CO Changes Elite And Upgrade Policies for 2004

Reef Fish wrote:


An example of the above is that 1 Million CO FFM can be exchanged to
2M Hilton Honors Hotel points -- an exchange rate better than the FFM of
any other airline.

It is also the same for AA, so much for "better .. than any" (and
probably for others, but I just called AA about this)
I know the difference because I had AMEX pts
You get 1300 Hilton pts for 1000 AMEX pts
But first I traded at a rate of 1000 HH points for 1000 CO miles
Then I traded CO miles to HH at 1000 to 2000.
So the AMEX conversion after going through CO gave me 2000 HH pts
instead of 1300.

mrtravel wrote in message igy.com...
Reef Fish wrote:


An example of the above is that 1 Million CO FFM can be exchanged to
2M Hilton Honors Hotel points -- an exchange rate better than the FFM of
any other airline.

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...&output=gplain

#You can find out these "exchange/conversion" rates from the airline
#or Hilton. Here's just an easy example:
#
#1000 FFM (CO) --- 2000 HH Points
#1000 FFM (AA) --- 1000 HH Points

That was Aug 2002.

It is also the same for AA, so much for "better .. than any" (and
probably for others, but I just called AA about this)

If that's true of AA miles now, 2HH for 1 AA mile, I would gladly
exchange ALL my AA FFM points at that rate to HH points. :-))

I just called AA about this too. It's definitely NOT that way.
The agent gave some ridiculous rate of 10,000 HH points to
exchange 1,500 AA miles. And when I asked for AA miles to HH points,
the AA agent suggested that I call Hilton. I did and the Hilton
Diamond line which has this info is closed now.


I know the difference because I had AMEX pts
You get 1300 Hilton pts for 1000 AMEX pts

But first I traded at a rate of 1000 HH points for 1000 CO miles

You DON'T get that exchange in HH points to CO miles.
You get only 500 CO miles for 1000 HH points!

I know THAT for a fact. Because I had just exchanged
300,000 CO miles to 600,000 HH points,

and if I could exchange those 600,000 HH points back to 600,000
CO miles,... I owuld have doubled my CO miles just through
the exchange. :-)

You are definitely wrong about that, mrtravel.

When time permits, I'll look into what the CURRENT exchange is
for AA miles vs HH points, WITHOUT any AMEX games being played
in the middle. I suggest you do the same. I'll be travelling
again, so perhaps you'll get the info before I do -- but just
leave out ANY CREDIT CARD in the middle of the exchange.

Strictly airline MILES vs HH points.

-- Bob.

Reef Fish wrote:


If that's true of AA miles now, 2HH for 1 AA mile, I would gladly
exchange ALL my AA FFM points at that rate to HH points. :-))

I just called AA about this too. It's definitely NOT that way.
The agent gave some ridiculous rate of 10,000 HH points to
exchange 1,500 AA miles. And when I asked for AA miles to HH points,
the AA agent suggested that I call Hilton. I did and the Hilton
Diamond line which has this info is closed now.


So like someone cluseless.
To change HH pts to AA miles, you call HHonors
To change AA miles to HH points you call AA, since you are redeeming AA
miles.
The award code is something like H10XX20 or something like that for
trading 10K AA miles for 20K HH pts.
I called AA Platinum Number
They gave me another 800 number to call.
I called it and got 2 HH pts for every AA mile
It was changed at some point, but I don't remember when

I found the AA doc on the conversion in both directions

1. go to aa.com
2. select Aadvantage, Partners and mileage progam, hotels, hilton hotels

You will see a web page that contains the text below.. Minimum coversion
is 5000 AA miles. There is a fax number, but the AA service rep gave me
another toll free number to call to handle it over the phone. She
indicated the phone request option was new (August)


The page, in addition to the 5K AA to 10K HH also describes the 10000
HH pts to get 1500 AA miles


*&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Using AAdvantage Miles
Convert your AAdvantage miles into HHonors points in increments of 5,000
miles. A minimum conversion amount of 5,000 miles is required for each
transaction.

AAdvantage Miles

For

HHonors Points
5,000

?

10,000

To exchange AAdvantage miles for HHonors points, mail or FAX your
request to:

AAdvantage Marketing Programs
PO Box 619688
Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, TX 75261-9688
FAX: 817-963-7882

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


I know the difference because I had AMEX pts
You get 1300 Hilton pts for 1000 AMEX pts


But first I traded at a rate of 1000 HH points for 1000 CO miles


You DON'T get that exchange in HH points to CO miles.
You get only 500 CO miles for 1000 HH points!

