How to get AA elite benefits when using partner miles, business class bribery and Pepper provides points proof (Saturday Selection)

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Turkish Airlines uses business class flights as bribery, Pepper providing points proof and how to get AA elite benefits on a ticket booked through a partner airline. 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).

Turkish business class is so good they used it to bribe a US mayor

A picture of the old “Turkish Delight” exchange.

I love flying Turkish business class. The food and drinks are delicious, the seat is comfy for a big guy like me and their Istanbul lounges are dynamite. In other words, you could totally pay me to fly Turkish Business. Evidently, NYC Mayor Eric Adams felt the same way. Over a period of several years, Adams received tens of thousands of dollars worth of business class flights, hotels and actual campaign donations from Turkish. In exchange, Turkish received some nice consideration from the mayor, including his office putting pressure on a local official to bypass fire regulations for a consular building. Adams, “a true friend of Turkey,” is now under federal indictment for bribery, wire fraud and accepting campaign donations from foreign governments. The moral of the story: if you’re going to risk going to jail by accepting gifts offered by the national carrier of a foreign government, at least make sure it’s Emirates or Etihad first class. After all this, Turkish announced that it will soon be debuting its new marketing slogan: “Business class worth getting indicted for.”

Pepper provides proof of pending points

I mainly write about Pepper Rewards because I love this photo of Stephen Pepper.

Pepper Rewards is an app that stormed onto the scene earlier this year, selling in-demand brands at rates so low that it single-handedly depressed gift card resale rates nationwide. They’ve re-jiggered their rewards program several times while creating a confusing, two-tiered system wherein part of the bonus is paid out immediately and a second tranche is delivered in two (and now three) weeks. In addition to having odd multipliers and weird payout time frames, there’s been no way to track the quantity of rewards you’ve been given, and the two interns in the back who manually award them often do so incorrectly, leading to additional “coins” (Pepper’s rewards currency) being awarded or taken away. Pepper’s daily discounted rates have become gaudier and gaudier which, combined with the lack of clarity surrounding payouts, has made Pepper feel positively Ponzi. Our own Stephen Pepper (the Guru of Gift cards), having never gotten around to trademarking his last name, is completely unaffiliated with the Rewards app. However, He does write the authoritative blog on gift cards, gcgalore.com. Stephen wrote a cautionary tale about the developments at the Pepper Rewards that I shared in the Saturday Selection a few weeks ago. He’s now back with more news…but this time it’s positive proof of Pepper power!

Pepper has added a feature to the app that shows all of your past points earning as well as what you’re owed in the future…and it instantly updates with purchases. Imagine that! While this may just be a way of letting us know exactly how much we’re owed if they go out of business, it does make things feel a bit more above-board.

How to get AA elite benefits when booking with partner miles

Qatar Airways award devaluation American Airlines Alaska Airlines
It can be a confusing target to try and get AA benefits when you’re booking with partner miles.

Navigating the task of getting AA (or Alaska) elite benefits when booking through partners can be tricky business. The reason is that most partners will automatically apply youe elite number in their program to a booking, and it’s usually not possible to change it on their own website. I had this situation come up earlier this year during our “Flying by the Seat of Our Points” challenge. The Alaska flight that I was booking was far cheaper using Avios than Alaska miles, but I wanted my elite benefits to apply to the booking. Avios doesn’t allow you to use anything but your BA number when booking, but I was able to get my Alaska number added retroactively by going to Finnair’s website and entering my BA record locator. Bizarre, huh? Dan’s Deals encountered the opposite situation last week when he wanted to book a short AA economy flight (which is dirt-cheap on Alaska), but still get his AA elite benefits. The trick is fairly simple…don’t use your saved Alaska profile, but rather make a reservation in your name without entering ANY loyalty program info. Shouldn’t this all be easier?

