Airline loyalty programs have long tempted their most frequent customers with upgrades, bonus points, and other forms of special treatment. But the definition of a “frequent flyer” for many carriers has begun to shift from one who flies a lot of miles to one who simply opens his wallet the widest.

At one time it was possible to perform so-called “mileage runs” to earn miles cheaply (under 4 cents paid per mile flown) by traveling during off-peak periods and adding extra connections. A small minority of passengers might book $500 mistake fares to Europe from the West Coast for the chance at increased upgrade priority, waived airline fees, and enough award miles for two business class tickets to Bali.

New rules for earning elite status with two of the largest carriers, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, have effectively set a floor at between 10 and 12 cents per mile flown. Additional changes slated for 2015 will decrease the number of award miles most customers earn, raising the cost to about 20 cents per mile flown in order to earn both the elite benefits and award miles equivalent to what were provided just a few years ago. And carriers have been simultaneously devaluing their award charts so that these miles don’t go as far as they used to.

A Shift to Revenue-Based “Loyalty”

No-frills carriers like Southwest Airlines have long used what are called revenue-based loyalty programs, and their customers generally give them high marks. But their business models are fundamentally different in other ways: they often provide one class of service, fly mostly domestic routes, and have more price-sensitive customers who prefer a regular discount over aspirational redemptions.

There’s no way to rig a revenue-based system to your advantage because booking cheap tickets just means you’ll earn fewer points, and extra connections will just waste your time.

Whether larger, international carriers are making a mistake by copying their discount brethren is open for debate. But it is clear from current trends that loyalty programs of the future will reward only those customers who spend the most money with a preferred carrier, especially those with business travel that is fully reimbursable by employers. Is it still worthwhile for the average passenger to pursue elite status with an airline?

Many Ways to Earn and Benefit from Status

Elite status can still be valuable to many passengers — even some infrequent leisure travelers — but earning that status requires more foresight and planning than ever before. Carefully evaluate how you currently travel, how you would like to travel (assuming you earn these benefits), and the competition that exists in your home market.

A woman who lives in Los Angeles and splits her travel between American Airlines and Delta Air Lines is less likely to earn elite status with either one. But both American and Delta are partners with Alaska Airlines. She could credit all her miles to Alaska’s Mileage Plan and earn status with benefits like priority boarding and better seat assignments even as she continues to fly on American and Delta.

If she were willing to book all her travel on Alaska, which has a strong presence on the West Coast and comparable fares, she could even lower the qualification requirements to earn her status faster and consider making an attempt to enter a higher elite tier. Alaska also offers some good award redemption opportunities on premium international carriers. In fact, it requires the same number of miles to fly all the way to Johannesburg (with a free stopover) as it does to just visit Hong Kong.

Consider another scenario: A man who frequently takes short flights on regional jets wouldn’t be enjoying an upgrade even should he manage to achieve elite status. But if he pays a lot for those flights by booking last-minute tickets for business and is running a lot of purchases through a mile-earning business credit card, then that elite status could still let him avoid change and cancellation fees when he goes to redeem his miles for award travel.

Elite Status Matters Only If You’ll Use It

If you don’t value business or first class travel and think all flying is uncomfortable, then you might not want the miles to begin with. Similarly, if you always use a carry-on, book far in advance to get the aisle seat you want, and never change your travel plans, then you don’t need to worry about waiving fees. A cash-back credit card and a revenue-based loyalty program would be better choices.

Always consider your objectives before setting out on a mission, and research the best path to achieve them. It may not be the most direct or obvious.

Sometimes the answer is starting you in the face. If you want something, pay for it. More and more carriers are offering discounted upgrades at the time of booking or at the gate rather than “giving them away” to elites. In-flight cocktails, airport lounge access, and more are all available for purchase. Checking an oversized bag? When you return from your trip go through your clothes and take note of how many you actually wore. Next time, carry on.

Are the perks of elite status really necessary? Some people imagine their life will be better since they can’t stand the thought of being cooped up in a metal tube for five hours. Don’t forget you’ll have five days at your hotel once you land. Maybe your upgrade efforts would be better directed elsewhere.

At the end of the day, status tends to go to those who earn it and will use it. You might fit that description if you’re a frequent business traveler who buys expensive tickets. You can still fit that description if you’re a scrupulous leisure traveler who knows what she wants and plans a way to obtain it. Most people just want to get from A to B with a minimum of hassle. Elite status isn’t necessarily for fools, but there are certainly more important things in life than agonizing over your place in the boarding queue.

Note: This piece was written for and adapted by U.S. News and first appeared in the Travel Features section of usnews.com. Read the original article.

Author note: This is a long post, but it’s designed to generate discussion on how transferable points (UR, SPG, AMEX-MR and now Citi TY points) are going to change how airlines set mileage redemption prices and compete with each other on price, quality and value. The views here are my own, but having spent some years doing M&A valuations, airlines have a long way to go to be considered a competitive market. Comment below on what changes you think are coming down the road and how these currencies may been good or bad for customers and airlines.

Expect to see more banks offer transfer options. Currently, SPG, AMEX, Citi and Chase all do.

A new player to the game

With the addition of Citi Thank You Rewards’ transfer partners and Chase Ultimate Rewards steadily adding more transfer partners, for the first time, we might start seeing carriers begin to compete on the merits of their programs.

In the world before alliances, airlines used loyalty programs as a way to keep your revenue business. It was a straight up reward for loyalty. If you had a choice of carriers flying JFK-LAX or JFK-LHR, an airline wanted you to redeem more on them so that they’d be top of mind when you called to purchase your next revenue flight. They’d sometimes even top up your account to get you to that next award!

As the alliances formed and nearly every major airline buddied up – much like picking sides on a dodgeball team, the addition of global partners was seen as a competitive advantage, being able to project passengers to more aspirational destinations. “Fly with us (or our partners with our codeshare) to Tahiti or Machu Picchu.” American made a bet on strong partners in South America and Australia, while UA and DL divvied up Europe and Asia.

As credit cards entered the game, the balance started to shift. Miles became less of a reward for loyalty and more of a marketing tool, as well as a clearinghouse for distressed inventory. “We can’t offer $72 (at cost) fares from SFO-LAX, but we can sell miles to many partners for more than that and YOU get a FREE flight!”

But even then, it was still a pretty closed system. You could only get those miles in meaningful quantities by actually flying or maybe having the one cobranded credit card. 25,000 American Miles = Free trip to Disney World. As the hub and spoke model matured, many markets simply had dwindling options. People became United, Delta or American customers because they HAD to. Or they flew Southwest.

The carriers recognized this. If you live in San Francisco, you’re probably “locked” into United. If you live in Atlanta, Delta is your “go-to” airline, whether you like it or not.

As a result, there was less incentive to compete on quality of product or mileage programs, because they became the dominant game in town. Price still mattered, and people would take that awful overnight connection or 5:30am flight if it meant saving a few bucks. But the airlines had a pretty sweet deal. With few options, your miles could gradually accumulate, but if the airline hit a rough patch ::poof:: suddenly those miles are worth less. The books balance, handshakes all around in accounting.

Airline Voice: “What are you going to do, it’s not like you can switch to another carrier from your hometown? Or if you do, it’s going to be a straight up fixed value scheme like Southwest, Virgin or Jet Blue. In the latter two cases, good luck on relying on them to take you ANYWHERE in the US, much less the world like we and our alliances can.”

It rarely made sense to credit miles to alliance partners because then you’d get a watered down version of status. No free upgrades, no waived fees. Maybe a few drink chits and lounge access. But many foreign carriers had even steeper qualifying tiers.  (not all! BMI/Aegean/Turkish were/are oft-discussed exceptions)

But with the erosion of elite benefits, adding revenue requirements and devaluations of award charts year after year, many people switched to a “free agent” model, especially given the number of miles being issued through non-flying (66% according to AA’s 10-K’s). Have a lot of miles in many accounts to protect against devaluations or regions where a particular alliance is weak. Take the strategy from the book of financial planners and “diversify your portfolio”.

But with meta-programs, we’re starting to see a change on the horizon and I put together some of those implications below. I think the people running these programs know this and in many ways these changes are good for us, the customers.

Carriers can profit from others’ distressed inventory

Minting a bunch of miles to be used on your partners inventory can net you a lot of money. You sell the miles for $500 and pay the partner $300 for a flight. The partner might be paying you less than you are them, but they are in dire financial straights and need the money (AA, UA). Or they’ve bought a ton of aircraft, can’t fill them and would love to offset some of the costs (TK), particularly since their own members can’t redeem easily/cheaply (TG).

People have far more options to shop award charts and cherry pick redemptions across them

This means that devaluations will more likely move customers away than they did in the past. Now, you can effectively say one chart “dominates” another in certain regards, and this certainly matters for airlines that cooperate with the same bank (SQ/UA/Chase, ANA/Air Canada/AMEX, DL/AF/AMEX). This will add pressure to keep certain region pairs, like US-Europe, US-North Asia/South East Asia/India in check, much like domestic economy awards have always been far more in lockstep than international awards. There is inherent pain in devaluing if your partner/competitor does not or if people have a “backdoor” option that people do favoring SQ over UA in many cases with the same points balance.

For example – Joe from Saverocity not too long ago discussed that transferring to Flying Blue would have cost his client 75,000 AMEX MR points for an open jaw , but transferring to Delta only requires 50,000 for the same award. Another flyer talker debates how to redeem MR points with ANA one way (since they charge the same as roundtrip) and the community points out 45,000 each way on Aeroplan is a better deal. Jason Steele at TPG points out you can redeem on Malaysian for flights under 500 miles in length for a cool 18,000 Thank you points. But why would you do this when Avios are SO easy to earn and have access to nearly the same inventory?

Carriers now have to keep tabs on foreign award charts

When customers have options with miles, they start to look more like dollars, euros or yen. And when that happens carriers have more pressure to compete on “price” and “quality”. Truly innovative programs like BA, TA and SQ “get it” and are ahead of the curve on offering unique redemption options and working to become consolidators across many transferable programs. Look at how much positive press has been written about them. How many times have you recommended the BA card or a UR card to a friend as their first “starter” card to get to Europe? Is it any surprise that Korean, Asiana, TACA, LAN, BA all offer CC’s as well as redemption options with meta-points? They know there are big bucks in luring redemptions from partners and competitors.

This downward pressure is good for the carriers too, because it starts to influence customer monetary decisions, which is a better use of marketing/mileage program budgets, generating a better return for the airlines. I will gladly use my Chase Points, MR or even starpoints with BA and SQ (or VS!) because they are inherently easier programs to use than the US (or many other devalued) programs. This means they get my booking fees, fuel surcharges, upgrade fees and change fees, while paying only a fraction to partner programs that can’t sell those seats.

This will likely strain alliance relationships, and make non-alliance partnerships stronger

Non-alliance carriers have the freedom to cherry pick partners that alliances do not. It’s not surprising that Singapore partners with Emirates and the Virgin group airlines because they offer a more premium experience – consistent across multi-carrier itineraries. It’s a let down to redeem hard-earned miles for an ancient 747 with screens at the front of the cabin on a 12 hour flight when you could be flying with state of the art lie-flat seats and GOOD food. Passengers, especially frequent ones, are taking notice that ANA, Asiana, Cathay, Qantas, Lufthansa, Swiss are better value for redemptions than US carriers, particularly on city pairs they both serve. The argument “I just want to fly one airline (or a US-based) airline” that kept the UA and DL/NW hubs in Tokyo alive is dying quickly.

Carriers will be more watchful of inventory and redemption imbalances

This imbalance of quality also puts pressure on charts to bifurcate and differentiate between awards on the carrier vs. its partners. United has done just that. Delta is introducing 5 tiers. Some carriers are even moving to dynamic pricing. As miles begin to act more like pure cash, carriers will need to seek additional price points to keep a good handle on the rate of redemption. They can’t risk a good quarter going belly up due to the mileage program.

This increases the threat of murky fuel surcharges

On the downside, this increases the pressure on US programs to match international peers on charging fuel surcharges (YQ). Delta is starting to charge on EU-originating itineraries. When the mileage charts will have increased pressure to stay in step, particularly on key region pairs, one way to make the redemption LOOK the same is through increasing YQ. It looks like a government mandated fee and airlines have never been transparent about how those surcharges are being calculated. Enough shenanigans with this though may cause more countries to ban them as Brazil has.

