1. American to Miami in First, then Business Class to Sao Paulo
   
2. Gol Smiles VIP Lounge and Domestic Service to Foz de Iguassu
   
3. Sheraton Iguazú Falls Resort & Spa
   
4. The Wonder of the Falls
   
5. Gol Domestic Back to Sao Paulo and the Admiral’s Club Sao Paulo
   
6. American’s Business Class to Miami and on to DC

The really stunning thing about the Sheraton isn’t the views per se, it’s that you’re already inside the park. You can arrive in the afternoon, drop off your stuff in your room, and pop over to the Falls. You’re literally 15 – 20 minutes’ walking from your hotel room door to some of the most impressive sights you’re likely to come upon, anywhere.

From the hotel there’s easy access to an upper trail that will take less than an hour to walk around, and a longer lower trail loop that is about a two hour walk including plenty of time to stop and admire the Falls.

I admit I was surprised that the park trails were paved, that there were stairs down the steep parts, and that much of it was even made wheelchair accessible.

The first walk was the upper trail, and just past the hotel pool along the trail I came upon several Coati or Brazilian aardvark.

A few minutes down the trail I had the brilliant idea of walking up some stairs for a bird’s eye view of the falls, unfortunately you can get higher on the outside stairs but not all the way up:

From the upper trail you’re basically above much of the water fall activity, looking down, it’s a great view but not as up close as I’d see later the lower trail, no nearly as dramatic, but still impressive.

A visit along the lower trail involved several levels of steps.

Along the way there was a snack bar/gift shop, underscoring that even though you’re in the midst of jungle, just as there’s much that’s paved, you’re also very much in the middle of a tourist site. It’s less commercialized than some, to be sure, but everyone else around you that doesn’t work in the Park is a tourist.

There are Falls both large and small, and along the way you see some beautiful water flows that are a dribble in comparison to some of the dramatic gushers along the trail.

There are also some impressive, forceful and all-encompassing water flows.

… with rainbows nearly everywhere

And the trails bring you right up close next to the Falls.

Here’s a video with sound I took, panning across the waterfall I was standing right next to. There’s nothing impressive about my camera skills, and nothing special about the photography. It’s just click and point using a handheld camera that also happens to take video, just as a way of capturing what I was standing right in the midst of.

The Falls were remarkably beautiful. They can be seen in just a couple of days, I wouldn’t want to spend much more than that. But they were among the most beautiful and impressive things that I’ve seen and the 48 hours there were well worth it.

Here’s a thread on Milepoint running to hundreds of comments on changes to the MileagePlus lifetime status program, which has plenty of detail.

United’s Million Milers have been an unhappy bunch for some reasons that I find persuasive and others that I do not.

In general, the complaints are:

• 1 Million Mile status earns the equivalent of that earned at 50,000 miles of flying. That was true before, and it is still true. But United has since added a 75,000-mile status level. Which means Million Milers are lower in the status pecking order than before — they’re only one up from the bottom as before, but also further from the top. Further, benefits at the 50,000-mile flying level have been reduced, now earning a 50% bonus on flown miles instead of a 100% bonus.
  
• No more systemwide upgrades upon first qualification for million miler status, and no annual confirmed regional upgrades.
  
• Not mentioned in the lawsuit, United’s 2 million milers used to receive lifetime lounge membership. Those that already crossed that threshold get to keep the benefit, but new 2 million milers won’t receive it.

At the same time, United has added to its million miler program:

• The ability to grant equivalent status to a spouse or partner. That’s a big new benefit, actually.
  
• The ability to achieve higher lifetime status levels than before, culminating in lifetime Global Services at 4 million flown miles.
  
• Combining lifetime flying from United and Continental, and adjusting upwards the amount of lifetime miles flown by United members to match the more generous historical method of calculation used for Continental members. This recalculation bumped many members closer to or above next tiers of lifetime status without additional flying

On the whole, I actually considered the initially announced changes to be positive.

United has always said it could change the program under its terms and conditions. But lifetime status is especially cherished and a hot button issue because it’s the most extreme version of Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football possible — it isn’t just saving up miles only to find a more expensive award chart and not being able to claim a mileage award without earning more miles, it’s having given a lifetime of loyalty to an airline and after having flown with no opportunity to go back and make a different choice, finding the value proposition changed later. It’s hardtop imagine a bigger punch to the guts of a frequent flyer than saying “If you fly a million miles on our airline we will give you certain things,” you literally fly those million miles, and then when you get there you’re told “just kidding.”

