Now that Intrade has Obama over 80% likely to win the Democratic nomination (post-Wisconsin and better than 70% likely to win the most delegates in Texas, though lose Pennsylvania and Ohio), I’d love to transfer some of my millions of frequent flyer miles into Obama points.

Maybe I could try to redeem for a job as Secretary of Transportation?

That is sort of how the system works, right, and miles are just a proprietary currency?  After all, I once had a friend do her taxes and try to deduct her political contributions as a ‘job search expense’….

Upgrade Travel Better thinks that I was unfair to Peter Greenberg when I went all Rodney King on him last week.

Gary argues that Peter’s restatement of the conventional wisdom — that cashing in frequent flyer miles is getting harder, if not impossible — is wrong…. Good for Gary, but let’s face it, not everyone has the luxury (or curse?) of multiple accounts with 6-digit mileage balances.

It’s like saying, “Well, my checking account at Citibank was tapped out, so I just paid for my bills, a vacation, and a new house with the interest I earned in my WaMu account.” It’s easy to be glib when you’re a multi-millionaire.

First, I’d challenge readers to re-read my criticism, I stand by my claim that Greenberg is overly alarmist and more importantly that his specific advice is bad to follow.

But with due respect to Mark Ashley of Upgrade: Travel Better, I don’t think there’s really any difference in the conclusion and advice that both of us are offering.

My advice has consistently been that if you fly enough for elite status, credit your flights to that one program and your miles from other sources to another, at least once you’ve earned enough miles in the first program in order to redeem for the awards you want. (And without enough flying for elite status, just concentrate your miles in a single program until you earn enough for the redemptions you think you want and then start on another program). I believe I’ve made the point you’re making here on my blog about three times in the past month.

And while the average American may not ever get hundreds of thousands of miles in multiple programs, the average reader of these columns may well. Besides, the non-elite flyer who accumulates their Delta, Continental, Northwest, and American flights all in Alaska can rack up awards pretty quickly that way.

As Ashley suggests, a Starwood American Express is a good idea. I’ve also been a big proponent on my blog of the Starwood American Express card, even in spite of last year’s substantial devaluation of SPG hotel awards. (And while recognizing that certain other cards offer a better value in specific situations).

Still, we need to think about not just a primary airline program and Starwood. There are plenty of great ways to earn miles besides flights and credit cards, I talk about them frequently here on my blog. Starwood isn’t a great place for rental car points earning (for Avis rentals I like Virgin Atlantic, for Hertz rentals I tend towards british midland, better temporary promos aside). Starwood doesn’t participate in Rewards Network (which I still insist on calling iDine), etc.

The point I’m making in my critique of Greenberg is

1. the sky is not falling, although loyalty programs do annoying things and do reduce program value from time to time (though some things improve value, such as the advent of alliance awards).
   
2. you should not redeem NOW for ANYTHING regardless of VALUE because you’ll get NOTHING later as Greenberg seems to suggest.
   
3. don’t transfer all your Amex Membership Rewards points into a frequent flyer program now, no matter what (and by extension, accumulate in Starwood rather than transferring those points out too)… flexibility has value.

Still, I have also long argued that miles are always worth more today than they will be tomorrow, so don’t save miles for the far off future. Earn them and burn them in the same general period, and hopefully at the same general pace, so that you can enjoy your rewards without suffering too much from point inflation.

Having just done my taxes, and having dealt with a series of 1099s (alas, no prize income this year), I thought I’d resurrect this post from 2005 on how to dispute the value of a prize as reported to you on a 1099.

If you win a stereo, the provider of the prize says it’s worth $2000 but you can find it in a store for $750, what do you do?

Very important not to pay tax on that $2000 — you might wind up sending as much to the IRS as it would have cost to just buy the item in the first place!

Though not to be confused with tax advice, here’s my understanding of it from personal experience:

First, you should attempt to negotiate with whomever provides the prize. The official way to do it (since in most cases you won’t be successful just asking for an adjustment) is to call the IRS at (800) 829-1040. It’s best to do so early in the morning in my experience, since you’ll have a better chance of getting through.

Explain that you received the 1099 and disagree with the amount that was reported on it, and that you’ve tried to resolve the situation but have been unable to.

Tell them that you were advised to have the IRS complete a Form 4598, “Form W-2 or 1099 Not Received or Incorrect.” It’s not something you can just download from their website.

You’ll need to give the IRS the payer information from the 1099 you received and the details of how you arrived at your own valuation figures.

The IRS will send the complaint form to the payer, who has 10 days to respond (you should receive a copy as well). Hopefully the payer will simply send a corrected 1099.