But tiered charts are a win for flexible travelers

But this tiering is also, in some ways, good for flexible/savvy travelers, because the people who HAVE to fly to Paris for New Years will subsidize your mileage spending. If you’re more patient or can wait to book travel close in by maintaining some status, you may come out ahead with these changes since the lowest costs on the award charts are the ones that offer the most attractive marketing to the masses.

Charts will likely better reflect geography in the future

In the mid term, we’ll likely see more tweaks to redemptions that are grossly disproportionate to their geography or operating costs. UA is (supposedly) tightening up in Oceania. South America and Africa were broken into  multiple regions. Hawaii is now a separate region for most of the US carriers, but not for foreign partners. Typically the further the region from the airline, the less attention they pay to it and they better the redemption value. US Airways still has a fundamental lack of understanding of where anything in Southeast Asia is.

Longer term, carriers will probably start to pay more attention to the reimbursement rates they are sending each other.

I would love to be in the room when United tries/tried to argue it should be reimbursed the same rate for travel from SFO-HKG as Singapore or American on routes to Asia with Cathay. Similarly for Aerolineas Argentinas and Delta (so I’m not hating on the US carriers). When Singapore demands more for segments shared with partners, UA starts to block space. But that doesn’t work because I’ll just transfer my points to SQ instead of UA and book the same itinerary. These backdoors mean that carriers will have additional pressure to keep up quality with their partners and general competition or risk being shut out of the redemption market. Metal neutral joint ventures have been formed, particularly among UA/LH/NH, AA/BA and DL/AF/KL on routes they dually serve, so each carrier splits the kitty evenly regardless of who you fly, but if service and award charts get too out of whack, there will be increasing pressure to part ways and compete on the merits of their product, frequency and network.

There may be initial infighting, but perhaps eventually carriers will have to compete on quality on an unequal playing field, merge/acquire or die

The alliance fracturing may be driven by structural costs. It’s no real secret that government owned alliance partners and those with access to cheap jet fuel and cheaper labor markets have an absolute advantage over carriers hamstrung by unions and fuel prices. But that’s how trade (particularly free trade) works. Boeing/US, Airbus/EU, Embraer/Brazil may be better at building aircraft and the UAE, Singapore and Hong Kong might be better at flying them. Maybe every country doesn’t need its own airline.

There may be a few bankruptcies and restructurings along the way, and carriers putting pressure on regulators to decry that these advantages are somehow “unfair”. But I’m (cautiously, wishing, praying) optimistic that regulators will eventually, years down the road, end up on the side of free trade over protectionism, particularly given the considerably reduced security concern of letting a foreign carrier operate point-to-point within your airspace (or y’know build vehicles for your roads and trains for your tracks…). If it opens up the possibility for transoceanic acquisitions and mergers like we have in NEARLY EVERY OTHER INDUSTRY, that may not be a bad thing in the medium term.

Consolidation at home = bad. Consolidation abroad = less confusing and wasteful

Having flown itineraries with 8 carriers, it’s an absolute bear to manage all the systems and there would be huge synergies/savings that could be passed on by taking the best out there and cutting out partner communication snafus and millions of dollars wasted in rebookings/aircraft deployments/excess inventory on routes. Similarly having a LX or SQ standard of service introduced to the Americas would be a boon for most air passengers, even if they slipped a little bit. I imagine Germans would love to get seat assignments when they fork over thousands of euro for a LH business class ticket. While LAN is eating up South America, we’re at least seeing better schedule alignment, smoother ticketing, online check-in and fewer lines and stranded passengers. Newer carriers like Azul and BQB can still enter and often leapfrog legacy costs. Openskies within the EU has seen a plethora of discount carriers fly point to point routes never before possible.

While we decry consolidation in the US, particularly because most of us have seen prices rise (partly due to fuller planes and the economic recovery since 2008) even alliance partners are still pretty inefficient at talking with each other. To be fair, they operate in a pretty unique co-opetive and complicated, highly regulated environment, so the incentives are only partially there. Not quite utilities or governments, but certainly not ruthlessly competitive consumer product companies.

Banks have the upper hand now because airlines were poorly run in the past, and have an interest in pitting int’l transfer partners against domestic ones and each other to keep mile acquisition costs low.

Let’s not forget that banks acquired these points on the cheap because airlines have been mismanaged and defaulted in the past. In some ways, this shift in the power balance was decades in the making. But the gravy train may run out if the cost to acquire points goes up for the banks. This is still several years out, and banks will be incentivized to increase the number of eager international transfer partners to lower overall costs (diversify THEIR portfolio because surprise, they already DO this!), ironically because the market for miles is probably already more efficient than airline reimbursement rates. They’ll start to better match each other, but that’s on the other side of a lot of negotiation. I can’t imagine Chase cares a great deal if United whines that yet another transfer partner from Star Alliance gets added. United needs to sell miles to someone and Chase is the biggest buyer/creditor.

The banks themselves are setting up a competitive environment for “most valuable” points. It’s not just AMEX’s game anymore. Expect more to enter.

Ten years ago, AMEX was undoubtably the power player in the meta-points game. But it got complacent and lost a few partners due to mergers. Continental went over to Chase and Chase went for the jugular. Citi and Barclays now want in on the game and even US Bank is starting to offer more on the credit card front. Just wait for Barclays Arrivals points to become transferable. While this market is still pretty nascent, the banks are clearly seeing the marketing potential of flexible points and see a very healthy market segment of mobile young professionals and families to shower these points on. Chase has made incredible gains against AMEX on offering very competitive cards and (along with Citi) has essentially forced AMEX to start operating its own lounge network. As these meta-programs develop, expect to see more partners across hotels, car rentals and even things like Uber or AirBnb. Frequent flyer miles are still in the aspirational category for most consumers and aren’t seen as real money, so banks will focus on offering redemptions for things that people WANT, not NEED. Air travel isn’t even mentioned on Membership Rewards main site. So more concert and golf experiences are in everyone’s future, as well as those ubiquitous shopping portals. Treat yourself (or let others while you sip Krug from your suite)

Conclusion – Meta points offer many choices to consumers that put additional competitive pressures on carriers. The banks wrestling power from carriers will be good for consumers and will likely remain for a while

As banks offer more options with meta-points (which has been absolutely fantastic for customers, dramatically raising the value of opportunity costs across the board) the airlines with have to adjust to less power in those relationships. The savvy ones will (and are) profiting from the new regime, while the ones struggling will keep trying to get you redeem miles for a toaster. But the best thing is that for the short and medium term, you get more options of where you want to go, and you get cozier to the banks and guarantors of free/cheap travel than the airlines themselves.

Wallet share and brand advocacy have tangible value, and if you go to Chase, Citi, Barclays, Singapore or British Airways* first when you want to fly somewhere, it means they have a better chance at earning your dollars and loyalty than your hub-captor hub airline. If they’re smart, other airlines will see this and change their behavior.

From the desk of the Devil’s Advocate…

Today we continue our three-part series on the downsides of the major flexible miles currencies — Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Starpoints. Yes, we all already know how valuable these various programs can be, especially with their inherent flexibility to transfer points to multiple redemption partners. But no one ever talks about the negatives of these programs, and playing the Devil’s Advocate is exactly what… well, playing the Devil’s Advocate is supposed to be about.

For the last two weeks we’ve covered the cons of American Express Membership Rewards (and had a little fun tweaking our fellow bloggers in the process). But this week, it’s SPG’s turn in the barrel. So here’s why Starpoints are truly terrible…

Almost Impossible To Earn In Any Real Quantity

Let’s look at the category bonuses available from some of SPG’s credit card competitors…

• The AmEx Premier Rewards Gold offers a 3x bonus for airlines, along with 2x for both gas stations and supermarket.
• The Chase Sapphire Preferred offers a 2x bonus for most travel expenses along with a 2x bonus for all dining spend.
• The Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus business cards come with a 5x office supply bonus (which is possibly the most lucrative category bonus around if you know how to use it) as well as a 2x bonus on both gas and hotel spending.

The SPG personal and business cards? They have a 2x bonus… on SPG. That’s it.

Sure, their category bonus structure is similar to other hotel branded cards which focus on rewarding spend directly at their properties. But we’re talking about Starpoints as a flexible currency here, and for a flexible currency card, that’s super lame.

So if you’re accumulating Starpoints, you’re going to be doing it super slow. Unless you spend a great deal of your life at SPG hotels, you’re looking at no bonus categories for any of your spend. None. Nada. Nothing. It’s 1x from here to eternity, which is how long it’ll take you to build up a useful stash of Starpoints.

Grass grows faster than you can accumulate Starpoints.

The 25% Bonus Is Nice, But Can’t We Do Better Than 1.25x?

But if you’re excited about earning 1 Starpoint per dollar, then I’ve got great news for you! By transferring 20,000 Starpoints (or multiples thereof) all at once to one of SPG’s numerous airline partners, you’ll get a 5,000 point bonus which means you end up with a total of 25,000 points. So if you’re generally earning 1 Starpoint per dollar spent (which we just demonstrated that you most likely are) with the bonus you’re actually getting 1.25 points per dollar spent. Pretty sweet, huh?

Actually, not really, especially when you consider that a Fidelity Investment Rewards AmEx Card earns 2% cash back on every dollar spent. Sure, Starpoints are flexible, but what’s more flexible than cold hard cash? Or the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard which gives you an effective 2.2x on all purchases when redeemed for travel. Sure, Starpoints have a ton of transfer partners, but Arrival points can be redeemed for almost any travel you purchase on any form of transportation. Yes, even a Greyhound bus!

You can redeem Arrival points for this trip, though hopefully you’re not traveling this way too often (as in more than once every lifetime or so).

We all have some purchases we make that can’t fit a category bonus on any of our inventory of rewards cards, even by using alternate methods like buying gift cards at office supply stores and the like. Therefore, many Conventional Wisdomers advocate putting non-bonused spend on an SPG card. But you’d do better putting your non-bonused spend on either of the above two cards.

Or even better, put non-bonused purchases towards completing the spend for a new card signup bonus. If you’re playing the game right and aren’t purchasing a house or car in the near future, you should almost always be working on a new bonus spend, and the best transactions to put towards that new bonus spend are purchases that won’t get a category bonus on any of your other existing cards. That makes your effective return rate a whole lot better than 1.25x.

Measly Signup Bonuses

Speaking of signup bonuses, SPG is awfully behind the times right now when it comes to offering an enticement to sign up for their cards. In today’s highly competitive world of routine 50,000 point signup bonuses and occasional 100,000 point signup bonuses, SPG remains at a boring 25,000 point signup bonus. That’s on both their personal and business cards.

Yes, yes, once or twice a year they briefly pop it up to 30,000 points. Call me still not impressed. Again, consider SPG on this front versus its direct competitors. The Chase Sapphire Preferred normally comes with a 40,000 point signup bonus for the past few years, and it’s currently 45,000. The Chase Ink cards are always at least 50,000 points and lately even more. Currently we can also find a 50,000 point signup bonus for the Platinum Card from American Express for Mercedes Benz and AmEx regularly pops up with special signup bonus offers (along with targeted offers) on their Gold and Platinum cards for 50K-100K or more.

Even the Arrival card has a standard 40,000 point signup bonus, which is effectively worth a guaranteed $880 $440 in travel. Are you going to get $880 $440 in travel from 25,000 Starpoints, even with the transfer bonus? Maybe, but no guarantees. (UPDATE: Commenter BoonDR correctly noted that the 2x multiplier on the Arrival card is on the earning side, not the redemption side. So you don’t get 2x on the signup bonus, which makes the redemption for those 40,000 points worth $440, not $880. Apologies for the error and thanks for the correction!)

Partner Transfers Are Super Slooooooooow

Chase Ultimate Rewards transfers are instant, and it’s awesome. It gives you the ultimate in flexibility. You see the award you want, you make the transfer, and you book it all in a matter of minutes. Though AmEx Membership Rewards does have a few partners that are slightly slower, for the most part their transfers are also instantaneous. (By the way, if you’re interested in those AmEx partners with special transfer times, you can find them in this excellent chart assembled by one of our favorite bloggers…)

But SPG? Officially they say points transfers can take up to 14 days.

Now actual transfer times are often faster than “official” transfer times. But in the case of SPG, most first-hand reports find that you’ll wait around 1-3 days for domestic airlines. For other partners, that two-week timeframe is often scary accurate.