At the same time, it’s entirely logical that a program will change its details, especially after a merger when two airlines had different million mile policies. And some of the changes are positive even. Some folks will like the changes, others won’t, and it’s not obvious that legal damages are appropriate here.

Still, United specifically assured Million Milers at United that their benefits wouldn’t change.

They got Premier Executive before, they get Premier Executive now. United never promised not to devalue the Premier Executive level that I’m aware, that’s something programs do, it’s unfortunate but I don’t really see a case based on changes to the elite level itself. Some will disagree, but I draw a distinction here between devaluing the million mile program and devaluing the elite program. Million Milers still get the same elite level as before, it’s that elite level whose benefits are different.

It’s offensive and degrading of trust to say in October 2011 “[y]ou will continue to receive your benefits as you always have” and then take away the specific benefit of annual confirmed regional upgrades.

In fact, United was even specific in October to say that the confirmed domestic upgrades would continue:

I view United as basically having lied. But for statements made recently, customers didn’t fly for years on the basis of the statements, so damages from that statement are hard to see. Other than of course damage to United’s credibility. And not every lie ought to be actionable.

American recently offered straight up status matches to United elites, up to their top tier Executive Platinum level. (And at American, flying 100,000 miles earns true top tier status, whereas at United 1Ks are below ‘Global Services’ in the pecking order). So other airlines are taking advantage of the situation.

That doesn’t help United’s million milers who feel disadvantaged by the changes. Which just underscores the point I’ve been making for years that frequent flyer programs change, that they tend to get less generous, enjoy them now rather than savoring them for some glorious future filled with benefits.

Miles from Blighty sums up some recent complaints about United.

Some folks actually benefit from these changes, and from others in the program. It’s worth remembering that before the United-Continental merger announcement, United used to ‘block’ partner award availability when the airline didn’t want to pay for the seats — a partner would offer award seats, United wouldn’t let its members book the seats, and frequently even lie to their members saying either at the seats were unavailable or even that the flights didn’t exist. That changed, and ‘Starnet blocking’ or ‘throttling’ is no longer in place. Furthermore, Continental’s more generous award routing rules make it easier to put together an award with available seats. United used to enforce a maximum number of miles flown on any given award (based on origin and destination cities0, you might find available flights that exceed the mileage cap and couldn’t book the award, the new merged airline doesn’t take that same approach.

There are upsides and downsides to the changes. I consider changes to the mileage redemption program to be positive, and changes to the elite program to be negative, my personal opinion. We all make our flying and earning decisions on the basis of our personal value proposition. I have sympathy with folks who have given a lifetime of loyalty on the basis of promises made by the airline only to find what’s being offered changed. But that’s how things work, and I don’t think I’m sympathetic to a lawsuit over it.

The most lucrative current credit card signup bonus is scheduled to be pulled June 7.

The public offer is:

• 50,000 points after first purchase
  
• 25,000 points after spending $10,000 on the card within a year
  
• 25,000 additional points after spending the next $10,000 on the card within that year

There’s a $95 annual fee, spending earns 1.25 miles per dollar, and the card has no foreign currency transaction fees.

The unique selling proposition for putting high amounts of spend on the card is that after $30,000, they award a free companion award ticket – the second passenger travels on an award booked on British Airways flights for no additional miles (though both passengers are charged taxes and fuel surcharges).

(Some folks have luck making a mock booking on the BA.com website and getting an offer for 50,000 points now and 50,000 in a year – two annual fees but no minimum spend, and of course no companion award ticket if you don’t do the spend.)

The British Airways Visa leverages up by allowing multiple family members to sign up for the card and pool signup bonuses towards one person’s award, and for folks who put $30,000 spend on the card within a year to earn the companion award ticket, there’s the opportunity to use those miles twice (for two passengers on the same award itinerary). Given fuel surcharges, some folks think of it as buying a discounted, non-mileage earning coach ticket and having a confirmed upgrade. Since BA is a 4-class airline, in the case of a first class award, that’s a confirmed three-cabin upgrade.

But I make the point frequently that there are three different types of credit cards — those you get for the signup bonuses, those you get for the benefits of having the card, and those you get because they’re lucrative to actually put spending on.

