail on:

Ink Plus® Business Card
• Limited-time bonus offer. Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months from account opening.
• With Ink Plus, you have the cash flow flexibility with the choice to pay over time or pay in full
• Earn 5X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent annually at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services
• Earn 2X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent annually at gas stations and for hotel accommodations when purchased directly with the hotel
• No foreign transaction fees

Ink Bold® Business Card
• Limited-time bonus offer. Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months from account opening.
• No interest charges because it’s a pay in full charge card.
• Earn 5X points per dollar in select business categories.
• 1:1 point transfer to leading frequent travel programs.
• No foreign transaction fees
• Direct access to a live service advisor anytime.
• $0 Intro Annual Fee for the first year, then $95.

Ink Cash® Business Card
• Limited-time bonus offer. Earn $250 bonus cash back after you spend $3,000 in 3 months from account opening.
• 5% cash back on the first $25,000 spent annually at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services
• 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent annually at gas stations and restaurants
• 1% cash back on all other card purchases with no limit to the amount you can earn
• 0% introductory APR for 6 months on purchases and balance transfers
• No Annual Fee

With Ink Bold and Ink Plus, points transfer one-to-one into:

• Airlines: United, British Airways, Korean Air, Virgin Atlantic, Southwest
  
• Hotels: Hyatt, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Priority Club (and currently Virgin Atlantic points transfer 1:2 into Hilton)
  
• Ground: Amtrak

Ink Cash points can be redeemed for cash.. or if you have Ink Bold, Ink Plus, or Sapphire Preferred also you can transfer the points into one of those cards and onward into miles or points.

Just How Good an Offer?

I consider Ink Bold and Ink Plus to be the best cards offered by Chase, the bank that generally has the best offers overall. And I consider them the best all-around credit cards.

The usual offer for the Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards is 50,000 points after $5000 spend within 3 months. The offer used to require $10,000 in spend during that timeframe.

Here they are increasing the bonuses on each of these cards by 20% without increasing the spending requirement.

An extra 10,000 points transferred to United is worth about $200. Transferred to Hyatt I consider it worth about $150. Some people sign up for cards when the bonus is $150 or $200, I generally advise against. Here’s it’s an extra $150 or $200 in value that you can get this week for cards that already have about the best bonus going. So if the Ink cards are in your plans, this week is the best time to get them.

Which of These Cards is Right for You?

If you’re wondering whether a small business card makes sense for you, read Why You Should Add a Small Business Card to Your Wallet.

Between Ink Bold and Ink Plus, neither is really ‘better’ than the other since they’re nearly identical cards with Ink Bold being a charge card (must pay off in full each month) and Ink Plus being a credit card (should pay off in full each month). In the past my advice has been — if you don’t have one or the other yet — to get Ink Bold first.

I’ve also argued that the Ink Cash card is good to consider after the first year of Ink Bold/Plus because it has no annual fee, similar spending category bonuses, and as long as you retain a Chase Sapphire Preferred card you can still move the points from Ink Cash over to your Sapphire Preferred account and then transfer those points to miles/points with an airline or hotel.

The 20% better bonus on each of the Chase Ink cards will be available through June 22 only.

(Note that some of the cards in this post offer credit to me if you’re approved using my links. I try to offer only the best available cards, and most lucrative deals available for those cards. So if you’re aware of better deals than I’ve featured please do let me know! The opinions, analyses, and evaluations here are mine. The content is not provided or commissioned by American Express, by Chase, by Citibank, US Bank, Bank of America, Barclays or any other company. They have not reviewed, approved or endorsed what I have to say.)

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

Point Me to the Plane flags a story about cheating spouses traveling in order to carry on their affairs.

“There’s no better time to pursue a discreet affair than when you’re hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home,” said AshleyMadison.com founder Noel Biderman. “Our members have stated that the distance not only lessens their fear of getting caught, but also alleviates feelings of guilt.”

…And how on earth do these cheaters pay for these rendezvous without getting caught? Turns out more than half pay for it through a business trip, either directly on a corporate card or through a rewards program (no paper trail!) or by adding days onto a business trip.

Using miles under the belief that there’s “no paper trail” seems naive at best. Sure, strictly speaking the tickets are electronic but

• You pay taxes on the award ticket with a credit card, and using miles would seem to undermine the story about being gone on a business trip.
  
• Frequent flyer accounts will show the redemption. I guess this assumes that the spouse being cheated on doesn’t have access to the family AwardWallet account.

