Congress: Please Don’t Try to Protect Us from Airlines By Limiting Fees or Increasing Seat Sizes

Dear Senators and Congressmen,

According to a report Friday on thehill.com, after years of failing to pass seat-size regulations because of Republic opposition, seat-size language has now been added to House and Senate bills that are very likely to pass:
The Republican-led Congress is warming up to the idea of creating new consumer protections for travelers, an idea considered controversial just over a year ago.
GOP lawmakers rejected past efforts to establish minimum seat sizes and rein in airline fees, but provisions to do just that were easily added to must-pass aviation legislation this year...
[Rep.

Your Amex Points Are Worth Exactly 2 Cents for Airfare, Not More

The American Express Business Platinum card is awesome because it currently offers a 100,000 points sign up bonus and those points have two very high value uses:

transfer them to Membership Rewards partner airlines
use them like cash to book flights at a value of 2 cents per point

Plus the card has all the standard Amex Platinum benefits like lounge access, hotel status, and much more.

Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards.

That's good enough

The Myth of the 10 Cents Per Mile Award and Why Miles Are Most Valuable to the Rich

The other day, I booked myself a direct flight from Tampa to Charlotte with 4,500 British Airways Avios and $5.60.

Deals Bloggers Have Killed and Will Kill

Yesterday I wrote about the death of the Guam-in-United-States mistake on the Avianca LifeMiles award chart. Until yesterday, we could book awards to Hawaii, Japan, or Guam for 12,500 miles or less than $200 each way.

I thought that Avianca finally realized their mistake after months of it being openly discussed online, but the real cause might have been a Department of Transportation complaint filed by a miles blogger.

Airlines are Responding to Bank, Accounting, and Consultant Pressures by Opening Up More Award Space

According to the Wall Street Journal, airlines are opening up more award space this year compared to last year because of pressure from banks, accounting rules, and consultant studies.

In the short term, that's good for us. More award space: woohoo!

But in the long run, these pressures could cause more airlines to move to revenue-based frequent flyer programs. Revenue-based redemptions: boohoo!

Every year IdeaWorks comes out with one of the worst-conceived studies imaginable in an attempt to quantify which frequent flyer programs make redemptions the easiest.

Three Reasons Los Angeles to London is the Best Value Transatlantic Flight

Yesterday I wrote that The Best Value Flight Across the Atlantic Has Almost No Premium Award Space.

The New York Times Understands Miles a Lot Less When It Doesn’t Quote Us

The New York Times just ran a really bad article about Delta's move to a revenue-based frequent flyer program in 2015.

I'm going to delve into the Times article since many MileValue readers discovered the blog from a New York Times article ("How to Get a Seat Out of Your Award Miles") in which I was quoted extensively.

Should You Get the 75k AMEX Biz Gold or the 50k AMEX Biz Gold?

Today (9/12/12) only, American Express is doing one of its once-every-few-months, one-day-only 75k Membership Rewards sign up bonuses for the American Express Gold Business card.

I won't give a full rundown of the rules and benefits of the card--you can get that from thepointsguy--but I will answer the following question: should you get the 75k sign up bonus on this card or the 50k sign up bonus?

If the answer seems obvious, it is not.

How Much is a Mile Worth? How Much is My Map Worth?

There's an ongoing discussion in the miles-sphere about the value of a mile started when Gary and Ben disagreed about the value of a Hilton Point.

Bad Advice from Good Bloggers

The offers listed below have expired. Click here for the top current credit card sign up bonuses.

Which is a better use of a five dollar bill: burning it or cutting it into confetti? Between burning it or cutting it, one probably is better. But if you asked me that question, I would answer: its best use is spending it or saving it or donating it.