If you don’t receive a satisfactory response by the due date of your return, you have two options.

One is to include the amount that you believe to be correct on your return and attach the Form 4598 and an explanation. The IRS may later send you a notice of the discrepancy, so keep your records in good shape.

The other option is just to enter an adjustment as a negative amount. (You can even do that without going through the process of seeking to adjust with 1099, but your case may be more strongly documented if you’ve taken that step.)

If you received a Form 1099-MISC that shows $1,000 in box 3 for a prize yon won in a contest, but you know that a local store has the same item available for $750, you argue that the fair market value is $750. You can enter the $250 difference as a negative adjustment under Other Miscellaneous Income. One of the popular tax software packages advises that you enter “PRIZE FMV ADJUSTMENT” for the description and “-250″ for the amount.

No matter what course of action you pursue, you’ll want to document your adjustments, such as with ad clippings. If the prize was miles, and the fair market value was listed at a cost per mile greater than what the airline charges, simple printouts of the ‘purchase miles’ web pages should do the trick.

Continental no longer lets you book Qantas First Class awards for 135,000 miles. As of Friday the price is now a whopping 285,000 miles.

I still don’t understand what Joe Sharkey meant by a potential merger with United reducing the value of his Continental Onepass miles.

But the occasion of a 111% increase in mileage cost for what was probably the best award that Continental offered is probably a good time to underscore a piece of advice: don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Sure, if you’re working on elite status credit those flight miles to your home program. And if you have a particular award you want to redeem in that program, credit partner miles until your account balance suffices. But once you’ve gotten there, credit partner miles (that aren’t necessary to retain elite status… some co-branded credit cards offer elite qualifying miles based on spending, and this may be important to you) to another program… preferably one more generous come time to redeem for the award you want.

American will book you in Qantas first class (when Qantas award seats are available) for 145,000 miles. That’s roughly half the cost

… but Etihad is offering 50% off on award redemptions through May 31, on all routes except Amman, Bangkok, Dhaka, Dublin, Kathmandu, and Manila.

Starwood has announced its new hotel award categories which will govern redemptions beginning March 4.

Each year they recategorize hotels which means different point amounts required for redemption. Last year was the mother of all recategorizations, tons of hotels around the world costing 42% or 60% more points than in the previous year. Set off a firestorm, really.

The Starwood program sets each hotel’s category not by the hotel’s quality (as some people often misunderstand, eg “that hotel was awful, how can it be a category 4?”). Rather, they set the category based on a hotel’s average daily room rates in the prior year.

With higher hotel prices, it’s taken more points than before to redeem. But that’s not the only thing that drove last year’s recategorization. The way that Starwood accomplishes its heralded ‘no capacity controls’ policy (if there’s a standard room at the hotel available you can book it for points) is that if a hotel’s occupancy rate for the redemption night exceeds 90%, the hotel gets paid its average daily room rate for that night. It’s much more expensive for the program to do that rather than pay the deep discounted standard redemption room rate, but it allows them to obtain the award nights from the hotel. With occupancy rates so high, Starwood was paying out a lot more of those average daily room rates to hotels. Their costs were soaring.

Fortunately this year’s adjustments aren’t nearly so brutal.

It’s always especially disappointing to see hotels moved into the new category 7 that was created last year. Looks like there are (11) new hotels going there:

• Hotel Prince de Galles – Paris Champs Elyssees

• St. Regis Rome

• Mystique in Greece

• Cervo Hotel, Sardinia

• Hotel Eden, Rome

• Danieli, Venice

• Hotel Marqués de Riscal, Spain

• Hotel President Wilson, Geneva

• Sheraton Park Tower, London

• Le Meridien Bora Bora

At least the Princeville Reort on Kauai drops from category 6 to category 5, which is nice since I’ll probably redeem there sometime in the next year.

The biggest bummers for me are that the Westin St. John, Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens, and Le Meridien Barcelona are both going to category 6, along with the Sheraton Moorea (which was one of the best values in Starwood at category 5, and was truly amazing back when it was category 4).

The St. Regis Beijing (currently undergoing renovations, so I can visit there on my upcoming trip, bummer) is moving up to category 6 … while the St. Regis in Shanghai is dropping from category 5 to category 4.

When a hotel goes from category 5 to 6, the low season redemption prices go from 12,000 to 20,000. That’s a shocking two-thirds increase!

And most offensive is that the truly terrible W New York is as well. Pretty much no reason to ever redeem there, pick any of the other New York W’s instead for the same number of points (high/low season considerations aside). The last time I stayed at the W New York I had a bathroom so small that when you sat on the toilet you had to angle your arm underneath the sink. And I’m not a particularly big guy.

