I was looking at my Avios transfers and noticed I transferred close to 500k to Avios. I was curious where did I spend all those Avios? I looked at my redemptions list.. and well, they are doing a lot of work.
52 LIM LATAM Y $1,300
22 DCA AA Y $900
80 JFK AA F $2,000
26 PVR AA Y $400
95 LHR BA PE $2,000
36 BGO-HEL AY J $800
125 HEL AY J $5,000
80 BOS AA F $2,000
Chase Manipulating Award Transfer to prevent their easy use
I’m curious is there are any other others there who have run into Chase delaying the award travel points transfer for up to 7 days, effectively killing award reservations that only have a few-day grace period? Chase does cover themselves legally by saying that most travel point transfers happen instantly, but may take up to 7 days. I am currently stuck in the 7 days case (for the first time ever) with no explanation of why, and am about to lose an excellent reservation with KLM (who has a 3 day grace period) with no explanation from Chase as to why the delay. I am wondering if Chase is doing this strategically to force me to use points using Chase Travel (which would cost me almost five times the number of points as my direct KLM reservation (now about to be canceled), and here we’re talking about points worth over $10,000… I’m not paranoid, but I can believe some automated system selectively delaying point transfers when they see an opportunity to force customers to their own travel service even if grossly unfair to the customer. This believe was reinforced when talking to a supposedly more senior escalation representative who actually suggested I use Chase Travel due to the delay (the fact that I don’t have nearly enough points to do that notwithstanding). If there are others out there with similar experiences, I’d like to hear from you. If this really is Chase manipulating the system to benefit their own travel service, this could result in a class action suit, which I am willing to entertain starting to investigate if there is evidence that this is what is happening. Randy Frank
Well, that sounds frustrating. I’m sorry for your loss.
As humans, we are drawn to the idea that the universe revolves around me, and this is particularly acute with U.S. as corporate marketing tends to really hone in on this to drive sales. So it’s understandable.. to have this line of thinking.
Doing a benefits analysis can help dispell this misconception.
Let’s say that there’s a $10,000 flight, selling for 100k airline miles. And you can transfer from Chase, and 100k Chase points is worth $1,000.
When you book this flight with 100k points, someone is not making the $9,000 potential revenue that could have been made if sold with cash. So your theory is that Chase missed out on $9,000 profit and that’s why they are manipulating transfers.
Chase actually doesn’t make a $9,000 profit. That’s the airline. When you use 1M points to book a $10,000 flight through Chase Travel, Chase pays the airline $10,000 and probably gets some % commission from the airline. Let’s say, just to make up some numbers, that they get 5%, so $500. (To simplify calculations, let’s ignore the CSP/CSR 25%/50% bonus)
On the other hand, if you transfer 100k points to the airline, Chase gets the $1,000 (100k points) at some pre-agreed upon rate (probably something lower like $500) from the airline. Chase doesn’t know whether your intention with those 100k points is to book a crappy $600 flight or to book a $10,000 fllight. In fact, of those few customer who transfer points, most pople transfer to United and book a crappy $600 domestic flight with those points.
Now let’s compare where does Chase make more money.
It’s $500 for Travel Portal vs $500 points transfer, so it’s the same profit, right?
No. Chase made $500 profit when you spent 1 million points at Chase Travel.
On the other hand, you spend 100k points and Chase still made a $500 profit. If you transferred 1 million points, Chase would have made a $5,000 profit.
In other words, Chase makes 10x more profit when you transfer points to the airlines. Maybe my % assumption is wrong – maybe Chase gets only $200, not $500, for every 100k you transfer. That’s still twice of the profit they would make through the Travel Portal.
Chase doesn’t have a profit motive to make the transfer difficult.
The airline, on the other hand, is in a different position. The airline would prefer you to book with cash, not points. So maybe they are manipulating the system and they give under-the-table payments to Chase for their reps to play dumb with you and delay it until the award ticket is gone… right?
No. There’s two fallacies with this logic.
First, the award ticket is not “gone”. Someone else booked it with points. So from the airline’s perspective, they still took the L, just not with you – someone else.
Second, the airline already has mechanisms in place to ensure customers don’t get too much out of transferring points or just points in general. They restrict seats.
It’s a big airplane. It has 50 business class seats and 300 economy seats.
But in each airplane, you can only book 2 business seats at saver rate and maybe 10 economy seats at saver rate. For KLM & AF, it’s worse, there’s only 1-2 flights in a month where they make thse 2 seats available. They don’t even release it every other day.
So the real cabal in the game is how stingy airlines are with business saver availability. They are making sure that for all the other 48 business seats, they are raking in the $10,000 profit.
