I have had a Citi Premier Pass Elite for a few months and have found it very worthwihile.

A group of us are going to Hawaii this November and needed the same flights. I called the companion fare program and received a ticket for myself and wife for $695.00 for both tickets w/taxes. I then inquired about other tickets which they said they had and sold me four more tickets for $400.00 w/taxes each. This is from LAX to OGG around Thanksgiving time. I felt very good about the friendly help and transaction.

I then used the Thank You Network, and for 70,000 points received two more tickets for exactly the same flights on the same airline. It did take forever to get an agent. They apologized and said they wouldn't be charging any taxes or other fees until they had a better system setup.

I have also watched my statements and have received flight credit (no points yet) for the tickets I bought through the companion fares, also for just paying the taxes on another flight to South America for two of us. These two trips (Hawaii, Peru) combined will be more than 50,000 points. We will also receive FF miles on the airline flights.

As I have read the threads I am concerned, but so far have received more than I had planned to receive when I signed up for the card.

a strange forum for a first post, but welcome to FT!

See post #158 of this thread: http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthrea...ht=PremierPass

Spirit Incentives seems to be the current flight redemption agency.

The post you're referring to (also by me) is very clearly talking about the companion ticket program.

Spirit is the company that handles the companion ticket program (which is mostly terrible). Global Impact used to handle flight redemptions. Expedia is now the company that does (see post #178 of the same thread above).

Having made reservations both last week and yesterday redeeming points, both agents said they were not connected to Expedia but worked for the the Thank-you Points travel network. One agent said "we sometimes use different sites, including Expedia" when searching for fligths.

I don't know but I certainly couldn't get a clear answer to which travel company they worked for other than Thank You Network.

By the way, I just redeemed 60K points for a $1371.78 USD AA/BA ticket to ORD-MAA (India). I was granted my choice of dates and airlines without any issues! I also could choose to fly out of MDW if I had wanted to. The cheapest ticket for my dates on any carrier was about $1200 on Orbitz. I didn't even have to pay tax...the reps said that until further notice (and for the last six months) they are covering all taxes on redemptions! I like this program!

That explains why I didn't have to pay taxes then--I too had to wait a really long time on hold the two times I called before booking.