The British Airways card is clearly a card you get for the signup bonus. At up to 100,000 points on offer, it’s the current most lucrative signup bonus on the market. And that goes away June 7, so worth jumping on now.

• Over at Conde’ Nast Daily Traveler I review the best credit cards that offer benefits for having the card as opposed to putting spending on that card.

• The Wall Street Journal today runs a piece on the challenges of the United-Continental integration.

  Everyone has their pet peeves (and I’ve found few fans). But we often conflate technical challenges or glitches and changes in policy.

  On the award redemption side, I love relaxed routing rules and the end of Starnet blocking, and hate no more free holds on awards when your miles are already in your account at time of reservation.

  I abhor the new policy where full fare tickets trump elite status level.

  And I hate that when you change a ticket you can’t pay the fee out of the residual value of the ticket, you have to use new cash (even if the new ticket is less expensive than the old one).

  To me it’s the policies more than the technical challenges that underscore this is really Continental, just like the tail livery, regardless of the name of the airline…

• Delta is adding several new flights from New York to the Caribbean. Point Me to the Plane surveys what Skypesos award availability looks like for the coming winter months.

  He finds that saver coach awards to Nassau and business class awards to Aruba are possible (and you might as well spring 60,000 point for business class to Aruba when medium level coach award space runs 50,000 points). New York to St. Maarten on Saturdays for 70,000 miles roundtrip in coach does not seem like much of a deal…

But the seatmap looked odd, since it had more seats available than the announced configuration of the aircraft was supposed to hold, and the seatmap didn’t specifically flag economy plus.

Seth notes in the comments on that post that overnight United has updated the seatmap, and these problems appear fixed.

Here’s the new seatmap:

(Click on the seatmap above to enlarge)

It’s interesting that there’s no center section of seats in row 16, but that the center section of row 23 is economy plus (while the right and left sides are not), and that the row 27 exit seats are considered economy plus seats… also that the two final rows — 37 and 38 — are center seats only. Talk about exposure to lavatory traffic!

People usually think this is a way for a marketing company to understand your buying habits. The bank does nothing to dissuade that belief. But that’s not the idea at all.

You have to remember to request rebate forms, they don’t automatically send you more. You have to save your original receipts and mail them in. And then you have to hope they actually process it and mail you the check.

In other words, they get a top line benefit to market that they’re giving you $40. But most people never get anything, or if they do they get $10 per quarter for a couple of quarters and then forget or give up. I have to imagine that on average the benefit really costs them a couple of bucks per accountholder, there are a few people who get their $40 per year but most people get zero.

When making the decision to be a customer, though, people hear $40 rather than $0.

That’s part of the principle at work with the SkyGuide Executive Privilege Club which will reimburse $600 per calendar year for 12 airline lounge visits plus $300 per year for 12 gym visits. And since membership is on a 12-month cycle but reimbursement caps are per calendar year, you can actually get $1800 in reimbursements … for a $20 trial membership.

And the folks signing up for this program, highlighted on my blog and on forums like Milepoint, are much more likely than average to actually put in for their reimbursements. (It also helps that a club lounge pass is going to be $50, not $10, so the incentive to bother submitting the claim is higher.)

SkyGuide also sells their mailing list of high-end clients and makes quite of bit of coin that way as well.

Another similar program came to my attention yesterday, Feecation.

Here’s how it works:

• There’s a 1 month free trial, then it’s $14.97 a month. So about $180 per year.

• They will reimburse most any airline, hotel, rental car, and wireless internet access fee — up to $10 per instance.

• They will reimburse up to $500 in air fees, and $250 each in hotel, car, and wifi, in a year.

• It’s possible to get $1250 in reimbursements for the $180 in membership fees — doing so would take a minimum of 125 submissions.

• Break-even is 18 submissions during a year.

Clearly at $10 per submission, the incentive is lower than if they were reimbursing the full cost of fees. But it looks like reimbursement requests can at least be processed electronically rather than having to mail them in.

The company’s business model strikes me as similar to the grocery and gas reimbursement that my bank offers, most consumers will join and not use the benefit, maybe they’ll submit a couple of claims and then forget they’re signed up while they’re being billed $15 per month. They make money on a concept similar to breakage.

