Last week was a big week for AIR MILES as they announced their first set of changes that have come and will be coming to the programs over the coming months. The biggest change will be with the launch of their new AIR MILES Flights platform that sees such changes as dynamic award pricing, being able to book any fare class and being able to book any flights worldwide. Hence with those changes we see a slight change American Express® AIR MILES®* Reserve Credit Card which ties into to the new AIR MILES Flights program.
That change to the card is the annual companion flight benefits that comes with this Ultra Premium AIR MILES Card. As the program moves to an any flight any time model so does the companion fare benefit. No longer is it limited to a round trip economy class flight it is now available to ANY FLIGHT reward.
Here is the old wording on the companion fare benefit:
Once a year, when you redeem for a round-trip
economy flight within the AIR MILES®* Reward Program, up to a maximum of
1,700 Miles, you can receive a Companion Flight for your companion to
travel with you for the same itinerary (offer excludes service charges
if applicable and taxes)
Here is the new wording for the companion fare benefit:
Once a year, when you redeem for any flight Reward within the AIR MILES®* Reward Program, you can receive a maximum of 1,700 Miles towards a Companion Flight, for your companion to travel with you for the same itinerary (offer excludes service charges if applicable and taxes)
You’ll notice the change here is ‘a round-trip
economy flight’ now becoming ‘any flight Reward’ to make it better suited for the new flights program. From the way I read it (I haven’t seen the full terms and conditions yet) you will be able to book this companion fare benefit for economy, premium economy, business or first class fares. You’ll be able to use it for one way or round trip flights and so on. Essentially what this benefit becomes (well in reality it was this before but limited to round trip economy) is a 1,700 mile discount for the second ticket on a reservation. An example of this would be booking two tickets for 2,500 miles each which would mean your second ticket would only end up costing you 800 miles (2,500 – 1,700).
Where I potentially see some big value in this will be on one way flights in premium classes as in many cases it would be tough for a collector to earn enough miles for two round trip flights in the same premium fare class. If you have been in the points and miles game for long enough you know that booking one way flights makes up a big portion of getting those amazing premium class flights. What I mean by this is enthusiasts will often use one program to book flights one direction, say Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan to fly from Canada to Asia and then use another program for the return – perhaps something like Aeroplan or any number of other programs. Basically it comes down to maximizing the redemption value on all the flights and the ability to earn miles across different programs from credit card sign ups but for many they may not enough points or miles in one program alone to pay for a round trip. So the same thing may (and the key word is ‘may’ since we don’t know the value just yet) happen here with AIR MILES and this benefit on the Reserve Card. It may just work out to provide some great value for travelling one direction and then you can use a different program on the return. This benefit could also very well be useful for positioning flights for other award flights! Of course, I’m just thinking out loud here but am trying to see and stay positive for what the future may hold.
Wrapping it up
While we may not know the value in the new AIR MILES Flights program this small but significant change to the American Express® AIR MILES®* Reserve Credit Card just may make this card move up the ranks. By being able to use the companion benefit on any flight reward opens up a lot of potential opportunity. Now, we just have to wait until November to see if we can change those key words like ‘may’ and ‘potential’ to ‘does’ and ‘actual’.