Rather than just complain endlessly about the changes to the Hilton program, I thought I’d share a way to use fewer points than you might expect for stays at top-tier Hilton properties.

I’ve been looking at rooms at the Grand Wailea in Maui, and they now start at 95,000 Hilton points per night. Hawaiian Airlines and Virgin Atlantic both allow you to transfer miles to Hilton at a 1:2 basis, which is why many people get the Hawaiian Airlines credit cards. That’s fine. Theoretically, though, Hawaiian will not allow you to transfer points into the Hawaiian program and then out to Hilton (you’d have to earn the Hawaiian miles through flying or credit cards). Virgin Atlantic, however, doesn’t have any issue with that.

So you could transfer Membership Rewards points or Ultimate Rewards points into Virgin Atlantic. In this case, it would take 47,500 UR points for a free night.

But what if you just bought the room and paid for it with Ultimate Rewards points? I know that we bloggers tend to dismiss the 25% bonus you get by booking travel through UR and using points to pay for it. However, in this case it may make sense: A room including breakfast is $453. You can pay using UR points and it’s only 36,248 points per night – 10,000 fewer than if you booked an award night using those points.

The Hilton Bora Bora is, gulp, 166,000 HHonors points per night – 83,000 UR points transferred to Virgin Atlantic. Or you can pay with UR points and it’s 48,000 points per night.

The Ritz-Carlton Kapalua is 50,000 UR points (transferred to Marriott) or you can buy a room for 27,800 UR points.

My larger point is this – the 25% point bonus is always worth a look, especially with the Hilton program because of the ridiculous amount of points they charge for top-tier rooms.

I’m headed to Moscow in 2 weeks and because of reasons that aren’t important I was quite late getting started with the whole Russian visa process. What Russian Visa process? Oh, the one that involves a multi-page application (what countries have you been to in the past 10 years and on what dates?), photographs, an interview, an official invitation, etc. And apparently if you have any discrepancies between the various materials you have to submit, you will be rejected.

I had a bit of a freakout when I realized that getting to the Consulate in New York for the required interview (yes, interview) was not going to be possible. Also, I’d read that even if you go early they won’t necessarily take you that day. Lovely.

There is an official alternative: a company called Invisa can help you through this process, and they only charge $30 to submit the application for you. That’s pretty great, but you need to schedule time to go down to Lower Manhattan and visit with them, which wasn’t possible in my timeframe (because of Russian holidays they were closed for 5 days in May).

After a bit of digging, I saw a recommendation on FT for Visahq. There are lots of other visa-expediting services out there, and I haven’t used any of them. I can tell you, however, that Visahq was fantastic. I printed out everything I needed and brought it to their office in Manhattan (though you can mail it to them, of course), and a guy named Val kinda laughed when he saw my application, which was missing information and, in general, a mess.

His first comment was, “you don’t need us to do this for you” which I appreciated but, it turns out, I did need them to do it for me because I was not going to run around New York city getting this processed. Also, I forgot to mention: if you go to the Consulate to drop off your visa application you need to have an interview. But for God-knows-what-reason if you go through a third party, no interview is required.

Anyway, Val said not to worry (it was clear I was worrying, because I didn’t see how they would possibly get this done in time) and said he’d fix everything and deal with it.

Lo and behold, in a week the visa was in my apartment. Visahq charged $90 to expedite which, in my book, was more than worth it.

I’ve now learned a bit about the whole ridiculous process so I’m happy to answer any questions.

- Amtrak announced that is has upgraded its wi-fi service on Acela, Capitol Corridor, Pacific Surfliner and San Joaquin trains, with additional Northeast Corridor service to be added this summer. If you have taken the Acela and used the wi-fi, you can attest that Amtrak’s wi-fi service is the Amtrak of wi-fi service.

- American Airlines will allow passengers with no rolling bag (ie, only bags that fit under the seat in front of you) to board in Group 2, which is basically ahead of most others in Coach. But here’s the more interesting part: if you have a rolling bag and you get to the gate, they’ll let you gate check the bag for free so you can board early. Read that again: DO NOT CHECK YOUR SMALLER BAGS ON AMERICAN. They will let you check them for free at the gate and board early. American said that since they started charging for checking bags, people have (no surprisingly) been carrying on more bags than ever. This slowed down the boarding processes. They’re hoping the new system will alleviate some of the pressure on boarding. I contend that no airline really knows the best way to board a plane, that it’s a complex problem with no optimal solution. I do know the worst boarding process I ever encountered: years ago a friend and I were flying China Airlines from San Francisco to Taipei. They announced First Class to board the 747. 10 people go to the gate. Then they announce Business Class. 15 people go to the gate. Then they say, “We are now boarding Economy Class.” And 472 Taiwanese, me, and my friend Dave start a stampede at 1 o’clock in the morning so that I can go sit in 62H.

(Completely unrelated, though on the same trip: We land in Taipei at 6am on a Sunday morning, and I called my friend Jim in Detroit. We had the usual “where are you/what time is it” conversation and I managed to convince him that because it was 6am in Taiwan (7pm Saturday night or so in Detroit) that I was able to have already watched the live episode of Saturday Night Live that had not yet been on in the US.)

- The Onion says that “Spirit Airlines Is the F***ing Worst“

I had written a comment in a post a little while back noting that the stocks of several US airlines have been fantastic investments recently (US Airways, Spirit and Allegiant, specifically – full disclosure, I own shares in US Airways and Spirit). Those airlines have long been operational powerhouses, banging out profits quarter after quarter, even as their larger cousins have been all over the place.