This man had to wait too long for his Starpoints to transfer to his ANA account. In lieu of flowers, the family requests cash back.

All that wonderful flexibility that SPG gains from its nearly 30 travel partners gets heavily diluted when you have to wait so long for your points to show up. That key redemption you’ve been searching for weeks to find that suddenly pops up unexpectedly? Odds are it’ll be long gone by the time SPG gets your points to you.

The Devil’s Advocate says SPG Starpoints could benefit from some new benefits.

It’s a super competitive credit card market out there right now with new cards, new perks, and new signup bonuses being pushed by banks eager to capitalize on America’s endless desire for credit cards. But SPG has been coasting on their (admittedly impressive) list of transfer partners for long enough and it’s time for them to step it up a bit.

Why not have instant transfers, SPG? Clearly the technology exists — in fact your financial partner American Express already has it for their other program. So what’s the delay? Why not a higher signup bonus, even one that comes and goes every so often that offers more than just an extra 5,000 points? And why not a few extra category bonuses? Heck, how about just one extra category bonus? Give me dining or groceries and I’d be a much happier Advocate.

Only SPG and AmEx know the answers to these questions, and they ain’t talking (at least not to me, which is certainly understandable). But in the meantime, I don’t have an SPG card in my wallet or even in my sock drawer, and that’s unlikely to change until SPG changes. So come on, guys. How about gas stations? That’ll help a bit. 7-11 takes American Express cards, right?

Devil’s Advocate is a weekly series that deliberately argues a contrarian view on travel and loyalty programs. Sometimes the Devil’s Advocate truly believes in the counterargument. Other times he takes the opposing position just to see if the original argument holds water. But his main objective is to engage in friendly debate with the miles and points community to determine if today’s conventional wisdom is valid. You can suggest future topics by sending an email to dvlsadvcate@gmail.com.

Coin is a startup that View from the Wing and I wrote about last year. It purports to make juggling a handful of credit and debit cards easier by letting you copy all the card information onto a single device, letting you switch between the cards you want to use for individual transactions. There have been many criticisms of it:

• Potential security flaws (Coin stores your card data, and its encryption standards are unclear)
• Potential legal issues (card issuers don’t want you cloning your own cards, and nefarious individuals might use it to skim other peoples’ cards)
• Potential obsolescence (many card issuers are moving to Chip + PIN or Chip + Signature in 2015, which will make cloning difficult or impossible)

Early backers like Gary and I were promised our Coin this summer, but the company has failed yet again by offering us “beta” cards that may lack all of the features originally promised. We would have to wait until next year to get a full-featured version, though beta testers can get the next release at a discounted price.

For the record, I don’t care. I figured it would be a gamble when I put down my $50 (the current price is $75). I don’t plan to use most of the features. I don’t even plan to use it to clone my credit cards. Most of the time I just carry three or four anyway. I really just thought it was a cool toy.

One feature has caught my attention that didn’t seem obvious before. Though I originally thought this might be useful to carry with me different credit cards to maximize their various bonus categories, I now think it might be more useful for cloning pre-paid gift cards.

I’ve complained about the hassle of manufactured spend before. I don’t do much of it, and I leave it to Amol and Tahsir to discuss it on the few occasions it’s mentioned on this blog. Even before I sold my car it was a huge hassle to go to Walmart to load my Bluebird. We never had an easy supply of Vanilla Reloads in Seattle ever since Office Depot pulled them as there are no CVS stores in the area. I know there are some better ideas, but the only trick I use is liquidating gift cards for money orders.

The problem is that most of the places I go to buy money orders are very suspicious of gift cards. Some let them slide. Usually I get a lecture. Rather than carry a brightly colored piece of plastic with a ribbon on top, it might make more sense to clone several gift cards onto a more discreet piece of black plastic.

Coin still doesn’t have a signature strip or any card numbers on the front — printed or embossed. It’s just a piece of plastic with a small LCD window in the corner. This could still be a problem for some merchants who aren’t familiar with the concept. But anything that doesn’t say “GIFT CARD” on the front in big letters is an improvement. Coin might be good enough for the next year or so before EMV chips become more common, a transition I think that may lead to some changes for manufactured spend that go far beyond Coin and its flaws.

British Airways announced this week that it is offering a 72-hour “fare lock” service very similar to one already offered by United Airlines. For just $10 on flights originating in the U.S., you can hold a quoted itinerary and pay that same price when you go back to book up to three days later. If you wait longer than that, you’ll have to pay the prevailing fare at that time, which could be higher. Only one person’s name is required to hold the itinerary so you can go back and add the other names later.

For smaller groups and individuals who are ready to buy, you probably don’t need a fare lock. But I think it’s a good tool for people traveling as a group who find a price they like and need time to coordinate their plans or request vacation time. Regret is a powerful motivator. Don’t look back with remorse when the fare drops from $500 to $400. It could just have easily gone up to $600. So if you find a price you like, consider a fare lock to give you and your group time to decide. It’s also helpful to have a deadline as I have lots of experience with family members who delay, delay, delay…

Most of the time a fare lock is not required for any size group, especially if you are booking over a month in advance. This means British Airways’ offer may not work for everyone since you can only hold fares up to 21 days before departure. However, popular routes and days can sell out more quickly. Even if a plane is not full, individual booking classes specify a limited number of seats available at each price. And fare rules have expiration dates such that you could find prices go up significantly from one day to the next (some of them months before departure). Even if there are plenty of seats remaining in the corresponding booking class, the rules for that fare will no longer satisfied.

You can check booking class availability and fare rules using tools like Expert Flyer, and even free services like United’s Expert Mode will give you a clue as to which booking classes have the most space available. This is what most search engines mean when they say “2 seats remaining at this price” even though they tend to keep the specific fare and booking class hidden.

And then, of course, the system can change overnight on a whim if Revenue Management decides to pull a fare from the market or change availability on a flight. This is common in the case of mistake fares, but it affects other fares, too.

Alternatives to Airline Fare Locks

If you are traveling on a carrier that doesn’t offer a fare lock, consider Options Away, which takes on the risk of fare increases. You can buy “options” for different itineraries and pay different prices depending on how long you want to lock in the fare and what Options Away considers is the likelihood the fare will go up. It’s using similar guidelines as I just described, but it uses a computer to model it and build in a profit margin. Because they’re running this as a third party, you can choose from a larger selection and buy options for more than one carrier that fit your needs.

Also don’t forget that tickets sold by U.S. or foreign carriers for travel partly or wholly within the United States are required to include the option for a 24-hour hold or a 24-hour cancellation without penalty when purchased seven days before departure. Different carriers implement this in their own way. Many have gone the route of offering a penalty-free cancellation: United is one example where you have to pay for the ticket up front, but you can cancel within 24 hours and get the money back. American Airlines takes a different approach by letting you hold the itinerary for 24 hours, but if you don’t ticket it within that period you may find that fares have gone up.

I consider the 24-hour hold more customer friendly. If you forget to book during that window, at least you aren’t out any money. With a 24-hour refund you could find yourself paying a hefty cancellation fee once those 24 hours are up.

I don’t normally pay attention to ads on the Internet, but I do when it concerns my own blog. It’s good to have some idea of what sponsored content is appearing alongside my own — and amusing to see what Google thinks I’d be interested in.

Update: A reader pointed out that this is only available to residents of Washington and Oregon. Sorry for not catching it earlier.

Offer Terms: The $25 Discount Code sign-up offer is valid for new Mileage Plan member sign-ups only. Must be a resident of Washington or Oregon to qualify. Offer is valid for sign-ups through September 30, 2014. Please allow 48 hours for Discount Code to be issued.

Just this evening I noticed Alaska Airlines is running a campaign that offers a $25 coupon toward a future flight when you join their loyalty program for the first time. It’s just one of a number of ways that you can save money on Alaska Airlines flights:

• An extra 5% off weekly specials if you subscribe to their email newsletter
• 5% off any fare for you and a companion when it’s your birthday (we’re going to Las Vegas for the big 30!)
• $25 or 5,000 miles if Alaska takes more than 20 minutes after arrival to deliver your checked baggage

Even if you didn’t need the extra money, Mileage Plan is one of the better loyalty programs for less frequent travelers because you can credit Delta and American flights to the same program. They’ve got some good redemption opportunities with their international partners as well as good redemptions on their own flights if you can redeem Avios for non-stop awards. Check out more reasons why I think Mileage Plan is one of the better U.S. loyalty programs.

So if you haven’t joined yet, I suggest you click on the ad if you see it, or just click on this link.

Most airline loyalty programs require you to have some kind of account activity every 12-24 months or else you’ll lose your miles. I’ll provide a more thorough breakdown of your options in a future post, but I want to call out what I think may be one of the cheapest options available for redeeming miles to maintain account activity. It happens to be with United Airlines’ MileagePlus program.

Redemption options are important because keeping accounts active by earning miles requires some foresight. I’m not always good about that. Case-in-point: I just remembered my mother has about 35,000 United miles that will expire next month, but she has no United credit card, no transferrable points, and doesn’t fly much. Other than buying miles (expensive), her options are slim. And if I tried to help out with some other kind of action to earn miles — like answering a survey — there’s a risk they won’t post until after the expiration date.

Redeeming 500 to 2,000 miles for a magazine is usually a safe bet with most airline programs. You could also donate miles to charity. In this case I took advantage of United’s Digital Media Store.

Most albums are over 1,000 miles. Most individual tracks are over 100 miles. But if you look around, you can find some that are even less. Louis Armstrong’s “Gone Fishin’” was only 85 miles. Buying it through my mom’s account meant that her miles’ expiration date was reset for another 18 months.

I call this out because I met a reader earlier this week who had spend a couple thousand miles on a magazine subscription that he probably isn’t going to read. I probably won’t listen much to this song, either, but it seems a better choice you’re just looking to spend as little as possible to keep your United miles active.

I’ve had several people ask me recently how to search for upgrades on United Airlines. It’s not immediately obvious because United no longer allows tools like Expert Flyer to access its inventory. However, United does have an in-house tool called “Expert Mode” that will display inventory for individual booking classes when you search for a flight.

For a good overview, read my my previous post: A Quick Introduction to United’s Upgrade Policies

Enable Expert Mode by logging into your account and visit the Search Preferences page, where United will ask you to read a lengthy disclaimer and check a box to activate the feature on your account.

When you go to perform a search, you’ll be able to see the number of seats available in each individual booking class. This can be useful for booking other ticket types, as well, but I’ll only be discussing upgrades in this post. You’ll want to focus on “R” space for upgrades that use miles, Regional Premier Upgrades, Global Premier Upgrades, or Complimentary Premier Upgrades. “PN” space is used for instant upgrades from Y, B, and M fares for elite members. You can find a complete list of the meaning of each booking class on cwsi.net.

I did a dummy search from San Francisco to Hong Kong. I checked a few results before finding this one. Click on the “Fare Class” link and you can see the word “R5″ which means there are are 5 seats available in the R booking class. United counts up to 9 when it displays availability, so “R9″ could indicate 9 seats or more.

There is a non-stop service, but I found no R upgrade space available. My upgrade request would be placed on the waitlist, and I would be processed according to United’s upgrade hierarchy: elite status, then fare class, then the time of request.

Depending on your tolerance for risk, this connecting itinerary may be preferable. You can confirm your upgrade from San Francisco to Osaka immediately, and the flight is operated with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which I consider very comfortable. However, the connecting flight from Osaka to Hong Kong is operated by ANA, which cannot be upgraded using a Global Premier Upgrade.

Some people really want the certainty of knowing their upgrade will clear. The fare I showed above is an L class fare for $1,004. But even United requires you to book a more expensive W fare or higher to redeem an Global Premier Upgrade on an international route. (Upgrades are easier to come by on domestic and a limited number of short international routes, when Regional Premier Upgrades can be used and there is no fare class restriction.)

To go back and search for a W fare on the same flights, click on the “Advanced Search” link at the bottom of the results page or at the bottom of the search box on the home page. Type “W” in the fare class box about halfway down the Advanced Search form.

It turns out a W fare for the same itinerary connecting in Osaka is $1,430 and we can confirm our upgrade on the overwater segment immediately. If we booked the nonstop as a W fare, it would be $1,400 and we would be placed on the waitlist. Again, there’s a personal decision to make here whether you pick the more desirable itinerary and risk not get upgraded.

