The chat will be held at:

• 6pm Pacific
  
• 7pm Mountain
  
• 8pm Central
  
• 9pm Eastern

You can pre-submit questions in this Milepoint thread or ask them live during the chat.

Past Milepoint chats have included:

• A Conversation with Kip Hawley
• A Conversation with Hyatt Gold Passport
• A Conversation with Southwest Rapid Rewards
• A Conversation with American Airlines AAdvantage

• Via NotiFlyer, British Airways is offering a 25% bonus on hotel points transferred into Avios through June 20. Participating partners are Hilton, Marriott, Priority Club, Club Carlson, Starwood, Hyatt, Shangri-La and Accor. You have to be logged into your Executive Club account to see the offer.

• MJ on Travel says that US Airways is increasing the frequency of its complimentary elite upgrade ‘sweeps’, checking more often whether upgrade seats are available and processing the waitlist, which should reduce occurrences of lower level elites calling in at the right time when upgrade seats are available and grabbing those away from higher-level elites whose upgrades hadn’t been processed automatically yet. Oh, and they’re going to try to assign seats that match profile preferences, too. I’m curious, though not especially hopeful, about the claim that when elites aren’t upgraded they’ll explain why (it’s hard to imagine what they’ll say besides “other higher level elites took the seats” or “seats were actually sold to paying passengers”).

• On the subject of upgrades, I’ve had no problem using miles on United when tickets were issued by another carrier. Not so with US Airways?

• A frequent question about miles and points is how they’re handled in death and divorce. For years I pointed folks to this April 2004 Inside Flyer article which though dated at least offered the best-available framework for understanding the issue. The June 2012 Inside Flyer cover story updates the treatment, which is useful because it includes a program-by-program survey of how to handle points transfers in such circumstances. Bookmark it.

• In somewhat more obscure news, the Seychelles Plus program of Air Seychelles is being integrated into Etihad Guest.

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

After about 5 hours in the lounge it was finally time to leave Brazil. We headed downstairs and on to our gate at the end of Wing D, and it simply reinforced the notion that there’s not much to do, see, or eat in the terminal. One of the interesting things about the walk is that the international and domestic gates are separated by a glass wall most of the walk to the end of the pier.

We arrived at the gate and boarding was already about two-thirds complete. Found our way to our seats, there was a plastic-wrapped package of pillow and blanket on the seat along with menu, and an amenity kit and bottle of water in the seat’s cubby hole.

Before storing my carryon in the overhead bin in I took out a pair of never-used Singapore Airlines first class Givenchy pajamas and went into the lavatory to change. Getting comfortable in pajamas makes a big difference in front of a long-ish flight, and I’m now sold on the idea for when flying business class.

As we got underway one of the flight attendant announcements struck me. American provides Bose headsets in business and first class, though I decline as I use my own noise cancelling headset. A flight attendant announced that if business and first class passengers intend to sleep then they should have their Bose headsets wrapped up and accessible to be collected one hour before landing so that flight attendants do not need to wake them in order to do the collection.

A reminder, in a way, that no matter what amount of hard product investment it’s going to be the service delivery that distinguishes an airline in the first class cabin at least.

As far as crews go, this one turned out to be excellent, at least for my needs. They kept me hydrated, even bringing me my own large bottle of water, of the size that they serve the cabin with, to supplement the regular sized bottle left at my seat. And they were very friendly. So it was perfect for me.

But I still couldn’t imagine an ANA, Singapore, or Lufthansa crew in first class waking first class passengers an hour before landing for their convenience of collecting headsets.

I hadn’t eaten much throughout the day so was strangely looking forward to dinner. I’ve got photos of two different entrees, I had the second of the two.

Here’s the pasta…

And the shrimp curry:

Followed by ice cream

The meals were much more ‘business class’ than the Richard Sandoval halibut on the outbound, which wasn’t catered for the return from Brazil.

I slept on and off for the next four hours, in between watching a couple of episodes of the current season of Mad Men. The flight was especially turbulent, one of the bumpiest rides I’ve experienced in the past few years, and that woke me a few times. Not American’s fault, and combined with sitting in the lounge for 5 hours after a coach flight from Iguassu Falls, I wasn’t nearly as comfortable in the non-lie flat seat as I was on the outbound. My lower back was bothering me and I was looking forward to arrival in Miami and a hot shower.

About an hour and fifteen minutes out from arrival breakfast was served. Decent enough but again not as good as the Richard Sandoval eggs served on the way down to Brazil (and that I had tried a week earlier in Dallas for their premium services event).

