Hilton may be about to “surpass” Hyatt as the best hotel loyalty program, kids now get free Global Entry and a “hidden” sweet spot for AA flights. 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).
Will Hilton Honors soon “surpass” World of Hyatt?
In the world of points and miles, World of Hyatt easily tops most people’s lists as the most rewarding loyalty program…and specifically Hyatt’s Globalist status. Globalists get a fixed award chart (historically at very good value), waived resort fees and free parking on award stays, the ability to confirm suites at booking, legit free breakfast…we bloggers could go on and on (and we do). But, of late, Hyatt’s been a little, dare I say, disappointing? It’s added a ton of all-inclusive properties around the world, but the award pricing on those properties has quickly skyrocketed, often making them poor value. It lost Small Luxury Hotels pf the World (SLH), but then “replaced” it by purchasing Mr & Mrs Smith (MMS). We initially celebrated the acquisition – until we saw the award pricing. We’re used to getting something approaching two cents per Hyatt point in value, but MMS properties were sometimes below one cent per point (cpp) and now seem to average around 1.2cpp – but with less perks and elite recognition than we previously had with SLH. Essentially, Hyatt has grown, but much of what’s been added has arguably diluted the value of the program.
Despite all that, they’re still comfortably the best, right?
Feel those hairs stand up on the back of your neck, Hyatt? That’s Hilton breathing down your neck. After snatching SLH from the arms of Hyatt, Hilton has arguably done a better job of adding those properties to their own program, often with AMAZING value at the high end. I have an upcoming four night stay at Point Grace Resort in Turks and Caicos; a $6,000 stay that I booked for four Hilton free night certificates from credit cards. The attractiveness of the SLH integration, combined with the easy of earning Hilton Honors points, has even many die-hard Hyatt loyalists taking a second look, including Thrifty Traveler.
Kids now get free Global Entry
For everyone not named Nick Reyes (who famously refuses to get it), Global Entry is godsend, allowing its bearers to give up their background info and biometric data to the federal government in exchange for blissfully breezy re-entry to the country when returning from abroad. Even better, the fee for Global Entry is reimbursed by a small constellation of credit cards. If you’re into points and you’re not Nick, there’s no reason to not have it for free. Things get a little more complicated once you start popping out little ones, however, as it can become more difficult to line-up credits for the whole family as it grows. That’s all changing now, as parents who have Global Entry can add on one child under 18 for free (per adult), effectively making it half as expensive for a family of four to enjoy the passport fast-lane. Even better, if you paid for your kids in the past, it’s possible to ask for a refund (fake news).
Spirit Airlines reportedly considering bankruptcy
Spirit has had a tough go of it recently. Things looked rosy for quite some time as the airline spent two years planning a merger with JetBlue, only to be blocked from consummating the bond when the Department of Justice filed a suit under the auspices that US consumers were better served by having access to two medium-sized, sub-par, budget airlines instead of just one, larger, sub-par airline. JetBlue legal didn’t help the situation when it accidentally released internal projections that prices on some routes served by Spirit would increase by up to ~40% post-merger, in contrast to public assertions that pricing would be lightly-affected. Spirit stock plunged over 50% after the merger died, leading some analysts to project that the airline was on its way to the afterlife (something Spirit denied). Since then, Spirit has tried to burnish its reputation as an upstanding member of the US airline community with the addition of premium seating and fare bundles that loosely-approximate most carriers basic economy, main cabin and premium fare classes. It also added free wifi for elite members, removed changed fees and is generally trying to put on its Sunday best for all those folks that had written it off as a ne’er do well. Unfortunately, it might be too late for the bottom line as the airline is reportedly in talks with bondholders over a possible bankruptcy filing. Spirit shares again plunged as the news broke
Don’t sleep on redeeming Alaska miles for AA flights
Alaska Airlines has had a long, on-and-off-again relationship with American. Back in the old days, when Alaska was a misfit, unallied bachelor with a plethora of individual partnerships and awards charts, it was an unusual domestic friend of AA, which allowed members of both programs to earn and redeem miles on each other’s flights. At some point, things became acrimonious, and American decided that it actually wanted to compete with Alaska on the West Coast instead of playing nice, so that partnership went the way of the dodo. Now, the old frenemies are on the up-and-up again as Alaska has become part of American’s oneworld family. Not only can you earn and redeem, but each airline also offers significant benefits to elites members when flying on each other’s metal. Alaska re-jiggered its award chart earlier this year, getting rid of all of those partner-specific award charts in favor of one that’s consistent across all of them. In the process, many of its old sweet spots went away, much to the chagrin of folks who enjoyed looking for that rarer-than-a-unicorn 50K business class flight to Australia. That said, there’s still great value to be had. One sneaky-good sweet spot, that both Greg and I have been harping on for awhile, is booking AA flights using Alaska miles. The various Avios programs have been steadily hacking away at the value of their domestic US charts, and now Alaska is the best way to book AA flights under 1,400 miles…often significantly less-expensive than AA itself. I just booked two flights from Miami to Turks and Caicos for 4,500 miles each way, while AA wanted around $300 or 20,000 miles each way for the same flights. Greg and I aren’t the only ones; Ben over at One Mile at a Time is enjoying using Alaska to book AA flights as well and wrote about it last week.