In fact, they have algorithms in place to try to predict which flights will have spare, empty seats. And usually it’s THOSE seats that they make available at business saver rates.
So basically, we are going to the bakery to get free giveaways. The bakery knows that they cooked 50 baguettes, but they will only sell 45-48 baguettes today given past sales trends. So they give you two baguettes for free (not really free but you get the idea).
So we are begging for leftover crumbs at the bakery, and there are bumps and glitches in the process, and coming up with conspiracy theories on why they are not giving me the crumbs.
There is no conspiracy needed. It’s just crumbs, sometimes we can’t get them. And bakery owner doesn’t really care that much either way.
But, maybe you should do you and file a class action lawsuit and see where it goes. Hopefully we’ll get more crumbs. Can we get 4 baguettes each day? That would be great.
I think we should be careful what we wish for. I can see them remaking the app with beautiful curves and intuitive workflow and then implementing a required “foreigner registration number” into the ticket purchase procedure.
“We improved national security and ensured only lawful foreigners are aboard our transportation systems, working together with Homeland Security by integrating a registration number verification system.”
“What? Tourists don’t have a registration number? Oh… hmm”
“Well, they don’t speak Korean anyway, they didn’t need the app”
“The app has an English option…? Why?”
“I don’t think we can remove the registration number requirement, because then the app would be not in compliance with Assembly Law Number 25-093”
“Oh well. We’ll talk to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to require all tourists to register and receive the registration system prior to each visit then. This way they can use the Korail app, while also ensuring tourism doesn’t endanger national security. Especially all those Chinese tourists.”
I was planning to apply to a BizPlat and PerPlat in December, and just biding my time until that happened.
I went 5k over MSR on my latest card (lots of unexpected expenses), the Hilton Surpass. It still can get a FNA after meeting $15k by end of year… although its value is questionable.
I felt I was wasting away spend, and applied for a P1 BizGold LL with referral (this would be my third bizgold) two weeks ago for 200k+30k $15k MSR. 6mo-0%APR The application never went anywhere. It didn’t even register in the application status page.
So last weekend I had P2 apply for a NLL 200k $10k, which was instantly approved. Then I learned about the immediate PizPlat upgrade trick to get 120k more out of the same spend and was pondering it.. hmm will this be worth the extra annual fee..
And then three days later the original BizGold was approved. I guess we are just doing these two until December and not any other BizPlats, then.
Booked domestic transcon first class with Avios. Then rebooked in economy, still saving $900 in the process.
My mother recently had a major spinal surgery and has been in recovery for a few weeks now. During labor day weekend, we had to urgently travel from LAX to DCA. She was unsure whether the travel would be okay given her recent surgery. Her doctor said it was okay. I thought we could ease her worry if we booked it in first class, and luckily found some D-6 in AA first with Qatar Avios! A Friday 9am flight! Booked LAX-DCA for three at 43k Avios+$10 pp, for $800 tickets. Also found that Alaska was running lowered first class prices, and booked return flights in frst at $730 pp.
Then we had a sudden change of circumstances and had to postpone the trip two weeks. We cancelled, and now we were stuck with a big stash of Alaska flight credits. Mom wanted to drain the credits ASAP. So we booked us the flights again. Then, mom’s health worsened and she had to cancel. We still had to go, so my wife and her sister went to DC.
Unfortunately, there was no AA nor AS partner F availability this time.
We were about to book the crazily overpriced D-4 $450 LAX-DCA oneway Y tickets with Alaska credits, and I said wait a minute.. maybe we can book these for just 11k Avios via Finnair! And there they were, luckily available.
On the return, they are flying AS F with the flight credits. ($850/pp)
We were left with $480 in leftover Alaska credits. I told them we’ll book them the AA Y flights, and we’ll take the leftover Alaska credits for ourselves in exchange. (Since these flight credits belong to my mom.) Combined with an Alaska companion voucher, the credits will cover us for a roundtrip for two to somewhere in Mexico.
Family saved money, and we got ourselves a two-person roundtrip to Mexico for 22k Avios. Everyone is happy.
8/9-8/13 Cancun trip
8/11 C, A, G symptoms: coughing
8/13 C, A, G positive
8/13 Y negative
8/14 Y positive
8/14 Y symptoms start: fever
8/17 Y symptoms stop
8/19 Y positive
8/19 C negative. New symptoms: sinus, runny nose, coughing
8/21 Y negative
> Why does no one post on Instagram anymore?
