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This week around the web, we see a company wielding its ability to change its terms on the fly, some more depth to the discussion on the value of miles and points, how you can gain easy access to the Morgan Stanley cards, and more. Read on for this weekend’s recap.
MoviePass of the Skies? JetSmarter Guts Terms After People Pay Years In Advance
Ugh…MoviePass of the Skies is not a title anyone wants, but it seems that JetSmarter is earning it. I’ve talked with several happy JetSmarter customers over the years, but I can’t imagine anyone is happy with unannounced major changes to the terms without notice. I feel for folks who have poured large sums of money into this only to find the service now isn’t what they expected.
A Surprising Conclusion About What Points and Miles are Worth
J.M. Hoffman, whose name you might recognize from his excellent series here Frequent Miler titled, “You’ve gotta see this!” gives a fascinating take on my post this week about the value of miles and points. I don’t materially disagree with his thesis. In fact, I think it’s incredibly important to consider how you’ve obtained your miles and points and what you’ve given up in order to do so. In Hoffman’s case, a little bit of me died inside thinking for a moment that he had earned any significant portion of his 250,000 Delta SkyMiles at just one mile per dollar on the Delta cards. If he had earned that entire amount at one mile per dollar, it would have come in an opportunity cost of $6,750 (the cash back he could have earned at 2.5%). I imagine that in reality he earned a significant portion from flying as well – but the point remains that it is a complicated game we play, and this is another interesting take on it.
LifeMiles Upgrading Systems, Will Have Five Day Outage
LifeMiles has a really interesting program, and now that they are transfer partners with both Citi and Amex, it’s pretty easy to put together the miles for an award flight. That said, it’ll be not only the opposite of easy, it’ll be impossible as they upgrade their systems. For 5 days. In 2019, anything involving a computer that takes more than about five and a half seconds seems like an eternity. Taking the entire booking system down for five days seems pretty crazy. Let’s just hope that they don’t go and “enhance” things too much. That said, they’re booking engine certainly could use a little pick-me-up. If you have a particularly good redemption in mind though, you might consider making it before the system goes down. I wonder if mixed cabin pricing will remain the same after.
Korean Air Adds Fees For Award & Upgrade Cancellations
Korean has long had an incredibly generous cancellation policy. However, that is changing. Fees will now kick in if you cancel within 90 days of departure. That goes in effect tomorrow, and it looks like it applies to tickets that were previously booked as well. If you have a ticket within the next 90 days that you intend to cancel, you’ll want to do it tonight (1/20). Keep in mind that cancellation after check-in comes with very steep fees. If you have an award ticket on Korean, I think I’d avoid check in until you get to the airport unless you’re very confident you won’t miss the flight.
How does the Morgan Stanley “Invest with Rewards” program work?
Windbag Miles, the authority on Morgan Stanley Access Investing, brings us the latest in his saga about the Morgan Stanley Amex cards. Whether or not you’re into the mental gymnastics of multiplying your Membership Rewards via the scenarios at the end of the post, it’s great to know that access to the Morgan Stanley cards looks legitimately simple and not just a fluke. For the record, I was planning to include this post long before I read the last couple of paragraphs :).
That’s it for this week around the web. Check back soon for this week’s last chance deals.
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Can that guy be more stupid?? “The market doubles, and your $275 investment is now worth $550.” Why he didn’t say $275 investment increases by ten fold to $2,750, so that 27,500 points now worth $2,750! What a great redemption option!
I think it was in jest.
Surely it was. He was poking fun at my post about valuing your redemptions I think.
In Hoffman’s case, a little bit of me died inside thinking for a moment that he had earned any significant portion of his 250,000 Delta SkyMiles at just one mile per dollar on the Delta cards.
Not to worry, Nick. I amassed the miles the old-fashioned way: by flying on tickets that other people paid for. 🙂
Even so, it was pretty painful for me use 250K Delta SkyMiles and not even get business class on my return from Israel…
…which is why I have a dilemma. In the past, I’ve only flown Delta in the U.S. The payoff was Delta flights (which I still think are better than any other major domestic airline) and hundreds of thousands of SkyMiles. Now I find the SkyMiles are almost useless.
I could I have used 180K United miles to fly round-trip in business class to Israel, for example.
So I have to decide. Do I keep flying Delta for the Delta experience? Or do I switch to a less enjoyable airline and make it up to myself with more free international business-class flights?
But I digress…
It’s called OPM good post that how the Poor(me) do it .
CHEERS
There is always the choice of flying on Delta and crediting to either another SktTeam member or to Virgin Atlantic.
Know anyway to open a brokerage account with MS and not a managed account? Basically unless they give me stone performance guarantees I do not want to pay the exorbitant management fees.