In the case of paid trips it might be advisable not to accrue miles so that the real details aren’t visible to a spouse logging in to see changes in a points balance. But what frequent flyer aficionado can walk away from earned miles — elite qualifying miles no less! Perhaps cheaters open separate mileage accounts and accrue with alliance partners?

Pondering whether Vanilla Reload purchases loaded onto Bluebird cards are really just ways of putting money onto a prepaid card that generates no paper statement. Are cheaters more likely to use Bluebird? Is “manufactured spend” really a myth — a cover for illicit activity?

Unlikely. Divorce is a scary thing for frequent flyers. Marriage means double the people to apply for cards, and household income will again be permitted on card applications.

Point Me to the Plane also seems to have a theme going, having posted suggesting that inflating ones income on card applications could be used as proof of higher income in divorce proceedings. I expressed skepticism in the comments, and the divorce attorney guest-writing the post conceded the more likely scenario was using true statements about income as evidence to combat artificially low reported income in divorce proceedings.

Nonetheless, there are very strong reasons for frequent flyers not to cheap. Entirely apart from moral considerations. Miles are too easily tracked. They’re hard to walk away from. And being married doubles your opportunity for card signup bonuses. What miles and points junkie would risk that??

That’s why I considered it a mistake for AshleyMadison.com to offer the city of Phoenix $10 million for the naming rights to Sky Harbor airport for five years. When the city turned it down, they were really just offering the cheating website sound business advice.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

The closest experience to Google Reader is Bazqux. Literally two clicks and I had an account with all of my Google Reader feeds imported (since I created an account by logging in via the same Google account that my RSS feeds are linked to).

There’s a $30 free trial, and then it’s $9 (or more if you like) per year.

The website is super fast, it has the same general feel that Google Reader does although it’s missing some of the customized functionality that I got used to in Reader (or at least in a few minutes of playing I haven’t found it yet).

Only downside is that it doesn’t have its own mobile app, it’s feeds are compatible with other apps but there’s no ‘Bazqux’ I can download in the Google Play store.

The other great replacement, it seems to me, is Newsblur — you can have a limited (up to 64 feeds) free account or $24 a year for premium. They do have iOS and Android apps.

Both are more functional, and more navigable, than Feedly which became immediately popular. I just don’t like feedly.

Google Reader goes away July 1. That’s a big deal for me, because it’s the way that I keep up with a myriad of blogs — both miles, points and travel and also others of interest to me.

Some blogs will benefit. It’ll mean more people clicking on their websites, instead of reading their feeds, so they’ll make a bit more on display ads. Other sites will lose out — simply because people who read them in RSS won’t read them anymore. Their Google Reader subscribers won’t come back. This is especially true for blogs that don’t update regularly (who remembers to check in on a blog once a week or once a month? a subscription put the new post front and center).

I have a pretty good number of readers who follow me via RSS, and I hope all of you continue to read in a form other than Google Reader after the end of the month. There are several ways to do it — checking in here at ViewFromTheWing.com of course, following me on Facebook or Twitter, subscribing to my daily emails, or selecting a new RSS reader.

For those of you that have been Google Reader users: what is your post-June solution?

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

Cathay Pacific has my all-around first class, though it certainly isn’t the newest product.

Their food is good enough, though not fantastic. I always choose the Chinese entree, I do love having dim sum for breakfast, and the smoked salmon and caviar is good.

Singapore probably does a better job with main meals, and they serve both Dom Perignon and Krug rather than just Krug. But Cathay does a better job with mid-flight snack options. (I think Asiana and ANA do a better job with food than either Cathay or Singapore does.)

Their lounges in Hong Kong are fine. I like The Wing’s first class lounge, and I haven’t been there in the past few months so haven’t seen the refresh. But there’s no real special ground service — such as escorts to and from the flight, golf carts, special security and passport control.

I’ve always liked the amenity kits and pajamas, though I previously reported the rumor that Cathay Pacific would be changing their designer pajamas. And they are, which is the last thing I’d refresh about their first class since Cathay’s Shanghai Tang PJs are my favorite.

The service in Cathay First is very good. It’s not as super-attentive as Singapore, if you’re an American used to US airlines you need to know in advance that you must call for assistance (the flight attendant call button isn’t just for emergencies, and you won’t be met by government officials upon landing if you use it). They stay out of the cabin so as not to disturb you, and come quite happily and quickly when you call.

They also have an excellent, extensive on-demand entertainment system.

