A United Airlines Mileage Massacre, a new Citi Strata card and Pepper’s problems with Pepper (Saturday Selection)

Stephen Pepper has some serious reservations about Pepper (the app), Citi files another Strata card trademark and United “massacres” parts of its award chart. All that and more in this week’s Saturday Selection, our weekly round-up of interesting tidbits from around the interwebs (links to the original articles are embedded in the titles).

Pepper’s problems with Pepper

There’s something about gift cards and Pepper. Regular readers will recognize our British buddy Stephen Pepper, the Sultan of Savings (he put the Pepper in Sultan Pepper). Not only does Stephen work with us at FM, he’s also the writer and publisher of Gift Cards Galore, the authoritative gift card website that has near-Biblical status among buyers, sellers and resellers alike. Then things started to get complicated when Pepper Rewards debuted. Pepper (Rewards) is an app that stormed onto the scene earlier this year, selling in-demand brands at rates so low that it single-handedly depressed gift card resale rates nationwide. There’s trouble in Pepperdise, however (the app, not the British guy). They’ve re-jiggered their rewards program several times creating a confusing, two-tiered system where part of the bonus is paid out immediately and a second tranche is delivered in two (and now three) weeks. In addition to having odd multipliers and weird payout time frames, there’s no way to track the quantity of rewards you’ve been given, and the two interns in the back who manually award them often do so incorrectly, leading to additional “coins” (Pepper’s rewards currency) being awarded or taken away. Recently, there’s been an increasing flurry of “too good to be true” prices that involve future payouts and the whole thing has been sounding more and more like “ponzi” to me. I’ve become increasingly uneasy with Pepper (the app, not the guy) and was going to write a post laying out what’s been going on. Stephen kindly wrote a better, more complete Pepper post than I ever would have; it’s a necessary cautionary read for anyone that’s participating in the program.

Citi files a trademark for the Citi Strata Select…and it looks boring

The Citi Prestige was one of the best “too good to be true” credit cards in the history of points and miles. The original card had an annual fee of $450, but came with $250 of annual airline credit, free greens fees at golf courses, American Airlines Admirals Club access, the fourth night free at any hotel booked through Citi, and the ability to book cash flights on AA at a value of 1.6 cent per point. When the Prestige first arrived, the common refrain was, “how can this be profitable?” The answer was that it wasn’t…at all. Citi’s one entry in the ultra-premium card game was slowly whittled away like a chainsaw-carving until it was finally removed entirely from Citi’s portfolio. Since the demise of Prestige, there have been consistent rumors saying that Citi was on its way back into ultra-premium high life again, rumors that got even hotter when the bank issued trademarks for two new cards: the Strata Premier and Strata Elite. Those tantalizing teases ended up fizzling out; the Strata Elite was put on hold and the Strata Premier was just the new name for the card previously know as “Citi Premier.” Now, Citi has filed another trademark, this time for the Strata Select. Doctor of Credit theorizes that it’s most likely meant to be the new name of the Citi Rewards+, an unexciting sock drawer card whose sole purpose in life is to allow for a 10% annual rebate on up to 100K in points redemptions. Sigh.

Influencers find out that a glass hotel room isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

Imagine you get an offer in your e-mail inbox from the Paradiso Hotel, a boutique hotel in Ibiza, Spain. A bold headline at the top reads “Get a free stay in a four-star hotel!” All you have to do is sleep in a glass-walled display room in the hotel lobby with the lights on, while inebriated clubbers coming back from a night on the town gawk and point. Sounds like a great time, doesn’t it? “Influencer” couple Margaret and Corey Bienert thought so. They decided to the take the Paradiso up on its paradisiacal offer, but found that it wasn’t exactly to their liking, saying that in the end the whole thing made them feel “vulnerable” and like they were “part of the art.” I can’t imagine why.

A United Mileage Plus Massacre

Airlines have been on a devaluation kick over the past couple of years and some of the worst offenders have been United and Delta. Both airlines no longer have a published award chart (evidently Stephen King wasn’t available to write it), so they can pretty much charge whatever price strikes their fancy. As a result, tracking increases in given routes can be challenging at best. Back in May, there were multiple reports of significant increases in United partner awards, perhaps most notably into and out of Japan. After a Godzilla-sized outcry, United walked back those changes…but it appears that they’ve raised their nefarious heads again. 50%+ increases appear common; some routes have doubled in price. Delta SkyPennies SkyMiles have long been among bottom-dwellers of US airline points in terms of value, but over the last couple years it has looked like Mileage Plus has been on a personal mission to not let Delta run away with the, uh, crown. Loyalty Lobby has been tracking these developments and details the latest increases in the linked post.

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