Update: DEAD! Don’t miss it if this becomes alive again. Sign up for deal notification alerts here!
I have never been a fan of the HAS Advantage card.
I’ve spoken at seminars and written why many times over the years. I write exactly why whenever I post a code to join El Al’s Matmid program for free. The El Al program is just not a good place for your points. Just yesterday I actually had an argument with a commenter who didn’t like me calling out the HAS card and favoring the SPG card.
The Starwood card is much better than other cards (Like HAS advantage) for going to Israel. With HAS you are stuck with just the availability on El Al. Plus El Al charges hundreds of dollars in fuel surcharges on award tickets.
With Starwood you have thousands of routing possibilities for free flights to Israel for less points than with HAS. And even if you want to only go to Israel on El Al you can just transfer Starwood points to AA and they will book you on El Al without any fuel surcharges!
At any rate, here is the awful news from HAS,
HAS Advantage is unable to process point transfers to El Al. Unfortunately a business dispute has arisen between HAS and El Al. At this time we can’t provide additional information about this dispute and while we are trying to resolve it, we are not very hopeful it will be resolved.
If you planned on using your points to fly El Al we recommend that you make other travel arrangements. We are extremely sorry about this sudden development. As a HAS cardholder we truly appreciate your support and you deserve better.
If you have a pending transfer, the points will be placed back into your HAS account.
Unlike AMEX, Chase, and Starwood which each have lots of transfer options in case a dispute were ever to arise, HAS only had El Al.
This news has no effect on AMEX points, which continue to transfer El Al.
At this point you should wait and see if they can get it restored somehow, but it seems likely that the best option will be to just take the 1% cash back that they are offering (sure beats the Blue Fringe CD redemption value ;)). Which really, really stinks considering cards like the Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard® give 2.11% miles back on everything.
There’s no longer any reason to keep using the card, that’s for sure.
Much better cards to get you to Israel include the:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express (25% bonus for transferring blocks of 20K points into miles.)
More on lots of ways of using Starpoints to Israel (from 20K round-trip) in this post.
-Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard® (50K signup points plus 2.11% miles back on everything to use towards any travel related charge.)
-Chase Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card® Card Visa Signature (40K signup points, 5K points for adding a free additional user, up to 3.21 points per dollar spent, points transfer to United for Air Canada or United flights for 85K miles with no fuel surcharges or to BA for Air Berlin or USAirways flights for 60K Avios round-trip with no fuel surcharges).
-Chase Ink Plus Business Card and Chase Ink Bold Business Card (50K signup points each, up to 5 points per dollar spent, points transfers to the same places as Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card including BA, Korean, United, Virgin Atlantic, etc.).
-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card (25K bonus points, triple points on airfare, double points on gas and groceries, 15K bonus points every year you spend $30K, points transfer to Air Canada, Alitalia (80K miles in business class round-trip!), BA, Delta, El Al, Flying Blue (as low as 25K miles round-trip), Singapore (fly in a private suite) etc)
-Chase Freedom Visa (No annual fee, 10K signup points plus 2.5K points for adding a free additional user, up to 5 points per dollar spent or 5.5 points per dollar spent if you also have a Chase checking account, point transfers require that you or your spouse have a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card.)
-Chase British Airways Visa Signature (50K signup bonus, 1.25 points per dollar spent, Air Berlin or USAirways flights are 60K Avios with no fuel surcharges)
-Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card (30K signup bonus plus 5K points for adding an additional user, 10K bonus points every year that you spend $25K, 85K miles with no fuel surcharges to Israel)
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48 Comments On "HAS Advantage Points No Longer Transfer To El Al"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
UNBELIEVABLE
Can’t believe there’s no recourse at all.
Hope they will reopen a window to transfer pts.
NO WARNING?!? THOUSANDS DOWN THE TOILET. 1% better than anything else they offer?! Horrible.
I checked the site you can still transfer
@BBPAPA:
@WHAT?!:
Pretty terrible.
@BBGUY:
It will just be returned. Already talked to guys who had El Al transfers returned to their accounts just like HAS says it will.
That is really upsetting. Well then, other than getting to Israel, what is my most valuable option in terms of redeeming my 100,000 HAS points?
@ShaniEss:
Already wrote it in the post.
what else can be done with the HAS points
@BBGUY:
Nothing better than 1% unfortunately.
A terrible card just became downright atrocious.
B”H sold mine for 1.35% before.
If anyone has any success with any phone dept. PLEASE post.
Dan, just for the sake of not giving up do you think I should try elal or has. I know Has has always been horrendous to deal with.
@Ben:
Good timing!
@WHAT?!:
If it’s gone, it’s gone. You’ll just be wasting your time. Just wait and see at this point.
Does anyone know if a class action lawsuit would is a viable option?
@CLASS ACTION:
Call a lawyer?
who will pay 1% its worth nothing
Was planning to use the pts for my son’s bar mitzvah in 5 yrs. (started using HAS before I found DD)
Had a similar problem with Thank You pts about 10 yrs ago-
they devalued my points without warning by 1/3 (saved Pts for almost 5 yrs just for that trip)….
It took me more than 6 mos -so many calls and promises that fell through before I found a kind hearted rep who asked one of the VP’s at Citi to help and in one day it was done.
With El Al though, I’m pessimistic
@BBGUY:
HAS has a 1% cash back option.
@BBPAPA:
I wish you luck!