The upgrade hierarchy is worth knowing because many flights, like this nonstop SFO-HKG option, do not have upgrade space available at the time you book. Faced with the risk that an upgrade won’t clear, or perhaps just frustrated that United makes them buy a more expensive fare, most people will probably focus on purchasing the cheapest upgradeable W fares. I suggest you take a look at V fares, too, because they have priority over W fares and are often not much more expensive.

In this case, the cheapest available L fare on SFO-HKG nonstop is $974. The W fare is $1,400 if you want to go on the waitlist to use a Global Premier Upgrade. There might be lots of competition on the waitlist. If you buy a V fare, you’ll pay $1,600 and move ahead of those people. You’re already committing yourself to paying $426 more for the chance at an upgrade. Would you be willing to pay $626 to get a better chance? I leave that decision up to you, but I can say I have seen cases where a V fare was only $10 more than a W fare, making me glad I took a look at something other than the cheapest option.

I mentioned the introduction of 72-hour fare locks on British Airways this weekend and reminded you about existing options from United Airlines as well as Options Away, which lets you purchase options on additional carriers by taking on themselves the risk of fare increases.

When I originally wrote about Options Away, I mentioned a competitor I came across called Level Skies. At the time Level Skies’ business model really confused me. They seemed to lock you into purchasing a flight through them, and it wasn’t clear what criteria would define the menu of options they presented. Since then, they’ve changed their business model in some ways that make it more appealing than Options Away.

There are two key differences:

Rather than forcing you to purchase your flight through Level Skies (the old model, and the one used by Options Away), you only purchase “insurance” against a potential price increase. You then submit your purchase receipt in the event you want to make a claim because fares went up.

Rather than purchase options on each individual flight you might be interested in (the model used by Options Away), you pay a flat fee and are promised the lowest price found on that day. If you book later and the lowest price went up (even if you booked a different, more expensive itinerary), you get a check for the difference.

I imagine the theory goes that the lowest price is a proxy for other airfares. Level Skies doesn’t need to know the exact flights you book as long as it has some measure of what price you would have paid. If the lowest price is $300 and later the lowest price is $400, it doesn’t matter that both are red-eyes with a connection, there’s a chance that the more convenient mid-day, non-stop itinerary also increased in price because of other factors common to both fares.

Level Skies tends to charge more for this kind of flexible insurance, but it’s cheaper overall if you want the flexibility of different flights. I was quoted a flat $20 for a weekend trip to Las Vegas, while Options Away quoted me between $13 and $18 for a three-day hold on each individual round-trip itinerary. Also worth noting is that Level Skies was assuming the lowest fare was $335, even though the flight results just below showed a $330 itinerary was available. So they appear to be building in some cushioning, though not so much I would swear them off.

I imagine you could just bet on price increases without ever booking a trip. Sure, Level Skies requires you to submit a receipt for reimbursement, but who’s to say you don’t also request a refund from your carrier within 24 hours per DoT regulations? Level Skies also says you can book your eventual ticket using miles or points, reinforcing the idea that this is an insurance gamble. Those of you with a keen eye for predicting fare increases may be intrigued. If anyone has used Level Skies or Options Away, I would be curious to read about your experiences in the comments.

I don’t normally like to talk about targeted promotions, but when it comes to credit cards there seems to be more opportunity than with other companies to talk your way into getting a similar offer once you know it exists. (Chase is a particularly good example.) In this case, my wife was sent an offer from American Express to upgrade her Premier Rewards Gold card to an American Express Platinum Card. She would get 50,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $5,000 in the first three months.

She already got 50,000 Membership Rewards points for the original application and another 10,000 points when she signed up for their delayed payment plan (basically turning it into a credit card that can be paid off over time.) But we both have a Premier Rewards Gold card and probably don’t need two of them. I can always make her an authorized user on my account and save on her annual fee.

Several benefits make this offer appealing:

Megan has complained about not having her own Amex Platinum Card for free lounge access to the Alaska Airlines Board Room, a relatively minor benefit for some but valuable since we’re based in Seattle. I have been reluctant to add her to my Business Platinum Card because the fee for authorized users is much higher than for the personal card.

I’ve been considering closing my Business Platinum Card anyway because I’ve already gotten a 100,000-point sign up bonus out of it and two years’ of airline statement credits. With the loss of American Airlines lounge access, I can’t say I feel compelled to keep it.

If Megan gets a personal Amex Platinum Card, she can add me as an authorized user at a more favorable rate, so I’ll keep my Platinum Card benefits. We can also add my parents and have them reimburse us.

Megan needs to update her Global Entry once she changes her name on her passport. It’s only $25, but I hope that Amex will still offer a fee credit.

Amex normally doesn’t offer bonus points for signing up for the Amex Platinum Card. You can get 50,000 points with the Mercedes-Benz version of this card, but the annual fee is slightly higher and I hope she could keep that in her back pocket to apply again later. The fact that this offer is touted as an “upgrade” also suggests she has a good chance of being approved.

The timing is ideal. Megan can pay the $450 annual fee now and collect 2 x $200 airline fee credits, since the annual fee is based on a 12-month cycle but the airline fee credit is based on a calendar year.

Can you tell I’ve already talked her into applying?

The application “upgrade” link isn’t unique, although she does have a unique offer code that you need to enter. If you haven’t gotten a letter and want to try your luck, you can call 1-888-814-9099 to make your case.

Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan is putting a bunch of their award flights on sale for travel between August 30 and October 31. (You can book these awards starting today.) Some of the awards are as low as 5,000 miles one-way and represent a 60% discount off the normal 12,500-mile price for a domestic award.

Here are some examples from the press release:

5,000 miles (a 7,500 miles savings)

• Portland, Oregon – Oakland, California
• Salt Lake City – Los Angeles
• Seattle – San Francisco

10,000 miles (a 2,500 miles savings)

• Seattle – Salt Lake City
• Anchorage, Alaska – Los Angeles
• San Diego – Portland

7,500 miles (a 5,000 miles savings)

• Boise, Idaho – Oakland, California
• Spokane, Washington – San Francisco
• Bellingham, Washington – San Francisco

12,500 miles (a 5,000 miles savings)

• Los Angeles – Mazatlan, Mexico
• San Francisco – Los Cabos, Mexico
• Salt Lake City – Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

I normally try saving my Alaska Airlines miles for some of their great international partners like Cathay Pacific while using use British Airways’ Avios points for awards on Alaska to maximize it’s low-cost, distance-based award chart.

Full Disclosure: Alaska asked me to contribute a post on some of the great Mileage Plan awards they offer. You can read more on the Alaska Airlines blog. I received no compensation for my contribution.

Given the current sale, it might make more sense to book awards on Alaska through Mileage Plan. Seattle to San Francisco tends to be a cheap flight at about $200 round-trip. That’s cheap enough that using miles doesn’t always make sense. But being able to book this for 10,000 miles round-trip represents a value of roughly 2 cents per mile and is even cheaper than Avios (15,000 points round-trip). Awards to Mexico are on sale, too.

Buy Miles and Get up to 40% More

If you don’t have enough miles for one of these great awards, Alaska is putting the cost of purchased miles on sale, too! You can buy 10,000 miles at a time for about 2 cents each during the booking process on AlaskaAir.com, but now you can get up to 40% bonus miles for free when you purchase them at any time through the Buy & Share Miles offer on the Mileage Plan page.

More miles means a larger bonus and a lower overall cost. 35,000 miles would normally cost $1,034.69 including taxes and fees. At nearly 3 cents per mile I’d suggest buying miles while you book a ticket instead.

Thanks to this promotion, you’ll also get 14,000 bonus miles for a total of 49,000 miles. That brings the price down to 2.11 cents per mile. Given that not everyone is booking tickets on Alaska, this may be a viable alternative. (One of our own on Hack My Trip got slapped with a warning for booking flights — and later canceling them — just so he could buy miles.) My advice: Buy miles while booking a ticket you’ll actually use or take advantage of this sale.

Even if you can’t take advantage of one of the discounted award tickets, you could still use the miles for a first class award on Cathay Pacific, a business class award to Fiji, or other travel on one of Alaska’s many partners.

Stepping up the Competition with Delta?

I can’t help but interpret this sale as an effort by Alaska to step up their competition with Delta, which is expanding in the Seattle market and trying to establish a new West Coast hub. Some of the language they use in the press release is particularly appropriate:

“…no minimum spend requirement to achieve Mileage Plan elite status…”
(Delta introduced Medallion Qualifying Dollars this year.)

“…miles flown on all its international partners…count toward MVP elite status.”
(Delta doesn’t award Medallion Qualifying Miles for any travel on Korean Air, a SkyTeam partner.)

Lots of readers have asked me if we can expect to profit from this competition. Up until now I would have said, “no.” There hasn’t been much beyond a few targeted promotions. This is one of the first examples I’ve seen of Alaska offering a wide range of discounts to all its customers and suggests we may be in for more excitement this fall and winter as the “Battle for Seattle” continues.

Terms and Conditions for Award Sale: Award space is limited and may not be available on all flights. Travel must be completed by Oct. 31, 2014. Some markets may not operate daily service. Passengers are responsible for the following taxes and fees on award travel: September 11 Security Fee of $5.60 per enplanement, and International Taxes and Fees of up to $180 for Mexico itineraries. Award tickets booked through an Alaska Airlines Reservations call center will incur a $15 ticketing fee. All taxes are subject to change without notice due to government discretion. All taxes and fees shown are in USD based on one-way travel and may be doubled if traveling roundtrip. A ticket purchased at an Alaska Airlines airport location or through a call center will cost $15 more per person than the advertised fare. Differences in fare and taxes, fees and charges apply to any changes made after ticketing. A $125(USD) change fee per person applies to changes made within 60 days of ticketed travel. Other restrictions— such as day of week, blackout dates and advance purchase requirements — may apply. Some flights may be operated by Horizon Air, SkyWest or PenAir. Additional U.S. taxes may apply to itineraries involving more than one stopover or a stopover lasting more than 12 hours. Bag fees apply for checked baggage. See visit alaskaair.com or call Alaska Airlines reservations at 1-800-ALASKAAIR for complete fare rules, checked baggage policies and more information.

Terms and Conditions for bonus miles: Registration at visit alaskaair.com prior to the first qualifying flight is required in order to receive the bonus miles. Other rules and restrictions apply to this promotion. Visit alaskaair.com for details.

From the desk of the Devil’s Advocate…

This week we finish up our three-part series on the downsides of the major flexible miles currencies — Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Starpoints. The wonderful features of these programs are frequently touted by the Conventional Wisdomers, and with good reason. But no loyalty program is ever perfect, and often the negatives of the Big Three go unmentioned.

Last Thursday we reviewed the issues with SPG Starpoints, and in the two weeks before that we covered the problems with American Express Membership Rewards (here as well). So now we’re ready to finish up by taking on the current king of the flexible programs, Chase Ultimate Rewards. Here’s why Chase UR points are painfully bad…

The Smallest List of Travel Partners

SPG has a huge list of nearly 30 airline and hotel transfer partners. It’s the strongest part of their program and a major benefit. American Express Membership Rewards has 21 travel partners, which isn’t quite as many but still gives you a pretty broad swath of choices.

But Chase only has 11 partners. That’s airlines and hotels combined. Eleven. Roughly half the partners of AmEx and just barely one-third the partners of SPG.

This is the list of UR partners in its entirety. It easily fits on one page. That’s not good news.

Now the Conventional Wisdomers will say you only need one high quality airline transfer partner (United) and one high quality hotel transfer partner (Hyatt) to make the points valuable. That’s true… right up until the moment that high quality partner has a massive devaluation. Such as, oh, I don’t know, maybe the one United had this past February where partner award prices went through the roof, jumping as much as 87% higher in some cases.

The whole point of flexible point currencies is to have more than one good transfer partner, because if the entire program is tied into one vital partner, you’re at the mercy of that partner. Yes, Chase has 5 other airline partners but almost every one of them has a major downside. Southwest has limited international routes, British Airways is useful for short haul but weak for anything longer, Virgin Atlantic loves passing along super high fuel surcharges, and Korean Air promises no online partner redemptions and a ton of hoops to jump through via phone redemptions.

The recent addition of Singapore Airlines as an airline partner has definitely helped offset the United devaluation but now we’re at the mercy of Singapore Airlines. When they decide to devalue on a whim, we’ll be right back here looking at high award prices and limited other options. Same with Hyatt if they one day decide to follow Hilton down the evil road of destroying their loyalty program (and kudos to Hyatt for so far appreciating their customers).

