Chase accidentally denies cardholders Sapphire Preferred Welcome Offer points, Hyatt acquires new brand, hacks for booking Business Class awards cheap, and more: all of this and more in this week’s Saturday Selection, a weekly roundup of interesting tidbits from around the internet (links to each article are embedded in the title).
Chase mistake results in bonus points being withheld from Sapphire Preferred welcome offer
Applying for a Chase card is like learning a new board game with too many rules… or Trying to order a credit card from the Soup NaziThe most notorious is the “5/24 rule,” which makes it difficult (though not impossible) to get approved for many Chase cards if you’ve opened 5 or more new personal cards across all issuers in the past 24 months. There’s also the “24-month rule,” which means you won’t be eligible for a card’s welcome offer if you’ve already received a bonus for that same card within the past 24 months. Plus, with the Marriott card, determining your eligibility for a new card is like solving multiple Rubik’s cubes…While jugglingThe Sapphire Preferred (CSP) or Sapphire Reserve (CSR) cards have yet another “family” rule: if you previously had either card, you can only get a welcome offer for another Sapphire card if you no longer have either card, and if it’s been more than 48 months since you last received a welcome offer for that card. Get it? Apparently Chase doesn’t get it.
Travel with points Some people noticed that the bonus tracker wasn’t showing up in their online accounts for their new Sapphire Preferred cards, and when they contacted Chase Bank, they were told that they weren’t eligible for the welcome offer because of the 48-month rule. Never owned a reserve or preferred card beforeAfter inquiring, we discovered that there was an apparent coding issue affecting CSP applications in June, just as card offers were being increased. We believe most people affected by this issue are unaware of it yet, and that Chase will be on the hook once they start hitting their minimum spends in July, August, and September.
How to get cheap business awards with Alaska Mileage Plan
Before Alaska Airlines joined the Oneworld alliance, it had a fancy collection of award tables covering redemptions from a variety of different partners. The company’s rewards program, Mileage Plan, negotiated earning and redemption tables with each partner separately as each was added. This resulted in some very valuable, and some laughably outrageous. As part of joining Oneworld, Alaska Airlines moved to a new “uniform” distance-based table that was supposed to standardize pricing across most partners. This created a whole new set of winners and losers, but I suspected at the time that we might see some interesting pricing anomalies once the big consolidation process began. Frugal Traveler I recently discovered a great trick: a transatlantic business class flight can be made cheaper by adding an economy class connection at either the European or US end (known as a “mixed cabin itinerary”). We’ve seen this kind of attractive pricing on mixed cabin itineraries before – LifeMiles is a good example – but it contradicts how Mileage Plan normally handles mixed cabin itineraries, which are priced at the same level as full business class itineraries. I’m not sure if this is a new feature in Mileage Plan’s award chart or a temporary glitch, but either way, it could make already attractive European award prices even more attractive.
Hyatt bought me, and yes, it’s a hotel brand.
Hyatt has had a bit of a rollercoaster ride in Europe over the past few months. Long criticized for its limited footprint on the other side of the Atlantic, the company had hoped to solve this problem with a partnership with Small Luxury Hotels (SLH) and Germany-based Lindner Hotels AG (as well as the acquisition of an all-inclusive resort). This gave Hyatt an impressive portfolio of hotels across the continent, but unfortunately, the situation was exacerbated when SLH rejected Hyatt for Hilton Honors. Hyatt has responded to the criticism by: Mr. and Mrs. SmithA consortium of independent boutique hotels like SLH wasn’t as exciting as initially hoped, and now Hyatt is pushing even deeper into the European vacation world by acquiring a hotel in Germany. Me and all the hotels Independent from the Lindner Group and independent Joie de Vivre (JdV) PortfolioI’m a bit wary at first, as I don’t like deliberately lowercase letters in brand names. But “me and all” is particularly awful…what on earth does that have to do with English? The brand seems obsessed with being “digital” and creating a “warm” environment for “collaboration”, with a strange mix of hipster “cool” and high-tech corporate jargon. Oh, and dogs and rock stars, too. In any case, these hotels were already available through World of Hyatt, but at a fairly low value. Hopefully Hyatt owning these hotels outright will improve the math of the exchange…it worked well for Mr & Mrs Smith, right?
Fiji Airways has introduced a new award currency. Is it… AAdvantage miles?
In his predictions for points, miles and travel in 2024, savings king Stephen Pepper predicted that we would see more consolidation of airline programs. What he was hoping for was not an expansion of airline alliances like Oneworld or SkyTeam, but something like Avios, which currently combines British Airways, Iberia, Qatar Airways, Aer Lingus, Finnair and Vueling into one currency. Stephen felt he was unfairly robbed of points for predicting the same thing in 2023. He tried the same prediction again in 2024, when Finnair announced it would join Avios, but the actual consolidation didn’t happen until 2024. I think Stephen was expecting another Avios partner, but he was still right on the mark with the unexpected consolidation. Fiji Airways will adopt AAdvantage miles as an award currency in 2025. Clever readers will “point out” that Fiji didn’t actually have its own currency. Fijian customers historically couldn’t earn Fiji Miles on Fiji flights. Instead, Fiji encouraged customers to earn miles by crediting flights to partners. Now, instead of developing its own loyalty currency, it’s just adopted AA’s (you still deserve the points, Stephen). No doubt IAG, which owns British Airways, is “seeking out” to bring other independent airlines under the Avios umbrella. It’ll be interesting to see if AA wants to leverage the same AAdvantage.
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