But what’s the most standout about Cathay First, and why even though it isn’t the newest product it remains my favorite, is the seat. It isn’t a modern “suite with doors” though it is a suite with tremendous privacy. It’s as wide as any seat, plenty of personal space, and it is just darned comfortable — both the seat and the bedding. I sleep better in a Cathay First seat than any other airline’s product.

So I find it intriguing that they’re tweaking the product — not replacing it, mind you, just making it incrementally better.

According to CX World, the refresh will include:

..glossy dark grey texture material on the outer surface of the suite, warm-toned natural leather for most of the interior surfaces and a plush burgundy carpet in the aisle.

Seats will be refitted with a custom-made fabric that is soft and smooth to touch, while individual artworks, made of copper and steel and created by Maria Lobo and Linda Leviton, will complement the overall cabin design.

There will be greater adjustability to the tray table, a drink holder on the side console, a bigger closet built into the seat (which is great, I can’t fit my rollaboard in now if the bag is stuffed), touch screen seat and light controls (presumably similar to Etihad), new bedding and new pajamas from Pye. They’re adding Bose QuietComfort noise-canceling headphones. And the lavatory will get a refresh as well.

The cabin will debut July 27, and will roll out across the airline’s 777-300ERs. Cathay’s 747s will not get the redesign as the aircraft are slated for retirement. It’s just another reason to prefer the 777 — many like the 747 first class in the nose, I will take the 777 every time for 6 seats rather than 9 and also because I find a smoother ride on 777s.

I haven’t seen any photos of the new cabin mockup yet, so I’ve contacted Cathay’s PR folks hoping for some. I’ve also just gone ahead and reserved an award ticket for next year so that I have a good chance of experiencing the new cabin.

(HT: JALFlyer via Milepoint)

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

The standard bonus for the Alaska Airlines Visa is 25,000 miles, and it’s been offered with as much as 40,000 miles in the past.

But 30,000 miles appears to be the best current offer.

The offer is for 25,000 miles on approval (no minimum spending) and 5000 more miles “for being a customer.”

There doesn’t appear to be any verification that you need to be a pre-existing customer, that they will do anything like check to see whether you have bank accounts with them already for instance, and I’d bet that anyone — even folks who have never had a Bank of America account before — will get the full 30,000 miles. Though since they only promise it to folks as a thank you for being a customer (gee, getting upproved for the card makes you a customer, no?) I suppose it isn’t guaranteed.

At this point if you are going to apply for a Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature, there’s not a good reason not to use this link since I believe there isn’t any other current offer better than 25,000 miles (if other larger offers are still functional please let me know in the comments). So worst case you’d get that but likely the full 30,000.

I appreciate folks returning with their experiences using this link!

The card comes with a $75 annual fee and a $99+tax companion certificate valid for any coach seat in conjunction with a pad ticket (both tickets earn miles).

Hat tip to reader Murtuza and for clarity’s sake this is not my link, I don’t get any credit of any kind if you use it. It just seems like a better than usual offer from an issuer without a lot of products that compete for your attention otherwise.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

Reader Dan B. passes along that Hotels.com is offering a rebate for bookings — $20 back for 3 night booking up to $100 back for a 12 night booking.

You have to enter promo code REBATES13 at checkout when making your booking to be eligible for the offer. You’ll have to mail in a coupon after your stay. Rebates will be credited back to the card used for purchase. You can only redeem the rebate once for bookings made by December 31 for stays through January 31.

Of course, in some way this is just an alternative to getting cash back for your bookings. Other pseudo-cash back options are getting miles instead of money from either PointsHound or Rocketmiles.

You can double dip with Hotels.com’s loyalty program. And you can double dip with loyalty points and elite status credit on some hotel via PointsHound.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

News and notes from around the interweb:

• Earlier this month Delta announced that flights on Korean Air would no longer count for elite qualifying mile, despite Korean being a member of the Skyteam alliance. They said at the time that each airline chooses their own level of participation with Skyteam. Cranky Flier says that isn’t what happened at all, that it wasn’t Korean’s choice but rather a unilateral decision by Delta possibly to try to force Korean to join a joint business venture.

  Bad, Delta, bad but the sort of untruthfulness we’ve come to expect from an airline that claims it isn’t legally allowed to tell its members in advance when it will be increasing award prices.

• Through June 27 American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 20% bonus on transfers to Hawaiian Airlines. Decent offer if you want to use your miles for travel to Hawaii from a Hawaiian Airlines city. Their partner award offerings tend not to be as good, and frustrating to redeem.