Looking For Transfer Bonuses? Not Here!

As we discussed last week, SPG has a standard 5,000 point bonus for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred to their travel partners. Membership Rewards has ongoing limited-time transfer bonuses for various partners throughout the year. Those transfer bonuses have been somewhat less generous in recent years, but you can still easily find 25%-40% bonuses on a regular basis. For instance, Membership Rewards is currently offering a 25% bonus on transfers to JetBlue through September 15, 2014.

But Chase Ultimate Rewards doesn’t have transfer bonuses. Not a one. You get a 1:1 ratio and nothing more. Ever.

I spent many hours gathering and cross-checking this data.

I’m not the first one to note this rather glaring weakness in the Ultimate Rewards program, and it’s a bit odd that it hasn’t been addressed by Chase. Even a 15% transfer bonus a couple times a year would be extremely welcome. Perhaps it’s too much to expect a bonus for some of their better partners like Singapore or Hyatt, but how about a small transfer bonus on Southwest points for a limited time? Especially for a program like Southwest with fixed point values, a little transfer bonus would be a major plus for Ultimate Rewards.

If You Want To Transfer Points, You’ll Pay The Most With Chase

Up until this past March, Ultimate Rewards was similar to AmEx Membership Rewards in that you needed to carry one of their “premium” cards with an annual fee in order to transfer points to their travel partners. You can temporarily “store” the points in a no-fee card, but eventually you’ll need to pay $95 at least once (or keep churning cards to repeatedly get that first year with no annual fee) if you want more for those points than just a 1 cent per point cash redemption.

But then American Express leapfrogged ahead of Chase by introducing their Everyday cards, which maintain the ability to transfer points to travel partners but do so with no annual fee (at least for the basic card). Yes, SPG cards still carry an annual fee. But it’s only $65, a full $30 less than the cheapest premium Chase card available.

That puts Chase at the back of the pack and means you have to get an extra $30 of value out of your Ultimate Rewards points each year just to get back to even with SPG, and a full $95 in extra value to match Membership Rewards.

The Devil’s Advocate says Chase Ultimate Rewards is a few flaws short of perfect.

Let’s be frank here — of all my posts about the downsides of the flexible loyalty currency programs, this one is the shortest. It’s fair to say that while a more robust partner roster and an occasional transfer bonus would be nice additions to Chase Ultimate Rewards, it’s generally a pretty terrific program with generous signup bonuses, plentiful bonus categories, and instant transfers.

Chase may be the king of the moment, but what we’ve learned in the past month is that all three of the flexible currency programs could use a bit of fine tuning. What’s interesting to note is that many of these issues could be solved with minimal additional investment by the bank issuers. How hard would it be for SPG to have instant transfers? Couldn’t AmEx Membership Rewards have a reasonable transfer ratio to SPG itself, which would lift the value of both of those properties? Why can’t Chase let their Freedom cardholders use transfer partners just like their Sapphire Preferred and premium Ink cardholders do?

In life, nothing is perfect. Such is also the case in loyalty programs. We’ll keep wishing for that elusive goal, but we’ll probably always be reaching for the stars and never quite touching them.

Devil’s Advocate is a weekly series that deliberately argues a contrarian view on travel and loyalty programs. Sometimes the Devil’s Advocate truly believes in the counterargument. Other times he takes the opposing position just to see if the original argument holds water. But his main objective is to engage in friendly debate with the miles and points community to determine if today’s conventional wisdom is valid. You can suggest future topics by sending an email to dvlsadvcate@gmail.com.

There is no way to use points on this island!

While it’s cute that Lucky is living a full year in hotels, some of us don’t have the cash flow to be paying nightly rates and it still hurts to burn 40,000 star points for 5 nights at a Category 4 Sheraton, even if you’re a savvy points and miles traveler and you recognize the value in that perk.

I’m of the philosophy that this game can project the dollars you spend on travel by about an order of magnitude. This means I stay in both Park Hyatts and sleep in water villages, fly international first class and take local Thai buses/vans to the Cambodian border and over the Andes when it makes sense. I am not a backpacker. I am also not a drama queen. I like and appreciate nice things, but never expect them. I also DO spend SOME money on travel. Gasp! Insert some appropriate meme here.

Here are some tips and realizations from 12 months on the road (I left SF August 27th last year and have been living out of a 20” carry on and laptop bag since then.) particularly if you want to make your balances go further, stay fit, get good value out of your hard-earned points and have a sense of a social life.

I’m breaking this up into parts for your sanity

Part 1 – Before you Go

Book with the hotel or airline directly if it’s within a few dollars of an OTA

Guess what happens if they can’t find enough volunteers!

Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) can dramatically help with searching and finding the right flight or accommodations, but since they get a commission and are a more expensive sales channel, travel providers are loathe to use them. They make travel providers less money than direct bookings.

That means your Orbitz booking is at the top of the list when the hotel needs to walk people or needs to fill that crappy awkward room by the elevator. Similarly, flight changes are doubly difficult because you have to wrangle with the OTA, who has to wrangle with the airline and back. And the last flight out leaves in 25 minutes…

When at all possible (and particularly when it’s cheaper), book with the travel provider directly (spg.com, united.com, hertz.com) to make sure benefits are recognized, reservations aren’t lost and you are accommodated in the event of things going sideways. On several occasions, I’ve stood next to people being told that they being walked while I’m checked into an executive suite.

You’re also first in line to be involuntarily denied boarding if your flight is oversold, because you are literally worth less to the airline. You practically told them you aren’t a loyal customer and will sleep around with whichever travel provider is cheapest. Still worth saving that $5?

Discount airlines, local options vs. burning points

Don’t get too caught up in burning points and miles if the local rates are reasonable. This scooter cost me $6/day and was way more fun than renting from Hertz

Points are an excellent option when you need to project the travel dollars you were going to spend, and absolutely phenomenal for long-haul air travel and when you have multiple people to house or need to recover from a grueling journey.

But it rarely makes sense to burn 25,000 miles to go to the next major city only 200 miles away. In many parts of the world, trains and buses (or even ridesharing services) are just as comfortable and considerably cheaper (from a points perspective – they do cost money, but don’t waste points) than flying. As much is talked about Avios in Europe or South America and sweet spots on award charts for travel within Southeast Asia, flying Air Asia, Easyjet or taking the train or BlaBlaCar can just make more sense from a financial and sanity perspective. Zipcar, Car2Go and DriveNow may be more fiscally savvy than Hertz, Sixt or Enterprise.

A local bungalow for $30/night may trump the W Retreat for 20,000 star points. Dead serious about this, there are some sick guesthouses that blow luxury resorts out of the water in value.

Avoid early morning flights and the last flight out

There is a reason why those 5am flights are cheaper. No one wants to take them! I’ve met many travelers that have to cut a night out short, figure out a wonky place to store their luggage or just stay up and be a zombie because they booked a flight at an absurdly inconvenient time. Remember that public transit isn’t generally open, so the money you saved by booking that red eye or early morning flight is just going to go into the pocket of a cab driver. Also, the lounge is probably not open.

Last flights out are similarly problematic. Again, transit might not be open or as frequent and you risk the very real possibility that the plane you were supposed to take is caught up somewhere in a previous city. Oh and it’s a weather delay, so wait in line, grab your distressed traveler voucher and schlep the 45 minutes each way on the shuttle to your off-brand hotel. And be ready for a 6am departure in 3 hours. Connecting flights? Totally screwed. Here’s to at least an hour on the phone sorting it out, ending up on worse aircraft products than you meticulously chose.

I generally find the optimal time for flights to be 11am-6pm, so you have time to leisurely get to the airport, enjoy a drink or two at the lounge and board with enough comfort knowing that you’ll have options even in the face of delays and cancellations.

Pack so you don’t check luggage

Even if you’re hitting multiple destinations or really just going for a week, there is little reason not to pack light. Girls can wear jeans, shorts and t-shirts too. We’re not out to win any fashion awards, it’s a matter of staying warm or cool and easily being able to do laundry. A great test before you leave is to run up your stairs at home carrying everything you’ll be taking on the trip. Three times. If you can do that without feeling like you’re going to die, you’ve done it right.

For trips over a week, plan on doing laundry. Most parts of the world have readily accessible laundromats and a surprisingly number of places can do wash and fold by the kilo. The turnaround is one day and a typical suitcase will cost less than $10. A godsend when things start getting stinky. Don’t bother with drainstoppers, sink detergents and stringing up your room with yards of clothesline. Outsource it.

The money and sanity you’ll save in checked bags fees and lost luggage is just the tip of the iceberg. You are also super-flexible when flights go sideways. Need me on a flight that departs in 10 minutes from the other side of the airport? No problem! Misconnect in Podunk? Guess who gets their hotel voucher first because he’s not at the baggage carousel.

Four-Wheeled Suitcase vs. Backpack

These babies glide across the terminal

I’ve gotten so many lecturers from backpackers about the virtues of a 50 liter backpack from REI. That’s great, it works for some people. I’m a suitcase guy.

Why? 99% of the places I go are flat and paved. I’m not camping in a jungle, I’m navigating a Seoul subway station or Atlanta’s airport. I also like to keep things organized, clean clothes from the dirty and generally don’t like making my bag explode every time I need to find a charger in it. Looking at you Hostel Harry!

Airlines are also far less likely to bat an eye on weight and size restrictions if you just have a roll aboard and they are generally better designed for overhead space, so there’s less competition. It’s the same “shape” as the sizer…

Are you a business traveler? Maybe…

Do you look less like a hobo when you slide into your suite on an SQ or EK A380? Absolutely.

I also feel far less ridiculous asking for a suite upgrade at a St. Regis or chilling in the Lufthansa FCT when I roll up toting Victorinox.

It’s also a matter of saving my back. After years of carrying a heavy laptop bag, my shoulders are tender and I’m only in my 20’s. If I push/glide a 4-wheeler carry-on around, I’ll only have maybe a slightly sore wrist (haha, yes make your jokes). I also like that it take me 5 seconds to gather my stuff than the 40-60 seconds it takes to clip everything onto a backpack. Using 5 carabiners makes it “one” bag, right?

I’m not saying it’s for everyone, but unless you’re planning on hiking, climbing a ton of stairs, camping or traveling on particularly draconian discount carriers, consider whether a suitcase or backpack is better for this particular trip.

LoungeBuddy shared a pretty awesome article from Wired this morning on Twitter. The question:

Could you observe the curvature of the Earth in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport? 

Atlanta has one of the most “efficient” terminal layouts I’ve ever seen, with multiple long piers connected to each other by an underground train. I use that term to describe things that make rational sense but are not necessarily convenient or people-friendly. The terminals are long, connecting between buildings is difficult, and I find the hallway design claustrophobic (I need space on all sides, not just forward and back).

But it does lend itself to some interesting mathematical exercises.

Assuming that the hallway is level (perpendicular to the Earth’s center of gravity) rather than straight (a linear function), what would be the vertical displacement of a laser bean aimed from the opposite end?

If we rolled a bowling ball down the hallway, would the Coriolis effect cause a horizontal deflection in its path?

Would we ever find a time when the hallway is empty enough to actually perform these experiments?

There are probably better places to explore the questions raised here. MIT’s Infinite Corridor is the most obvious choice. But then we wouldn’t get to visit an airport.

As I mentioned in the first installment, I’ve been on the road continuously for the past 12 months, visiting about 36 countries, living in four and logging about 120,000 miles so far across pretty much every mode of transport imaginable. Rather than give you the USA Today version of “travel tips” this audience is much more savvy. So keeping that in mind, I’m putting together a series of tips learned on the road, “the hard way,” specifically for points and miles globetrotters. Some might be common knowledge, but others may come in handy.

PNRs differ by carrier, ticket numbers are universal

See the ETno? This shows that I used Singapore miles and that Singapore issued my ticket.

Understand that if you book a ticket on say United, you are going to be issued different passenger name records (PNRs – also known as Record Locators) by each airline. These will help you assign seats, login and check in on their website and allow for more functionality/interactivity with the carrier. But ALWAYS HAVE YOUR TICKET NUMBER. This is the one thing that will make or break you getting on the plane. If the carrier can’t find it, you don’t fly. This is why I book directly with carriers since that OTA may have booked a Swiss plated ticket, for an EVA-marketed flight that is actually being operated by Thai, who wet-leased it from Jet Airways. Good luck trying to get them all to play nice if your flight is canceled or you need to change it. Here’s a list of most carrier codes in case you find your ticket to be issued from an airline weren’t expecting.