But since the US Airways/American merger it’s beginning to appear that the US airline industry is, quite possibly, in the best shape it’s been in since deregulation (the pre-deregulation years were a completely different business for airlines, and it’s almost not worth looking at data from those days. But after nearly 30 years of turmoil, the industry is riding a wave of great financial results.)

Check out this chart showing profits/losses for the US airline industry by quarter since 2000. 2012 showed the best financial performance (for domestic flying) in those 12 years. Remember how well the airlines were doing in early 2000, when ridiculous dot com growth fueled a major expansion in both service and fares? (Remember paying $2200 to fly from Newark to Dallas? Yeah, me too). In the 2nd quarter of 2000 (when we had more airlines, mind you) airlines showed a profit on domestic flying of $2.7 billion. In the 2nd quarter of 2012, they showed a profit of $3 billion. For 2000 as a whole they showed $5.3 billion vs. $7.5 billion in 2012.

The chart is also interesting because while many people have blamed 9/11 for the woes the industry faced for years, it was getting quite bad before that — Q2 2001 profits were more than $3 billion less than the same quarter in 2000. It was already terrible before 9/11.

Well, that incredible profit growth must have been driven by higher fares, right? No. Check out this chart. In 2012 dollars, average fares in 2000 were $77 HIGHER than they were in 2012. What about fuel? Oh – fuel cost roughly 70 cents a gallon in 2000, vs nearly $3 in 2012.

So what happened? I was a bit disingenuous when I said that fares were lower in 2012 — they were, but that does not take into account the $3.5 billion in baggage fees and $2.6 billion in change fees the airlines generated last year. Ancillary fees — which, ironically enough, were started by the low fare carriers — have been an enormous help for airlines who felt a bit restricted with how much they could raise fares (2012 fares were only 3% higher than 2011). But consumers, though they complain about them, will pay ancillary charges, and that’s fueling profitability.

Plus there were, as many have said in the past, simply too many airlines since deregulation. Typically, new entrants would lower fares to levels where no one could be profitable, drive down everyone’s profitability, then go out of business. That’s a terrible way for an industry to run. Plus, larger carriers — because there were so many of them — fought for market share by lowering fares, which simply drove profits lower. Consolidation has driven airlines to make much smarter pricing decisions (something the America West/US Airways team is, at least in significant part, responsible for), which has allowed the airline to – gasp – make money while offering a reasonably priced service.

In addition, the not-particularly-smart lowfare carriers have disappeared, leaving very, very smart airlines like Allegiant and Spirit to run businesses profitably while offering significantly lower fares than those offered by legacy airlines. That actually BENEFITS legacy carriers, because those airlines offer a differentiated product — plenty of people don’t want to fly Spirit, so they’ll pay a premium to fly United (or whomever).

Add the ability to print frequent flyer miles through credit card signups and the industry – for consumers and the airlines themselves – is about as healthy as it’s been in 30 years. (I don’t want to hear about how planes are more crowded – they are, but get over it — if you’d like an empty seat next to you, buy a second seat). And the security stuff sucks, I get it – it’s not the airlines’ fault. Enjoy your cheap flights, unlimited upgrades, and 75,000 mile credit card bonuses.

2 quick things to pass along from a flight on the US Airways Shuttle to Boston.

- I was offered a $49 upgrade to first class when I checked in. I turned it down (empty flight for 35 minutes) but I believe that is the least expensive upgrade I have ever been offered.

- I had to pay a small fee to standby on an earlier flight, which annoyed me for a second until I remembered that I own a few shares of US Airways, so I thought of it as paying myself a small fee. I suggest buying 1 share of every airline stock so you won’t be mad about paying ancillary fees. You’re just paying yourself!

I paused a bit when I saw these two new routes announced yesterday:

- Qatar Airways will launch nonstop service to Philadelphia (?) at some point in the near future. That unlikely destination was chosen because Qatar will join Oneworld, and US Airways has a large(ish) presence in Philly. It’s kinda weird to write that US Airways is part of Oneworld, by the way.

- JetBlue will launch nonstop service from JFK and Ft. Lauderdale to Port Au Prince, Haiti beginning in December. JetBlue’s 1 daily flight from JFK will join Delta and American Airlines serving Haiti from New York. They’ll offer 2 daily services from Ft Lauderdale, presumably because they like going after routes that Spirit already flies.

If you’re like me (and, Dear God, I hope you’re not), you may get this odd feeling while you’re trying to hit minimum spends after a credit card churn where you’re actually kinda (sorta) maybe a little bit happy when you have to spend some money because at least it’s getting you closer to earning the signup bonus.

Were we, perhaps, slightly more generous than usual this year at my kids’ school fundraising auction because I was trying to hit the minimum spend for the Chase Ink Bold card? Perhaps. Or maybe we were just being nice. Either way.

So we can just establish that during my minimum spend periods, I’m perhaps not as upset by having to buy stuff as during other times.

But that really doesn’t excuse the ever-so-slight twinge of happiness (that’s not the right word – gratification?) when I received an $1,100 bill from a recent visit to an emergency room. I have a nut allergy, and last month (in a story for another blog) I mistakenly ate something with nuts, which caused me to have to go to an emergency room. I’m was fine after a few hours (obviously, as it’s me typing this and not my wife following my untimely demise), and I hadn’t thought about it much since.

Until yesterday, when the bill came and my first thought was, “Fantastic, this will let me hit the spend on my United Explorer card in just one purchase! 50,000 miles!” Which is when I realized that I’m completely nuts (as it were).

So you all can run around from Walmart to CVS to Office Depot with your fancy Vanilla Reloads. I’ll take a butter pecan and see you on the beach.