Milenomics² Episode 218: News, Booking Tools, and a Quick New York City Trip Report

0:25 Amex 5x Employee Card Links Not Working?

• Was 20,000 for $4,000
• Then dropped to 15,000 for $4,000
• Recently I received a targeted email for 5,000 for $2,000 - I have standards, sir!
• Don’t like where this is headed, but let’s hope it comes back

04:27 Amex Delta Card Changes

• Higher fees, more coupons
• Platinum goes from $250 to $350
• Reserve goes from $550 to $650
• Monthly credits seem hard to game: Resy, Delta Stays, Rideshare
• Have they gone just a step too far with these coupons?

07:42 SLH Moves from Hyatt to Hilton

11:36 Austrian Launches Boston to Vienna Route (OMAAT)

• Said to start July 2024
• Great Star Alliance options from Boston w/Lufthansa (MUC, FRA), SWISS (ZRH), Tap Portugal (LIS) and now Austrian (VIE)
• We’ll see how partner award availability looks…

14:57 Fluz Follies

• Reversals due to double charges
• Random draining of funds (due to non-charging)
• 72 hour hold of >$2000 in loads
• Really rough time to be in Fluz
• PPBP shutdowns and loss of CU targets this week. Dark days.

22:10 Discover Referral/Application

• Finally found a link to refer P2 for Discover It card
• $100 for referring, $100 for taking the referral, and I think (hope?) first year points earned doubled
• Application went…pending. Said to call. 🙁
• But also said you could chat to ram it through. Chatted and…nobody there.
• Tried a few times of a week (they kept emailing me to “complete the application” - or really verify the application as legit
• Finally got a chat agent who said…to call
• My goodness, do these people not know how to transact?
• Got my wife on the phone, verified I could speak on her behalf. Agent agreed but then:
• Agent: “Do I have your permission to send a one-time verification to your cell phone?”
• Me: “Sure!”
• Agent: “Sir, I need to hear that confirmation from P2”
• Finally got it rammed through and approved. What a bank.

27:25 BofA Annual Fee Refunds When Closing/Downgrading

• Datapoints vary here from “fee refund posted the next day” to “hasn’t posted and it’s been a month”
• On my side, I closed an Elite outside of 30 days and also a Premium Rewards whose annual fee posted 6 months ago. Living in MA, both should have been eligible for a pro-rated AF refund, neither posted any refund so I called.
• Rep hard a surprisingly hard time finding the fees, then also a hard time “getting them to pull up” in her system so “she could see if they’re eligible for a refund.”
• She finally found them and poof they were both eligible for not only a pro-rated annual fee refund but a full refund, which is surprising for the card whose fee posted 6 months ago. Maybe they have the coding fouled up for MA residents? A BofA error in favor of the customer? No way, right?
• The rep said she’d been at BofA “forever and a year” so I asked her whether she needs to remember to request a fee refund when closing a card and she said, “No, it should be automatic.” But I really doubt that’s true.
• On my wife’s side she downgraded an Elite and a Premium Rewards within 30 days of the fee posting. Neither of those refunds posted, so I’ll once again have to get P2 on the phone. Grr…
• How are you doing on these, outside of MA?
• BofA is regularly fined by the CFPB for things like Illegally Charging Junk Fees, Withholding Credit Card Rewards, Opening Fake Accounts, Falsifying Customer Mortgage Data (here, here) but the sums of money are laughably small to a bank their size.
• Discuss: Do we rely on a certain amount of banking incompetence to do what we do?

33:29 Mistakes Were Made: Booked a Hilton Resort Throwaway Stay For Tomorrow Night Accidentally

• I don’t know what happened here to be honest
• I was aiming for a stay between Christmas and New Years and ended up booking a stay for…2 nights from when I booked it!?
• Realized my mistake when I got an email welcoming me to check in for a stay in Orlando
• Think Fast: What would you do?

36:57 Booking Tools: PointsYeah, Points Path, and seats.aero

37:57Points Yeah

• pointsyeah.com
• Pretty good free award search functionality
• Seems targeted at people with bank points

42:37 PointsPath

• pointspath.com
• Google Flights extension that shows miles required alongside search results
• Said to support American, United, and Delta
• Handy step forward for a common question, but I still find myself performing searches elsewhere to confirm, it doesn’t always work (even for supposedly supported airlines) and they’ll probably get shutdown. Otherwise, great service!
• Example:

45:25 seats.aero

• Haven’t tried this one yet, but I hear good things
• Free functionality seems quite limited

49:43 Amtrak Acela First Boston - New York City

• I wrote a couple of posts on Milenomics the blog about using points for Acela First a few years back. Pretty much everything has changed.
• Amtrak points now appear to be worth as much for Acela rides as Northeast Regional. Previously they were worth less towards Acela. I like this uniformity.
• You used to buy First upgrade coupon books in packs of 4. Now you can buy them 1 at a time. I like that. Less breakage for infrequent train travelers because they do expire.
• Booked outbound with Business Class with cash. Upgraded to First inside of 12 hours to departure with coupon.
• Fantastic service. Instantly presented a menu when seated. Food and drink order taken immediately. Good food, very good drinks, great experience.
• Amtrak now comes into beautiful Moynihan Hall rather than gritty Penn Station. Right nearby but totally new. And it’s gorgeous.
• Amtrak lounge for Acela First guests is also fantastic. Not too crowded. Good free food and non-alcoholic beverages. So nice. Used to be an absolutely dump of a lounge. They escort you to the train when it’s time. Bonkers how nice it is.
• Return service wasn’t quite as amazing but still: What a way to travel.

54:09 NYC Lodging

• Purpose of trip: Meeting up w/brother and a friend of hours for a guys trip
• Wanted: Separate sleeping quarters but common area to gather in with a nice but “not too fancy” vibe.
• Considered: Conrad Midtown, Conrad Downtown, Park Hyatt New York, and other Hyatts
• Used: suiteness.com to find suites with adjoining rooms -or- large suites that could potentially accommodate
• Booked: Conrad Midtown and called about upgrading to a 2 BR suite. They wanted $500/nt on top of FNC or points stay. Not a bad option, but I wasn’t thrilled with this property for our situation. Cancelled.
• Booked: Park Hyatt New York. Contacted a common Revenue Coordinator for these 2 properties and wasn’t getting anywhere. They basically wanted the cash price difference between the cash price of an award room I booked and the suite I wanted which was very expensive. Cancelled.
• Booked: 2 rooms. A 30k King Bed, and a Premium Suite that would have gone for 60k for $460 + 9,000 points/nt. I had no intention of staying in these rooms. I wanted to see if it’s possible to book 2 rooms and be accommodated in one ultra-premium suite that’s not available for points bookings.
• Emailed GM with a “because” to see what he could do, got a phone call a day later. Great conversation. Very “I want to make this happen for you.”
• Said that if I’d change my 30K King Bed to a cash booking at the going rate he could accommodate us in their top suite. Great!
• Got there and…my name wasn’t on the reservation and there was nothing they could do.
• Ended up being a great stay and something I’ll keep in mind for future trips.