Mark your calendars: if you have Bilt points, Monday will be a great day to consider transferring them. If you’d like to fly Air France or KLM in business class, we published a couple of helpful tricks this week, whether that’s how to find a calendar of availability or how to book via chat with Virgin Atlantic. Read about all that and a lot more in this Frequent Miler Week in Review.
This week on the Frequent Miler blog…
Bilt Rent Day for July: Up to 100% Alaska Airlines transfer bonus + Alaska status match
On Monday, July 1st (only!) Bilt Rewards will be offering an incredible transfer bonus to Alaska Mileage Plan. Whether you have no Bilt elite status and get a 25% transfer bonus or you have top-tier Bilt Platinum status and are getting a 100% transfer bonus, this offer is very exciting. Keep in mind that you’ll only get the bonus on up to 50,000 transferred points. Still, if I had 50K Bilt points, I’d probably speculatively male this transfer given how difficult it is to amass Alaska miles and how valuable I’m finding them to be even (and perhaps especially) after their award chart overhaul.
Swapping my Bilt points for Alaska miles
Greg wrote this post about how he planning to transfer almost all of his Bilt points to Alaska Mileage Plan on Rent Day (and he also addresses the fact that he’s mostly earning Bilt points by making Kiva loans). While we’ve long advised against speculative transfers, Greg mentions in the comments on the post that he’d only consider speculative transfers to a handful of really useful programs that don’t have draconian point expiration policies. I think he’s making a really smart move here.
Solved: Problem booking Air France/KLM with Virgin points
A number of readers had recently been reporting difficulty booking Air France or KLM flights using their Virgin points and indeed I’d been running into the same situation. Greg found a brilliant workaround: you can book those Air France / KLM flights via chat relatively easily. In fact, between the time when Greg discovered that tip and the time when he published it, I booked a flight i needed thanks to the trick. Since publication, I made an awesome redemption for eight (!!!) passengers on a transatlantic Air France flight, though my second experience with chat didn’t go so smoothly (it ended up in a 3hr ordeal). I’ll have a post coming about my experience with it, but the bottom line is that the chat workaround is indeed working and this trick ultimately made for a great redemption in my household.
A trick for viewing the Air France / KLM Flying Blue award calendar (updated)
If you’re less interested in using Virgin points and more interested in using your Flying Blue miles, you’ll definitely want to check out this updated post explaining how to access to the Flying Blue award calendar, which you might otherwise think was discontinued. I have to admit though that I have mixed feelings here: I’m not sure I trust the calendar to enough to not search specific dates anyway since the calendar already doesn’t show results for partners like Air Europa and even Greg admitted that one date showed a 50K “low” price, but that actually turned out to be an economy award. Still, the calendar could be useful for finding some low-priced stuff.
KLM Business Class Review (Boeing 777, 787-9, and 787-10) “This is not Emirates”
Wondering why you should care about booking KLM via either Virgin Atlantic or your Flying Blue miles? Look no farther than this post. I loved our KLM flight on a 787 a few years ago, and in this post Greg reviews his recent KLM experiences on 3 different aircraft. I really love their design innovations. I also love their table wear and the gimmick of the Delft Blue Houses. I really wanted to fly KLM to Europe instead of Air France, but I find that they just don’t have much availability from the airports I most often departure (though from others availability can be quite good).
Lessons from another “free” cruise booked: Holland America via Wynn Platinum status
I booked those transatlantic Air France flights via Virgin Atlantic this week because my wife and I also booked a couple of “free” Holland America cruises for next year, one of which is in Europe. In this post, I detail a number of interesting things I learned about booking the “free” Holland America cruise via the Wynn Rewards match. Despite the fact that the email says you can only book a cruise of up to 7 nights, you can really book one of up to 12 nights — and without the listed geographical restrictions. Furthermore, the cost to upgrade to a verandah cabin was very reasonable on our cruises. Stacked with the Amex Offer for $300 back, this is turning out to be a great deal once again.
Southwest Business Card 120K Offers: Get a Companion Pass with One Card (for two years?)
Speaking of great deals, I have long said that the Southwest Companion Pass is the best deal in domestic travel. That “best deal” could work out really well here if you’re able to thread the needle and time your application and spending to earn one of these 120K bonuses in January 2025 and end up with 120,000 bonus points plus nearly two full years of Companion Pass from just one card. Details about how you might be able to thread that needle are in the post.
What are Sonesta points worth?
I said it on the podcast and I’ll say it again (mostly just because it’s fun to say): Don’t take a siesta on Sonesta. That’s not because I really think that everyone is going to find big value in this program, but Tim dug into the value of the points and found that the Reasonable Redemption Value of these points is actually higher than the RRV for any hotel currency other than Hyatt. That means the current card welcome bonus could certainly be really attractive if you’re able to find Sonesta properties that fit your needs.
What are Marriott points worth?
On the other hand, while Sonesta points have turned out to be more valuable than expected, Marriott points have decreased in value a bit since our previous last analysis. Disappointingly, opportunities for higher-end value also seem to be tightening up according to Greg’s research. That said, a few days ago, I did book a one-bedroom suite at The Luxury Collection Manhattan (formerly the Conrad New York Midtown) for 34,000 points (the cash rate would have been north of $800. Actually, I used a 35K free night certificate!
The challenges of crafting the Flying by the Seat of our Points challenge
Do you wonder how Carrie and Stephen landed on the decisions they did regarding how to design our recent Flying by the Seat of our Points challenge? In this post, learn about their thought process and preparation and how I missed out on a trip to Sofia, Bulgaria!
Chase Sapphire Lounges: Locations and how to access them
Chase Sapphire Lounges are not yet as widespread as competitor lounges like Centurion lounges, but their presence is growing steadily. We wanted to have a post to track locations as they open as well as how to best access these lounges — which, ironically, might not be with a Sapphire Reserve.
Podcast: Navigating Amex’s Welcome Bonus Family Rules | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep261 | 6-28-24
On this week’s Frequent Miler on the Air we discussed Amex family rules, including everything you need to know about how and when they apply. However, this week’s episode was jam-packed with other pertinent points and miles topics, so stay out of pop-up prison and make sure you check out the show notes for full details and timestamps.
Podcast: Frequent Miler origin story: Nick’s story | Coffee Break Ep16 | 6-25-24
If you’ve wondered how I got into miles and points and won the employment lottery, scoring a job here at Frequent Miler ~7.5 years ago, this week’s coffee break outlines everything you want to know. We previously talked about Greg’s origin story a while back, so this week we delved into mine.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep an eye out for the last chance deals ending before Monday, July 1st.
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@Nick Reyes Reyes
Are they any tricks or tools that you recommend to search award availability and/or set up alerts for award openings for The Luxury Collection Manhattan Midtown? Although it’s not a terrible experience using the “Flexible Dates” toggle directly on Marriott’s website, there’s probably a better way of going about it. I found Zero, yes with a capital Z, availability for the next year after a search today for 2 flexible nights for 1 room with 2 adults. Even 1 flexible night returned Zero availability for the next year. I feel like I’m getting Bonvoyed, but perhaps Marriott hasn’t opened up much award space since it’s a new hotel with a current 1 star rating based on 1 review on their own website. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.