Platinum members of Starwood Preferred Guest can redeem award nights for stays through August 31, 2005 for 25% off the usual points — but the offer is valid for bookings made this week only.

Since these reservations are fully changeable/cancellable you’d be advised to make bookings you think you might need now.

Note that if you have to change the reservation later, you’re likely to have to redeposit the award and book a new one at the usual point level.

Air Canada has confirmed its intention to spin off its Aeroplan frequent flyer program as a separate unit.

Mr. Milton did not close the door to selling part of Aeroplan to a private buyer. But he said buyout firm Onex Corp. is not in the picture as a potential purchaser. Onex had a deal with Air Canada to buy a 35% stake in Aeroplan for $245-million before that fell apart with the airline’s bankruptcy protection filing. Onex said recently that it was still interested in the unit.



Mr. Milton offered no specific timing for the sale. He said the company is working on legal and regulatory issues to ready its public debut.



Aeroplan is worth in the range of $1.3-billion to $1.9-billion.

In January Randy Petersen wrote that Air Canada would likely be the first program to spin off its loyalty program, and that United might follow suit — with Mileage Plus worth a full $2.5 billion or more.

Through the end of May, British Midland is offering to match elite status that you might have with another carrier (other Star Alliance airlines excluded).

The La Quinta Returns Program is introducing redemption at Wyndham hotel and resort properties as a new option beginning this weekend.

Ironically, Wyndham doesn’t offer points towards future stays in its own ByRequest program.

Residents of the U.K. are invited to receive elite status on the Star Alliance carrier of their choice (excluding Singapore) by filling out a form and faxing a copy of a frequent flyer statement that shows elite status with a competing airline.

For general discussion of elite status matching and instructions for receiving matches with several airline programs, see “The Status Match Master Thread” — a Flyertalk discussion I started in October 2003.

Colloquy says that the comeback of Diners Club continues, noting that US Diners Club cards will benefit from the global acceptance of Mastercard.

They do note the devaluation of Diners Club Club Rewards points vis a vis Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards tickets:

Diners Club’s effort to make the card easier to use puts it squarely in the sights of competing card issuers and their airline partners. Southwest Airlines has already raised the number of Diners Club points required for a free ticket: Previously, Diners Club customers had to spend just $16,000 to earn a free Southwest ticket; now they will have to spend $24,000. By contrast, it takes $19,200 in spending on Southwest’s own Bank One credit card to earn a free ticket on the airline.

The piece doesn’t mention the devaluation for Priority Club conversions. Priority Club also partners with JP Morgan Chase/BankOne. It does speculate on what will happen to conversions with BankOne partner United:

Bank One, which recently was acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., also issues a United Airlines Visa that earns one mile for every dollar charged. As soon as Bank One’s United card is up against the more-flexible Diners product, the bank might pressure UAL Corp.’s United to give fewer miles out to Diners Club’s customers.

A similar devaluation of Starwood to United transfers occurred right after United entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection two and a half years ago, with BankOne providing $500 million debtor-in-possession financing to United.

While acceptance of Diners Club is a new huge benefit for the card, rewards devaluation combined with other changes (such as the end of two billing cycles to pay and an increase in the foreign currency conversion charge) weigh heavily against investing in a $95 fee Mastercard.

It will take the next several months for the value proposition of this card to work itself out. I’m personally waiting on the edge of my seat to see what happens to the primary rental car insurance coverage that currently comes with the card. If that goes or is otherwise meaningfully restricted, I’ll cancel my card. If not, I’ll keep it.

EVA is introducing online meal selection for premium class passengers, and throwing in 500 bonus miles for using the feature by September 30.

“The option to pre-select from a menu of delicious main courses adds to the comfort and convenience of an already exceptional inflight experience,” said K.W. Nieh, Executive Vice President, EVA Air. “EVA’s goal is to continually find new ways to upgrade and enhance services, and we believe this new feature is one our passengers will especially appreciate.”



EVA is making its online pre-selection process more delicious by posting mouth- watering pictures with descriptions of the tasty entrée choices. Passengers outbound from Taiwan will have a wider selection of menu choices. But airport handling restrictions prevent EVA from offering this service for destinations like Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Hanoi, Phnom Penh, Paris, Auckland and Japan.

This seems like a no-brainer to me.

New Paypal debit card users will receive 1% cashback, down from 1.5%. Current debit card members will be grandfathered at the 1.5% rate.

Eligibility for the PayPal Preferred Rewards Program will become easier, however:

Under the previous guidelines, only qualified eBay sellers designating a preference for PayPal in their eBay listings were eligible for the program, but beginning today eligibility will be expanded to include all merchants who promote PayPal as their preferred online payment method, whether operating on eBay or off.

