Randy Petersen is giving away a seat on the oneworld MegaDO charter, complete with hotels and whatnot.

I’ve offered more extensive discussions of the MegaDO here and here, but Randy offers the following:

With stops in Dallas, Seattle and Los Angeles there are sure to be several amazing events along the way. I don’t want to say too much, as the hosts like to keep a few surprises up their sleeves, but I don’t think I’ll be giving anything away when I tell you the itinerary includes:

• Informal get togethers with the executives of American Airlines providing an inside look at this airline, as well as executives from Hyatt Hotels, Qantas Airlines and more.
• Boeing Factory and Boeing Museum of Flight tours with access to areas and events never experienced in any prior MegaDO event.
• Opportunities to participate in two unique bonus offers: Hyatt and AAdvantage.

And here’s what the winner of the contest gets:

you will enjoy:

• Hours and hours of great conversation with the other passengers about miles, points, and the experience that MegaDO’s have beome
• A swag bag that would make Academy Awards guests jealous
• Free hotel nights as part of the charter flight: Hyatt Regency DFW, Hyatt Regency Bellevue (Seattle) and Hyatt Regency Century Plaza (Los Angeles)
• AND if you are lucky enough to be the winner with either Silver, Gold or Platinum status on milepoint, free flights to/from your location to the actual charter flight departure city of Dallas from anywhere in the world (it really is easy to earn this status on milepoint, simply participate in the various threads/conversations in our travel forums when you are not posting to the December to Remember thread!)
• You’ll also be eligible to participate in the European sectors and events if you wish.
• Tommy and Ed and Gary (the other co-founders of milepoint will carry your bags for free!
• And some folding money for that early morning Starbucks and any additional meals if you’re the hungry type. As well, you’ll have a chance to play the Boss and pick up a few tabs at the bar or any other random acts of kindness for your fellow passengers—all of which will be reimbursed by me

Ok, so I literally have to carry your bags if you win.

All you have to do to enter is post in this thread on milepoint.

Meanwhile, American Airlines’ official video blogger contest to join the MegaDO is going on until December 14th.

Aerican is also going to auction off two seats on the charter along with positioning flights and accomodations, the auction starts December 7 and lasts a week. The opening bid is 50,000 miles.

I’m rarely a fan for using airline miles for things other than airline flights, they generally don’t offer much value, no matter how many times airlines offer hotel or car redemptions those almost all work out to be a poor value hovering around 0.75 to 1.3 cents per point — because generally airlines are straight up buying the travel, albeit with some buying power due to size, and it’s quite expensive for the program to do so — whereas they get deeper discounts on ‘distressed’ inventory offered as awards at the saver level.

But here’s an example where I am a fan, and I’ve seen things offered by American Express and Chase at times that qualify in the same category — aspirational awards and experiences that you couldn’t get on your own. So it isn’t about the face value of the trip itself, using 50,000 miles for an $800 charter seat wouldn’t be a phenomenal deal, though even at a higher price point it gets quite a bit better with positioning flights and hotel nights thrown in! But the point of course is that you cannot buy a seat on the charter which sold out in under 25 minutes. But American Airlines as a sponsor pre-arranged some seats to give away. Like the ‘life experience’ offerings I’ve seen from the big card companies, dinner with famous chefs for instance. Those can be worthwhile, because the companies are in a position to do something which you cannot. Always worth looking at and evaluating those value propositions.