Understand the difference between “Act Of God” and Carrier-Caused delays

Volcanic Ash isn’t going to get you compensation. Go back to your gin & tonic in the lounge and pout some more!

This is a fairly elementary tip, but until you understand the difference between acts of god and carrier-caused delays, you’ll probably be more prone to fits of anger at the airlines for what they do or don’t offer you. Here’s a brief run down (correct me if you see any errors, I haven’t been in every specific situation below):

Acts of God

The airline is not required to do anything except get you a seat to your final destination – ideally in the class of service you booked – make sure to push them on this or request a refund for the downgrade before you agree to a new itinerary.

• Weather – including storms, volcanoes, flooding, ice, fog, snow, extreme temperature
• Traffic – Air-traffic delays, no gate available, lines for fuel or de-icing
• Political/Security issues – Unruly passengers or political unrest aren’t likely to get you compensation or reaccommodation (unless a travel waiver is issued) because they are beyond the control of the airline. Generally, most actions by third parties won’t get you compensation.

Carrier-Caused Delays

Less common – but you have far more leeway and legal coverage to ask for compensation

• Missing Crew – Airlines are supposed to have crews on reserve at the airport. If your flight is delayed because you’re missing a pilot, that’s on the airline to fix, but generally because of reserve crews at larger hubs your flight is unlikely to cancel.
• Mechanical/Cleaning issues – Airlines are expected to keep well-maintained, safe aircraft. If there is a mechanical issue, get on the phone and start looking at backups, particularly if you’re on the only route they fly for the day or are at a smaller hub. Chances of cancellation are high if they can’t quickly sub out an identical aircraft.
• Strikes – Airlines are responsible for accommodation, but not compensation if their staff goes on strike
• IT issues – If there is a computer outage, you’ll probably have a good case to seek compensation and accommodation on another carrier.

The DOT has a handy FAQ of how they classify delays to help you pick apart whether you should seek compensation or not. Here’s another guide for travel to/from/within the EU Lastly, for late incoming aircraft, it’s a bit of a gray area. Typically you can cite the delay cause posted to flightstats for the previous flight. A snowstorm on the East Coast won’t get you any tears, but a mechanical issue might open some options. Typically, if the inbound aircraft is in the air, you will likely takeoff unless the crew times out.

Don’t fill up on poor quality free food

Bread, Tang and Nescafe! Thanks United! I think I’ll wait til my 8 course meal in SQ F!

This one comes with time and age. In my wizened experience, if you are traveling in premium cabins or staying in luxury hotels, free food will be thrown at you left and right. Not all of this is created equally. A foie gras burger in the Singapore Airlines Private Room is worth planning around. Packaged sandwiches, bread, crackers and pretzels are worth avoiding. If you don’t want to feel miserable when you arrive (because you’ll be about ten pounds heavier) be judicious about when you take advantage of the free food and drink. A vast majority of lounge food is NOT worth eating. Smirnoff is still Smirnoff, even if it is self-pour. Crappy brownies/cookies/coffee are just that.

Stay with locals and other travelers when possible

There are only 5 hotels in Brunei. I booked via facebook, stayed in the water village and met a ton of people!

Many bloggers regale you with tales of luxurious overwater villas and endless breakfast buffets, but unless you are on a romantic getaway, with the family or having a chill out vacation with friends, hotels are incredibly boring and extremely anti-social. By design, they are there to maximize privacy. It’s VERY easy to get lonely. After your first week on the road, you’ll probably be craving some interaction with people that aren’t being paid to serve you, and perhaps even have a range of careers similar to yours.

This is where you can dramatically increase your array of accommodation options. AirBnb, hostels (there are nice ones! and most have private rooms!) and Couchsurfing are fantastic ways to meet locals and fellow travelers. Many will want to explore the city with you, debate points of international policy, cook for/with you and stay out til 4am exploring the nightlife. If you aren’t meeting people on the road, you are sadly only experiencing a very one-dimensional facsimile of travel. To that point, try to seek out professional local peers that you can relate to, either in your language or another common one (e.g. Spanish, Mandarin).

As much fun and cultural insight I got from wandering Brunei’s water village, I don’t speak a lick of Malay and gestures, smiling, thumbs up and body language only go so far to develop a connection. It’s important to be exceedingly open and friendly, as you are a representative of your culture, but unless you are willing to put in significant effort to adopting the local language and customs (and sometimes even if you do so very effectively over decades), you will still be a guest.

My absolute best experiences this year have been staying with families in Sri Lanka, Spain and Brunei, renting apartments in Buenos Aires, Budapest, Split and Seoul and meeting people in hostels in Lisbon, Berlin, Taipei and Rio. I’ve met hundreds of people this way, many of whom I still stay in contact with and am planning visits to in the future. In particular, it’s extremely helpful to develop professional connections since it’s fascinating to bounce ideas off of people and break out of your echo chamber.

I wouldn’t have been able to get in this club in Buenos Aires, nor teach some friends how to use chopsticks (in español) without living there for three months and meeting people!

Once you have friends in a number of cities, it also becomes much easier to travel, as locals know the good places to eat, stay and party. And you may get a free couch out of it here or there (assuming you ARE returning the favor right?). If you’re on the road long enough, you stop choosing destinations based on WHAT to see and more on WHO to see. Couchsurfing is also a fantastic social outlet if you’re ready to move beyond your typical hostel pub crawls. There are a myriad of events in every major city and they generally attract bright, social late 20/early 30-somethings that are interested in doing new things and showing off/exploring their city. Typically the mix is about half locals and half travelers, so the events are well worth it.

Drink water, and then drink more water.

You really shouldn’t ever stop drinking this!

Air travel is dehydrating. Alcohol and caffeine are dehydrating. Extreme heat (and cold) are dehydrating. You’ll likely be walking miles and you may or may not be able to drink the water (pro tip – are the locals drinking the water?). If you are traveling, you are 99% likely to be chronically dehydrated. Even when you drink the hotel-provided water, you will feel worlds better if you drink nearly a gallon a day.

Wherever I am, I often stop at a convenience store and pick up a 1-1.5L bottle, which I refill throughout the day/trip. It’s lightweight and if I lose it, I’m out maybe a dollar. But chugging that at every opportunity keeps me in much better health and spirit than almost anything else I do on the road. You can also take empty bottles through airport security and fill them up in the terminal. Don’t expect the flight attendant to make sure it’s full. Go to the galley and offer to fill it yourself.

There’s also the odd problem in many parts of Europe where beer and wine are cheaper than bottled water (the only option at the restaurant naturally). While I’m not someone to turn down a 2 euro beer, it’s nice to not make it an either-or decision.

More tips to come, share your own in the comments below!

I just returned from a weekend vacation in San Diego, which was significant in that it was my first trip all year with Megan alone and not our parents. For a few days the only people who could annoy us were each other.

When booking the hotel I made a point to look at Starwood properties because I am behind on my elite requalification requirements for SPG Platinum status this year. I would like to do 50 nights again in order to get the 10 Suite Night Awards. (Those who only spend 25 stays get Platinum status but not the upgrades.) It also seemed like a great opportunity to use some of the Suite Night Awards I already have. I almost always save confirmed upgrades for travel with a companion. If I’m by myself, airline upgrades are easier, hotel upgrades are largely unnecessary, and I’ll be the only one who suffers if it luck doesn’t play out.

Using a Suite Night Award was fairly easy. The option presented itself immediately after I completed my booking on the SPG website, though I could have returned to the reservation later and found the option. Strategizing the upgrade request was less easy. I’ll use Hyatt’s Diamond suite upgrade awards for comparison.

Hyatt Gold Passport offers four upgrade awards good for one stay each. Each award can be used for up to seven nights for either (1) paid stays or (2) cash and points stays. All-points stays are ineligible. The potential benefit is 28 nights, but I usually use them for stays of three to five nights. The main value of these upgrades is you can confirm them at the time of the original reservation. On the other hand, complimentary suite upgrades are not a standard Hyatt Diamond benefit, so this is your only sure path to an upgrade besides redeeming points.

Starwood Preferred Guest works a little differently. Their Platinum members are explicitly entitled to a standard suite if one is available at check-in. It therefore makes sense that the upgrade benefit seems less significant: 10 one-night awards that can only be confirmed beginning five days before arrival, and which are good for (1) paid stays, (2) cash and points stays, or (3) all points stays. Most of the time you might get the suite anyway for free, but for those times that really matter you can use these to get priority over other Platinum members. This was one of those times.

I chose to redeem three suite night awards at the US Grant in downtown San Diego. SPG made it very clear during the upgrade request process that the upgrade could be canceled under limited circumstances:

• If they were unable to confirm the upgrade by 2 PM on the day before arrival, they would return the Suite Night Awards to my account. There would still be a chance I could be upgraded if a suite later became available (e.g., a no-show guest).
• I could cancel the upgrade request myself any time until 2 PM on the day before arrival. The unused Suite Night Awards would be redeposited.
• If the Suite Night Awards had already been confirmed, I could only re-deposit the upgrade by cancelling the entire reservation (subject to its original cancellation policy) by 3 PM on the day before arrival. I would then need to book a new reservation, assuming I still wanted to stay at the hotel.

You can read the entire Terms & Conditions for using Suite Night Awards.

How do you know when to use a Suite Night Award? I already stated that I try to use these and other upgrades whenever I travel with a companion, especially my wife. There’s a chance I would use one even at an airport hotel if I had no other plans. Some of you may want to look into the specific type of room offered. Although we enjoyed our stay at the US Grant (review forthcoming), the Legacy Suite seemed to be very similar to their standard room type, and I don’t think we really used that extra space to our advantage.

You could also check with the hotel. The management sent us an email shortly after booking with an offer to upgrade for $75 per night. I would not have paid $75 per night given the chance of a free upgrade at check-in, but I did think that we got reasonable value from my “free” (sort of) Suite Night Awards. With any luck we’ll have more exciting trips coming up in the future to use my remaining seven Suite Night Awards.

In the previous segments, we talked about how to plan for your trip and tips to keep you sane while on the road. This section deals more with travel strategy, setting your own expectations and maximizing your quality of life if you’re a seasoned points and miles hacker.

Slow Down and Get Out of the Hotel

In the age of limited vacation time, you’ll be tempted to fit in as much as possible. You can do 4 cities in 8 days right? Sadly, you do this enough and you start to realize that museums, tall buildings, churches/temples and castles/palaces all start to blur together, look the same and make a significant dent in your wallet. Why take the same pictures that everyone else is taking? Navigating the massive crowds will start getting old and you’ll begin to forget if that painting was in the Lourve, Prado or Pergamon or if that’s a view of Dubai, Taipei or Chicago from 1,000 feet up.

Gyeongbok-gung (one of the four very well preserved palaces in downtown Seoul) is certainly worth the $3 admission fee, but I couldn’t help compare it to others I’ve seen in Beijing, Suzhou, Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka and Bangkok. All beautiful, but they start to blur together.

It’s much more gratifying to understand the lifestyle and neighborhoods in each city. Spending a week or more unlocks so much more than most tourists will ever see. From underground bars and nightclubs, to fantastic parklands and beaches to hole in the wall cafes, eateries and restaurants that might get discovered in a year and awarded a Michelin star in three.

The waiter is photobombing us, but we’re a few drinks in and a pretty friendly bunch!

Case in point: I came to Seoul (where I’m writing this now) without much of an agenda other than to better understand Korean culture, sit in coffee shops and work and perhaps watch a baseball game and tour the DMZ. I stayed in Hongdae in an apartment to get a better sense of how people live. Since it was raining after dinner at a market near Jongno-5ga, I ducked into a small local bar/restaurant to grab a beer and get some work done. I ended up befriending four guys out for drinks after work and we stayed until closing around midnight.

And this is me as an anime character, not bad right!?

I don’t speak Korean and they didn’t speak English, but we made it work via phones and gestures and there was a lot of toasting, sake chugging, fish jerky and discussion of Korean traditions, pop culture (PSY is just an idol, Lady Gaga is an artist) and how Koreans view the Japanese (um… not great) and Chinese (“OK”). I even got rendered into an anime character! They then walked me to a police station so I could get home (I showed the cops that I had mobile data on my phone and that I was perfectly capable of grabbing a cab back – we both found the hospitality amusing).

