Rapid Travel Chai

The power of ‘register and forget.’ I have rarely stayed at Starwood properties yet dutifully sign up for their promotions. I had completely forgotten about their Q1 Power UP promotion, at the time not even thinking I would get 4 nights for the first bonus. A last-minute business project landed me in Shanghai with what turned into a 20-night stay. I took a peek at my SPG account and was surprised to see a raft of Power Up bonuses totaling 18,000 points. Felt like I beat Super Mario Bros. for the first time. That stay now accounts for about 30% of my lifetime SPG earnings.

Delta:

• I was targeted for Delta’s Double Miles to Asia promo, my wife not. I had what I thought was a qualifying trip on Mar 4, returning Mar 26. Only the March 26 bonus posted. First round with email support returned a typically unhelpful reply from an agent claiming the miles were correct but giving no detail. That is especially insulting as I went to the trouble clearly lay it out with every possible detail. I wrote back and someone competent replied that yes, I was right:

In regards to your outbound flight, as you traveled from Moldova with a
partner airline within 24 hours of your departure from New York to Asia
our system did not recognize your flight as qualifying under the Double
Miles promotion. We do understand, however, that these trips were
separate and have therefore reposted your travel to Asia one day later
to ensure the bonus will post. We do apologize for any inconvenience or
confusion this may cause. Please allow 24 hours for the mileage to
appear again in your account and this time you should see the promotion
bonus as well.

Interestingly, while the flights the day before my outbound caused the system to not post my bonus, my domestic flight on a separate ticket the day after my return attracted the bonus and that was not taken away. The entire bonus for the return posted in the record for the domestic trip, not the Asia trip, so I came out a bit ahead. If you have trips on consecutive days, take special care in ensuring Delta bonuses post.

• The rumor mill is spinning with talk that Delta is about to gut its Same-Day Confirmed policy. I am Diamond for this year and next (and working on the next). The #1 Delta benefit for me is the unofficial Diamond ability to SDC among NYC’s co-terminals (LGA, JFK and EWR). With Delta’s flights spread out among the 3 airports, and transportation in NYC so awful, this flexibility is tremendous value to me. If Delta is now going to play games with fare classes and the other potential changes, the benefit will be effectively useless to me and may finally push me over the edge to United since EWR is currently most convenient for me. United’s SDC policy is just as restrictive as the potential Delta change, but so many aspects are better. It has been a couple years since anything positive has come from SkyMiles.
• Biggest victory of the week was finding where the new Delta website hides e-certs, there are in My Wallet. Now I can’t remember how to find My Wallet. Sigh.

Accor:

• Loyalty Lobby uncovered a tip on FlyerTalk for bypassing minimum thresholds on automatic miles conversion from Le Club Accorhotels accounts. I wish I had this when there was still such a great rate for Iberia Avio, but can’t fault Loyalty Lobby as I owe my platinum status and recent Iberia conversion to them as well. Iberia is still the best choice for me and my transfer has gone through.

Items for me to study:

• Frugal Travel Guy runs through Thanks Again Rewards, I have an account back when they were offering 1,000 miles bonuses, though spend little at airports so have not studied it much.
• Points Surfer introduces the Citi Prestige, a byproduct of this hobby is I have become a student of credit card benefits. I have mostly ignored Citi yet recently learned that the Thank You cards offer true worldwide rental car collision damage waiver.