Alaska adds Oman Air redemptions

a seat in a plane
Oman Air 787 business class (Insanely tall image courtesy of Nick “Feel the Fedora” Reyes)

Oman Air is an airline that I’ve long wanted to fly, and Oman a country that I’ve long wanted to visit. The airline’s premium products get excellent reviews, but they don’t have any flights to the US, so the only way to sample them is by originating in Africa, Asia or Europe. Our own Nick Reyes had very nice things to say about Oman Air’s business class when he flew it during 2022’s Frequent Miler Annual Challenge. Oman Air plans to eventually become a full oneworld Alliance member later this year, which will create many additional ways to skin a flight to Muscat. Although the oneworld transition has been delayed several times, Alaska Mileage Plan has unexpectedly taken the initiative to add Oman Air awards before they join oneworld (one of the exceedingly rare examples of Alaska being quicker on the draw than other airlines). So, Oman awards are now live on Alaska’s website, availability is good and pricing seems reasonable (45K in business class between Muscat and Europe). It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though. Mileage Plan still hasn’t added added the capacity to book awards with more than one partner, making Alaska the only connecting airline that doesn’t require booking two awards. And guess what? Alaska doesn’t fly to Africa, Asia or Europe, meaning that the only way to currently use Alaska miles for Oman tickets is to book a separate flight to an Oman gateway first. Alaska says that multi-partner awards will be live by the end of the this year and, if it happens as promised, that Oman Air frown will turn upside-down.

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Raghu Narayanan

I just booked AA metal using Alaska Mileage program. SFO-ORD non stop for 12.5K miles. AA required 20K miles. I have a AA Citi Card that is on my profile
So I now get free bags for 3 people. This is the kind of hack that makes me goto work everyday!!

King

I had 3 AA reservations, booked thru Alaska miles. After the reservation chatted with AA support in the app, and replaced the AS number with AA number to get the baggage benefit for having an AA card.

James

Alaska’s award pricing in EMEA and Asia Pacific (so, not the Americas) is quirky. Anything under 1500 miles costs 7.5k miles, and above that is at least 22.5k. So, the sweet spot is anything below that. From Muscat, that seems to include much of the Middle East (including Amman, but not Beirut or Turkey) and most of India (but not Sri Lanka).

How far can you go crossing the continent on these short haul flights? Pretty far! This is the best I could come up with:
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=kef-hel-fco-amm-mct-del-cmb-bkk-hkg-icn-cts

HEL-FCO is just over 1500 miles, but Alaska seems to price it at 7.5k anyways. Go figure.

That gives me an idea… Has there been a Frequent Miler challenge focused on short haul flights? Besides Alaska, I know you’ve mentioned short haul sweet spots on BA and AF (and maybe others). Could be some fun to be had there.

Last edited 3 days ago by James
James

Correction, KEF-HEL is over 1500

Jules

@Tim: for Oman air, what departure city in Europe have you seen Bus pricing at 37,5k? All the ones I’ve checked price out at 45k, with the exception of LHR which prices out at 55k.

Last edited 3 days ago by Jules
Christian

Wasn’t Alaska going to make multiple partner awards available earlier this year?

Linda

Tim, I know you are an Alaska MVP+++ and probably aren’t going to use it, but this article from DD is one of the most useful posts I’ve seen on FM as it is a mystery that I have tried to solve in the past. Yay! And the news on Oman Air as a partner to Alaska is great -Oman has been on my list for ages.

Lee

Everybody, listen up. Here’s the solution. Let’s say you have tier status with airline X but you’re going to book an award flight with points in your account at airline Y. Log into your account at airline Y and create a travel companion profile — and YOU are the travel companion and you enter your airline X loyalty program information. You then book the award flight for your travel companion named YOU. Do this with all partner airlines at which you have points. It works quite well — there’s a range of things you can do with this technique. Best of luck.

Miles

Are you part of a BA family account? If you are, you can only redeem for those accounts but I think otherwise you can put in any FF number.