Roll your own hotel elite status

Is hotel elite status worth it? This week, we talk about ways to get elite treatment without investing the time and effort in enough nights for elite status. Do you need to spend fifty or sixty nights a year with a single brand when you can alternatively simulate status with some simple tricks? Watch or listen to the podcast and you decide.

Elsewhere on the blog this week, we cover a couple of terrific status match opportunities for disgruntled Delta elite members, Greg’s (premature!) surrender on buying groups, how to cancel Virgin Atlantic awards online, and a lot more.

Subscribe to our podcast

^{00:00 Intro
01:52 Giant Mailbag
06:08 Card Talk: Bank of America Alaska Airlines credit cards
20:10 What crazy thing….did Delta do this week?
26:09 Award Talk: Alaska and JetBlue status matches for Delta elites
33:56 Award Talk: PointsYeah improvements
38:23 Main Event: Roll your own hotel elite status
41:02 Preferred Partner Hotel Booking programs
45:18 Hyatt / SLH partnership
49:04 Earning more points for paid stays
55:21 Room upgrades
1:11:38 Free Breakfast
1:13:28 Is elite status worth it?
1:18:43 Question of the Week: What kind of manufactured spending is safe?}

We publish Frequent Miler on the Air each week in both video form (above) and as an audio podcast. People love listening to the podcast while driving, working-out, etc. Please check it out and subscribe. Our podcast is available on all popular podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and many more.

Alternatively, you can listen to the podcast online here.

This week on the Frequent Miler blog…

My first steps towards divorcing Delta’s elite program

You know how you know that Delta messed up its program changes? When someone who used to spend $250K per year on Delta credit cards decides that they are done with your program altogether. Hey, I congratulate Greg on freeing himself from the Delta status hamster wheel. I imagine that top-tier status with Alaska, and its associated benefits when flying American Airlines, will be handy. But to me, the core message is this: Delta clearly went too far.

Delta may walk back some of their recently announced changes

Ok, so the last line of that previous summary may have paraphrased the words of none other than Delta CEO Ed Bastian when he spoke at a Rotary Club of Atlanta meeting (where he received boos over the Delta changes!). All due credit to Delta for actually listening to the thunderous roar of the majority of its members, but I think the key piece of intel to glean from his remarks is that Delta intends to end up with these requirements. They were merely looking to make all of the changes at once to avoid an annually recurring negative news cycle if they made the changes in stages. I also think that Delta saw its competitors lining up to poach its members and got cold feet.

JetBlue offering very generous status match to Delta elite members

Part of the reason for Delta “leaking” that they would be walking back some of their changes is no doubt linked to the announcement from JetBlue (and as you’ll see in a moment, Alaska, too!) that they will status match Delta SkyMiles elites to various levels of Mosaic — and they are even including pre-selected choice perks. Delta Platinums will get 4 Mint upgrade certs and Diamonds will even get 4 free Blade helicopter transfers between Manhattan and JFK or EWR. To keep the temporarily-matched status, you just need to get a JetBlue credit card by the end of the year. The credit card angle is a cunning move, but JetBlue wasn’t the first to think of it…

Alaska Airlines offering status match to draw disappointed Delta frequent flyers

Alaska is offering what is by some measures and even more enticing status match for Delta elites, albeit without the choice benefit perks offered by the JetBlue. I think many Delta elites will find the Alaska match more interesting because you won’t need to only fly on Alaska Airlines to benefit from status. Thanks to being a oneworld member, your elite status will get you benefits on other oneworld carriers also (like American Airlines!). And Alaska led the charge with making the match last through next year by getting an Alaska credit card by the end of this year. That’s a smart move to bring people into the fold and get started on driving loyalty beyond the airplane.

Delta SkyMiles: Business class deals aren’t dead. Here’s how to find them.

If you are sitting on a boatload of Delta SkyMiles and you’re wondering how you’ll use them all, Delta has made it a little easier to wipe out your balance by increasing the cost of awards from Mexico and South America to Europe and Asia by 30-40%. That’s a huge bummer and this post has been updated accordingly.