Sorry, I meant 1000 AMX pts for 1000 CO miles
THen 1000 CO miles for 2000 HH pts.
The end result got me 2000 HH pts for each 1000 AMX pts
Without the skip through CO I would get 1300 HH Pts for 1000 HH directly.

Here's the AA link for the 5K AA to 10K HH conversion and the 10000 HH
to 1500 AA conversion (via tinyurl as the link is long an may mess up
some people)

http://tinyurl.com/o13u

Cheers,

Michael

The current AA 5K to HH 10K award info and the HH 10k to AA 1500 info is at

http://tinyurl.com/o13u

Or

http://www.aa.com/apps/AAdvantage/Vi...artnersContent

mrtravel wrote:

The current AA 5K to HH 10K award info and the HH 10k to AA 1500 info
is at

http://tinyurl.com/o13u

Or

http://www.aa.com/apps/AAdvantage/Vi...artnersContent


A CO side note, since that is where this thread started.... When I
converted my CO miles the last time, CO indicated it was ending the
ability to convert to HH points.

One ADVANTAGE of posting via groups.google.com is that both the post
AND replies to it are DELAYED (in appearing in the same) 3 to 9 hours!
The delay is an advantage because it gives on time to reflect over
matters and check for FACTS before blurting out ill-thought-out
replies.

One advantage of being on a trip which does NOT have convenient access
to
ngs is the ability to reply to SEVERAL posts all at once, pooling
together
all the relevant pieces, in a more coherent way, than in many separate
fragments. This is an example of such.


In mrtravel's FOURTH follow-up to my post, mrtravel wrote in message igy.com...
mrtravel wrote:

The current AA 5K to HH 10K award info and the HH 10k to AA 1500 info

That is correct. But look at the ASYMMETRY in the exchange rate!
It's more easily seen with the zeros and directions of exchange put
in:

AA 5,000 ----- HH 10,000
AA 1,500 ----- HH 10,000

That seems to mean the DEVALUATION of both the HH points and the AA
miles,



A CO side note, since that is where this thread started.... When I
converted my CO miles the last time, CO indicated it was ending the
ability to convert to HH points.

That is also correct, since 9/1/2003 -- which I didn't realize until
now!
I don't think any flyer with the right mind would exchange 10,000 HH
points
for merely 1,500 miles of that airline!


So, lets go back to where the subthread started, and when I last
posted.

mrtravel's FOUR posts of Sept 20 (as follow-ups to my one post on the
same
date, correcting ONE specific piece of his posted misinformation)
could have
been summarized in a single sentence:

*** CO, AA, and HH have ALL changed rules of reward/point exchange
since those given in RF's post of August 2002. ***

The current point-exchange info can be found in the CO, AA, and HH
webpages.
In the post to which mrtravel replied, I gave this:

RF#You can find out these "exchange/conversion" rates from the
airline
RF#or Hilton. Here's just an easy example:
RF#
RF#1000 FFM (CO) --- 2000 HH Points
RF#1000 FFM (AA) --- 1000 HH Points
RF
RFThat was Aug 2002.

None of which holds now, but I did say in the same post:

RFWhen time permits, I'll look into what the CURRENT exchange is
RFfor AA miles vs HH points, WITHOUT any AMEX games being played
RFin the middle. I suggest you do the same.


To put mrtravel's FOUR follow-ups into context, this was the KEY
STATEMENT
which prompted nearly all the comments mrtravel clipped (from my post)
while snipping all the relevant discussion in my post, which I am
bringing
back in order to make a coherent reply to FOUR of mrtravel's posts, in
ONE:


mrtravel But first I traded at a rate of 1000 HH points for 1000 CO
miles
(That was the specific piece of misinfor I mentioned above).

RF You DON'T get that exchange in HH points to CO miles.
RF You get only 500 CO miles for 1000 HH points!
RF
RF I know THAT for a fact. Because I had just exchanged
RF 300,000 CO miles to 600,000 HH points,

To be precise, since April 2003, I have converted 270,000 CO miles
into
540,000 HH points. (Stilll have plenty of unused CO miles).
CO terminated its point-exchange program (BOTH ways), since Sept 1,
2003.
So did most airlines discontinued their FFM exchange for HH points
program.

http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/rew...change_1.jhtml

************************************************** ************
The updated exchange info would simply be:

AA 5,000 ----- HH 10,000
AA 1,500 ----- HH 10,000

The exchange program between CO and HH ceased on Sept 1, 2003.
************************************************** ************



Regarding the rest of my comments and mrtravel's follow-ups:

regarding CO and AA have the same exchange and 1000 HH for 1000 CO:

RF I just called AA about this too. It's definitely NOT that way.
RF The agent gave some ridiculous rate of 10,000 HH points to
RF exchange 1,500 AA miles. And when I asked for AA miles to HH
points,
RF the AA agent suggested that I call Hilton. I did and the Hilton
RF Diamond line which has this info is closed now.