The lovely Le Meridien Limassol on Cyprus is going up to Category 5, their Platinum recognition is great and they have lots of suites, I’d say that hotel remains well worth it at the increased number of points.

I’d guess that the bumps in Australia (Westins in Sydney and Melbourne and the Sheraton in Noosa going from category 4 to 5) have more to do with the strength of the Austrlian dollar agains the US dollar… their room rates are higher in dollar terms as a result, that’s probably driving the higher average daily room rate which for Starwood Preferred Guest redemption purposes is denominated in US currency.

So what do you do? Thankfully, Starwood has posted this information better than two weeks in advance. We don’t have to wait until the changes take place to know what they are! So book your redemptions now for any hotels going up in category! And since in most cases these redemptions are fully cancellable (within the hotel’s normal cancellation rules), you can make speculative bookings and cancel or change later if your plans change, all that you’ll lose is the savings you’re reaping now by booking at the current redemption rate.

One of Holly Hegeman’s readers rants about frequent flyer miles and concludes

I’ve just cut up my Alaska Visa card and feel much better.

Only I don’t get it.

They wanted to fly from Spokane to Los Angeles, and the non-stop flights were available on awards. But they didn’t like the plane being flown on the route (as if this was the fault of the frequent flyer program) and were annoyed that the specific connecting flights they wanted weren’t available so they were faced with long layover. The non-stop flights were available as awards, as far as I’m concerned end of complaint.

Then they redeemed their miles for premium awards on British Airways. They took business class but they didn’t like that they couldn’t get assigned seats on British Airways … an annoying British Airways policy, not a failure of Alaska’s Mileage Plan.

So they decided they wanted to fly first class instead and were willing to spend the extra miles. (Something they were offered originally, but declined.) So they called back, got the first class seat, and had to pay a change fee.

Egads!

For both the award redemptions, they found availability. In one case the didn’t like the non-stop and in the other they changed their mind about what they wanted and had to pay a change fee when the mileage program gave them what they wanted now.

Sounds more like a success story than a complaint, to me!

Book at VirginAmerica.com before midnight Pacific time on Sunday Feb. 17 2008 for travel through May 21 2008 (with March 20 -24 blacked out for travel) using promo code FLYVIRGIN.

The W Hotel Store 40% employee discount on beds and bedding is back. (Previously discussed here and here.)

Code Q96TE (which you enter while reviewing your order prior to purchase) yields 40% off until 2/29/08.

For non-bed and bedding items, code T6X4A should still take 20% off but I haven’t tested it.

USAirways is sending out emails to all of its Dividend Miles members letting them know about changes in the program:

• No more 500 mile minimums for short flights. Fly Allentown to Philadelphia and get 55 miles, not 500. Fly Reagan-National to LaGuardia and earn 214 miles, not 500. (The email doesn’t make this explicit, but I’m assuming this applies both to redeemable miles and also to elite qualifying miles.)

• Online redemptions made within 14 days of travel no longer avoid a fee. In a world of instant issue e-tickets, I’m not sure what a “quick ticketing” fee of $50 is for exactly, except that folks who have accumulated miles in the past can’t just take those miles to another airline to spend. And about 16 months ago even United started charging these sorts of fees, which have been a staple with some programs like American’s for years.

Nothing to say really about the new redemption fees, except I’ve predicted in the past more nickel and diming from frequent flyer programs.

When the email notice began

As part of our continuing efforts to provide valuable benefits to our frequent flyers, US Airways is making a change to our Dividend Miles program. We’re making these changes to offset record fuel prices and rising airline related expenses while maintaining the benefits you’ve come to expect.

(emphasis mine)

A sinking feeling began in the pit of my stomach, I thought they were going to begin applying fuel surcharges to award bookings. Dodged that bullet for today, anyway.

But the elimination of minimum miles accrual on short flights would seem to make the Delta Shuttle and Amtrak’s Acela more attractive than the USAirways Shuttle for travel between DC and LaGuardia and between LaGuardia and Boston (and the Delta Shuttle more attractive between DC and Boston).

And it would seem to make crediting short USAirways flights to other programs besides Dividend Miles more attractive — unless they somehow convince their partners to carve out an exception in their own programs for mileage earning on these flights (which I wouldn’t expect).

So sorry to start the mileage day off with bad news!

Update: Reader Bryan emails a correction:

DL doesn’t fly BOS-DCA with the shuttle service. They fly CRJs which DL/Comair loves to cancel.