After breakfast I changed out of my Singapore PJs, and we were on the ground shortly after.

Once we landed everyone poised to make the mad dash for immigration, you always want to get ahead of the rest of your aircraft so that your wait is shorter. But business class was being held for first class to disembark, something that really impressed me with American on this flight and on the flight down to Brazil. I don’t remember the last time a U.S. .carrier ensured that first class got off the plane first. So even though they want to collect Bose headsets an hour before arrival, and threaten to wake up passengers to do so, they do seem to be emulating some of the service standards of the best-regarded carriers.

The trek to immigration at Miami was bizarre, since it’s one twist and turn after another followed by taking the airport train. Although you take the airport train to immigration, you’re dropped off… nowhere near immigration, and you have another long walk. Like Dulles airport where the new train drops you nowhere near the United gates, but where the terminal is supposed to be sometime in the future.

When we finally made it to immigration there was almost no line, through the queue quickly, no wait for bags as we hadn’t checked any we were quickly outside into the terminal.

Of course that meant having to go back through security, and since it’s Miami there was a significant queue. The wait was about 25 minutes, and only that short because we were in the priority line and because they opened up the crew screening lane for passengers.

The wait seemed all the longer because I desperately wanted a shower, and was afraid there’d be a wait, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.

The onward flight to DC would be leaving from a gate in D in the mid-teens, so I headed over to the D15 Admiral’s Club, went upstairs and immediately on check-in asked for a shower room. There was one available right away, and a staff member came up front to walk me back.

The shower was invigorating, and had me poised to make the flight home. I went back into the lounge, ordered some sushi from the paid café menu which turned out to be a perfect breakfast (I had only picked at the eggs on the plane), and by the time I finished it was time to board my flight home to DC.

That was uneventful, I logged onto Gogo wireless internet as soon as we were airborne and caught up on e-mail for the better part of the flight. Breakfast was cereal, yogurt, and fruit but having just eaten sushi I gave it a miss. We arrived in DC on time, I walked straight out of the terminal where there was no line for a cab and I was home within 25 minutes of landing. An end to my long weekend at the Falls, and with plenty of time to relax and rest up for the rest of the day on Sunday, since I was unpacking by 12:30pm.

I heard quite a bit after the story broke that Delta folks were apoplectic at the leak, that there was a lockdown, but like many such things the hordes subsided and the rumor mill has been mostly quiet. My hunch has been that after the leak their executives took better care of their documents and were more careful holding their tongues, rather than that the airline had abandoned its plans.

While any move towards a revenue-based program might cause some to immediately think of United’s CFO commenting that some of their members are over-entitled, this airline after all seriously considered minimum revenue thresholds for its elite tiers, my thoughts went elsewhere: the summer 2002 move by US Airways to count only full fare tickets towards elite qualification.

Delta’s been looking at revenue-based programs, and the airline that took the first step towards ‘caring’ only about high revenue customers hadn’t done much along those lines since then.

In Randy Petersen‘s opening remarks to the June issue of Inside Flyer he notes that at US Airways Media Day he asked the question about whether they were considering a revenue-based program, and that the airline was less forthcoming about this issue than they seemed to be about any other issue on the table that day. Randy thinks something is up:

While I don’t know anything about Area 54 (the supposed top-secret area popular with UFO conspiracy theorists), I’m pretty sure that something is going on out there. You combine that with rumors coming from the greater ATL area and I’m telling you–people get ready. Are both US Airways and Delta considering changes to their existing frequent flyer programs featuring a conversion to revenue-based programs? With the changes that have already impacted this industry (miles as an industry?), there’s a very strong argument that this is the way of the future.

Me, I don’t think anything is imminent at US Airways. I don’t have inside knowledge, so I could certainly be proven wrong. But I have to believe that if US Airways is serious about acquiring American Airlines, then they have bigger fish to fry than remaking the mileage program. Especially moving to a revenue-based program, which would widely be viewed as a gutting of their loyalty proposition. The last thing they’d want to do is scare away all of the new customers they’d be bringing into the folks via American AAdvantage. They’ll at least tell everyone for awhile that they’re going to build a ‘best in class program’ that ‘combines the best of both airlines’ to ‘deliver world-class loyalty rewards’ for their members.

Now, I’ve written skeptically about a US Airways acquisition of American in the past, so that’s hardly definitive. But if they think they’re serious, then I don’t see change coming to US Airways in this regard over the next 18 months.

Perhaps that’s just my wishful thinking.