Starting April 1st 2500 Diners Club points will yield only 1500 Priority Club points, down from the current 2000. It will also take 3000 Diners Club points for 1 Southwest Rapid Rewards credit, up from 2000.

Club Rewards members have until March 31 to redeem at the current rates.

Meanwhile, transfers of Club Rewards points between May 1 and August 31 will receive a 50% transfer bonus just like last year. This is something of a disappointment because previous years had seen a 100% summer bonus.

Between March 1 and May 31, transfers to USAirways earn a 25% bonus. (Registration required.)

Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles, Radisson is offering 2,000 bonus Goldpoints for first-time use of their new online checkin feature at Radisson.com through June 30, 2005.

Gary Steiger also reminds his readers something that I post every three months at Flyertalk.com — that you get 500 Goldpoints for updating your email address every 90 days. I set a reminder in my Outlook and every 90 days switch between my primary email address and my Yahoo account.

I have long recommended the Diners Club credit card because, despite limited acceptance and a hefty annual fee, the benefits were really unparalleled: an outstanding rewards program, two full billing cycles to pay, free iDine Prime membership, concierge services, and primary rental car insurance.

Needless to say, the anticipated linkup between Diners Club and Mastercard had me very excited. If my Diners Club card would get accepted everywhere that takes Mastercard, it would rise to a spot as my #2 credit card (behind the Starwood Amex). However, I’ve been nervous. I assume that the linkup with Mastercard would mean lower interchange fees for Citibank, which issues Diners Club in North America. And with lower fees I imagined cost-cutting from the benefits budget. Diners Club has assured the contrary.

I received an information packet in the mail last week, preparing me for the changeover which is anticipated in about three more months.

Lo and behold, the two billing cycles to pay benefit will be gone. There’s also an increase in the foreign currency conversion fee to 3%. And while a Diners Club rep tells me that the rental car insurance benefit isn’t going away, there’s a troubling statement in the brochure about a possible change in insurance carrier. I’m nervous about that benefit.

I’m more than a little peeved because I just re-upped with my annual fee this month. I’ll still keep the card and use it as my primary backup for merchants that don’t accept American Express as long as they keep the rental car insurance. But if that benefit goes away I’m not paying a $95 annual fee for a Mastercard with a versatile rewards program (that charges a fee for converting points into miles).

One other minor change to note: Instead of earning 2 Diners Club Rewards points per dollar spent, earning will change to 1 point — but Diners Club assures that the number of points required for redemptions will drop in half, so that awards will not become more expensive. Existing Club Rewards balances will be cut by 50% as well as part of this change.

Instapundit calls Amazon’s offer of an new annual fee for free two-day shipping on all your orders a frequent flyer program.

Heh. Too bad the only shopping rewards program Amazon participates in is the Dividend Miles Mall.

Test drive a Buick through February 22 and get $100 towards a two-night Marriott stay.

Been pretty busy and my limited posting prevented me from mentioning a story that Notiflyer broke last week:

Hilton HHonors has introduced a rolling elite-qualification program.



HHonors now allows members to carry over stays from the prior calendar year in order to achieve HHonors VIP status. By comparison, most other programs only allow members to count stays in a calendar year (January through December) to count toward elite status.

Starwood is offering 25% off the points cost of award nights at several hotels in Southeast Asia for stays through the end of May.

While Starwood seems to offer such discounts across the board for about a week during the summer, they don’t seem to often offer promotions like this: discounts at properties during their slow seasons.

Of course, Starwood offers cash and points awards and properties that participate are usually facing their slow seasons. But it’s rare that they offer similar discounts on all-points awards. Good move, Starwood!

Three and a half weeks ago I declared that Independence Air had some financial breathing room and that it was safe to make bookings through February.

While they’re running some significant sales to promote their new West Coast service which starts in the next few months, I’m not recommending that folks buy those tickets at this point.

I’m taking a wait and see attitude with the carrier, and wouldn’t suggest significant advance bookings at this time.

One of Independence Air’s 73 planes was repo’d on Sunday. And one of the conditions of their cash infusion from GE was that they successfully renegotiate their aircraft leases. The repossession is a pretty good indication that they weren’t completely successful, and I worry about the carrier’s ability to meet the covenants of its GE loan.

United seems to be doing a good job of (coming close to) matching Independence Air’s fares out of Dulles, so on routes and flight times where they compete I would tend to book United. You’ll get Mileage Plus miles to boot, which are far more valuable than iClub points. United has its own problems, but seems more stable than Independence at this point… which is saying something.