Fair point, Boston to DC isn’t operated as shuttle service. Weekdays there are 7 regional jet frequencies. And I should probably add that weekdays American also serves the route with 6 regional jet frequencies.

I think I somehow missed this last month when it first came out, but Hyatt is offering instant platinum status for new enrollees who join by March 31. The status lasts 90 days, and if you complete one stay during that time the status will be extended through February, 2009.

And for those seeking Diamond status, remember that all stays count double through the end of March (if you register).

Over the past week I’m taking on the icons… scolding Tim Winship, Joe Sharkey, and now Peter Greenberg — who is much more famous than I am.

Peter Greenberg thinks the mileage sky is falling.

The airlines know at the very moment they sell those miles they have no intention of redeeming about 89 percent of them! This is a bigger return on investment than just about any legitimate business you can imagine. It is, from the airlines’ point of view, a brilliant scheme.

And since there is no government regulation of these programs, the airlines can — and do — change the rules at will; they are not required to reveal how many award seats are available on any flight (if at all), and therein lies the big payoff for the airlines.

Get that? “since there is no government regulation…”

Clearly we need to bring back to Civil Aeronautics Board, which was so great at setting prices and regulating the thickness of sandwiches, to handle yield management for United’s redemption deals with Singapore Airlines. That’ll get me that elusive first class redemption seat on the A380!

But in Greenberg’s world it couldn’t get worse.

For consumers, even though we are addicted to these programs, it’s becoming tough, and in some cases impossible, to redeem the miles.

And yet I’ve never failed to redeem for the award I’ve wanted, as I’ve mentioned here several times. In the next 10 weeks I have first class award bookings to South Asia, business class award bookings to Europe, and a domestic award as well. All on the dates I needed.

But I’ve accumulated miles in a variety of accounts, if United doesn’t have availability I can check to see what American (or British Airways) has to offer. I don’t trust the airline websites to search properly, or the customer service agents to vigorously seek out every possible routing. I use the tools at my disposal, such as the ANA Mileage Plan website for Star Alliance awards (which doesn’t cover Swiss) and the Qantas website (which doesn’t cover Cathay Pacific). And I search all possible routings myself. Yes, it’s work, and in a perfect world I might not need to, but it’s my competitive advantage and it pays off.

Greenberg doesn’t like airline economics, either.

Want the real insult? Assuming an airline does, in fact, redeem your mileage for a ticket, the actual average cost to the airline to do so is slightly more than $23. That’s it.

He seems to have a problem with the idea that carrying a marginal passenger doesn’t cost much for the airline… Since the plane is already flying, burning fuel, employing pilots and flight attendants and gate agents, etc. When the mileage program is buying a seat the airline expected to go empty, that program buys it at something approximating marginal cost. Somehow this is insulting.

But after all this blather, some basic advice. Consider alternate airports, alternate routings, partner airlines, and off-season.

Not revolutionary, but good advice. Still, the specifics offered for trying alternate routings suggest the author doesn’t know as much as he thinks he knows.

If you’re flying New York to Hong Kong, go New York to Vancouver, Vancouver to Hong Kong.

Ok, Continental’s Newark-Hong Kong non-stop is a tough flight for redemption. But somehow Cathay Pacific’s flight to Vancouver and onto Hong Kong is easier? Ok, anything is easier than Continental. But I’d two score a couple first class seats on the Cathay Pacific flight Peter Greenberg recommends. Maybe he’ll keep checking availability for me?

And finally, if you’re trying to get from Dallas to Hawaii, again, the nonstop will probably not be available for frequent-flier award tickets. Instead, fly Dallas to Phoenix, then Phoenix to Honolulu, and on the return, Honolulu to Seattle, Seattle to Dallas.

The non-stop from Dallas to Hawaii is clearly going to be on American. Phoenix to Honolulu is going to be USAirways. So let’s assume that the person redeeming has miles in a oneworld and a Star Alliance program.

Greenberg thinks they’ll have better luck flying USAirways and then returning Honolulu to Seattle on… Alaska or Hawaiian? Now, Dallas to LA to Hawaii on American can be combined with Hawaii to Seattle on Alaska. But that’s not what Greenberg is suggesting is possible.

But if it was possible, and you find yourself an outbound flight you want, Greenberg says to ticket it with a less desirable return, and change up later.

What’s really important here is to confirm the outbound flight and date you really need, and worry about the return flight later.

And for goodness sakes, just burn those miles and worry about the specifics later!

