A new (to me, at least) air travel hack lets you buy elite status in a few lines’ programs. It joins other hoary hacks, around for years, that offer some great cost reductions but violate airline policies and contracts.
Two outfits—airlinestatus.com/ and joindeluxe.com—sell time-limited elite status in several major airlines. Currently, airlinestatus.com sells Gold and Platinum status on Delta, Platinum on Hawaiian, and A-List on Southwest. Joindeluxe.com adds Gold, Platinum, and 1K status on United, and Platinum on American. The blog where I first noticed these deals listed JetBlue as also available, but it wasn’t posted as of yesterday on either site….