Here’s some of the latest news from this week in the world of rewards travel. Enjoy.
British Airways Non-Scare
Earlier in the week, the rewards world had a little bit of a scare when Iberia published award rates for their partners on their website. The scare was that we thought British Airways could follow suit since they share the “Avios” currency name, and are owned by the same company.
British Airways Avios Award Chart Changing?
But don’t worry, the sky isn’t falling. Iberia didn’t change their partner redemptions, they just uploaded their award charts to their website. It appears that British Airways will not be devaluing their redemptions on partners like American Airlines, and US Airways. Glorious.
Avios are a favorite of mine because they are so easy to accumulate, and short haul flights can be a steal. Check out this post for more ways to earn and burn Avios miles.
This is still a good reminder that airlines devalue and change their award charts all the time, and often without much notice. So don’t be a points hoarder. Earn and burn!
Update On One Vanilla Visa Gift Cards
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the ability to load Vanilla Visa gift cards at Wal-Mart again. Unfortunately, when I tried last week, I couldn’t get any of the 4 gift cards I had purchased to load at the Wal-Mart register or Money Center. Boo.
Wal-Mart Money Center
Several readers have emailed with the same issue, so it appears that you can’t load Vanilla Visa or One Vanilla Visa gift cards to Bluebird anymore, again…for now.
You can still load Metabank gift cards to Bluebird without any issues. See this post for more details. Loading Bluebird with gift cards bought with a rewards credit card is a great way to earn miles and points on purchases you wouldn’t otherwise. Once you have money in your Bluebird account, you can use their online bill pay system to pay your mortgage, car loan, utility bill, etc.
Starwood Preferred Guest Game
The Starwood Preferred Guest program just released a new “Tap Into Luxury” game where you can earn up to 250,000 Starpoints. Hate that name.
SPG Spin Promotion
You can enter up to two times a day until September 30, 2014. It took me about 30 seconds to spin the wheel twice and lose, but you never know if you’ll get lucky.
The Grand Prize is 250,000 points, but you can also win free nights, itunes gift cards, show tickets, or points. You can see the full t&c’s here.
Ending Soon – United Limited Time Offer (Now Expired)
Just a quick reminder the limited time UnitedMileagePlusCard is ending soon, on September 2, 2014. See these posts for more information:
- Limited Time United Explorer Offer
- What To Do with 55,000 United Miles
- United Explorer vs. Chase Sapphire Preferred
Evolve Money Announcement
Evolve Money has announced to their users that you can only make one payment per billing account each month. Ouch.
Evolve Money Announcement
Evolve Money is an online bill pay service (like Bluebird) that allows you to pay bills via debit and Visa & Mastercard gift cards. You can earn miles on these payments when you buy the gift cards with a rewards credit card.
Starting September 1, 2014, you will only be able to make one payment per billing account each month. This means you can’t make multiple payments to a larger bill like your mortgage, since the largest increment most gift cards come in is $500. You can find some gift cards that have a $1,000 limit, which is also the daily max for Evolve Money, but even then, most peoples’ mortgage is over $1,000 a month.
If you’re using Evolve for payments under $500 per account, then this announcement will have no impact on your use.
— Geoff Whitmore