Feecation offered me a free one-year membership to try it out in hopes I’d review the site, that’s not my style, so I declined but asked whether I might give away a free one-year membership instead. They were game, though I’m not sure how appealing the concept is, I’d love feedback. Should I do a giveaway of a one-year membership to Feecation? It’s worth ‘up to’ $1250 in reimbursements, of course, and would save the $14.97 monthly fees for someone.

Here’s their FAQ, they do a 30 day free trial, the question folks need to figure out is whether they’re likely to have a minimum of 18 fee submissions per year to break even (and even then it’s not worth it, because you’re not recouping the value of your time to process the submissions). And whether you’re likely to stick to it. There’s a lot of potential here, even more than as I’ve outlined because you can presumably get reimbursements during your 30 day free trial and it doesn’t appear that you’re limited to a certain number of reimbursements per month, you could conceivably max out on your reimbursements long before a year is up and then cancel. But will you really have $250 in wireless access (e.g. Gogo) fees, $10 at a time? And 50 instances of airline fees, 25 instances of hotel extra fees, and 25 instances of car rental fees? Definitely ‘your mileage may vary’.

The bonus isn’t per transaction or per partner, it’s cumulative — the more points you transfer in from various sources, the more total bonus points you earn.

Eligible partners are:

• Credit card programs: CIBC Aventura World MasterCard Card, CIBC Aventura Gold Visa, CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite, CIBC Aventura MasterCard Card, American Express Membership Rewards – Canada, BankAmericard Power Rewards credit card, Diners Club Club Rewards

• Hotel programs: Starwood Preferred Guest, Hilton HHonors, Marriott Rewards, Wyndham Rewards, Best Western Rewards, Choice Privileges, Coast Rewards, Club Carlson, Le Club Accorhotels, Shangri-La Golden Circle Award

• Car rental: Hertz Gold Plus Rewards

• Other: Points.com

The highest yield points transfer partner with most programs is usually Starwood. Every 20,000 miles transferred into an airline account generates a 5000 mile bonus. So 80,000 Starwood points yields 100,000 Aeroplan miles. With this bonus, 80,000 Starwood points would mean 125,000 Aeroplan miles.

Of course this offer would have been far more valuable a year ago, before Aeroplan gutted their reward chart and before they began adding fuel surcharges to most partner awards.

Still, 125,000 Aeroplan points is enough for a first class award from North America to parts of Europe or enough or business class to most of Asia (as far south as Singapore).

Bonus points should be added 7-10 days after the requisite miles have been received in an Aeroplan account.

Beginning December 13 they’ll run it Dallas – Sao Paulo, and in February it’ll start on Dallas and New York – London.

Time to start looking at airfares and flights with confirmable upgrade space, I’d love to be among the first to fly in the new business class seats.

According to Expertflyer there appears to be reasonably good confirmable upgrade space on the 777-300 for Dallas – Sao Paulo service. Executive Platinum eVIP upgrades are valid from any fare and book into C inventory. I just got back from Sao Paulo on Sunday but this is tempting…

(HT: AAdvantageGeek)

Given this information, I’d probably choose 3 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar at Target.com.

EV Reward is a useful tool, but it isn’t updated in real time and offers from the various cash back and mileage sites change all the time. So what they list as currently-available offers may vary from the offer you see when you click through.

And the site isn’t totally comprehensive, not every single cash back site and mileage mall is listed. One that isn’t, for instance, is the new Top Cash Back.

In fact, the site has only been up in the U.S. for about 6 months, and I had just heard of it when reading up on the Radisson/Club Carlson monster promotion, Top Cash Back was providing a 5% rebate on Radisson bookings — and given the excitement around the Club Carlson 55,000 bonus point promotion they upped their cash back offer to 10%.

After I posted about Top Cash Back and the Radisson promo, the Top Cash Back folks reached out to me. They explained they are a 100% commission rate cash back site — a contrast to the usual model for these things which is that merchants pay a commission on sales driven to their site, and cash back websites generate volume by offering to rebate some of their commission to the consumer.

For instance, instead of pocketing the full 3% they might get paid by a merchant, most sites might keep 1% and pay 2% to the consumer. They get less on each transaction, but encourage a whole lot more transactions. And the mileage malls operate on a similar principle, buying miles from airlines or points from hotels and crediting those to consumers rather than cash, but in any case effectively paying out a portion of the commission they’ve received.