There is a blurry line between visiting and living. If you have the ability to take time off between jobs, or even take a sabbatical, consider going to one or two places instead of 20. Sprint vacations can be exhilarating, but they become much more expensive and exhausting.

My plan after about a year on the road is to go someplace central in a region and make it a “home base” of sorts. From there, cost of living starts to get considerably cheaper on a daily basis, from monthly apartment rentals, to grocery store shopping to knowing the best places in a neighborhood for good cost/quality food and drink. Especially with points/miles and travel know how, you can always take a weekend getaway to Uruguay or Brunei, which may be hard to justify a separate trip for. Avios and discount carriers come in handy, as you’ll just need a 3-day backpack for the trip. Locals that are now your friends will also be more knowledgeable about what’s a good and bad place to go/stay and having those recommendations are priceless when you go to an “off the beaten path” destination.

Stay in a hotel/burn points the first or last night

While I’m a huge advocate of staying with locals and am more likely to burn my points on international business or first class, I do have a healthy stash of hotel points/nights. These come in handy in two ways.

1) Hotels are great for jet lag recovery or when you need to be near the airport for an early flight. Many are the trip reports where it’s clear the reviewer rarely left the hotel, either due to jet lag, fear of the culture they’re in or only having interest in the top “landmarks” in a city.
This can get infuriating if you travel enough, and it pains me to burn a ton of points on a week-long stay at a hotel, especially if I’m by myself. Westins, by design (and confirmed by SPG reps), are meant to deliver the same experience in Columbus, OH as they do in Colombia or Colombo. You’ll get that white tea aloe scent everywhere, but they are great for having a good quality bed, wake up calls and a functional gym. They are also great if you are starting to feel under the weather from all the things you’ve been eating and burned out from all the people you’ve been socializing with. The best use of hotels, particularly luxury hotels, is recovery, productivity and personal health. I started this article from a beautiful lounge in the middle of Seoul, coming off a brutal 8 hour time change, a very large breakfast a thorough 2 hour workout and a soak in an excellent jjimjilbang. Treat it like a spa day.

Having a driving range in the hotel was pretty cool and a nice way to relax and recover from jetlag.

I’m all for free breakfast, but I’m not going to wax poetic about this hotel’s buffet vs. that. Really? A salt bar? Really? Now I know what luxury is!

2) Luxury hotels are also great if you can share the perks. I took a group of friends to Thailand last year and we availed ourselves of suites and villas at St.Regis’s, Conrad’s and Le Meridien’s. For free. Breakfast and Wi-Fi included. I took another group to Peru and having a large space for the group, awesome pool and free cocktails every night just makes the experience that much more fun and unforgettable. Booking a recovery hotel after a festival like EDC is that much better when you have a suite, full breakfast every day and the events manager takes you out in WeHo. You also feel like a G. I really like to help friends that have limited vacation time and funds make the most of it, since much of it is wasted on a guy that’s spent well over a year of his life in hotels. They really start to look the same after a while.

Excellently designed suite, but would prefer to have done the wine tour with friends.

Hosting friends in a penthouse suite for a week at Le Meridien Bangkok is probably a better use of points. Oh wait! They look the same!

A side note: Keep in mind how much things like dinner, breakfast, gym access and laundry might be worth to you. Staying at a hotel, airbnb or hostel can sometimes obviate the need and cost of those common activities.

Keep your expectations in check

Yes, you’re finally redeeming for your first international First Class flight! But it’s on a US carrier, which means a unionized flight attendant that’s a year from retirement, food that is managed, if not chosen by someone who’s idea of a good meal out it TGI Fridays and a First Class lounge with “sushi” that may or may not be sweating and broken chairs.

Even the big leagues sometimes get things wrong. ANA has forgotten to stock amenity kits. Thai forgets to load pajamas. Heaven forbid if the LH logo isn’t facing you on your champagne glass during the caviar service or the SQ IFE goes on the fritz.

Sometimes the Inflight Entertainment doesn’t work. Even on Singapore.

The truth is that words like luxury, deluxe, upgrade(d) and premium are used EXTREMELY loosely, particularly in the travel industry. A true mark of someone with taste and class is to recognize that when things go wrong, it’s not the end of the world. It’s not like you’re paying full price for this stuff anyway. How much shorter would flyertalk be if people’s expectations were kept in check?

Even in the case of the upgrade roulette you experience at some hotel chains and airlines, it’s worth putting things into perspective. You are probably booking the hotel for a good, quiet place to sleep. That’s the value. If you’re entertaining a group or it’s a special occasion, reach out before your trip (perhaps not every trip), but don’t whine if the reservation that you booked hours before isn’t getting you into the honeymoon suite.

Even at the hotel I’m stayed at this week (where I have top tier status), I didn’t get an upgrade. I asked whether suites were available at check-in and knew they were being sold on the website, but I probably got the most tactful (and honest) response I’ve ever received. “There is one suite left, but we’ve pre-blocked it for another platinum guest that booked a revenue night” — Totally fair if you’re running a business and I’m not going to sulk about it. I’m still certain I got my 10,000 points worth, particularly since I think it’s the best Starwood hotel out of the 100 or so properties I’ve stayed at in the chain.

The point is to set the bar low and be pleasantly surprised than always have your hopes dashed.

Learn how to complain with questions

If you are actively involved in this hobby, you’ve probably picked up status at N different airlines or hotel chains. And it’s probably at some point been completely ignored, perhaps because of rude or untrained agents, an IT glitch, high demand or just bad luck. Or the status doesn’t actually get you anything beyond your class of service. They can’t upgrade you to the cockpit and I certainly hope they prioritize people paying full price for that suite or premium cabin seat.

Have a problem? Take it up with Judy. She also doesn’t care :)

In those situations, it’s extremely important to keep cool, talk only in factual observations and make sure you understand the problem the way they do.

“So it seems like the problem is that I’ve made a reservation on your website for tonight, but you’ve sold every room/seat and every other guest has already checked in/boarded the plane, is that right?”

Then probe a bit, adding a collaborative tone: “Ok, so what should WE do to fix this?”

And adding industry knowledge if you have it “Are there any pre-blocked or day rooms that haven’t checked in or a hospitality suite? It IS past midnight” Or “There’s a flight on XX, your partner, that leaves just an hour later, which would still allow me to make my connection, can you call the alliance liaison/round-the-world desk? Here’s their number.”

Then sprinkle in a bit of disappointment along with a solution that makes your whole.

“Wow, this has been pretty inconvenient, any chance you can reimburse me (one night’s stay worth) of points for the trouble, given how long it’s taken to sort out?” “Gee, as a Platinum customer, I fly with you guys a lot and aren’t usually put in these situations. Any chance you can book me into (premium cabin fare class – be reasonable) or debit my account a few thousand miles for the inconvenience?”

In the worst situations, particularly if the staff is surly, it might be worth considering taking your lumps and writing in after the fact. Airlines and hotels aren’t the best at customer service, but a concise, well-reasoned, unemotional letter (remember to speak only in facts) is likely to get you a better response than screaming at a gate or front desk agent.

Though I recommend pragmatic kindness and proactive charm over histrionics, it is worth mentioning that some companies train their staff to offer compensation based on the perceived magnitude of that slight from the guest’s perspective. “My closet light wasn’t working and I AM OUTRAGED” might net you 20,000 points. Go figure.

But you probably don’t want to be THAT type of person, right?

More to come, but post in the comments if you have more tips or just want to make fun of my anime likeness!

From the desk of the Devil’s Advocate…

There’s been extensive discussion in the points and miles community over exactly why CVS ended credit card sales of Vanilla Reloads and most of their other prepaid and reloadable products back in April. Much of the Conventional Wisdom has held that CVS must have been losing tons of money from credit card fees and finally decided to stop the bleeding once and for all.

I don’t buy it.

Why would CVS allow third party gift cards sales with a credit card in the first place if it meant always losing money? Why did they actually increase the daily limit late in the game? And why do they continue to this day to sell many third-party gift cards with a credit card, even Vanilla Visa cards?

Has CVS become a non-profit organization… or is there a simple answer to making money from selling gift cards (yes, even with a credit card)?

Who’s Keeping that $4.95 Anyway?

A lot of the information surrounding the deals CVS and other stores make with Incomm and the purveyors of third-party gift cards is shrouded in corporate secrecy, which means in exploring this topic we’ll have to do a little educated guessing. This is also known in the points and miles community as “wild unsubstantiated speculation” but I will note that we are not under oath here.

So let’s start with that purchase fee we pay for prepaid Visa, Mastercard, and American Express gift cards. Depending on the merchant and the flavor of gift card, that fee can generally range anywhere from $2.95 to $6.95.

Who’s that fee going to? The store? The vendor? The fee fairy?

For the sake of this analysis, let’s be favorable to CVS and assume it’s going to the store. That would mean when we purchase a OneVanilla Visa at CVS with a $4.95 fee and load it with the $500 maximum, CVS is getting roughly 1% of the total sale of $504.95.

Retail stores operate on relatively low margins, but a 1% margin on a product would be ridiculous. It seems incredibly unlikely that any store would be willing to carry a large amount of product at such a horribly low margin. Over the last 5 years CVS has reported an annual gross margin around 20% and an operating margin of roughly 5% to 6%, figures that seem in line with normal retail margins.

So it’s absurd to assume that stores that sell prepaid gift cards are only profiting from the purchase fee and nothing else, and that’s before we even consider the costs of credit card purchases. Depending on the credit card used, merchant fees and related expenses will tack on somewhere between 1.5% and 3% to the store’s cost of the transaction.

Which means if the purchase fee was all CVS was making from prepaid gift card sales, allowing people to use a credit card to buy these things under any circumstances would have been an automatic loss for the chain.

Do Grocery and Drug Stores Adore Subway?

But let’s step back and take a moment to glance at the other possibilities on those ubiquitous gift card racks. We see tons of merchant gift cards for a huge variety of restaurants (Burger King), retailers (Bed Bath & Beyond), online services (iTunes), and the like.

Of course, none of these cards have any purchase fee at all. When you buy a $50 gift card to Starbucks, it costs you exactly $50 and not a penny more. Otherwise no one would buy them, right?

This card has no fees — it costs exactly $50 (plus about 20,000 empty calories).

How is CVS and every other store making money off all those gift cards? Even if they restricted all gift card purchases to cash only (and most places still allow credit cards to be used to buy merchant gift cards), they would be guaranteeing themselves a profit of $0.00 on each and every sale. Add in credit card sales and we’re looking at a whole gift card rack of surefire losses.

None of this math is difficult and I’m quite certain the fine folks at CVS have done the same arithmetic. The same holds true for every other grocery and office supply store that carries prepaid Visa/Mastercard/American Express gift cards and still allows them to be purchased with a credit card — a list that is unfortunately dwindling but still far from empty.

So are we to assume that every one of these stores are willing to eat the loss on every sale of these cards just to do their part as an upstanding retail citizen? Is this a giant game of Pay It Forward?

Loss Leaders Never Mean Huge Losses

“Well,” say some Conventional Wisdomers, “perhaps CVS and other stores consider gift card sales a loss leader. They’re just trying to get people into their stores and the loss is the cost of doing business.”

Most people have heard of a loss leader, which is when a retailer deliberately sells a product at a loss in order to entice people to come in and purchase other items at the store that will make up the loss. We’ve all seen loss leaders many times before, often surrounding big shopping days.

As an example, Walmart regularly prints a Black Friday newspaper circular advertising prices on electronics and the like that are so low that they must be insane! Wait, sorry, I got caught up in the marketing. I meant to say they’re so low that they must be losing money on those sales. Which they are, because they’re expecting to make up that loss with other purchases their customers will likely make in the same visit.

But what else do you always see along with the crazy low prices in those Walmart advertising circulars? A small bit of type that reads something along the lines of “Limit 1 Per Customer” or “Rain Checks Unavailable On This Item” or “We Really Only Have Two of These In The Whole Store.”

Because that’s one of the tricks of loss leaders — they advertise the deals to everyone, but only a few people actually get them. It doesn’t matter because once people are already at the Walmart, while a few of them will leave unhappy, most of them will stay and buy other more profitable items.

Now, let’s take that knowledge back to our CVS discussion. The whole point of a loss leader is to use it as an enticement to bring customers into the store, while at the same time limiting the store’s losses to the absolute minimum necessary, right?