Also, even if you’re not sure about where you want to go or when, try to redeem your miles now for future flights at the current mileage award levels. You can always try to change the ticket later, but remember, those mileage eligibility levels are only going to increase, and at the same time the number of available seats will decrease.

Here I think Greenberg has at least some responsibility to caveat the advice that different airline programs have different rules with respect to changes to award tickets after booking. For example, you can’t keep an outbound and change a return with Lufthansa, at all (unless the outbound remains available once you give up your booking). United requires a fee to change your routing prior to departure, waived for 100,000 mile flyers. And if it’s an award involving a partner, no changes after departure at all.

Now the award for the worst piece of advice I’ve ever read.

If you have miles in another account — like American Express — you gain nothing by leaving those miles in that account. Transfer them over to one of your individual airline frequent-flier mileage accounts — even if you have no plans on flying soon. If you don’t, it can take two to three weeks to make the transfer when you want to redeem the miles later. And the airline won’t recognize your miles until they are in your airline account.

In the American Express Membership Rewards program your miles are flexible. They can be transferred into any of a number of programs, you get to decide later once you know where you’ll need them to go. Once you transfer, you can’t move them back, you lose this flexibility. Sometimes there are bonus offers good enough to encourage you to make a transfer without a specific need. But to say “you gain nothing by leaving those miles in” Membership Rewards is just asinine.

Maybe you transfer to Delta, but Delta and its partners have no availability for the flights you want. But United does. United isn’t a transfer partner with Membership Rewards, but you could transfer your points to Air Canada (or ANA for that matter) and redeem those United flights.

Greenberg cautions this strategy doesn’t work because you need the miles in your airline account in order to redeem an award.  Greenberg doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

In fairness, different airlines offer different levels of flexibility to hold an award pending transfer of miles. But in most cases, with most of their partners, Amex is ‘live’ with the airline mileage program. The transfer is literally instantaneous. It used to be with USAirways when they were a partner. It definitely is with Continental and Delta and Air Canada (because I’ve made those transfers myself).

And there’s less risk keeping those miles in an Amex account than in an airline account. Less risk of devaluation, if your favorite program changes reward levels you can transfer somewhere else. Less risk of bankruptcy, American Express isn’t going anyway (at least they’re less likely to than the median airline).

So please don’t listen to Peter Greenberg. Leave those points in Membership Rewards until you know you need them somewhere else.

I won’t even touch the next suggestion to avoid mileage earning credit cards in favor of cashback cards.  This post is already long enough.

But there’s so much bad advice out there. Send me some more examples, we need to expose these errors to improve the quality of journalism and make sure people don’t misues their miles and lose out on great opportunities.

I get that Joe Sharkey is really just trying to be snarky about a rumored United-Continental merger, but he still strikes me as pretty far off base when he says:

Oh great. There goes the remaining value of my Continental elite status and miles.

To be clear, Sharkey is saying that both his status and his miles would be worth less after such a merger. Now it’s possible that a combined program could take the worst features of both programs and leave everyone worse off. But that’s not really what Joe seems to be saying, rather he thinks his Continental miles and status are worth more with Continental than they are with United. And that’s just silly.

The Mileage Plus program is head and shoulders better than Continental OnePass for redemption. United miles are worth substantially more than Continental miles. Redemption is easier. Better partners. Better availability on those partners. Lower mileage prices in most cases, too.

But if Sharkey thought his miles were going to be devalued he could…. redeem them. If he could find any availability with Continental or his partners, that is. The best hope for Continental mileage redemption is a merger with United, the chance that the merged entity adopts the Mileage Plus program and remains in Star Alliance.

Continental’s status, on the other hand, is quite worthwhile for the exclusively domestic flyer. It’s terrifble for international (or even Hawaii) upgrades. But if you fly all domestic and you’re a top tier customer you’ll fly mostly in front with a pretty good domestic first class product. United is outstanding at the top tier, but mid-tier flyers only earn upgrades at a rate of 2,000 miles per 10,000 flown. Continental Gold’s may do better up front than that. So if all you care about is the upgrades, all you fly is domestic (except Hawaii), and you fly 50,000 (but not 100,000) miles, then Continental might be the better option.

The other scenario in which Joe’s statement could make sense is if he flies 75,000 miles but not 100,000 miles and a combined program takes on United’s elite qualification rules. Continental’s top tier is earned at 75,000 miles, and such a flyer would not be at the top of United’s program. On the other hand, with United all published, paid flights (regardless of where they are booked) earn full status miles so that 100,000 miles might be easier to reach.

Bottom-line for any sort of Continental/United combo, for frequent flyers, is that we have to hope the United Mileage Plus program survives intact. And if it does, the value of banked Continental miles will go up. Way up.

