Credit Card tips

One of the many irritants of travel-rewards programs is expiring miles. Typically, miles or points expire if there’s no account activity during a two- or three-year period. It’s a policy that’s irrelevant to high-frequency travelers, because they’re constantly on the go, pushing the expiration date forward with every trip. But for the great majority of travelers, who fly infrequently, the danger of allowing hard-earned miles to disappear is clear and present.

American Express sent a chill across the travel hacker community this week with a warning that it planned to take steps to curtail credit-card churning, a technique used by travel hackers to snag generous travel rewards at little or no cost.

When an airline knows its core customers are anything but frequent flyers, is there any point in hosting a loyalty program? Probably not. Which explains why Allegiant, the low-cost leisure-focused carrier based in Las Vegas, never rolled out a full-fledged frequent-flyer scheme. There’s just no return-on-investment when your customers are by definition infrequent flyers.

While American Express would be loathe to admit it, the purveyor of upscale rewards cards is losing traction with the well-heeled high-frequency travelers the company once considered its exclusive reserve.

Everything you thought you knew about American Airlines’ upgrade policies will change this weekend.

According to USA Today, Orbitz.com suffered a major data breach that may affect up to 800,000 customers who booked during 2016.

When Marriott acquired Starwood in 2016, there was much speculation on how the merger would affect two very different loyalty programs. Since then, the Marriott and Starwood programs have operated independently, but as of yesterday, Marriott has announced that the programs, plus the Ritz-Carlton Rewards program, will officially merge into one mega-program beginning in August 2018.

The IHG Rewards Club MasterCard, issued by Chase, has long been a favorite of the frequent-traveler crowd. For good reasons:

By now, you’ve likely heard about the massive data breach of Marriott’s Starwood guest reservation database. If you haven’t: The info of nearly 500 million people may have been compromised in the hack, making it one of the largest breaches of consumer data in history, and one that might have spanned over the past four years.

Remember when Uber was a tip-less service? Indeed, part of what made Uber the undisputed leader in rideshare services was its no-tipping policy, as featured front and center on the company’s website: “No cash, no tip, no hassle … When you arrive at your destination, just hop out—we’ll automatically charge the credit card on file. And there’s no need to tip.”

UPDATE: According to Straight To The Points, Singapore has dropped the policy, even before its effect date, in response to negative pushback from customers. Nevertheless, it’s a policy that other airlines are surely considering.

Beyond the convenience and flexibility, a key selling point of the Airbnb home-share service has been affordability. The company is now taking affordability to the next level, with its new Pay Less Up Front option.

Add the new AAdvantage MileUp Card from Citibank to the (very) short list of no-fee credit cards that earn airline miles. It offers one American Airlines mile per dollar charged, plus double miles for purchases at grocery stores or with American Airlines.

Most car rental companies have long required that their customers use a credit card when reserving a car. Renting a car with a debit card has always meant incurring restrictions and extra fees. But thanks to the rising number of frugal customers who don’t have or don’t want to use credit cards, that’s finally changing.