expedia.com $50 mobile coupon, $5 off rogers wireless bills, air canada rouge changes their point earning structure

1) expedia.com is offering a $50 off voucher to first-time hotel purchases on their expedia app using the code found below. it has a minimum $200 purchase, which may limit its use to stays greater than 3-4 days in length. that would in turn limit the effectiveness of expedia's best rate guarantee. on the other hand, i was looking at my one night hotel booking for singapore, and realized that in itself, it would be $200 before tax ...

 

2) rogers wireless customers can save $5 off of their monthly bill (one time only) by signing up for their wireless promotional texts. i found out about it via a website ad, with further details confirmed through here. these texts are supposedly up to a max of 4x a week, and for deals and coupons for everyday services in your area. i signed up for it. after i see the $5 credit to my account, i'm probably going to unsubscribe.

3) air canada announced two days ago that their new airline, air canada rouge, will be changing its point accumulation structure to fall more in line with their mainline. this removes the ridiculously low 800 / 400 qualifying mile (flex/tango, respectively) earnings per flight to something more lucrative. 

the tango booking classes seem larger than before (T/L/K have been added to tango even internationally with rouge), but 50% is still likely more than 400 elite qualifying miles on any of their flights. this is indeed a positive move. as someone on flyertalk pointed out, rouge can now at least be considered instead of simply passed over for other airlines who can give more qualifying points. it's great news indeed ...

esso's 50 and 100 aeroplan point bonus versus petro-canada's 50% bonus

in an e-mail i received on november 12, esso announced their new aeroplan promotion effective until december 8. you get either 100 bonus aeroplan points on supreme and extra grades of gas (91 and 89 octane, respectively) and 50 bonus aeroplan points on regular (87 octane) gas. this is on a minimum 35 litre purchase.

petro-canada, on the other hand, has a 50% bonus on all petro-point earning opportunites at stores until january 6, 2014. so which is better?

for esso, it would make sense to maximize your point earning opportunities by filling up only 35L at a time. in the lower mainland, the average rate for gas right now appears to be $1.22/L for regular grade gas and $1.32/L for supreme grade gas. for a 35L fill, this would equate to a total bill of $42.70 and $46.20, respectively. you earn 1 point per every $3 spent normally. for the regular grade of gas, you would get 14 aeroplan points plus a 50 point bonus. for the supreme grade, you would earn 15 aeroplan points plus a 100 point bonus. as i had learned from my business class reward booking to asia that i made last month, i was able to get a 4.13 cent per point return. therefore, for your fill-up, you could potentially get $2.64 to $4.75 back.

for petro-canada, after their 50% bonus, you earn 15, 10.5, and 7.5 petro-points per litre of gas, depending on the grade you get. for a 35L fill, you would get 525 petro-points, 367.5 petro-points, and 262.5 petro-points in total, depending on the grade. in my previous post, i had calculated how much each petro-point was worth.

• at the very minimum, i had calculated that each petro-point was worth 0.0625 cents, meaning that even with the highest grade of gas, your petro-points would be worth $0.32 per 35L fill.
• if you were to convert to cathay pacific's asia miles, you would earn a maximum of 52.5 asia miles with the supreme octane. assuming that an asia mile can potentially hit 4.13 cents per point like with aeroplan, then your 35L fill would potentially earn $2.17.

conclusions

• esso has a better value during this promotion period for gasoline purchases, provided that aeroplan points interest you. 
• if you're interested in using the cathay pacific transfer option, then petro-canada would be a good option outside of the esso promotion period.

and as a reminder about gas grades ...
not all cars require the 91 octane. in fact, many cars (like mine) can get away with the 87 octane. i used to be all about the 91 octane despite my owner manual saying that i only needed 87 octane. then, after seeing the cbc marketplace report suggesting that the extra octane has no real benefit, i've since switched to regular grades for a 10-12c a litre savings.

a collection of devaluations -- united, hyatt, alaska

a few weeks ago, i commented on united's devaluing of their award chart. but then on flyertalk, there were a few more devaluations being written about:

1) hyatt gold passport had revamped its award chart on november 10, 2013, pushing 21 hotels into higher award categories and 17 hotels into lower ones. but they also changed the amounts required to redeem within each category. details can be found in the flyertalk thread here.