It turned out what I called "ridiculous rate of 10,000 HH points to
exchange 1,500 AA miles" was true! :-) But that same AA agent did
NOT know how AA miles exchange to HH points!

So like someone cluseless.

You might say so for that AA agent! :-)

To change HH pts to AA miles, you call HHonors
To change AA miles to HH points you call AA, since you are redeeming AA
miles.

But in the reported phone call, I wasn't redeeming anything -- I was
merely
ASKING for the information about the current exchange -- FROM an AA
agent.
It was strange that she knew the exchange of HH points to AA, but not
AA miles to HH.


RF If that's true of AA miles now, 2HH for 1 AA mile, I would gladly
RF exchange ALL my AA FFM points at that rate to HH points. :-))

And I DID, today, since I have no use for any AA miles, and 90,000 HH
points
converted from 45,000 AA miles will enable me to stay free at a London
Hilton for 6 nights each of which would have cost about $260 USD.
6 x $260 = $1560 USD. 45K AA miles are worth nominally only $900 USD.
So,
that exchange was actually more favorable than using the AA miles.

AA will snail me a statement to mail to HH for the exchange -- that's
how
AA works, unlike CO (before 9/1/03) when my 540,000 HH points were
directly exchanged from my OnePass accout to my HHonors account.


To ME, it all makes sense (in the FREE MARKET). Also, to ME, there is
no
question that the CO Elite Program (especially the Platinum) beats
AA's
hands down, because of my unlimited domestic Elite upgrade history,
not
to mention other CO advantages that is too complicated to go into
here.

YMMV.

-- Bob.

Reef Fish wrote:


In mrtravel's FOURTH follow-up to my post, mrtravel wrote in message igy.com...

mrtravel wrote:


The current AA 5K to HH 10K award info and the HH 10k to AA 1500 info


That is correct. But look at the ASYMMETRY in the exchange rate!
It's more easily seen with the zeros and directions of exchange put
in:

AA 5,000 ----- HH 10,000
AA 1,500 ----- HH 10,000

That seems to mean the DEVALUATION of both the HH points and the AA
miles,


Yes, but how you value the miles or points depends on your goal.
I need the HH miles to hit a target for a Elite award that had a
deadline before the price in HH points went up substantially.
I also had 10K CO points to dump since I never fly CO.

I don't see how it is a devaluation of the AA miles since you now get
double the Hilton points then was noted in the old post.

Reef Fish wrote:

One ADVANTAGE of posting via groups.google.com is that both the post
AND replies to it are DELAYED (in appearing in the same) 3 to 9 hours!
The delay is an advantage because it gives on time to reflect over
matters and check for FACTS before blurting out ill-thought-out
replies.


Most of us have the brains to THINK before we POST....

Plus which, Google does not have a killfile function, so that means that
those that "Usenet" through Google are forced to endure your lamely corny
posts. Whether they like it or not....



One advantage of being on a trip which does NOT have convenient access
to
ngs is the ability to reply to SEVERAL posts all at once, pooling
together
all the relevant pieces, in a more coherent way, than in many separate
fragments. This is an example of such.


Are you "real" or are you an "act"....????

--
Best
Greg

mrtravel wrote in message om...
Reef Fish wrote:


In mrtravel's FOURTH follow-up to my post, mrtravel wrote in message igy.com...

mrtravel wrote:


The current AA 5K to HH 10K award info and the HH 10k to AA 1500 info


That is correct. But look at the ASYMMETRY in the exchange rate!
It's more easily seen with the zeros and directions of exchange put
in:

AA 5,000 ----- HH 10,000
AA 1,500 ----- HH 10,000

That seems to mean the DEVALUATION of both the HH points and the AA
miles,


Yes, but how you value the miles or points depends on your goal.
I need the HH miles to hit a target for a Elite award that had a
deadline before the price in HH points went up substantially.
I also had 10K CO points to dump since I never fly CO.

That's a good reason for YOU to dump CO miles, as the reason for
ME to dump AA miles, and I even fly AA occasionally, such as later
this week.


I don't see how it is a devaluation of the AA miles since you now get
double the Hilton points then was noted in the old post.

Yes, but the NEW HH points are greatly devaluated. One way to see
the devaluation is to see that 10,000 HH points is now worth only
1,500 airline miles (AA or other) instead of 5,000 earlier this year.

The other info about the devaluation of HH points is that there are
new HH point-award codes that charge MORE HH points for the same
awards that had cost less HH points earlier this year. I know, because
I am a Diamond member of HH, and I have been using HH points, by the
hundred-thousands.

-- Bob.