So what did CVS do when they were selling Vanilla Reloads by credit card, theoretically at a loss?

They advertised that fact not one iota… and then raised the purchase limit from $1,000 to $5,000 a day.

This is not loss leader behavior. You don’t increase the limits on your loss leader when it is completely unnecessary to do so. The same customers who would come in to buy $5,000 worth of Vanilla Reloads via credit card will still show up if you only allow them to buy $1,000 per trip, and they’ll also buy just as much deodorant and Cracker Jack while they’re there.

CVS reported a profit of $1.25 billion in the second quarter of 2014. This kind of profit generally does not come from putting forward a five-fold increase in your loss leader.

They were making money on those Vanilla Reloads, folks, along with all the other gift cards. It’s the only logical explanation.

Where Does The Profit Come From?

In fact, all stores must be making money from every card on their gift card rack, otherwise they wouldn’t bother to have one. Since they can’t be making money purely from the purchase fee (if there even is one), the gift card vendor must be cutting CVS and similar retailers in on the actual card value.

For example, if CVS sells a $25 Subway card, they undoubtedly get to keep a portion of the proceeds. They collect $25 from the customer and pass along only $20 of that to Subway, thereby achieving a 20% gross margin. (These numbers are only for illustration purposes as we don’t know the actual numbers, but the principle is clear). Subway is willing to take that $5 loss on the gift card sale because they’ll make the money back both through breakage (the gift cards that end up lost or never redeemed) and through added sales from customers who would normally dine elsewhere. Same goes for prepaid Visa cards — Incomm will make the money back via breakage and swipe fees.

The Devil’s Advocate says give CVS credit for knowing their business.

The answer as to why CVS shut down buying Vanilla Reloads with credit cards is pretty obvious. Either the amount of fraud started to outweigh the profits they were making, or Incomm decided to change the margin structure on Vanilla Reloads and other related cards, thereby making it unprofitable for CVS to continue paying credit card fees on those sales. I’d guess it was either option #1 or a combination of the two, but it’s certain things changed only because it stopped being routinely profitable to sell them that way.

Either way, don’t feel bad for CVS, even now when you go in to buy a Vanilla Visa with your credit card. You’re not hurting their profit margins or doing something that will cost the cashier his or her job. If the transaction wasn’t making them money, rest assured that CVS wouldn’t be allowing it.

Now, free Bluebird loads at Walmart? That’s another story…

Devil’s Advocate is a weekly series that deliberately argues a contrarian view on travel and loyalty programs. Sometimes the Devil’s Advocate truly believes in the counterargument. Other times he takes the opposing position just to see if the original argument holds water. But his main objective is to engage in friendly debate with the miles and points community to determine if today’s conventional wisdom is valid. You can suggest future topics by sending an email to dvlsadvcate@gmail.com.

About the only thing worse than waiting in a security line or the crowded airport terminal is actually sitting in coach. Seat 32B, to be exact. As you enter the plane and prepare yourself for the next four hours of misery, you’ll probably pass some happier passengers sipping on pre-departure beverages and sprawling across their roomy first class seats.

So why aren’t you joining them?

Upgrades do cost something, whether that payment comes in the form of money, frequent flier miles, or elite status. But you probably already have what it takes to sit up front or can find a way to make the jump more affordable.

Complimentary Elite Upgrades

Most of the first class upgrades go to elite frequent fliers who receive them as complimentary benefits on domestic routes. Although paid and award upgrades have priority, there often aren’t enough to fill all the empty seats. The trick to getting upgraded is thus two-fold: get status and choose the right flights.

Consolidate your travel onto one carrier or alliance rather than distributing it among several airlines. If it costs a bit more, compare that to what you might save in other benefits like upgrades, priority seat assignments, and various waived fees. But if you plan to fly within an alliance, remember that complimentary upgrades generally go only to members who have elite status with the operating carrier. American Airlines would rather upgrade a member of its AAdvantage program before it considers anyone from Cathay Pacific’s Marco Polo Club.

Choosing your flights wisely is more complicated but simple enough in theory: fly when no one else wants to fly. So leave on a Saturday morning after everyone’s returned home from their business trips or left for the weekend. Connections help, too. No one likes to go out of their way, and these routes have more price-sensitive and typically less frequent travelers. As an added bonus, you might save money when compared to non-stop routes favored by road warriors traveling on the company’s dime.

Read up on each carrier’s unique rules that govern its upgrade policy. American gives priority to connecting passengers, for example, and considers the time of the upgrade request (often when the flight was booked). United penalizes a couple traveling together because there must be upgrade space for both or else the system skips over to the next single passenger. It also ranks passengers by the fare paid; sometimes spending $10 more for a higher booking class can increase your position in the upgrade queue.

Paid Upgrades

In the days leading up to departure, upgrade inventory doesn’t quite match the number of first class seats available because an airline hopes to sell them at full price. But the numbers can track closely. Faced with a choice between giving a seat away for free or collecting at least some extra cash, money takes priority over rewarding loyal passengers.

Upgrades can often be purchased at a discount to the true cost of a first class ticket. Some carriers offer this option at check-in or when you view your itinerary online, while others may have a fixed price or auction system at the gate. Rules vary greatly between carriers. Unlike if you purchased a first class ticket, you’ll be treated according to the rules of the original fare. That means fewer frequent flyer miles and higher fees for schedule changes.

But there are also some fares that are sold as economy class tickets that include an automatic upgrade to first class. Often called “Y-UP” fares, they are not exactly cheap. They just happen to be less expensive than paying for first class outright and available to most people. Elite frequent fliers may be offered similar instant upgrades available when they book full-fare tickets even if they aren’t advertised with the Y-UP name.

Award Upgrades

Carriers will let you pay for a regular ticket and upgrade it later using frequent flier miles. However, many upgrades still require a co-pay, especially for the cheapest discount fares. United Airlines charges as much as 20,000 miles plus $550 each way for a business class upgrade between North America and Europe. If you want to upgrade a partner flight (e.g., using United’s miles on Lufthansa), the co-pay requirement is dropped though you will need to buy a full-fare ticket. How much money are you really saving over discounted business class?

It should be no surprise that upgrades are generally a bad use of miles. Continuing with United as an example, an upgrade within the U.S. is 20,000 miles plus $75 one-way. You could redeem a first class saver award for just 25,000 miles. But some people never save enough for a free flight, can’t find award space, or just don’t want to travel more than they already have to. Using miles in any way is better than letting them expire.

Operational Upgrades

Passengers with no extra money, no miles, and no elite status will probably only enjoy a first class experience thanks to operational upgrades, i.e., upgrades given at the discretion of the gate agent.

Is the economy class cabin oversold? Someone has to move up to first class. Or a passenger may be willing to take a later flight, with a seat in first class as compensation for the inconvenience. Never settle for the agent’s original offer, as there are many little things he or she can do in addition to handing out cash. Other issues like a disruptive passenger or an inoperative television screen might provide justification for reshuffling passengers on-board.

The lie flat business class on American’s Boeing 777-300ER and Airbus A321T aircraft.

Stories about a well-dressed customer who asks for an upgrade are the exception rather than the rule. More important than how someone looks is that a seat is available, the passenger is friendly, and the agent has a problem that needs to be quickly solved. These upgrades are all about the luck of the draw. Rather than buying a new suit, consider trying out some of the other options listed above.

Note: This piece was written for and adapted by U.S. News and first appeared in the Travel Features section of usnews.com. Read the original article.

Ross emailed me yesterday with a question about the United MileagePlus Explorer credit card. His question wasn’t so much about how to earn the bonus miles offered for new applications but what the difference is between award miles, qualifying miles, and qualifying dollars. It is probably the most common question I receive about how to get started with miles and points. Beyond United Airlines, this confusion could apply to most airline loyalty programs, which are significantly more complex than those for hotels, car rentals, or generic bank rewards.

Redeemable Miles (RDM)

Most people are referring to redeemable or award miles when the use the word “miles” in a generic context that isn’t otherwise explained. These are the miles that can be redeemed for an award—often a free flight but sometimes a hotel room, gift card, or some consumer good. Airlines issue lots of these. They may give them to customers who complete a trip, sell them to a credit card issuer (who then gives them to its customers), or partner with other companies like a shopping portal. They may even sell them directly to customers, but that is often the most expensive way of earning them.

Even with various bonus offers, United has sometimes charged 3 cents a mile to buy miles directly from the airline. There are better ways to get more award miles.

As I said, some of the people who get these miles are banks. Rather than offer cash back they instead give their cardholders award miles as an incentive to apply for a card or for ongoing purchases. These miles do not count toward elite status.

Are redeemable miles better than cash back? It depends. Chase offers United miles instead of cash back because it can buy them very cheaply. But that doesn’t mean the miles are actually worth so little. Chase and United assume some people will lose their miles or redeem them for low value awards. If you can work within the limits of the award program and redeem them for a high value award, you may get a better deal than the average cardholder. If you like flexibility and a fixed value, then a cash back card could make more sense.

Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM)

Elite qualifying miles are tallied separately to determine your elite status in a program. Sometimes the number of EQM and RDM are the same for a certain activity, and sometimes they’re different. For example, a general member of United’s MileagePlus program will get 1,000 RDM and 1,000 EQM for a 1,000-mile journey. A Premier 1K member gets a 100% bonus on award miles, so he will get 2,000 RDM and 1,000 EQM.

Some fares also earn bonus miles for certain fare classes, like a first class ticket, which is calculated on the base miles before any other bonuses. So a Premier 1K member traveling on a first class ticket will earn 1,000 base RDM + 1,000 bonus RDM for status + 500 bonus RDM for fare class. That’s 2,500 redeemable miles.

There may also be a fare class bonus for the EQM. Elite status does not provide a bonus for EQM, so this Premier 1K will earn 1,000 base EQM + 500 bonus EQM for fare class, or 1,500 total.

Keeping track of two kinds of miles is quickly getting more complicated. Nor does it help that each airline refers to their EQM by a different name, e.g., United calls theirs “Premier Qualifying Miles” while Delta calls them “Medallion Qualifying Miles.” EQM is a generic term.

Ross was specifically concerned with whether the bonus miles from his MileagePlus Explorer card would help him earn elite status. The answer is no. Some credit cards do offer elite qualifying miles, but they will specifically call them out, almost always provide a small number, and may list other requirements. Citi offers 10,000 bonus EQM with American Airlines if you reach an annual spend threshold on their Executive / AAdvantage card, but there were different, easier requirements for new customers to get as many as 100,000 redeemable award miles earlier this year.

Elite Qualifying Dollars (EQD)

Delta and United this year moved to a new system where they take into account two measures: elite qualifying miles and elite qualifying dollars. You have to hit both requirements to earn status. However, both offer ways to get an exemption from the EQD requirement if you have a co-branded credit card. (Again, names can vary. United calls these “Premier Qualifying Dollars” while Delta calls them “Medallion Qualifying Dollars.”)

While elite qualifying miles roughly track how far you fly, elite qualifying dollars roughly track how much you spend. Starting next year, both United and Delta will change to a new system that also calculates redeemable award miles based on how much you spend. Because it’s generally more difficult to earn elite qualifying dollars than elite qualifying miles, I’m surprised that they would bother to keep EQMs around. United and Delta may eventually move to a system that only uses award miles and elite qualifying dollars, both of which are determined by ticket cost.

Is There Any Point to Getting a Credit Card without Status?

Finally, Ross wanted to know if there was any point to getting a credit card if the sign-up bonus only includes redeemable miles that wouldn’t count toward elite status. He only flies a couple times a year but does have several thousand dollars a month he can put on the card.

There is definitely an opportunity here. Ross is not likely to earn elite status given his travel habits, but most airline credit cards offer things like priority boarding and a free checked bag. Given how much most airlines have also devalued their loyalty programs, I think the benefits are comparable to low-level status. The sign-up bonus has nothing to do with this. Simply getting the card will provide Ross some value.

The second reason why a card may be a good idea is because of the shift to calculating award miles based on ticket price. As an infrequent flyer but a big-time spender, Ross will earn miles more easily with a credit card than by actually traveling on United. He could then use those miles for upgrade awards or award travel. Upgrade awards can only be used on paid travel, but they are easier to get. If Ross’s travel plans are flexible and he can find award space, I think saving up for an award ticket may be a better value. He may be able to use these award tickets instead of paying cash for those few times he flies.