2) alaska airlines makes a small devaluation of their award chart on november 13, 2013. flight awards went up for their last seat availability awards. while these awards are not as valuable, they did guaranteed a maximum number of points that could be redeemed for a guaranteed seat on the plane. air canada offers this too using aeroplan's market fares (previously known as classic plus). however, aeroplan does not set a maximum, and thus i've seen business class tickets being sold for over a million aeroplan points. it was blogged about here.

i'm not an active participant in either of these programs. i did write a while back about how alaska made a great back-up program in case one had to fly a non-star alliance carrier (or if they were forced to fly multiple carriers in different alliances). i still think that remains true. however, i haven't found myself in the position of having to credit anything to alaska airlines yet, and so this news doesn't affect me that much.

i've heard wonderful things about the hyatt gold passport program which seem to trump the benefits of starwood preferred guest. i'm not a member as hyatt has just half of the participating properties that starwood has (which already is limited), and there isn't a good credit card option for hyatt here in canada. therefore, i'm not an active member in their program.


all this being said, it just goes to show that devaluations happen everywhere and all of the time. and it's a good reminder that banking large amounts of miles hoping for them to increase in value is rarely a good strategy.

50% bonus petro-points until january 6, 2014

i received an offer in my e-mail early this morning. from now until january 6, all purchases made at petro-canada will earn an additional 50% more petro-points. normally, you earn:

• 10 points per litre on superclean (94 octane) gas
• 5-7 points per litre on other grades of gas
• 20 points per dollar spent in store (except tobacco, petro canada gift cards/gift certificates). note: you still earn points on gift cards for other vendors, however.

for in-store purchases, petro-points are perhaps a nice perk. for redemptions at petro canada (which offer the best deal), $100 gift cards can be purchased with 160,000 points. in other words, for ever 16 points earned, it can be redeemed for $0.01. alternatively, 10,000 points is worth $10 off of your  vacation at itravel2000.com. this means that only 10 points are required for $0.01 return. therefore, you can get either a 1.25% return per dollar spent in store with petro-canada gift cards, or a 2% return per dollar spent in store with itravel2000.com. with the bonus 50% points, your returns increase to 1.875% to 3%.

remember cathay pacific?

10,000 petro-points points = 1,000 cathay pacific asia miles. this means that for every dollar spent in store, you earn 2 asia miles normally. with this promotion, it increases to 3 asia miles. one can safely argue that one asia mile is worth at least a penny a piece. some may argue that it's worth more, but virtually no one can argue that it's worth less.

so it's a great place to buy your lottery tickets (which you can buy using your scotia bank american express for a 4% return) or gift cards to places like subway and shopper's drug mart.

what about visa/mastercard gift cards?

one of the more interesting values would be the visa and mastercard gift cards. these are not to be confused with the pivot visa reload cards. you don't earn any petro-points on those. however, you do earn points on the visa/mastercard gift cards. 

i typically see $200 gift cards on sale with a $6.95 activation fee. there is tax on the $6.95 portion, making the total purchase cost $207.74 (assuming 12% combined tax). therefore, using the scotia bank gold american express, you earn:

• $8.30 from the use of your credit card
• 4,154 base points, and 2,077 bonus points for a total of 6,231 petro-points.

if you convert the petro-points to asia miles, you will get 623 asia miles, which have a minimum value of $6.23. if you just convert them into petro-canada gift cards, then you get $3.89 back (1.875% return). therefore, for your 207.74 purchase, you will earn $14.53 (assuming amex reward + asia miles) or $12.19 (assuming amex reward + petro-canada gift card with a 1.875% return). one must subtract the additional cost of the visa/mastercard ($7.74). this means that with the amex + asia miles option, your net reward is $6.79 minimum. again, some people argue that the value of the asia mile can be worth more than a penny a piece. alternatively, your net reward is $4.45 with the amex + petro-canada gift card option.

compare this to the MBNA no-fee world points mastercard which gives 2% cash back, you would only get a $4 return on spending $200. compare this to the next best available card, which appears to be capital one no fee cash aspire card (1.25% back), and you would only get $2.50 back.

when would it make sense to use these gift cards?
it is an extra step in order to get a higher return. i would consider this if:

• you are willing to travel on cathay pacific or their oneworld (e.g., american airlines, british airways, etc) and partner (e.g., westjet) airlines
• you know you can earn enough to claim a reward before the asia miles expire in two years
• you are willing to buy gas at petro-canada stations
• you are able to purchase these cards using your scotia bank gold american express card to take advantage of the 4% rebate earned on gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment spending

i would be more likely to take advantage of this if i can buy the cards in alberta, where you save the provincial sales tax.

when using the visa/mastercard gift cards themselves, it would only make sense if you use them:

• at places that do not accept american express
• at places that aren't gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment businesses

i don't know yet if i'll take full advantage of this. but i'm finding myself more and more impressed with petro-canada and the versatility of its reward program. 

update: checkout 51 actually does pay!

back in march, i wrote about checkout 51, a grocery app which lets you save on groceries. the premise is that it has various rebate offers each week (e.g., $2.00 back when you buy listerine mouth wash). you take a picture of your receipt, upload it to the app, wait 24-48 hours for it to be processed, and the amount gets credited to your account.

it took a whopping 7 months for me to accrue enough for a minimum cash out. some of the problems i had were:

• many of the products didn't interest me -- e.g., cereal offers for a guy who skips breakfast daily is unlikely to be helpful
• many of its offers weren't offered at a time when the major stores were having a sale for said item
• i became really, really lazy when it came to grocery shopping on a weekly basis
• starting a month ago or so, the app must have became quite popular because offers were actually running out by the end of the weekend. when offers run out, there are no more rebates to be had.

some of the nice surprising rebates this year were:

• $1 rebates for a single grocery store bill of $60 or more
• $1 rebates for a single grocery store bill paid with visa of $20 or more. this one worked nicely with the pivot visa.

so in early october, i hit enough to obtain the minimum cash out amount of $20.

account balance -- you need $20 to cash out

i hit the cash out button, entered in my details. i clicked send, and i received a nice confirmation:

cheque requested

and then a few weeks later, as promised, i received my cheque.

cheque received

so i can now say confidently that checkout 51 is legitimate. i'll still browse it every now and then and upload receipts when i can. i'm not expecting to become rich off of the app by any means, but $21 is still better than nothing.

united devalues its award program ...

last week, united announced new changes to their mileage award charts. it's not easily identified on the website, and you have to hunt around for the changes. the new, updated chart is found here in their program PDF.

effective february 1, 2014, they've done a few things with their award chart. they've split the united awards from their star alliance awards, with the latter generally being more expensive than the former. the detailed analysis can be found on the flyertalk thread dedicated to this. the executive summary is this:

• F (first) and J (business) travel on united metal increases by 5-20%
• J travel on partner metal increases by 20-40%
• F travel on partner metal increases by 40-86%
• complimentary premier upgrades and regional/global premier upgrades are no longer being offered on intra-asia flights and on flights between north and south america

they provided 3 months notice for these changes, and all tickets booked until february 1, 2014 will be under the old rules.

with my travel patterns, the rewards that i most care about are for travel to singapore as i often head down there for family reasons. singapore is classified as south asia. with air canada's aeroplan, my business class ticket cost 125,000 aeroplan miles. if i could find first class segments, it would cost me 170,000 aeroplan miles.

using united's current award chart, i would need 120,000 points for business and 140,000 points for first class. using united's new award chart for travel including partner flights, i would need 160,000 points for business class and 260,000 for first class. (in contrast, if i were to just stick with united metal, it would be 140,000 and 160,000 miles, respectively). this represents up to an 86% increase for first class award tickets.

given the fact that earning miles from flights generally yields the same number of points on both the aeroplan program, and in general, the number of miles earned via credit card are similar (roughly 1pt / $1), it seems that air canada offers the better redemption value. aeroplan requires fewer miles for the same amount of distance traveled. (of note, in canada, the only credit card that offers mileage plus points is the SPG amex, where 2 SPG points = 1.25 united mileage plus points).

it's a definite devaluation.

does this change what i do with my credit card earnings?
i don't have much stored in united. most of my points, if anything, were stored in aeroplan until i finally redeemed them a few weeks ago to my almost-all-business class tickets to asia. if anything, i've stopped collecting miles in frequent flyer points, and just opted for cash back instead. i use my scotia bank gold american express for 4% back on gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment, and my pivot visa on everything else for 3.2% cash back. you have to be very lucky to consistently get 3.2%-4% return on flight bookings in premium class. and cash's versatility has value of its own.

