AAdvantage

You can find the link to apply in the show notes.

Next, Hilton and American Express have launched boosted welcome offers across all four of their co-branded cards, and these are among the best deals we've ever seen.

Let me run through them quickly.

The no annual fee Hilton Honors American Express card is offering seventy thousand points plus a free night award after spending two thousand dollars in six months.

The Hilton Honors Surpass card, that's a hundred and fifty dollars annually, is offering a hundred and thirty thousand points plus a free night award after three thousand dollars in six months.

The Hilton Honors Business card, at a hundred and ninety-five dollars per year, is offering a hundred and fifty thousand points plus a free night award after eight thousand dollars in six months.

All four offers are available through January thirteenth, twenty twenty-seven, so there's time to plan.

Links for all four cards are in the show notes.

That reciprocal earning was already cut at the end of 2024, and now the whole enhanced partnership is winding down.

The key dates to remember, you need to link your AAdvantage and World of Hyatt accounts by the 15th of November if you wanna keep earning cross-program rewards.

Hyatt members can continue earning AAdvantage awards through Milestone Rewards through the 31st of December, 2026.

AAdvantage members can earn World of Hyatt awards through Loyalty Point Rewards through the 28th of February, 2027.

The biggest practical loss here is the unofficial but very real annual status fast-track challenges between the two programs.

Those are going away, and that's genuinely a shame.

I mean, people have been just getting free money, basically.

Another offer to look at, the 125,000 on the Citi Advantage executive card, which is the refreshed card with the new $695 annual fee, and gets you access to...

I mean, it doesn't just get you access to the Admirals Club, it does actually come with an Admirals Club membership.

Plus, if you add additional cards, the additional cardholders get access as well.

So yeah, let us know what you guys think about anything we talked about.

Flying Blue, the future of business class, the future of awards, future of airlines and loyalty and making you spend more and all of that.

What do you feel about that? Is it okay to decouple lounge access? Is it really worth it? You know, are they sa- how much are they actually saving by doing that? Is it worth it? Is it just another way to devalue stuff? And then all these card offers, the Executive card, you picking that up.

Uh, Melio, have you done that? In-Kind.

And the idea of attaching thousands of scanned certificates to an email was just unheard of.

So one by one, [fax machine buzzing] David faxes more than 2,000 certificates, equivalent to more than one million miles, to American Airlines to be credited to his AAdvantage account, and [fax machine buzzing] nothing happens.

[piano music] David is getting no response.

That's because deep in the bowels of American Airlines headquarters in Dallas, [upbeat music] alarm bells are going off.

So lots of moving pieces here, but all that to say then we had an extra night in Ireland.

So I booked the Maldron Hotel, which is just an airport hotel near Dublin Airport, once again through the AAdvantage portal.

This one was 284 for the night.

And then our last flight was Dublin through Amsterdam into Las Vegas with KLM business class, and this was booked through Air France.