xooz

Well, have to claim ignorance on the ability to get 6.67 points per dollar on the Citi card. You have given me something to research.

amolkold

It involves two cards - a Citi Forward (to get 5x TYP at restaurants) and a Citi Premier card (that gets 1.33 cents per TYP on travel redemptions). 5x * 1.33 = 6.67.

shoreline

+1.^ Expiring after 24 months of inactivity doesn't seem too much to ask.

Maybe the OP is thinking about the old SW (WN) credits? they do/did expire.

Currently, SW points do not expire as long as your account in not inactive for 24 months straight in a row.

From the SW website:
"**Points don’t expire as long as you have flight or Partner earning activity every 24 months. Benefits apply to points transactions. All Rapid Rewards Rules and Regulations apply."

xooz

Thanks. I did see that TY points don't transfer to individual airline programs but rather require that you purchase your travel through them to use your points. I can do either with the Chase UR points, so a little more flexibility. I like the transfer/use 4500 Avios points for short one way award ticket rather than purchasing that type of flight with the UR points from their web site.

shoreline

I don't call 24 months of inactivity 'quickly'.

and transferring miles or e rewards, car rentals, etc. are considered activity.

HansGolden

I would disagree. They're awesome because they have no last minute redemption fees! There's nothing quite as satisfying as spending 6k Membership Rewards (which transferred to 9k Avios) for a last-minute roundtrip to Chicago or Dallas or NYC. (ETA: It appears that I missed the point of the reason you don't like them. You think AA/AS avail is poor? I have no experience with AS avail, but I thought AA was universally acclaimed as some of the best domestic avail? Maybe that's changed recently. I've noticed it's not as good as it used to be.)

Agree 100% with the OP! I just redeemed a last minute ticket this evening for my 13 year old brother to join me for a week in PA as he has the first week of Jan off from school. Last minute tickets would have been about $550 round trip otherwise. Of course, I did actually use United miles in this case, so he could fly with me. However, I had the option of BA (second best option), AA, WN/FL, or DL as well.

LAX88

If having miles is good, it follows a fortiori that it is better to have more them in more programs. @:-)

xooz

My comment regarding "sketchy" availability comes from a number of searches for one way flights, both domestic US and international( departing LHR). In my samples, I rarely find availability for next day travel, and many times, there seems to only be 1-3 flights over the next 7 days available. I am doing this from the BA web site. UA seems much better, but of course it requires 12.5K points for one way vs. 4500 points(for short flights). I'm glad you have been successful in finding availability for your near term trips.

Note that I am only looking at BA/UA web sites, I am not calling to try to reserve award travel.. Maybe availability is more accessible by phone.

sdsearch

Well, a great earning rate on a hotel program, yes. But it's not such a great earning rate if you're going to transfer out:

(Plus they don't support Southwest or any other LCCs. Plus I'm sure it's not instantaneous like UR is, in fact, I've never heard of anything else that instantaneous.)

And it's not like Club Carlson has the biggest "footprint" for hotels either (especially in the US). It may be better than Hyatt, but far from the best for "emergencies".

So I'm sure how good Club Carlson is for "emergency" flights or even hotel stays.

mia

American Express Membership Rewards, which has far more partners than Ultimate Rewards, transfers instantly to several.

aubreyfromwheaton

I agree with OP, but disagree with OP's example.

Worst case OP was out $350 which is nothing for a last minute flight needed for work...

But it does prove that having points in many programs can save you some money.

And there are times when a last minute flight could be $800 or so or instead a handful of points/aviiiooos etc.

points in more programs are like Ludacris says it's good to have *** in different area codes....

Happy

I find you have a habit to impose your own needs to others. Not everyone travels the way you do.

What I am saying is about the comment on the Citi Forward's earning rate on dining which is 6x. That I also like the Club Carlson's 5x on everything without any hoop to jump thru such as the OD play in the old days on the Ink cards.

To clarify:

I have never been against not to have miles and points in various programs - the only caveat is, the accumulation needs to be cheap, and the balances acquired must be meaningful.

As such, I just redeemed a DL 100K business class to Europe award without ever flew a pay flight on DL. So there. Having meaningful balance in various programs do allow you a lot of flexibility.

I think I have a final laugh on a poster who used to argue about people getting a card here a card there, and wound up having their miles scattering a variety of programs but have no use of them... Said person happens to have a great difficulty in finding a DL low level award to Japan for 2 persons and wound up buying one revenue ticket and using one award - then rationalized it that her 2 tickets were now averaged only $2xxx a piece, a bargain - she proclaimed....

Had said person gotten the pair of AA cards when the she made the initial denouncement about 2 years ago, she would be flying JL or CX in F to NRT almost anytime they wanted on AA awards which thankfully are still very easy to claim on the TPAC route thanks to CX releasing premium cabin seats rather generously. Though apparently instead of learning a lesson, people seem to always find some excuses to rationalize the mistakes made.

Regarding hotel points:

1) For me, and probably for a lot of other folks, hotel points are to use on hotels not to transfer to miles which we have various miles for over 10 First class trips to anywhere in the world we would want to go, so that is a 3 to 4 years worth of travel (since we do not go in F on each and every trip.) But the clock does not stop here as you are well aware - there are always new cards to get new pile of miles, not to mention having 20K AA miles every month coming in from BD until the spigot is turned off.

The last thing I want/need is a hotel program to transfer to airlines, even with SPG. I just booked 4 nights Cat 6 SPG with cash and pt at 4800 + $90 a night. YMMV.

2) Carlson has quite a few Radison Blu properties scatter in various European Cities which happen to be our destinations. So there. Not good for you but work for me.

3) I am in the camp who has not flown WN except once for a business trip almost 2 decades ago because the co-workers had to. I have no intention to, and probably not any emergency need to, fly WN in any foreseeable future but I do not criticize your obsession to prove your points even though WN is, and will never be, an airline I would purposely to fly simply because our families / friends dont live in a city where the legacies do not serve.

Happy

^

Except that AMEX charges 7.5% Exercise tax on domestic airline transfer now is only DL if I am not mistaken, versus UR does not charge.

You also do not risk your AMEX account being shut down should you transfer to someone else' account instead of spousal account.

sdsearch

It's not nothing depending on the work that you do and the "cost" of missing a day of work. If you're earning much less than $50/hour, $350 would likely outdo your take-home pay for the day (if, for example, you had to take the day without pay if you didn't show up or only showed up for the last your).

And I'd already paid close to $100 in added one-way fees on the car rental plus extra gas for driving to the further airport plus paying for a meal at the airport (whereas in First on AA I would have gotten the meal free on board).

So it would have been total $450 in extra cost. In that case, it would indeed have been more than I would have in lost income by only getting to work around "closing time". So to me it was very significant in this case.

Plus everyone's ability to earn miles/points vs earn more money is different. For me, it is actually easier to earn the points needed for a $350 WGA flight on Southwest than to earn an extra $350. As I already explianed above, I earned the Southwest points at $30 to $43 in bonuses per one-night hotel stays (stays which often cost $50ish to $60ish because of Marriot "LNF" best-rate guarantees). Please tell me how I could have earned $30 to $43 cash instead in those cases. (If you know how to get recurring $7 to $30 hotel rates, including breakfast and internet, near Anaheim CA, please tell me, because as far as I can see, that's what I would have needed to find to just match, not trump, the Southwest earning rate I got during two MegaMiles promos last year.)

PresskittJon

In theory, sure. It was a 31 year old guy whose heart just stopped leaving behind wife and three little kids.

Much better to bless them expecting nothing in return.