does this change which program i credit my miles to on flights?
i haven't flown very much for the redeemable miles, which is what is being affected now. rather, i fly to ensure that i have enough status miles to maintain my elite status. at the current time, i don't fly as much as most people do. therefore, crediting to asiana airlines won't change. i still fly enough to earn asiana diamond (star gold) status, which is 40,000 miles for every 24 month cycle. i expect to be on track to renew my gold status with them and hold onto that status until at least november 2016.

after this year, travel patterns may change. because my primary goal, as a mid-level flyer and mid-tier elite, is to maintain star gold, i may still switch to united's program. the benefits include:

• 100% status miles (for now) on all non-domestic fares on air canada. this makes it easier to achieve and maintain the 50k status mark when flying on transpacific/transatlantic tango fares on air canada
• additional redeemable bonus miles earned on flights taken when you have premier gold status  with a negligible bonus on asiana. while redeemable miles aren't my goal, the option of having more is certainly nice
• free access to premium economy on united metal without the need to beg for it
• the possibility of unlimited domestic upgrades

the downside is the loss of domestic united club lounge access for domestic (and canadian) flights.

lessons to learn ...

• inflation happens with every kind of currency. stockpiling points is never a good idea because the value of the point never increases in value. i'm glad that i managed to spend the remainder of my aeroplan points on my upcoming trip to asia. i'm glad that i burnt through my priority club points on my hotel stay in san francisco back in september. i still have to burn through the miles that i've earned on asiana via flights. i still have to burn through my starpoints earned solely from my stays at starwood hotels.
• if i really wanted to earn points through credit card spending, the best bet is still the starwood preferred guest american express. this card allows you to earn 1 starpoint per dollar spent, and 1 starpoint is about equivalent to 1.25 airline points.
• because there are so many transfer partners, it decreases the risk of program devaluation somewhat by allowing you to transfer to programs that have devalued the least.

but for now, even post devaluation, the travel pattern and frequent flyer programs will stay the same.

FAA relaxes its electronics rules for take offs and landings

according to this article, the federal aviation administration yesterday that it's relaxing new rules on electronics on board. these rule changes are valid only for domestic and international flights on american-based carriers. for the international flights, it's only for the landings and take-offs that occur on american soil. with these changes, one can use small handheld electronics from gate to gate. cellular data and calls remain prohibited, and larger electronics continue to need to be stowed.

i've always wondered exactly how much interference was caused by my small electronic devices. i routinely forget to power down my ipad whenever i travel. it's been a while since i've powered down my cell phone (while in airplane mode) in preparation for landing. sometimes, my mifi device will just turn on with any kind of pressure on the front of the device. and these are just the devices that i know about. i can only imagine what's actually happening in everyone else's carry on luggage sacks.

there are a few things that i've learned in the article though:

The guidelines reflect the evolution in types and prevalence of devices used by passengers over the past decade. In 2003, 70 percent of passengers carried electronic devices with them on planes, and the most common device was a cellphone that wasn't capable of connecting to the Internet, followed by a calculator, according to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association. A follow-up survey by the association this year found that 99 percent of passengers carry some device with them, with smartphones the most common followed by notebook or laptop computers.

in 2003, the second most common device was a calculator. a calculator! i remember back in the day when i had to carry a separate calculator for school, and it was not a part of my phone. it makes me feel old.

In-flight cellphone calls will continue to be prohibited. Regulatory authority over phone calls belongs to the Federal Communications Commission, not the FAA. The commission prohibits the calls because of concern that phones on planes flying at hundreds of miles per hour could strain the ability of cellular networks to keep up as the devices keep trying to connect with cellphone towers, interfering with service to users on the ground.

this makes sense as to how they allow airplane wifi on the gogo system but not cellular data. according to the ever knowledgeable wikipedia, the gogo network is made out of 160 cell towers that are specifically designed to point to the sky and not to the ground. i suppose that this means that these specialized towers don't compete with the regular cell phone users and that's why this system is allowed.

so we will see. i'll probably get to be playing more candy crush on take off really soon ... at least in the states, that is.