@Dan: And pay for something?! That’s the worst advice you’ve ever dished out!
@Dan:
Don’t know if I have enough fight left in me for this one- Ich Bin a Delta/priceliner…..the wounds are too fresh from that battle
@BBPAPA: Oh come on. Delta was a peace of cake with the price glitch. One of the glitch tickets I bought I couldn’t go on so I cancelled it within 24 hours through the website I bought it from then I waited until after the date passed and called Delta to see if they could rehonor my “cancelled” tickets. They said it’s too late. Feb 1 was the deadline. I googled some executives emails at Delta. I send an email to them. One of them emailed me back and told me to call his assistant with a reference #. I called she connected me to him and he booked by $58 roundtrip Business Elite tickets JFK to LAX. It took a total of 10 minutes of my time (including typing the emails, etc).
Can I transfer HAS points to Starwood?
I also just made big purchase with HAS. Looking for the best options to do balance transfer and point transfers.
@E L: Ah, only in our dreams.
I wish i could transfer to starwood. I just cant afford the annual fee of $65.00.
@E L:
You can’t transfer HAS anywhere now.
@malkie:
Funny, my annual fee is negative hundreds of dollars:
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/34857
@Dan’s the Man:
You must really be THE MAN
Your experience is not representative of the vast majority of us.
Most of the people who blogged at the time were knee deep in this for close to a wk before resolution -We were calling, emailing, faxing at all hours of the day and night (I was talking to Delta at 3AM one night)
You can refresh your memory by looking at the hundreds of posts at all hours of the day/night
I’m happy you made it through unscathed. Next time we’ll all ask you to handle our reservations for us since “you are the MAN” -anybody out there remember Jordany Valdespin 2013 Mets Wunderkind and where is he now?
1)re:class action.. I would recommand asking a ruv before a lawyer, since they are yidden.
2)for HAS the best idea for them how to setisfy customers is to give 1.3 for each points instead of 1 penny (so customers don’t loose the value)
3)i can understand why they should have a dispute
@Dan’s the Man:
If it was sooooo easy-then what’s with the hundreds of posts
at all hours for almost a wk?
Next time you can handle our reservations ’cause “YOU THE MAN”
LOL
Lo Mayvin, your saying by adding enough additional users it became worth it bc of their spending points? That link only got you 10 bux, unless im misunderstanding.
ahhh i see. If only i had SPG in 2013…
@WHAT?!:
You say you “Lo Mayvin” and go onto explain exactly how it can be done…
Yea i had a moment. Per card, got it.
As a costumer I have been with HAS from the beginning and have always gotten the best service, I know they are a sincere company with strong ties to helping Israel and it’s charities. EL AL on the other hand has been a disappointment to us many times as an airline…I’d rather fly Delta, United or any other company now that I can’t transfer points.
Maybe HAS are doing everyone a favor in giving 1%. Maybe it is LY that is going down the tubes.
Hi dan the waldorf jerusalem opened yesterday and i found a standard room is 80k hilton points is that worth it? Also is the new amex everyday preferred card any good?
It’s truly disgusting of them to cancel an agreement with a Elal without having another trade partner set up in advance, especially when all your company breathes is Elal. But after knowing what their customer service is like for the last 7 years, nothing surprises me. Just this past week, I spoke to them and they advised me to transfer to Elal, without giving me a hint that what they are telling me to do is not even possible.
I called up chase because i got approved for the Freedom Card and they didn’t offer me 2 5k for adding an additional user why not?
I open the Freedom Card last month
Just wondering what the source is for this announcement? HAS does not seem to mention anything about it on their website and the EL Al representatives that I spoke to seem to know nothing about any problems with transfers for HAS. Not to mention that much of the wording of this announcement seems very unprofessional…
…12 minutes later and 12 minutes smarter. I actually just called the HAS advantage number and this announcement is indeed their welcoming message.
I just spoke with a HAS representative who said that you can still use the points for travel – just not to Israel. Call their travel department and they will book your ticket. Also, he said that the meetings today were a bit more hopeful that there possibly could be a resolution after Pesach, but if not, the points are not lost.
Sara Block, you are so funny !! You seem to know SO much about the company and about sincerity. Why are you downing El Al? It is Israel’s national airline.
I spoke to Elal today voicing my disappointment of not being able to use my HAS points to convert to Matmid, the representative asked me a couple of questions and took down all the information and said that Elal is asking them to document all the complaints that are coming in. Please call in and hopefully they will accomodate/compensate us all in some way!
i did the 1% cash option and I’m supposed to be getting my check soon from US Bank. I think it’s the best way to go now. And who knows when US Bank will decide to remove the cash back option, so I’d do it now!
Also, El Al sent out an email saying the agreement is over. If there was still a chance of it working out, I doubt they y would have sent out an email.
El Al knows what it is doing.
HAS customer service is horrible,
Very disappointed , it’s been 2 years that I discarded
My AMEX , and MasterCard and made all my purchases with HAS only,
What a miserable decision !!!
I collected so many points in order to fly EL AL
And HAS did not have the courtesy to inform its customers or at least
Come up with a fair solution !!!!
I learned my lesson ……….
Just spoke with ElAl rep, and the point transfer agreement between HAS and ElAl was reinstated. FYI.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, and unless something has changed that I am not aware of, HAS Advantage card gives you the option to donate to any charity in Israel you pick, which other cards don’t.
Hi Dan,
How long does it take to transfer from HAS to EL AL?