• Stuff your Freedom Baggie full of alcohol mini-bottles. Especially useful for Intercontinental Royal Ambassador members.

• You can earn 1500 United bonus miles when you spend $40 within 30 days of joining Rewards Network’s MileagePlus dining.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

Chase has done a ton of branding of itself as very small business-friendly, through offering testimony and advice from business leaders and offering mobile apps for managing expenses in addition to very generous rewards (including targeted bonus categories that match business expense categories like telecommunications and office supplies).

So it’s not surprising that they’re making a big push with offers for ‘small business week’.

Here’s the hint they’re dropping:

Now, we don’t know what “additional cash rewards or bonus points when you apply for any Ink Business Card” will mean. But I have to assume that additional means bigger than usual. The current standard bonus for the Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards is 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after $5000 spend within 3 months. So “additional” must mean more than 50,000. At least that’s how I would interpret it.

The timeframe for whatever the offer will be — so we’ll know in just a few days — is “between June 16th – June 22nd.”

No card links in this post, given this new information I’d say it can’t wait to pay attention and plan to apply next week.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

There were over 1000 entries this week to give away a Briggs & Riley @work bag.

Since Briggs & Riley offers a pretty unparalleled lifetime guarantee on their bags, I asked commenters to answer, “Do you worry something is going to happen to your luggage?”

The winner is Alex who wrote,

Yes! I’ve had at least 4 handles broken off of my checked luggage.

The @work line epitomizes the business market that’s right up the middle as far as folks choosing Briggs & Riley. And Alex gets to choose his preferred bag/color!

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

Last month I laid out my argument for the 5 best all-around rewards credit cards.

I think the best overall cards are the Chase Ink Bold® Business Card and Ink Plus® Business Card as well as the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

But a lot of readers aren’t just interested in the very best, they are interested in the best cards they can get from each bank and so I’ve begun a short series of posts on the five best cards that each co-brand issuing bank offers. Of course covering the major banks also does mean looking at which cards are best from Chase.

So far I’ve written:

• Top 5 Rewards Cards from Bank of America
  
• >Top 5 Rewards Cards from Barclaycard

Top 5 Rewards Cards from Chase:

1. Ink Bold® Business Card and Ink Plus® Business Card. They both offer 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5000 within 3 months. The annual fee is $0 the first year, $95 thereafter. Points are especially valuable because they transfer to United, Korean Air, British Airways, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Hyatt, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Priority Club, and Amtrak.

   The big spending bonuses come from earning 5 points per dollar on your telecommunications spend — cable and satellite tv, internet, and cell phone bills — and also 5 points per dollar at office supply stores (where I buy my Amazon gift cards and Starbucks gift cards). The cards also earn 2 points per dollar on hotels and gas, and the cards have no foreign currency transaction fees.

2. Chase Sapphire Preferred card. This card comes with 40,000 points after $3000 spend within 3 months, also has a $0 annual fee the first year and $95 thereafter. There are no foreign transaction fees. Earns 2 points per dollar on all travel and dining spend, and a 7% annual bonus on points earned from spending. Points transfer to United, Korean Air, British Airways, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Hyatt, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Priority Club, and Amtrak.

3. Ink Cash® Business Card Like the Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards, Ink Cash earns 5 points per dollar on telecommunications spend — cable and satellite tv, internet, and cell phone bills — and also 5 points per dollar at office supply stores, plus 2 points per dollar on restaurants and gas. It has no annual fee. The signup bonus is lower (20,000 points after $3000 spend), your 5x earnings is capped at $25,000 in charges rather than $50,000. And points do not transfer to airline miles or hotel (or train) points…. But if you also have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card you can move the points from Ink Cash over to that card and then the points will transfer to miles/points.

4. United Explorer. 30,000 mile signup bonus after $1000 spend within 3 months. $0 intro annual fee the first year. No foreign transaction fees. Primary collision damage waiver on rental cars (love that). One free checked bag. Priority boarding. Two free club passes per year. Last seat availability for standard (higher-mileage) award tickets. Elites become eligible for upgrades on domestic award tickets. The card is a must for a frequent United flyer that doesn’t earn elite status.

   You can check if you are targeted for a 50,000 mile offer as well.

5. British Airways Visa Signature® Card: 50,000 Avios points after $1000 in spend within 3 months, $95 annual fee. The card earns 1.25 miles per dollar on all spending and has no foreign transaction fees.

