News: 35k Business to Europe, IHG Ends Pointsbreaks, Wyndham Adjusts Categories

Here are the 3 most notable items (to me) from around the miles and points-osphere today

1) Book JFK-LIS for 35,000 miles one way in Business Class on

TAP (lie-flat seat)

Nick at Frequent Miler uncovered either a sweet spot or a glitch in the Avianca Lifemiles award chart, offering the JFK-LIS (New York to Lisbon, Portugal) route (nonstop on TAP Portugal) for just 35,000 Lifemiles. This route often flies the brand new A330neo which I flew last year and enjoyed. With the frequent transfer bonuses Avianca offers, you should be able to pick this route up for under 30,000 transferable points easily. Amex Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou, and Capital One miles all transfer there (plus Marriott).

Downsides? You can only book that one route, only eastbound, and can’t tag on a connection. And the usual Lifemiles risks/downsides (LifeMiles Awards – Changes and Cancellations: What You Need to Know (And It’s Bad!)

2) No More IHG Pointbreaks?

Doctor of Credit reports that IHG not only didn’t launch new Pointbreak awards yesterday, but that they also don’t plan to.

That’s a bummer for those that got used to stretching their points, like from the 140,000 point IHG Premier credit card bonus on now.

3) Wyndham Category Changes

Doc also reports on this. Remember that Wyndham is now on three award tiers: 7,500 points, 15,000 points and 30,000 points. 500 hotels will go down in category while 300 go up. What is great is that if yours goes down they will *automatically* refund you. Makes sense to lock in any coming awards now, since we won’t know the changes until they happen, but the advance notice and auto repricing (only down) is a nice and refreshing approach.