Back in December I posted about American Express Platinum cardholders receiving Silver status with Virgin Atlantic. And that the online signup appeared to work successfully for anyone, Platinum cardholder or not. It was good both for opening a new account or for upgrading the status on an existing account. The offer appears valid through March 31.

It seems there is also an offer of Silver status with Virgin Atlantic which is co-branded with American Express, but not clearly tied to any specific Amex card. What’s more, new members receive 2000 miles to start plus an additional 2500 miles if you credit a Virgin flight to your new account by August 31 and pay for the ticket with an American Express.

I’m not a Virgin Atlantic regular, but their program is great for crediting Avis rentals. I’ve been getting 1000 points per rental, even on single day rental and even on rentals made with a good corporate discount. For some reason the past few months I’ve gotten several 1250 mile rentals instead based on a promo I’ve never seen referenced anywhere. Meanwhile, Virgin is also a transfer partner with a bunch of programs like Hilton, Starwood, Diners Club, and Membership Rewards.

For years I’ve recommended checking SeatGuru when making airline reservations. There really are better and worse seats on most aircraft, and SeatGuru always seemed to be ‘in the know’ and their advice was generally spot on.

But more and more I’m noticing that their recommendations are flawed. Either the information is outdated, or I just disagree with it.

And when it’s outdated, submitting feedback doesn’t seem to get it corrected.

Take, for example, Asiana’s 747s. There’s no indication on the website that Asiana offers both an old-style first and business class, and a refitted version. (The refitted 747 is handling most of the New York-JFK – Seoul flying these days.) All they show is the passenger and combi old-style.

My personal pet peeve, though, is that SeatGuru says there are power ports onboard the old 747s. This is just wrong. I’ve emailed them twice about it, and I never heard back. No ‘thanks’ or ‘we’re looking into it’ or ‘we just don’t believe you even though you’ve flown on it and we haven’t’. And the wrong information persists.

Or check out the Thai Airways 747s. SeatGuru thinks that the older configuration 747 has power ports. But it does not.

These are just very limited data points, of course, but when coupled with the fact that SeatGuru — originally a one person startup — was sold last year to TripAdvisor, which is in turn owned by Expedia, one wonders whether there are some transition pains, or if the folks in charge know what they’re doing.

Meanwhile, SeatExpert has gotten much more reliable in its advice, and extensive in its coverage. So far it lacks the detailed commentary on individual seats that SeatGuru has, it just says which ones are good and which are bad (though more commentary is supposedly coming soon). But at least it seems to get the seat power issue right!

I’ll be keeping an eye on whether SeatGuru retains its usefulness, and whether SeatExpert overtakes it in the months to come.

Goldpoints can no longer be earned after March 31. And if you signed up for your Goldpoints account through Radisson Hotels, your account was transferred to their separate (and continuing) Goldpoints Plus program.

But it’s still possible to earn points in the old program for about two months (which won’t transfer to Goldpoints Plus, but can be redeemed for various things like food at TGI Friday’s).

You can bring your Goldpoints account number with you to TGI Friday’s and get 2008 free Goldpoints by printing out a coupon. Copy the following URL into your web browser and replace the bolded text with your information:

http://tgif.rsys1.net/servlet/campaignrespondent?_ID_=tgif.111&name=YOUR_FIRST_NAME%20YOUR_LAST_NAME& e mail=YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS

Meanwhile, once the program ends, you still have plenty of time to redeem the points you’ve accumulated.

Meanwhile, NotiFlyer has details on a Goldpoints Plus (the Radisson program) instant win game for a chance to win 100,000 Goldpoints.

To enter the giveaway and receive the bonus points from your scratch card, go to www.goldpointsplus.com/checkin. You can click “what’s this” if you are entering the contest without a scratch card. Otherwise, enter the code at the bottom of the card. After typing in a code, you will need to type in your member number or you will be prompted to join the goldpoints plus program. If you are given an error because your membership number is too short, type in “601599″ in front of your member number.

After answering three exceptionally obvious questions, you get three online scratchoffs. If you don’t win, you can try again every day until April 6.

I get several pitches a day from various PR hacks looking to place a story for a cleint. Most of the time I ingore them. Occasionally I ridicule them. But once in a while I simply reproduce a portion of their email verbatim.

The latest travel buzzword to appear in our lexicon comes from the
 50,000 members of the American Association for Nude Recreation
 (www.aanr.com) and the word is: Nakation.

