We just finished our second annual challenge of 2024, Million Mile Madness. I know, I know, annual means once/year, but try to tell Greg, Nick and Stephen that. As is customary after our challenges, we’re using this week’s Saturday Selection to ruminate and reflect on what we’ve learned. (links to the original articles are embedded in the titles).
Greg uses his Amex Equinox credit for a free massage
Update: As we reported here, we think that this is probably dead. That said, we’ve since heard from a reader who said that the credit took 9 weeks to post, so we’ll update if and when we have news to report. In the meantime, it’s probably best to assume that this won’t work.
Equinox fitness credits are one of the long list of seemingly “useless for most us” credits that Amex tacks onto its Platinum cards in order to create more “value.” However, we recently heard from readers that some Equinox locations have massage treatments available and, more to the point, it’s possible to finagle the payment for those treatments so that you can use your Amex credits to pay for one. Greg the Frequent Miler, always one offer his body up in the same of science, fearlessly put himself in a masseuse’s way on the first day of the challenge…and succeeded in using his Equinox credit with the bleary-eyed bliss to show for it. What can you do to follow-up something like that? A helicopter ride across Manhattan, of course.
Qatar business class long haul for 40K AA miles
If there’s two things that we love here at Frequent Miler, it’s Qatar business class and decadent award sweet spots. Given that, it’s no surprise that both Greg and Nick took AAdvantage one of the best ways to fly long haul Qatar business on the cheap: spending 40K AA miles to fly from the Middle East to Asia. We’ve covered this terrific sweet spot in the past, but it deserves a spotlight given the price and the sheer distances involved…both of them got almost 10 hours in business class for just over half the cost of the same award between the US and Qatar. Nick also used the opportunity to highlight a few other AAdvantage mile bargains that you might have missed.
Wine tasting at 35,000 feet
Speaking of award chart sweet spots and drool-worthy suites, Qatar business wasn’t the only place that Greg and Nick overlapped. Greg has long said that his favorite airline product that he’s flown(so far) is Etihad First Class Apartments. Calling it a “seat” doesn’t quite do it justice, as the suite is bigger than some NYC apartments and has both a recliner chair and banquette seat that folds into a separate bed:
Both Greg and Nick flew Etihad Apartments between Abu Dhabi and Paris (but in opposite directions) and both of them enjoyed it immensely. But, being kind of a wino, I was particularly impressed with Greg turning his suite into a wine-tasting room, complete with a multi-course tasting room. Were these guys actually working?
How to get nice, warm butter on an economy flight
Lastly, but certainly not leastly, is our good buddy Stephen Pepper, who worked his away through the SAS Challenge at a fraction of the cost of Nick and Greg (to no one’s surprise). Stephen wasn’t just sitting in the back of the plane for fun, however. He was dropping some serious knowledge. Probably my favorite Pepper Play from the entire challenge was his method for dealing with the rock-hard bit of butter that every airline serves alongside the meal. I’ve long struggled with that ice-cold pat and how exactly to not demolish your dinner roll in the process of using it. Stephen has a solution however, simple and elegant in a way that could only be from him. Brilliant!
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I already commented to Gred, last week, that I’m pretty sure the amex platinum benefit won’t work for spa treatments any longer. I tried and failed to work this out, set up trial membership manually (as now required) and booked massage, but no credit posted.
Hasn’t this loophole been closed? I started seeing these emails the day after Greg posted his story on IG – https://www.reddit.com/r/amex/comments/1gqwo44/theyre_onto_it_equinox_amex_platinum_benefit/?rdt=42209