United is apparently offering coach awards between the U.S. and Australia for 45,000 miles. I say ‘apparently’ because though the terms and conditions suggest the promo should be active and redemption possible online, awards still seem to be pricing out at 60,000 miles. (Perhaps the web page meant to say that the award could not be booked online, which is also why the page says that the $15 award booking fee would be waived. That would explain why the website spits out a 60,000 mile price in spite of the promo. I’ve been too busy to call and find out the truth myself.) Flyertalk discussion of this offer is here.
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for February 2006.
USAirways to Enforce its Mileage Expiration Policy
The Charlotte Observer reports that USAirways is planning to delete accounts that have had no activity for 36 months or more unless something posts to the account by February 15. According to the piece USAirways has not enforced its 36 month rule for several years, but plans to as part of the database cleanup involved in merging the America West FlightFund and USAirways Dividend Miles programs together. Any activity is enough to keep an account active, but the activity needs to post by February 15. You could always buy miles, book an award and redeposit it, redeem miles for magazines, or transfer points into or out of your account via Points.com (you could even transfer your points to America West and then transfer them back with no cost or devaluation). (Hat tip to Today in…
Freddies Voting has Begun!
Voting for the Freddie Awards is now open and will last through February 28. I voted for United as program of the year and best elite level. It has a truly industry-leading award chart — fewest miles for the best international premium class awards (think 90,000 miles for business class to Australia) — and its 1K program can’t be beat for international upgrades from reasonable fares without a co-pay. On the other hand, not a single one of my votes went to Northwest, Delta, or Continental. Together they’ve been increasing mileage costs on premium-class awards and (Continental and Northwest especially) offer generally poor award availability. Skyteam really is the leftover alliance, with equally stingy partners Air France and KLM. On the other hand, best redemption has to go to American… (with a nod to all…
250 Free Priority Club Points
Priority Club has a short survey for 250 points. Deadline is February 28. It’s tied to the Freddie Awards, and February 28th is also the close of voting in the Freddies. They say points will post within 6 weeks of the close of the survey, so by April 11.