I only post on social media from my computer, where I can fully engage with the text, copy/edit, separate paragraphs, quote others, include hyperlinks, etc. When I type on my smartphone, I feel caged.
Instagram doesn’t allow computer access. I have to create a fake User-agent data via a browser plugin to coax Instagram into allowing me to post photos from my computer. I see people writing long essays on Instagram or posting screenshots of stuff they typed, or saying “hey I can’t put the link in this post but go to my profile’s linktree and click on the 14th button” and I’m like wow.. y’all are recreating the wheel.
Since it doesn’t let me post, I don’t open or engage with the app either. I open it about once a month to look at a reel link that someone shared via text message. Then I notice that there is a red notification indicating a ton of reel DMs sent to me since the last time I logged in. I ignore that notification. None of them are real DMs. I figure it’s a medium for people who are digitally illiterate, all they know to do is pinch, zoom and tap.
I experimented briefly with Instagram a couple years ago, and after experiecing these shortcomings, I created a new WordPress blog with a photoblog theme, where I can type and hyperlink to my heart’s content, shit’s searchable and content can be structured and organized in whatever format I want it to, and can live in a content ecosystem. That’s my Instagram.
Howard Jarvis is funny
> No on 6
> Why we’re against it
> Proposition 6 bans mandatory work requirements for state prison inmates. It doesn’t seem fair to further increase the burden on taxpayers by creating the conditions to negotiate higher wages for inmates who are paying off their debt to society by serving their sentences in state prison. VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 6.
They also got a typo on 36:
> Yes on 36
> Why we’re against it
> Going to Valdivia, Chile, in the fall. I haven’t been able to book sooner because I’ve been waiting on good dates to visit my college student who will be studying there. I would welcome any recommendations regarding flights (coming from Austin; I have about 500k UR points and a bunch of AA points) as well as other things to do while in Chile.
BA and Virgin can get LATAM flights in economy and business. Economy from LA to Chile is around 40k? and business is 95k. Alaska is the best deal for LAX-SCL business at 50k.
I have been having trouble with staying too awake in the mornings. I sometimes wake up at 3am, 4am, 6am, and once I do, I’m tempted to check emails and see if there’s been “exciting developments”. Sometimes there is, and I think it’s feeding into a bad positive feedback loop.
Here is the latest one: I got very lucky with the Virgin Atlantic flights sale on points last night.
Two months ago I randomly stumbled across a Qatar Business availability in March 2025 using American Airlines points. 75k+$80 per person for Cape Town to Qatar to LAX, all in business! I booked it, and then started searching for the outbound flight.
A few days later I found a Atlanta-Qatar-Johannesburg flight through Qatar, at 95k+$200. It’s not the best deal.. but it’s okay-ish? The pricing is okay. (It’s saver, but buying through Qatar. Without an Avios transfer promo. And the date is also not the best. And I have to reposition from LA to Atlanta.) After much hesitation and discussing with P2 and going back and forth, I booked it, then I changed my mind the next day and cancelled it hoping for a full refund (24-hour rule). Qatar said that they don’t abide by the 24-hour rule, and deducted $50.
Instead, I booked a very meh LAX-JFK econ + JFK-AMS in AA business for 57k+$20 and waited for better alternatives. My thinking was I’ll arrive in AMS, sleep in Amsterdam one night, and catch the 10am-10pm AMS-JNB KLM flight in economy (15k+$190 booked through VS). I asked for advice on reddit and got into a debate with people bullying me to grab the 125k+$600 Virgin Atlantic flight business for LAX-LHR-JNB. I felt that 125k was too much.. especially given that the fees are already $600.
Then I did some math, and realized that the Air France business+KLM econ combo would still have $400 in fees. That made me rethink this a bit. $400 for a slow mix of econ and business vs $600 for business all the way with smooth & fast connections? That’s an easier choice.. except for the 125k part.
A month ago, in the middle of a trip through France, Air France dropped a lot of business seats at Saver rate, and I grabbed a LAX-CDG-AMS for 50k+$200. I was checking reddit at 4am when the news dropped. Adrenaline rush!
Then, last night Virgin Atlantic started a 40% sale. They are discounting Virgin Atlantic flights (not partner airline flights) 40% off. The catch is that it only applies to flights until December 2024 only, so it shouldn’t apply for my March 2025 trip. But I checked at midnight (when the sale starts) and the flight cost was indeed discounted, for some bizarre reason. Damn! Booked it immediately.
Two hours later, Virgin Atlantic realized that they set up their system wrong, and fixed it.
Final cost for two people:
I probably need less positive reinforcement to checking my phone at 4am. Instead of.. whatever this is.
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