My buying group experiment: throwing in the towel, for now

Greg’s buying group experiment ended quickly, but I think he tanked it and threw in the towel too early. It didn’t help that he went on vacation for a big chunk of the time he had to meet his spending requirements and then he tried some things that I would have predicted might not work (like getting cancelled on an order for the max quantity at a store where he doesn’t have much purchase history). And I think he gave up on Aligned Incentives too quickly. I’ve been hesitant to write about gift card resale in the years since the TPM debacle, but I’ve been selling to Aligned for the last couple of years without issue (in much more careful quantities). While I do get alerts for stores that aren’t applicable to me (which I could filter out with settings on the site, but I don’t in case an alert comes in when I’m traveling to an area where those stores exist), but I also get enough online options that are break-even (+/- 1%) to be happy with that. I don’t resell gift cards frequently (and haven’t in the last few months), but with the holiday deal time approaching, I expect that I’ll hop back in over the next couple of months.

That time I left $3,000 in gift cards in my hotel room safe (on Nick’s mind)

Whoops! Over the summer, I made a big oopsie when I checked out of the Grand Hotel Victoria and left $3200 in Mastercard gift cards in the in-room safe. If you buy into the old saying “Happy wife, happy life”, you can imagine that life wasn’t too happy for the next few hours after I discovered that mistake. Thankfully, and somewhat amazingly, I eventually got all of the gift cards back (still sealed in the packaging), though it wasn’t as seamless as one might hope.

How to cancel Virgin Atlantic partner awards online

Cancelling a Virgin Atlantic partner award online isn’t as intuitive as it should be. When I read this post from Greg, I recalled having filled out this form at some point — I must have discovered this on a previous cancellation of my own but not thought to write about it. I’m glad he did because now the next time I want to cancel and I don’t want to pick up the phone, I’ll know where to go to look for the cancellation link.

[Free Carnival cruise is back] How to get free cruises by gaming casino status matches

Yep, you can still cruise for free with casino status matching. I had previously reported that the Carnival match was dead, but a few readers had noted that Carnival’s website had just been under maintenance. Sure enough, the Carnival Fun Match came back and it now says that it is valid through at least 12/31/24. I’ve updated this post accordingly. Also note that according to some comments on the post, the “must sail by” date on some of the other free cruise offers may actually be flexible (YMMV).

Villa Copenhagen Bottom Line Review (Book via Fine Hotels & Resorts or Choice Privileges)

At $384, the Villa Copenhagen is a bit on the high side of what I’d prefer to pay for an Amex FHR booking, but Greg gives this property a pretty glowing review nonetheless. A location near the main train station would be a big plus for me given that we’re usually traveling with quite a bit of luggage and while I’ve never been to Copenhagen, it sounds like this was also central to some of the sights of the city. At the very least, I’ll keep this in mind as a potentially good use of Choice Privileges points.

Sheraton Grand Doha: Bottom Line Review

Next up on the list of cities I’ve never visited (beyond the airport) is Doha. Tim reviews the Sheraton Grand Doha and it looks very nice indeed. I’ve been intrigued by some of the luxury hotel options in Doha for a long time — and honestly, I don’t know as though I would have considered this property because of the “Sheraton” branding . It’s not that I’m too high-maintenance to stay at a Sheraton, it’s just that I have a mental image of a Sheraton being a pretty basic full-service property and with reasonable options for brands I consider to be more “upscale” — like a Grand Hyatt available for 15K points and a Park Hyatt for 20K points — I’d probably have scrolled past a Sheraton. However, Tim’s review reminds me first that major US brands like Sheraton are often very different overseas than the cookie-cutter brand images we develop in the US and second that Sheraton Grand is a higher-level Sheraton brand (like Grand Hyatt) and I had somehow missed that word in the name. Ignoring the Sheraton Grand Doha would have been a big mistake as this property looks really cool and not at all like what I would picture for the brand.

(New limit of 10 discounts) Office Depot/OfficeMax: Buy $300+ Mastercard Gift Cards, Save $15

I don’t usually include gift card quick deal posts in the week in review, but I wanted to highlight this week’s Office Depot / Office Max deal because of the newly increased limit of 10 per household per day. From the comments, it sounds like it may be up to interpretation as to whether the limit is 10 gift cards or 10 discounts (though it sounds like maybe most stores are interpreting the offer as meaning a limit of 10 gift cards). If you buy more than $1,000 in a single transaction, the system will need ID verification. While it has long been possible to do multiple transactions at many stores, it is good to see this increased limit become official.

That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep an eye on this week’s last chance deals to be sure that you don’t miss them.

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.