Mercedes is offering 1000 Delta Skymiles for a test drive at ten ‘select’ dealerships, fortunately the one in my home town is included.
This isn’t nearly as lucrative as the British Airways offer from about 5 years ago which gave 10,000 miles for test driving a Jaguar — and of course British Airways’ family accounts allow you to combine miles from four different people towards a single ticket which meant that test drive offer was really worth 40,000 miles.
Still, if it’s convenient and if test driving a Mercedes is appealing, this is a reasonable offer.
The participating dealerships are:
- Alexandria, Virginia
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Eugene, Oregon
- Lindon, Utah
- Northbrook, Illinois*
- Orlando, Florida
- St. Claire Shores, Michigan
- Valencia, California
- Tiverton, Rhode Island
* In Illinois if you actually buy the car, you get appointed to a Senate seat. [duck…]
If you have a SkyMiles account and have good credit, go to Northwest and sign up for a Signature Visa Card. Spend $500 and earn a 20,000-mile bonus. The card is fee-free the first year ($85 thereafter). Once you have a Perks account, take the quiz on WorldPerks (10 minutes or less) and earn another 500 miles. Since WorkPerks will be converted to SkyMiles sometime in 2009, this is the easiest, cheapest (read “free”) 20,500 “bonus” for SkyMiles members. Suggest doing it quickly (before January 15) before Delta puts the kabash on this little “quirk”. I got the Visa card and WorkPerks account in early November. To date, I’ve earned 22,000 miles for doing nothing (the purchases were for work).
Folks, it doesn’t get any easier or cheaper than this to pick up 20,500 miles.