Catching up on 2 weeks of big miles & points news

I’ve been on vacation since September 26th and a lot has happened in the points & miles space in the 2+ weeks that I was away! AA and Hyatt deepened (and arguably devalued) their relationship; the Amex/Hawaiian relationship seemed to fracture as Alaska Airlines tied the knot; Marriott gave Titanium elites a new valuable benefit; Virgin Atlantic announced their move to dynamic (read “uncapped”) award pricing; Choice partially walked back their Preferred devaluation; Bilt added new transfer partners; and SAS unveiled a crazy opportunity to earn One Million Miles (I recommend reading the latter in the voice of Dr. Evil in the movie Austin Powers). Walk with me through these and other happenings as I absorb the news and insert my 2 cents about each…

Since Thursday September 26th here’s what happened and here’s what I think about each… (dates are based on Frequent Miler publication dates, not necessarily when these things were first announced).

• September 26: Alaska / Hawaiian transfers live. We can now transfer our Alaska and Hawaiian Miles back and forth one to one! I’m feeling very good about My big bet on Hawaiian Alaska Mileage Plan. I haven’t connected my Hawaiian and Alaska accounts yet because when I signed up for the Hawaiian business card they created a new Hawaiian account for me instead of using the one I put into the application. I want to call and get that sorted out before connecting accounts.
• September 27: Amex to Hawaiian transfers dead then alive again. Right after Alaska and Hawaiian enabled transfers, people discovered that Amex transfers to Hawaiian had stopped working. Fortunately that was a temporary glitch and has since been resolved. That said, we have no idea how long these transfers will remain possible. If it’s important to you to move Amex points to Alaska miles (via Hawaiian), you should do so sooner rather than later.
• September 27: Spirit Airlines adds free WiFi and ditches award fees for Free Spirit members. That’s all good! Spirit has abandoned their old approach of pairing dirt cheap fares with fees for every little thing and is instead attempting to compete with regular airlines. Spirit has an extensive network out of Detroit (my home airport), but I’ve rarely flown them in the past. If they continue to make consumer friendly changes like this, maybe that will change.
• September 30: Virgin Atlantic to go to dynamic award pricing. Yikes. This means that we can expect to see some sky-high award pricing à la Delta. I think this only applies to Virgin’s own flights and not yet to partner awards. That’s good because most of the best uses for Virgin points are for flying partners rather than Virgin Atlantic’s own flights. The other good news is that this change may make companion and upgrade vouchers more usable since those vouchers will be worth a maximum number of points and they’ll allow top-offs, similar to how new IHG certificates work for free nights.
• October 8: Choice Privileges max award pricing for Preferred Hotels reduced from 118k to 87k. This is a relief. I love the ability to book Preferred Hotels with Choice points, but 118,000 points per night was crazy steep. 87K per night is still very expensive but not as bad as it sounds when you consider that both Citi and Wells Fargo points transfer to Choice 1 to 2. Also, there aren’t many properties at that top price. Only 9 out of 310 are currently priced 80K or higher. Meanwhile, 68 properties are priced 30K or lower.
• October 9: Hyatt & American Airlines deepen partnership, add more reciprocal earning opportunities. Starting in 2025, the ability for elite AA and Hyatt members to earn points in both programs at once will be gone. This will be replaced with opportunities for Hyatt elite members to earn AA perks as Milestone Rewards and/or to purchase status for a day with Hyatt points. On the flip side, AA elites will get the dubious opportunity to use AA points to buy Hyatt free night certificates at absurdly high prices and/or to get low level Hyatt elite status as milestone choices. While most commenters were very unhappy with the changes, they work well for me. I rarely pay cash for AA flights or Hyatt hotels, so the dual earnings available until 2025 are only mildly interesting to me. But I sometimes book AA flights for my niece and her family. Since the awards are giftable, I can use my Hyatt status and/or points to ensure that when they fly AA they get better seats, free checked bags, etc.
• October 10: Bilt adds Accor Live Limitless and TAP Air Portugal as transfer partners. It’s always good to see programs add more transfer partners. TAP Air Portugal has a few minor sweet-spots but nothing to get too excited about (that I’m aware of). Accor Live Limitless offers fixed value for their points: 2 Eurocents per point value towards hotel stays. Bilt points transfer 3 to 2 to Accor, so that means that Bilt points are worth 1.45 cents USD (1.33 Eurocents) each towards Accor stays based on current exchange rates. That’s not bad, but it’s also not super exciting. I will be excited though if Bilt offers a compelling transfer bonus to Accor in the future.
• October 10 (updated Oct 12): Marriott & Aeroplan launch reciprocal status match opportunity. This one is pretty exciting for high level Marriott elites. Similar to Marriott’s partnership with United, Marriott Titanium and Ambassador elites can now get Aeroplan 25K elite status simply by linking accounts. In addition to the standard things you get for low level status (like checked bags), Aeroplan offers two Maple Leaf Lounge visit certificates as a Select Benefit, and eUpgrades (20 automatic plus 5 as a Select Benefit). You can use the eUpgrades to upgrade either cash or award tickets. Reader Beth K says that the key is to “book an Economy Latitude award and then apply upgrades and clear into Business right away on international flights.” You can find the eUpgrade pricing chart here. Personally, I didn’t think I’d earn Marriott Titanium status this year (75 nights required), but my current plans show that I’ll reach 65 nights and I can pick 5 elite nights as my 50-night Choice Benefit. So now I’ll have to decide whether it’s worth a 5 night mattress run (or very big spend on my Boundless card) to re-up my Titanium status.
• October 11 (updated Oct 12): SAS Airlines will give you up to a million points to fly SkyTeam partners. Earning a million points with this promo isn’t easy: you need to fly 15 different SkyTeam airlines by 12/31/24. In each case you need to either earn SAS miles for the flights or spend SAS miles. Making this even harder is the fact that there are only 17 qualifying airlines for the promo and 2 of them aren’t even currently available to earn/spend with SAS. Air Europa will become available to earn/spend sometime in October (has that happened yet?) and Aerolineas Argentinas will become available sometime in December. This promo doesn’t make logical sense for anyone to do. That is, I don’t think a million SAS points are worth the work, time, uncomfortable flights, and expense involved in flying all 15 airlines in such a short time. That said, I love this as a fun challenge! I’m considering doing this. Maybe I’ll offer a big prize for the person who comes up with an itinerary that I’ll actually buy and fly. And I need to convince Nick to do this with me…

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