After United, American, and Continental all got on the double elite qualifying miles bandwagon, US Airways has come up with their own slightly different elite fast track. And it’s a fast track. Instead of doubling the miles you earn for the rest of the year and adding those to the miles you’ve already flown to determine elite status, they are just counting the miles you fly during the promotion period of October 1 through December 25. You can either earn status the ‘normal’ way based on total miles flown for the year, or based on flying a lower number of miles during the last quarter. It’s a fast track or challenge for everyone, and no registration is required. Here’s the reduced requirement: Fly 7,500 miles or 10 segments and earn Silver Preferred status Fly 15,000…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for September 2009.
Conde Nast Travel’s 21 Twitterers to Follow
In the new issue of Conde Nast Traveler there’s a list of 21 Twitterers to Follow. Of course, the author @WendyPerrin, doesn’t list herself… Among the best suggestions is to follow RickSeany’s airport-specific tweets, @FlyFrom___ where ___ is your 3-letter airport code — for best fares out of your home airport. And of course it’s definitely worth following @globetrav, whom Flyertalkers know as Kiwi Flyer. Naturally I’m falttered to be included myself, @garyleff. The article describes me thusly Frequent-flier mileage and points advice, “mistake fares,” and assistance with creative ways of redeeming miles for free trips Hope you’ll follow me on Twitter!
50% Off Mileage Upgrades on ANA
Here I just have to turn the microphone over to Lucky, and just quote verbatim, because this offer is just too good for anyone with a few Amex points who miay be flying to Japan. Through the end of the year, ANA is reducing the number of miles required to upgrade from coach to business class. From New York to Tokyo one-way, for example, an upgrade will only be 14,000 miles instead of the usual 28,000 miles. Furthermore, the upgradeable fare classes are quite reasonable. I see $1,300 “S” class fares that can be upgraded under this promotion. Amex Membership Rewards points transfer to ANA, so $1300 and 28,000 Amex points should be enough for a roundtrip business class ticket from the US to Tokyo on ANA. Not bad!
Earn United e-Certificate Discounts Based on Your Number of Trips By the End of the Year
Busy day yesterday and Lucky beat me to the punch on this one — United has a new promotion, stackable with double elite qualifying miles (not to mention threshold bonuses), that will give you a progressively larger discount on a future flight based on the number of flights you take through the end of year. (Ticketing and travel must be between September 14 and December 31.) Qualifying trips E-certificate discount 1 5% 2 10% 3 20% 4 30% 5 40% 6+ 50% Registration requited.
Government Begins Demanding Travel Expense Policies, Can You Guess What Those Policies Look Like?
The Washington Post carries a story on reimbursable expense policies of firms receiving govenrment bailouts. Firms receiving government bailout funds are required to publicly post their ‘luxury’ expense policies — which include travel expenses — by Monday. The Post piece goes into the greatest detail on the 15-page policy adopted by Chrysler. On the one hand, incredible specificity in expense policies can work against the interests of a company. There are times when it makes sense to pay for first class (say, coach is sold out on a non-stop, connecting flight kills an extra day of an employee’s time). On the other hand, the cultures of these companies seem to have been that expenses were incurred for the benefit of employees (non-taxable extra compensation) rather than towards the profitability of the company. And the policies…
Stimulus Money for… Inflight Internet?
AirCell is seeking stimulus money. A portion of the funding that has been set aside by the US government to expand broadband access to unserved and underserved communities is being sought by Aircell. The company has applied for a $65 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Programme (BTOP) grant through the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration. BTOP provides grants to support the deployment of broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas, to enhance broadband capacity at public computer centres, and to encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service. Well, yeah, I guess airplanes are historically underserved by broadband…
Reminder: Get Your Northwest Luggage Tags While Northwest Still Exists
As mentioned previously, this may be just about your last opportunity to create your own luggage tag for 1000 Northwest miles before the Northwest program goes away, folded into the lesser Skymiles offering. It’s a great chance to use a stray 1000 miles, or to generate your own keepsake of Northwest while the brand is still out there.
The Book Wasn’t All That, But Based on the Trailers I’m TOTALLY Looking Forward to the Movie
The frightening thing, and I’m ashamed to admit this, is that I’ve done the elite card throwdown..
Continental Offers Double Elite Qualifying Miles through December 15
Registration required. American started it last week, and then United quickly followed. Delta and US Airways are still out in the cold on this one.
5000 United Miles Per Hyatt Stay
Lucky points to this offer from Hyatt — 5000 United miles per Hyatt stay through October 31. For stays between September 1 and October 31, United 1K members can earn 5,000 miles per Hyatt stay (registration is required), and as far as I can tell there’s no limit. That means 5,000 miles for a $75 stay at a Hyatt Place hotel. That’s a deal in and of itself, but combine that with Faster Free nights, which will almost definitely be back, and I think we’re looking at quite a deal…. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe this is combinable with any other bonus points opportunities, right? While this offer is targeted to United 1Ks (The offer page says “United Airlines® Mileage Plus 1K members are invited…”), I wonder whether anyone can…
