Tag Archives: American Airlines

a red logo with a white background

Transfer SPG Points to Virgin America; Book Hawaiian Airlines Award Ticket with VX Elevate Miles

Posted on by . 25 Replies

Good morning everyone, greetings from Denver, Colorado.  I am working on a few upcoming blog posts about my recent trip to Lima, Cusco, and Machu Picchu, but in the meantime, this post will show you how to use your SPG Points to book a Hawaiian Airlines award ticket using Virgin America miles.  Back on April 13, 2016, SPG added Virgin America as a transfer partner, thus making this post possible.

Long story short, I needed a flight from Maui (OGG) to Kona (KOA) and this Hawaiian Airlines flight looked perfect.  The only problem was the $96 price tag for a 35 minute flight.  I reached out to my friends on Twitter and was told that the best way to book a Hawaiian Airlines award ticket was using Virgin America miles.  Here is the process I went through to book the Hawaiian Airlines award ticket using Virgin America miles.

HA Flight

Continue reading →

a blue and red logo

New CitiBusiness Platinum Select American Airlines AAdvantage World MasterCard with Chip + Sig

Posted on by . 7 Replies

Good afternoon everyone, I have a few short posts to get to this weekend.  There is nothing very special about this post, but if you currently have a CitiBusiness Platinum Select American Airlines AAdvantage World MasterCard, you should receive a new credit card in the next few days with an EMV Chip.  I did not request a new credit card to be sent out, Citi voluntarily sent out a new credit card with an EMV Chip.  If you would like your CitiBusiness Platinum Select American Airlines AAdvantage World MasterCard to have an EMV Chip and you haven’t received one yet, call the number on the back of the credit card and ask Citi to send out a new credit card.  The credit card number, expiration date, and CVV code are all the same.  The front and back of the credit cards have been slightly redesigned.  The top card is the old credit card and the bottom card is the new credit card.

Citi AA Business Credit Cards Front

Continue reading →

a close-up of a logo

Cautionary American Airlines Devaluation Advice: Close-In Booking, Change & Award Redeposit Fees

Posted on by . 29 Replies

Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  By this point, everyone knows that the American Airlines devaluation is only a few days away.  Everyday, I see countless blog posts telling readers to redeem their American Airlines miles before it is too late.  I agree that now is a great time to use your American Airlines miles, but there are a few tricky fees to be aware of before you click the submit button.  Here is the link to view the full list of American Airlines award ticket fees.

21 Day Close-In Booking Fees

This is the dumbest airline fee ever invented.  If you book an American Airlines award ticket within 21 days of departure, you have to pay a $75 close-in booking fee.  This fee is waived if you are using miles from an Executive Platinum, Platinum and Gold members’ account.

AA Close In Booking Fees

Continue reading →

a blue and black logo

Bad use of AS $99 Companion Ticket & Codeshare AA / AS Booking with Citi Thank You Points

Posted on by . 6 Replies

Good morning from rainy San Francisco.  I hope you all had a great (sunny) weekend.  Since I was stuck inside most of the weekend, I did some travel planning (I do that anyway even if the weather is great).  I booked a quick weekend trip to Portland in mid May and I even found Alaska Airlines saver award space for the return flight from PDX to SFO at a convenient time (not 6 or 7am).  After calling British Airways several times and finally getting through after hearing the busy dial tone 5+ times, I booked the return flight using British Airways Avios.  It was not the greatest redemption ever, but I had British Airways Avios to burn.

For the outbound flight from SFO to PDX, I searched on Google Flights and found a few decent flight times and prices.  Since I am traveling with my roommate, I needed to get 2 tickets.  I have access to a few Alaska Airlines $99 companion ticket codes (the codes are transferrable and can be booked by anyone).  Here is the standard price for 2 one way tickets:

SFO-PDX AS No Companion Ticket

And here is the price with the $99 Alaska Airlines companion ticket.  As you can see, the price with the companion ticket is 43 cents higher than booking the flights without the companion ticket.  I decided to save the companion ticket for a future flight and researched other flight options.

SFO-PDX AS Companion Ticket Continue reading →

a hand pointing at a sign

2016 Eurotrip Travel and Expense Summary

Posted on by . 18 Replies

Good afternoon everyone, here is a summary of my 2 week trip to Europe from January 2016.  Here is my planning and booking process: Hotel & Flight Bookings for LHR, CDG, NCE, MUC, VCE, and DUB.  Here is a visual representation of my intra-European flights.  I also flew from SFO-LAX-LHR on American Airlines and DUB-SFO on Aer Lingus (not pictured).

GCM Eurotrip 2016

Continue reading →