A change to revenue-based mileage-earning from flying activity wouldn’t be a huge deal, more miles are earned from non-flying activity than from flying, the question would be what earning rates would look like (whether it would just be an opportunity to give out fewer miles, or would be a shift in whom miles are given to).

And many airlines have revenue-based redemption as an option which complements award charts now, United and Delta both introduced theirs to co-branded credit card holders years ago and American more recently introduced theirs to elites-only, the ability to buy tickets with miles based on the price of tickets.

But what is usually meant by the introduction of a revenue-based program is the end of award charts, the replacement of earning points and spending points based on zones or distance with spending points based on the cost of a ticket. Which is the end of getting outsized value from points. And premium cabin tickets because almost impossible to obtain, because their cash price is often so many times that of a coach ticket. (Most airlines with revenue-based programs also have only one class of service and also limited international service.)

It’s hard to imagine the apocalypse to loyalty that would flow from this. While programs may wring their hands about rewarding the wrong people, or about high redemption costs that they need to manage, in the end these mileage programs are wildly profitable and it’s the smaller, less-profitable ones which haven’t branched as far out from driving business to the airline and into credit card, shopping, rental car, home mortgage, and other spaces. Why in the world would a multi-billion dollar company (the mileage program) risk its entire business model when it’s spinning off large sums of cash?

The credit card partnership with Juniper Bank (now with Barclays) funded America West’s acquisition of US Airways. American Express provided Delta hundreds of millions of dollars of extra liquidity by pre-purchasing Skymiles. United, fundamentally, flew through bankruptcy to support their co-branded credit card partner’s business. (The co-branded card issuer provided both debtor-in-possession financing and exit financing for bankruptcy, and pre-purchase of half a billion dollars of miles.)

And even from a loyalty perspective, it’s not the most revenue that a company wants to incentivize, it’s moving over incremental revenue at the margin, which is something that revenue-based programs often miss.

Ultimately, though, we’ll have to judge based on the particulars of whatever may be introduced, but revenue-based programs tend to be less rewarding and less aspirational — it’s not about the 25,000 mile ticket to Florida, but that not that many more miles can take you to Hawaii or to Italy or Asia, and not that many more miles can do so in a premium class of service. Frequent flyer programs have been the most wildly successful marketing vehicles ever developed because they tap into dreams.

Revenue-based programs are what airlines offer when they figure they have to offer something but it’s not really core to their business model, they figure lots of customers won’t pay enough attention (at least for awhile) to know the difference anyway.

There’ll be plenty of consultants and analysts who sell this as the next big thing, but for any program that does it, it’s likely cutting off their own income streams… not from the airline but from the mileage program itself.

One of the things I find that makes travel more tolerable is access to airline clubs or lounges. They’re much more peaceful than sitting around the gate area, in part because of fewer people but also just due to more comfortable furniture and tables to spread out and do work at. They make me more productive, I’m better rested, and they’re a place to refuel and to get assistance from on the whole friendlier agents than you’d find at a customer service counter and with less of a wait.

I’ve had a couple of questions recently about how to access airline lounges, possibly prompted by my writing about taking a shower in the Gol Smiles VIP lounge in Sao Paulo even though I was flying a non-alliance airline in coach. So I thought it would make sense to write about the various benefits of lounge access and how I go about getting that access.

In general, the benefits of lounge access vary by airline and location, but often include:

• Free wireless internet (increasingly airports are offering this too, but I find that connectivity in the lounge is usually better)
  
• Peace and quiet, comfort compared to sitting in the terminal
  
• Assistance during irregular operations. When a flight cancels or I need to make a change, I head to the lounge. Agents there usually have fewer people waiting in front of me, and are often friendlier than the folks at the customer service counter who deal with nothing but frustrated flyers — which also means they’re usually more helpful. (Sadly the Alaska Airlines lounges don’t deal with ticketing, as I understand it based on union wok rules)
  
• Showers. There’s nothing like a shower to refresh after an overnight flight before connecting on, I was grateful for my shower at the American Airlines lounge in Miami recently, several Delta lounges offer showers too.
  
• Soft drinks, cocktails, light snacks. Food offerings vary widely, from cheese and crackers, vegetables, and cookies… to my beloved Alaska Airlines pancakes in the Seattle Boardroom.. to soup, or chips. American lounges have little food for free but an extensive menu for purchase. Most offer complimentary cocktails.

