Hilton gift cards are causing headaches, AA is starting to dynamically price partner awards and you can now use Capital One travel credits for Southwest flights….or at least some of you can. 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).
Is AA launching dynamic pricing on partner awards with Fiji Airways?
‘Dynamic” is one of a few, relatively benign words that can provoke instant stink-eye from many of the lovely folks that are into points and miles. That’s because it almost always refers to “dynamic pricing,” when loyalty programs have award prices that fluctuate up or down, supposedly according to demand and/or what the cash cost of that flight or hotel would be, as opposed to having a fixed award chart The main problems with dynamic pricing is that it allows the rewards program to perform stealthy, no-notice devaluations of their currency and it makes it more difficult to get outsized value for our stashes of points. If no one knows what an award is “supposed” to cost, it’s harder to tell if it’s a good value – or more expensive than it used to be for that matter. American Airlines has been dynamically pricing awards on its own flights for some time, while awards on partner airlines are still based on a published chart. That said, AA doesn’t stand for “always altruistic,” and the expectation has been that the dastardly dynamic disease would eventually spread to partners as well…and it may already be starting. After a slow burn of fits and starts that began in mid-September with a bit of soft-shoeing on AA’s part, the program has now made awards on Fiji Airways completely dynamic. Fiji is in the process of adopting AAdvantage Miles as its own rewards currency, so optimists may hope that’s the reason why and that AA’s remaining tranche of partners will remain unsullied. Other think it’s just the first shoe to drop. Award Wallet has the details.
Ah, the things that we do to use our Amex credits. Back in 2023, Amex brought its love for extreme couponing to the portfolio of Hilton cards, rejiggering what was already there on the Aspire while adding quarterly $50 Hilton hotel credits to the Surpass card. Because these credits were broken up by quarter, it was difficult for many people to fully take advantage of them…unless you paid cash for a Hilton stay or incidentals once per quarter, at least some would go by the wayside. Luckily, enterprising folks quickly figured out that you could order a physical $50 gift card from Hilton and it would trigger the credit, leaving only the $1.95 shipping charge to be paid out of pocket. We all quickly amassed stacks of $50 cards, each bursting with excitement to be used alongside its brethren together towards a future cash stay. What a great deal! Once folks started trying to use these cards, however, reports of issues various and sundry started to trickle out, primarily some properties insisting the cards “don’t work” and other cards getting declined or only working for a fraction of of the stated face value. It turns out that Amex appears to be auto-approving a 15% addition to some (though not all) charges on the gift card…similar to how credit cards will often auto-approve 15-20% above a restaurant charge in anticipation of a tip. Why would that auto-approval be happening at a hotel front desk, where no one (outside of Nick Reyes palming $100s for an upgrade in Vegas) ever leaves a tip? Because Amex’s war on happiness, that’s why. Doctor of Credit has a useful summary of what’s been happening with a plethora of data points.
Southwest now appears on Capital One’s travel portal
Speaking of credits, cardholders of the Capital One Venture X and Venture X Business are no doubt familiar with each card’s annual $300 “travel credit.” When it first launched, it was a statement credit for travel booked through the Capital One travel portal that appeared within a week of that charge hitting your account. Because gamers game, it was quickly discovered that if you booked a refundable hotel stay, got the $300 statement credit and subsequently needed to cancel that stay for one reason or another, you’d be refunded for the hotel stay but the $300 statement credit would remain on your account, effectively letting you cash out the benefit. However, C1 put an end to all that tomfoolery last year when it changed the benefit from a statement credit applied after the charge to a discount that applied at booking. If you used it for a hotel stay and then cancelled, you’d get the credit back to use for another booking. This meant that we had to *gasp* use the travel credit for actual travel…often at elevated prices when compared to other online travel agencies (OTA) and with the loss of rewards-earning and elite benefits when booking most lodging. I’ve found that rental car on C1’s portal are often competitive with services like Priceline so I’ve usually used them that way. However, Travel on Points recently discovered another good use: Southwest flights. Southwest has historically not appeared on travel portals or OTAs, but that’s been changing significantly over the last year as the company tries to jolt out of its stagnant revenue bog. Now it’s on C1…but only for some folks. I have access to Southwest flights when I look via my Venture X, but my wife doesn’t when we go through her Venture X Business. After all, it can’t be too easy, can it?
Hyatt has a special cancellation policy for elite members
Anyone who’s read Frequent Miler for any length of time, or points and miles blogs in general for that matter, will know that we really like Hyatt. Even more so, we really like Hyatt Globalist, the hotel company’s top-tier elite status. You’re treated well when you’re a Globalist, outside of the fact that everyone has to keep saying nonsense, tongue-twister words like Globalist, Explorist and Discoverist. I’ve tried to envision the planning meeting that birthed those awkward names and can only assume that copious amounts of alcohol and laughing gas were involved. In any event, outside of lackluster nomenclature, Globalists get waived resort fees, free parking on award stays, an excellent breakfast benefit, meaningful upgrades and a suite of nice choice benefits along the way. But there’s another thing that Globalists (and Explorists) have access to…a more flexible cancellation policy. Hyatt’s usual drill requires you do cancel a reservation at least 48 hours before check-in to avoid a penalty. However, Globalist and Explorist members can cancel up to 24 hours before. Ben over at One Mile at a Time wrote about this benefit a few weeks ago and I thought it was a good excuse to remind all those commitment-phobic Explorists and Globalists out there that you’ve got even more time to dilly-dally before you finalize your Hyatt stays.
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Another data point for those Hilton gift cards. Finally got one to go through for $44.00 ($50 didn’t work). Other one never worked. After being passed back and forth between gift card company and AMEX, was told the second card would never work due to fraud concerns. They sent me a replacement card after much insistence. Haven’t tried it yet. System is clearly broken.