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i booked Economy plus on AA JFK to Athens for 2 people 70k Alaska miles this summer .
dont remember exactly but was a lot more AA miles for same flight
Does anyone know the answer to this question…I have BA ff loyalty program which can book AA. Are there any advantages that AS has over BA in booking AA flts? I’m debating whether it is worth it to open up another ff program…
Check pricing from as many programs as possible. I don’t remember where (I read an awful lot of posts) but I recently read a post that illustrated that at least some of the time Alaska can be cheaper for American flights than BA.
Among other advantages are that Alaska will price itineraries with a connection while BA will charge you <i>per segment</i> and add the prices per segment together. Also, Alaska allows free stopovers. Feel free to ask for any elaborations or questions if you like.
Ben’s linked post highlights some examples. I just booked a short haul AA flight for 4500 Alaska miles that would have cost 5500 AA miles or 7500 BA Avios. Maybe 6000 Qatar Avios, I dont remember what their chart is up to these days.
Thank you Tonei. I guess I should have researched this question BEFORE the transfer bonus ended with AMEXP!
Thank you Christian (that’s my son’s name too)!
I’d say that you could at least argue that Hilton has surpassed Marriott to move into second place. Bonvoy has done so much self-inflicted harm since its’ inception that there’s not much in the way of compelling reasons to consider them top tier on any metric except sheer number of rooms.
Hyatt has shot themselves in the foot as well, among other reasons through ever-worsening category 1-4 certificates that haven’t increased to category 1-5 or 1-6 with the times. When these certificates began there were on 6 categories at all so this badly needs updating. The new limit on Guest Of Honor bookings also hurts those who want to see their family and friends taken care of but now that can only be done a few times a year. In short, is Hyatt slipping? Yes. Is it critical at this point? No.
I’d say that it depends on the specific person. I had been a multi-year Ambassador with Marriott. Post-merger and pre-COVID, we all saw the erosion of benefits to which you refer. Eventually, late check-out and free WiFi seemed to be the only benefits to be expected. My personal ambassador was of zero help. Then, personal ambassadors were eliminated. Eventually, to me, Bonvoy became a matter of pure economics. While my redemptions at Marriott are Hyatt-like in terms of cents per point, I was ready to clear out my points and abandon the program.
Then, something happened. This year, Marriott restarted its personal ambassadors. Night and day. My personal ambassador has done some incredibly crazy (good) things for me . . . way beyond expectations. My personal ambassador rescued my relationship with Marriott.
For some, Hyatt is the best program. For others, it’s Hilton or IHG or Sonesta. For me, it’s Marriott. I think each person needs to determine it for oneself.
There’s a lot of YMMV. I’m not at Ambassador level (I was Titanium for a while, now Platinum) so my experiences may be quite different but since the start of Bonvoy I’ve experienced degradation on pretty much every level of the program: destruction of award charts, huge award price increases, worse upgrades when suites are available, vast reduction in breakfast value, and completely unresponsive customer service when there’s a conflict with a hotel.
I’m truly pleased that there are at least some engaged loyalty members that Marriott seems to actually care about and that you’re one of them. My experience has increasing been an adversarial one since Bonvoy so I’m hardly rushing to hand Marriott my money.
Can you still transfer AmEXp membership award pts to Hawaii or did they stop that?
There had been a brief “intermission” . . . which seems to be the result of technical issues . . . but, “regular programming” has resumed.
Yeah, but . . . AA does not release transcon award inventory (during civilized times of the day) to partners. It makes a mockery of saying there is an alliance and partners. Horse manure.
The global entry FAQ has that you can’t get refunded for kids. Am I reading this wrong? Or am I missing something?
Check out the linked Dan’s Deals post
It says “ If you paid for kids membership in the past, you are not able to get a refund.”
So when can we start getting free global entry for the kids?
Sounds like it’s live now
I applied for my kids on 10/1 and didn’t have to pay.
Quick question. Lets say you have status on AA. If you book a flight on AA using Alaska miles does your AA status prevail?
Here’s what you do: 1) In your Alaska account, add a travel companion (yourself, as if you were another person) and you list your companion’s loyalty program as AA and 2) book the award flight for your companion (you). Alternatively, just do a straight award booking as if it is for a friend (you) and manually enter everything each time. But, don’t list you (as the account holder) as the traveler. Hope this helps.