There are a wide variety of methods to gain access to lounges, and which ones work in a given instance will vary by the lounge. But the methods are more or less as follows:

• Pay. United, US Airways, Delta, American, and Alaska all sell memberships. This is usually the worst way to get lounge access, since you can often ‘buy’ it less expensively through other means, or at least if you’re going to pay you can get a whole bunch of things bundled in at the same time for a similar price.

• Wait for a sale. US Airways has been known to offer short-term sales. Last March they offered a 3-day sale on memberships for $259. Back in November it was $325, anyone could buy in for the same price they charge their top tier 100,000 mile flyers. And since US Airways club members get access to United lounges too (for awhile that benefit was an ‘add on’ that US Airways sold for more money), it was a good strategy even for folks looking to access United clubs.

• Elite status. With most non-US airlines, elite status alone gets you in. Most U.S. carriers award lounge access to (a subset of) elites only when flying internationally, since they sell access to the lounges otherwise, something most of the rest of the world doesn’t do. I long got United lounge access as a british midland Diamond Club gold member. That gold status is now matched by British Airways, which will get me first class lounge access when traveling on American. Of course, my top tier status with American doesn’t get me into Admiral’s clubs when flying in the U.S., American sells lounge memberships. BA Gold does get you into BA lounges even when flying domestically in the U.K.

• Travel in a premium cabin. Most airlines offer lounge access to business and first class passengers on international itineraries. Alaska Airlines offers lounge access even domestically when flying in paid first class or on a first class award ticket, but not when upgrading from coach to first.

• SkyGuide Executive Privilege Club. Plenty of airlines sell day passes to their lounges, most run about $50 which is pretty steep and few people feel it’s worthwhile. But if you join this program, for as low as $20 for the first year, they will reimburse the cost of paid lounge passes (for the member only, any guests would need their own SkyGuide Privilege Club membership). You have to mail in receipts, sending them certificate mail, filling out a reimbursement form. So it’s neither free to get the reimbursement, nor effortless, and it takes 6-8 weeks to get a check back. But it’s the cheapest way to get access, and they’ll reimburse up to 12 lounge passes per calendar year. Getting a membership mid-year lets you get 12 in the remainder of the current calendar year and 12 reimbursements at the beginning of the next year as well, up to $50 per visit. They’ll reimburse 12 single visit gym passes per year as well, up to $25 each.

• Premium credit cards. United, Delta, and American all offer co-branded credit cards that bundle club access. I find the two best deals, though, are the American Express Platinum and the United Club Card.
  • American Express Platinum. The card costs $450 per year, comes with a signup bonus after modest spend of 25,000 Membership Rewards points that transfer to many airlines, and provides access to enhanced benefits at many luxury hotels through the Fine Hotels and Resorts program. But the crown jewel of the card is its lounge access.

    Delta and American lounge access whenever flying those carriers same-day. US Airways lounge access any time. And it comes with a Priority Pass Select membership that adds access to Alaska Airlines lounges and access to a panoply of lounges worldwide — they claim access to 600 different airport lounges. Lots of cards bundle the basic Priority Pass where you have to pay to access their lounges. Not so with the Amex Platinum card, there’s unlimited Priority Pass member lounge visits for the cardholder.

    This card has you covered pretty much anywhere you’d travel except for access to United lounges. For that, the United Club Card is the best bet (or getting an Amex Platinum card and then reimbursing purchased day passes through the SkyGuide Executive Privilege Club).

    Plus, with the $200 annual airline fee credit and the $100 Global Entry (expedited US immigration) credit, the annual fee mostly covers itself. You can also get 3 additional cardmembers added to the card account for $175, so family can have cheap unlimited lounge access, and each cardholder still gets the Global Entry fee credit as well.

    (I reviewed this card extensively at the beginning of the year.)

  • United Club Card. is $395 per year with a $95 statement credit right away, it gets you United club membership (and thus access to many Star Alliance member lounges as well).

    It earns 1.5 miles per dollar on all spending, which is huge, no foreign currency transaction fees, Hyatt Platinum status, and Avis Presidents Club status (which you cannot even earn via frequent rentals). There’s priority check-in, security, and boarding, two free checked bags, no close-in award booking fees on United, and primary collision damage waiver when renting cars (I use my Diners Club card for that, almost all other cards make the benefit secondary to your personal insurance).

    Basically it’s a kitchen sink of benefits, regular United flyers should probably get this card while everyone else interested in lounge access should consider the American Express Platinum.

    (I reviewed this card extensively just a few weeks ago. Some folks have been able to pick up applications for the card in person at United lounges where there are codes to be able to get the card first year fee-free.)