AANR defines a Nakation (pronounced like vacation) as: v. to take a
 clothing optional vacation, esp. away from home for pleasure and
 recreation. n. the part of your vacation you’ll brag to friends about.

Heck, with airlines charging for extra checked luggage, it makes good
 fiscal sense to take a Nakation. This type of pleasure trip also
 eliminates the potential hassle of lost luggage!

This one just requires no further comment.

Randy Petersen has the details on a new trend (after all, one is a data point but two is a trend…) in personalized loyalty program membership cards.

Priority Club is offering to let members put the account numbers of their other programs on the back of their membership card (link requires account login). This is brilliant. Some members will like to be able to just carry a single card with all their info. And Priority Club gets their card a position of priority in members’ wallets. Great for branding identity. Marketer’s dream to have a member whip out their Priority Club card whenever they need to enter their Hilton or Marriott membership number!

Of course, if they’re smart they’ll also build a database of which members belong to which other programs, and cross-market appropriately.

Starwood is offering to put pictures from several of their aspirational properties on member cards. (Personally styled cards is something the credit card industry has used for awhile. Some folks want the credit card with the best terms. Others just like to use the one with their kitten on it.)

This isn’t quite as bold or personalized a move as Priority Club’s, but Starwood is (1) customizing to member tastes (within a narrow band of choice), perhaps earning a better place in member wallets while (2) reminding their members that the dream trip they are most interested in is within their reach, if only they earn more Starpoints.

Again, smart move. But for me it would just be a constant reminder of the extortionate pricing in points for the W Maldives…. (And I’m really glad I redeemed for the Bora Bora Nui before they credited a redemption category 7!)

Tim Winship offers his advice on how to choose which frequent flyer programs to belong to. On the whole it boils down to: choose the program of the airline with the most service at your home airport. Not terrible, but there are much better answers.

Winship thinks you should pick a program and stick with it:

Since it doesn’t cost anything to enroll in a frequent flyer program, the temptation is to sign up for them all, in the interest of being ever-ready to earn miles for any and all flights. The problem with that approach is that you will find yourself spread too thin.

The most-requested frequent flyer award is the free round-trip ticket within the continental U.S., offered in most programs for 25,000 miles. That’s 25,000 miles in one program. Banking hundreds of thousands of miles will earn you bragging rights as a road warrior. But if those miles are spread among multiple programs, never amounting to a full 25,000 miles in a single program, you’ll find yourself as reward-poor as you are mileage-rich.

The antidote to the dispersion problem—and the key to making the most of frequent flyer programs generally—is simple: consolidate.

That’s true as far as it goes. Your reward goal shouldn’t be a 25,000 mile domestic coach award. It should be something more valuable, aspirational, a premium class award to somewhere more exotic. But pretend that the 25,000 mile award stands in for “your reward goal.” Then it’s true that it’s important to build up enough miles in your account to reach that goal.

But what then? Once you’ve reached the goal of having enough miles to claim the award you want, the you shouldn’t continue to consolidate, you should diversity.

The biggest reason that I’ve never failed in my quest to redeem the award that I wanted when I wanted it is because I have so many programs to choose from. If you can build up enough miles in your United account to for that business class ticket to Asia, start building up miles in your American account. So when it’s time for that dream trip, you aren’t stuck if United tells you nothing’s available. (Although armed with this detailed discussion of how to go about securing premium class awards with United and their partners your chances will be pretty good…)

But if you’re going to start out by consoldiating, which one to choose? Winship says

The short answer is: Participate in the program that allows you to earn the most miles, most easily.

Here I disagree, the difference is subtle, but incredibly important. Participate in the program that allows you to redeem the award you want, most easily.

If your goal is free flights to Australia, you’d better not earn with Delta (unless you want to fly via Seoul on Korean, or island hop with Continental’s twice-weekly service on a 737 between Guam and Cairns).

Delta may let you earn easily, but you’ll be disappointed if they or their partners don’t let you redeem for the awards you want.

Winship acknowledges this route network issue later on, though rather too weakly for my tastes.

Let’s assume you live in Denver and are evaluating the programs of Frontier and United, both of which have strong presences at Denver International Airport. Further assume that your goal is award travel to Hawaii. But neither Frontier nor its program partner, AirTran, operates flights to Hawaii. So from an award standpoint, Frontier’s program is a non-starter. You’ve eliminated one contender from your list.

Most importantly, the only issue he raises about the redemption side of things is the route network of the carrier that you’re actually flying, and whether that matches your redemption goal (of Hawaii, which even Alaska and USAirways fly to these days).

There are much bigger problems with the strategy.