Independence has had problems from the start, two of which were:

(1) They were the largest carrier at Dulles before becoming an independent airline. They had the leases on the planes, the terminal, the gates. They didn’t have the luxury of a startup carrier of slowly building business, starting with a few flights and establishing a presence in a city before expanding. They needed to send those planes somewhere. An unknown carrier can’t simply send more than half a dozen flights a day to Lansing and expect to have enough customers to support the service.

(2) They compounded this problem by remaining an unknown airline in the cities they served. While they had a large advertising budget, it’s difficult to enter into consumer consciousness. Most decisions about what airline to fly are made at the time of ticketing. And Independence Air began by selling tickets only by its own website and reservation number. Southwest can more or less get away with this. People know to check with Southwest (although they participate to a limited degree in certain reservation systems). But Independence Air was an unknown. Customers who would have flown them didn’t know it was an option. While participating in broad distribution networks is costly, Independence Air proves that customers not knowing you exist is even costlier.

They’ve taken steps to address their appearing in global distribution systems. And they’re reducing capacity while giving back some planes. Both of those are positive steps. But it may not be enough. Their best bet is to split their fleet, operating both as a regional feeder for a major airline and, with a smaller operation, building an independent carrier.

Developing….

Tomorrow is their fifth anniversary and they’re giving away 500 roundtrip tickets to the first one hundred people who show up at each of their five New York City borough locations dressed as one of the destinations they fly to (along with a canned food item for City Harvest).

eBay has a new member-get-member promotion.

Existing members can refer new members. If a new member buys something for $10 or more or lists something for sale within 30 days, both the referring member and the new member receive 500 eBay Anything Points.

Those points, of course, can be used for eBay purchases (500 points = $5 credit) or converted to airline or hotel points at Points.com.

I can of course refer anyone who wishes to join eBay, just drop me an email. But most people have joined at one point or another I imagine?

The Starwood American Express is now offering 6000 points with first purchase and 6000 bonus points for hotel stays. Fee waived the first year.

(Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)

Only good on a few dates and flights, but nice values nevertheless:

	Hot Winter Specials – 2 Romantic Destinations Just in time for a Valentine’s Day Getaway!! Take your Sweetie to Tahiti or go to France for Romance! Tahiti Moana Economy $395 per person, plus tax Poerava Business $2000 per person, plus tax Paris (CDG) Moana Economy $498 per Couple, plus tax Poerava Business $3400 per Couple, plus tax *** Tahiti Instant Purchase Special *** $395 (plus taxes) per person – Moana Economy Class $2000 (plus taxes) per person – Poerava Business Class Valid only by combining the following designated flights: Southbound – Los Angeles to Papeete, Tahiti Flight # TN1: January 23, 30, February 3, 6, 13, 24 & 25. Flight # TN301: February 22. Northbound – Papeete, Tahiti to Los Angeles Flight # TN2: January 31, February 7, 9, 14, 16, & 28. Flight # TN302: February 1 & 10. *Reservations must be made at least 3 days prior to departure and tickets must be paid for and issued at the same time that the reservation is made. Waitlists are not permitted. *All tickets must be issued by February 18. All tickets must be issued in North America and “Prepaid” tickets are not permitted. *Tickets are non-refundable before departure. Changes to the outbound flight are not permitted. After departure, to change the return date – the full amount of the fare paid less $200.00, can be applied to the purchase of a higher fare that allows a date change, provided that the rules of the higher fare is met and the the tickets are reissued and reservations are made for the higher fare at the same time that the original return reservation is cancelled. *Child and infant discounts do not apply to these fares. *Seats are capacity controlled and fares may not be available on all flights. *Name Changes are not allowed. *** Paris Instant Purchase Special Companion Fares *** $498 per Couple (plus taxes) – Moana Economy Class $3400 per Couple (plus taxes) – Poerava Business Class Valid only by combining the following designated flights: Eastbound – Los Angeles to Paris, France (CDG) Flight # TN22: January 17, 21, 22, 28, 30 & 31, February 2, 5, 6, 7, 12, 14, & 20. Westbound – Paris, France (CDG) to Los Angeles Flight # TN21: January 22 & 30, February 1, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17, 24, 27 & 28. *Reservations/Ticketing: Both passengers must travel together on the same flights and be booked in the same reservation. Both passengers must check in for all flights together. Tickets must be purchased at the same time the reservation is made. *All tickets must be issued by January 24, 2005. Waitlists are not permitted. *Tickets are non-refundable and no changes are allowed before departure. After departure: the full fare paid less a $200.00 fee can be used as credit towards the purchase of a new ticket that allows a date change. The new ticket must be reissued, original reservation cancelled and new date reserved in the same transaction at the same time. *Infant and Childrens discounts do not apply. *Seats are capacity controlled and fares may not be available on all flights. *Name Changes are not allowed. Call your professional Travel Agent or Air Tahiti Nui (877) 824-4846 toll-free