  • Diners Club. I mention this card for completeness, since there’s an international lounge network that the card provides access to. The US card has been closed to applications from new cardholders for awhile, I still carry mine, but since it was acquired from Citibank by Bank of Montreal and they’re still running points transfer bonuses and have upgraded the card with true chip and pin technology (which some folks like for kiosks in Europe) it seems like they want to do something with the product and could be accessible again in the future.

Back to that lounge in Sao Paulo, I had the choice to enter the Gol Airlines domestic lounge — without a premium cabin ticket (not offered domestically) and without status — using either my Diners Club card or my Priority Pass Select that I received via the American Express Platinum card. Even flying to Foz de Iguassu, my Amex Platinum got me a shower (much to the relief of my fellow passengers on the next flight, I’m sure).

(Links to the United Club Card and the American Express Platinum card provide referral credit to me if you choose to use them and are approved, I certainly appreciate your support.)

If there’s a specific award you’re considering, and you’re wondering how many points it will cost you, Wandering Aramean has a useful tool to estimate the cost. (It’s sad that such a tool is needed to help decipher the new Avios scheme.)

In general the Avios program is great for short-haul non-stop redemptions, and extortionate for long-haul connecting awards. Though of course a 50% bonus on transfers helps dull the pain.

British Airways Avios fuel surcharges can be painful, they charge the same costs that would be billed on a paid ticket, and that can often be close to the price of an economy ticket. Though there are some routes (like US domestic, US-South America) that don’t add fuel surcharges, those that do make an economy redemption virtually illogical — you spend miles and still spend almost as much out of pocket as though you were buying paid travel.

At the same time, for premium cabin awards, the fuel surcharges can be worth it, sure you may be out of pocket $1000 on a roundtrip ticket to London. But you fly in a premium cabin, so there’s value out of those miles. Some think of a first class redemption as being like a capacity-controlled, non-mileage earning coach ticket with a confirmed 3-cabin upgrade.

The offer is limited to one free night per member, and while ‘use by January 31′ is a reasonably long period compared to some similar offers, it’s still less than six months from the end of the promotion period. But at least it’s valid for any Best Western, worldwide which is valuable.

Marriott’s summer bonus is a version of their usual ‘MegaBonus’ this time offering a free night every two stays, up to 3 free nights (though some members have slightly different offers). Register by June 30 and stays count between June 1 and August 31.

Marriot’s MegaBonus offers one free night every two stays, but caps the number of free nights you can earn and caps the redemption category of the hotel you can redeem for at category 4. (Update: to be clear, these free nights expire one year from date of issuance so when you earn the night determines when the night expires.)

A category 4 night costs 20,000 points. But a MegaBonus night isn’t worth as much as 20,000 Marriott Rewards nights since it has a short expiration period (whereas you can use the points later, and in practice don’t even expire though the terms and conditions say they will), and since 20,000 points can be used towards a more expensive redemption while a MegaBonus night can only be used at up to category 4, not as credit towards something pricier.

Thus Marriott MegaBonus is really less rewarding than “20,000 bonus points every two stays” would be. Marriott Rewards gets much more breakage out of unused reward nights than they’d get out of awarding bonus points.

Ultimately I prefer bonus points equivalent to free nights more than free nights, though those are more expensive to a program. Expiration dates limit cost by making it more likely that free nights go unredeemed.

I also prefer free night promotions that are uncapped, earning a single free night or even a couple does not a vacation make. And limiting the tier of property you can redeem for makes a promotion sound much more exciting than it is in reality.

They keep tweaking the website, from no longer accepting the first four digits of Russian Visa Infinite cards to later requiring a full sixteen digits of the card number in order to unlock the form (and validating that the numbers entered could be an actual card, though not verifying the account entered itself).

Each time they’ve tweaked the form, enterprising commenters have shared their experiences here.

Matt in the comments of my March post writes:

Hello all. Just wanted to confirm that as of 9:52PM ET on 05/28/12 this is still working. Here’s what I did. First logged into my Hilton Honors account and changed my country to Australia and my Province/State to AP. I then went through the link to verify the card number. I tried dozens of card numbers but finally got this one to work -4423942965985959. I was then prompted to log into my HH Account. I logged out and back in and I went from Blue to Gold! Hope this helps someone else!

And if you actually want to stay at La Quinta, Visa offers 10% off through June 30.

As they say, a few bad apples who in no way undermine the hard work that thousands of men and women at the TSA do to keep us safe, day in and day out.