Take Northwest, and say you want to redeem your miles to Tokyo. There’s no problem with route network there, prior to their merger with Republic the airline was known as “Northwest Orient” and they’re one of only two U.S. airlines with the right to pick up passengers and make onward flights from Tokyo’s Narita airport. And Northwest’s partners Delta and Continental both fly to Tokyo as well.

But if you’re looking for a business class award to Tokyo, even if it’s easiest for you to earn the most Northwest miles, there are still two reasons why Northwest might be the wrong program for you.

• Price of the award. What good does earning the most miles do when the award itself is more expensive? A business class award from the U.S. to Tokyo is 90,000 miles on United… and 120,000 miles on Northwest. So unless you’re earning miles a full 1/3rd faster with Northwest, you’d be coming out behind as a Worldperks member.

• Availability. What good does earning the most miles do when the award isn’t available come time for redemption? Northwest, Continental, and Delta are all notoriously difficult for premium class international awards. You’ll find the occasional seat, for sure. But if your date flexibility is limited or you’re traveling with someone, you may need to look elsewhere.

I’d tell someone looking to redeem business class to Tokyo that United is a pretty good program (in spite of StarNet award filtering).

It’s 90,000 miles which is lower than many competitors. And the choices for getting there are great. Not only does United fly to Tokyo from Washington-Dulles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but you can use your miles on Japanese carrier ANA or on Singapore for their non-stop flights to Tokyo. And then there’s partner Asiana, offering connections through Seoul.

Hopefully it’s clear that the spending side is just as important as the earning side, if not more so. And a little thought into what you want up front can make a big difference in getting just that later on.

Then we get to Tim Winship’s point about “The Home Airport Factor” and he says that, for example,

the logical first choice of programs for our hypothetical Houston resident would be Continental’s OnePass.

Well.. maybe. If you’re flying Continental enough to earn elite status, then sure you probably want to credit your miles to Continental in order to earn the most upgrades on their planes (although Northwest and KLM members receive upgrades on Continental as well).

But if elite status isn’t in your cards, if you fly Continental you might consider crediting to another program. Because, again, redemption matters. If you finally eek out enough miles on Continental, you’re stuck trying to redeem those miles with Continental, Northwest, Delta, and the rest of those partners. But the airlines associated with Skyteam are on the whole the most difficult to redeem with for the most desirable awards.

What if that non-elite Houston-based flyer credited their Continental flights to Alaska Mileage Plan? They’d have the option of Continental and Northwest and Delta and Air France and KLM still… but they’d also have the choice of American Airlines and Cathay Pacific and British Airways. a whole world more possibilities, and perhaps very relevant depending on what they’re looking to redeem for!

So Winship guides us through how to pick a program, explaining the reason why he likes American’s AAdvantage (an excellent program, by the way).

He’s LA based, so he wants United or American or Delta (though perhaps he could add Alaska to that list). Then he says he flies quite a bit, LAX to JFK, and thus narrows the field to American and United (somehow forgetting Delta’s half dozen daily non-stops on the route). His conclusion:

I choose American over United without hesitation. Why? Because American operates more nonstop flights between the two cities.

Well, that’s true. Most days American operates 10 roundtrips, compared to United’s 8.

Seems like the wrong tie-breaker to me, but that’s not American’s only (ahem) AAdvantage:

American uses wide-body B767s on the route, where United flies single-aisle B757s. On a five-hour flight, the more spacious aircraft makes for a more comfortable flight.

Now, I’m not sure what class of service Tim Winship flies in. If he’s writing for an economy audience, American does offer a two to three extra inches of legroom on the ‘flagship service’ they provide for this route. But United offers a more consistent three inches.  Not a huge difference.

But if Winship is flying business or first class, and I bet he’s flying business (doesn’t strike me as a no frills guy, he does contend the two airlines have comparable lounges), then United’s p.s. service has both a wider seat and more legroom in both classes of service. To me that’s more important than a widebody aircraft.

But at least Tim is making the right choice to forgo Delta (since their Skymiles program is inferior to both Mileage Plus and AAdvantage, though Winship doesn’t say this), and he’s going to wind up with a respectable program whether he chooses United or American.

For a somewhat different take, here’s my own advice on Who to Fly, Which Program to Earn With that I posted last month.

I thought this was just free publicity at no cost to Silverjet. But the Giants won!

Of course, standard practice for sports promotions is to buy insurance against the outcome which forces a payout. I don’t know whether Silverjet did this (should have asked their PR-flak). But it may not cost them anything, and whoever purchased Silverjet tickets within the promo period may have a free trip to look forward to!