I’ve written in some detail about how these mileage portals work, how poor customer service they usually offer, and how little transparency there usually is.

But since they effectively offer you something for nothing — miles or cash rebates for things you are going to buy anyway — it makes sense to click through the links and hope for the best, but not get too exorcised if you don’t get the mileage or cash back credit you’re hoping for.

Since the margins on any given transaction are low, and since the site only wants to pay out once it gets paid — there’s a long trail of things that have to happen, and lots of opportunity for technical glitches along the way — customer service tends to be quite bad. Once a site starts providing customer service, it becomes more costly to service a transaction than the site will make off that transaction. (At the same time, a site with a reputation for poor service will lose customers or undermine the brand of the mileage program they’re associated with, so there’s still some pressure for customer service).

Top Cash Back claims to change all of this.

• They promise to rebate 100% of the commissions they receive, and make money off of display ads on their website. If they offer more cash back than anyone else, they’ll drive traffic and serve up more ads. They claim to offer the most cash back of any rebate site for 90%+ of the stores they cover, with oversights accounting for those stores where they aren’t.

  It does strike me as strange that their rebates would be lower any time if they’re rebating 100% of commissions, unless they’re getting lower commissions than some other sites, and also seems strange that they could double cash back on Radisson bookings if they were already paying out 100% of what they were receiving, unless they’re losing money on each booking in exchange for some buzz. But that’s what they say they’re doing, and that as a matter of policy they do things like 101% on their U.K. site. So there ya go!

• They promise better customer service. I’m told they intend to respond to all inquiries within 24 hours (outside of weekends and holidays).

• There’s no minimum to cash out. Some sites only pay you quarterly. Others require you to make a certain amount of purchases first. For instance, ebates won’t give you your referral bonuses for signing up members unless you also have a minimum of cash back earned from purchases yourself. Top Cash Back says there’s no minimum to cash out, and no wait, you can request funds whenever you wish.

Looking back at the Target.com example, they’re paying 3% on electronics, books, entertainment and home office .. 2% on baby care… and 9.5% on everything else (gift cards excluded).

Referring a new member earns the existing member $10 after the new member earns $10 in rebates. (Up until yesterday the website said the bonus was $5, I had heard that through beginning of July it was supposed to be $10… so I emailed them and they had this fixed within a day, most impressive.)

You can sign up with my link. If you sign up, feel free also to leave your own referral link in the comments, and readers are welcome of course to use signup links they find there.

Here are some travel provider cashback highlights:

• 16% on Intercontinental Hotels Group (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Intercontinental, etc) bookings
  
• 12% on bookings made at HotelClub.com
  
• 3% on Starwood hotel reservations (Sheraton, Westin, W, Four Points, Le Meridien, etc)
  
• 3% on Choice Hotels
  
• 5% on Fairmont
  
• 10% on Radisson and Country Inns
  
• 5% on Best Western
  
• 2.1% on Marriott and Renaissance, 3.5% on Marriott Courtyard, 4.5% on Fairfield Inn
  
• 1.2% on Air France, 2.6% on Virgin Atlantic, 2% on Qantas
  
• 8% on Sixt car rentals, 5.5% on Avis, and 4.5% on Budget

There are 36 business class seats, 63 economy plus seats (presumably rows 16-22, not highlighted on the seatmap), coach has been announced as 120 seats though the seatmap would appear to show 135 seats — presumably some of the blocked/unavailable seats aren’t. They clearly haven’t put the finishing touches on the seatmap since economy plus isn’t so-flagged.

Nine across in coach seems tight to me, considering that All Nippon and Japan Airlines are doing eight across with their 787s.

It’s notable that Denver – Tokyo is announced as the first 787 route for United, they had previously indicated they’d inaugurate the 787 on Houston – Auckland. But United claims that would no longer be viable if Southwest gets permission to fly internationally out of Houston-Hobby. That’s a silly claim of course. United doesn’t want the competition, and wants the government to keep that competition illegal. But Southwest certainly isn’t going to fly to New Zealand. Their proposed international flying won’t affect the viability of an Auckland flight. Certainly Southwest’s international flying out of Hobby won’t be a detriment to United’s domestic flights at Houston Intercontinental that would feed the Auckland flight. But as part of the posturing, and at least for now, Denver – Tokyo goes first.