Good news

There are quite a few minor news items that, for a change, are all good news for points & miles collectors…

Marriott enhances rewards program a wee bit

Marriott has announced a few new benefits for their members:

• Experiences Marketplace: A number of programs allow you to use points for “experiences”. Marriott has joined the club.
• Elite concierge service: Yawn. No word yet on who will get this benefit.
• Guaranteed late checkout: About time.

One Mile at a Time points out that the late checkout is guaranteed, but they remain elusive about how late.  Whether this proves to be a useful benefit depends upon how individual properties interpret the clause that says “which could be as late as 4pm”.

Amex adds Etihad as a Membership Rewards transfer partner

View from the Wing has the scoop here.  Etihad was already a transfer partner of SPG and Citi ThankYou Rewards.  Now, with the addition of Amex Membership Rewards, Etihad joins a small group of promiscuous airline programs that are available through 3 or more of the big transferable points programs (Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest).

Now, the following programs are available from 3 out of the 4 transferable points programs:

• Air France
• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific
• Etihad Airways

And two airline programs are available through all 4 transferable points programs:

• Singapore Airlines
• Virgin Atlantic

You can find full details of what transfers to where in my Transfer Partner Master List.

Citi Improves Card Benefits

If you are a Citibank cardholder, you’ve probably received emails titled “Important information about your card’s protection benefits.”  Most credit cards offer some forms of travel and purchase protections.  Citi already had pretty good benefits, but now in many cases they’re even better.  Most notably, the benefits are now more broadly applied: More people are protected, purchases made with ThankYou points are more often protected, and purchases made partially with your credit card are protected (up to the amount charged to the card).  Doctor of Credit has a good overview here.

Amex is back with awesome Amex Offers

OK, one awesome offer isn’t enough to get too excited about, but it is a great one. Hopefully you were targeted.  And, hopefully this is a sign of more to come.  Read more here: Targeted Amex Offer – $25 off $100+ at Staples.com.

1800Flowers stackable offers are back

Stack a bunch of deals to buy miles cheaply.  Notably:

• Enroll in the Amex Offer: Spend $50, get $15
• Use promo code RR94 to get 1750 Southwest points per order ($29.95 and up).  Hat tip: Reddit.
• TopCashBack is offering 20% cash back.

Full details of how to stack these deals can be found here: 1800Flowers Extreme Stacking promo codes, portals, gift cards, and more.

Caution: The last time Southwest offered 1750 points per order, some people (but not all) were denied points when they applied a gift card along with the 1750 point per order code.  The weird thing about that is that there are no terms excluding the use of gift cards, so I don’t know why that happened.

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.