   If you spend $30,000 on the card in a calendar year you earn a companion certificate so you can redeem miles and a second passenger travels on the award for no additional miles (but does pay the taxes and fuel surcharges).

   British Airways offers family accounts so you can pool your miles. One person could get the card, spend $30,000 on it this year and earn 87,500 points (signup bonus plus 1.25 points per dollar for spending). A second person gets the card, and gets only the 50,000 point bonus. Together they then have 138,750 points that can effectively be used twice for 277,500 points worth of travel as long as they fly together and exclusively on British Airways.

Some people will be partial to the Priority Club Visa, and it’s true that the annual free night from the card is worth more than the $49 annual fee. But I’d never want to put any spending on that card, which takes it out of the realm of top 5 Chase products for me. The earning power is just too weak. And others will argue for the Marriott card since spend can help you towards status and its free night is also worth the annual fee. But again spend is weak, and I generally find Marriott’s program solid but uninspiring.

Arguably though the Chase Freedom® Visa could beat out the British Airways Visa for number five on this list because the no fee card earns 5 points per dollar on a rotating set of categories, allowing you to generate an ‘extra’ 24,000 miles each year.

(Note that some of the cards in this post offer credit to me if you’re approved using my links. I try to offer only the best available cards, and most lucrative deals available for those cards. So if you’re aware of better deals than I’ve featured please do let me know! The opinions, analyses, and evaluations here are mine. The content is not provided or commissioned by American Express, by Chase, by Citibank, US Bank, Bank of America, Barclays or any other company. They have not reviewed, approved or endorsed what I have to say.)

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

The Dallas Morning News Aviation Blog reports that American will add seats to its 737 and MD80 aircraft.

American says they haven’t determined how many seats will be added, and we don’t yet know whether this will be accomplished by removing Main Cabin Extra (coach seats with extra legroom) or First Class seats.

If I had to wager I would guess that a row of first class seats would be removed (American’s domestic fleet generally has more first class seats than US Airways’ does) and that they will also shrink the main cabin extra cabin. American did reiterate its commitment to an extra legroom in coach product; something that United manages to make money on.

Adding seats to the 737-800s that currently seat 150 will require an additional flight attendant. They obviously think the revenue potential of either fewer Main Cabin Extra or fewer First Class seats outweighs the cost of the retrofit plus additional salary. That’s either a strong bet on running full flight after full flight at a reasonable ticket price or a visceral reaction of the new leadership team-to-come against premium products. We’ll see.

Developing…

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!

Back in March Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan introduced the ability to book one-way and mixed partner awards online and for some partners.

Initially you could book one-way awards on American. You could also book one-way at full roundtrip price on Delta, or mix and match American and Delta in a roundtrip.

Then in April they introduced one-way and online booking for British Airways awards.

Now as flagged on Milepoint, it’s possible to book more partners online as well.

The Alaska Airlines website lists the following carriers as searchable:

• Alaska Airlines
  
• Aeromexico
  
• Air France
  
• Air Pacific
  
• American Airlines
  
• British Airways
  
• Delta Air Lines
  
• Emirates
  
• Era Alaska
  
• KLM
  
• PenAir
  
• Qantas

It’s interesting that they have KLM and not their partner Air France.

I’m especially happy to see though that many awards can be booked one-way (that the Delta restriction is somewhat unique).

And I’m thrilled to have online access to award search (and one-way booking) for Emirates.

Of course that’ll reveal just how sparse first class award space is. Business is reasonably available, but their business class product isn’t all that impressive (especially compared to first class on the A380 with showers..).

When Delta acquired a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic, lots of change was expected — such as reciprocal lounge benefits, and reciprocal mileage earn and burn.

Not a whole lot has been implemented yet, but Virgin has a page dedicated to the changes (HT: Head for Points).

Virgin Atlantic’s silver status isn’t the most rewarding, but it will provide some priority benefits when flying Delta in the very near future.

And though I don’t expect this offer to last, you can sign up for Virgin Atlantic’s program at the silver level.

Generally this should provide priority airport services, and I have to imagine that Delta will wind up waiving checked baggage fees for Virgin silvers.

Of course this will usually require entering your Virgin Atlantic frequent flyer number into your reservation. I suppose my strategy — assuming I didn’t want to collect Virgin miles — would be to leave the number in the reservation until check-in (and until bags are checked, if applicable) and then have the number changed to the frequent flyer account I preferred to accumulate miles with such as Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!