Now this is a great bonus offer. Sure, for large dollar orders the US Airways holiday shopping promo (which makes the standard 20 miles per dollar from FTD 70 miles) is better. But then you have to use one of your 10 possible transactions under that promo. For smaller orders, this United offer reigns supreme. A $30 order from FTD will earn 2400 miles. Worth it for the miles alone? Maybe not, since you have to pay delivery fees. But a darn bit better than buying miles directly from United, that’s for sure. Find the cheapest item on their website and order away. Or just be sure to use this link for all of your holiday gift giving if you can get away with it.
Yearly Archives
Yearly Archives for 2009.
US Airways Holiday Bonus Promotion: TrackItBack is a Good Partner in All of This
I’ve explained previously how to use the US Airways holiday shopping promotion to buy miles at about 7/10ths of a cent (or less..) per mile, for instance here. There’s no doubt been an uptick in purchase transactions over at TrackItBack as a result of all this. What do they think about the whole thing? They love it! Their President writes to me, “[T]he main reason that people are making such transactions is to secure Dividend Miles. This is great and we’re pleased that we can provide them a conduit to do so.” We’re pretty pleased as well, so thank you TrackItBack!
500 Priority Club Points for Taking a Quick Survey
Priority Club is offering 500 points and a second night free at a new property in Shanghai for answering a few quick questions about what’s important to you in a hotel and how often you have traveled/will travel to Shanghai. Terms and Conditions say the second night free is valid only for the first 500 respondents, but otherwise don’t seem to limit the offer in any way. They don’t say the survey is targeted, just that the offer expires December 31. And while these sorts of things are always “your mileage may vary,” I’ve found the Priority Club surveys in the past to be pretty good about posting points (after 6 to 8 weeks).
Los Angeles Times Covers the End of the US Mint Buying Money For Miles Deal
The deal was on the way anyway, in all likelihood, but certainly Wall Street journal coverage has to be the nail in the coffin. There are plenty of reports that purchases of coins from the US mint no longer earn miles, at least via those credit cards where I’ve seen reports. The Los Angeles Times covers the end of the deal. Here’s their summary of the opportunity, which is pretty much accurate: The trouble began in June 2008 when the U.S. Mint launched a “direct ship” program to sell dollar coins directly to the general public in hopes of increasing the use of the coins, which last longer than paper currency. Under the program, individuals could buy a maximum of 500 of each of five presidential dollar coins issued by the mint (Washington, John Adams,…
Little White Lies I Tell When Booking Award Tickets
I’m a liar. I tell customer service agents the same lie, every time I call to make an award booking. But I do it for their benefit, to make them feel at ease. What’s more it saves them time, which I imagine helps their performance ratings. So I feel like I’m doing it for a good reason. But I’m still a liar. Here’s what I’m talking about: before I ever call an airline to try to book an award, I do my research. I figure out what exact award seats should be available, I find the seats and precise routing that I want. And then I call to ask for those seats. But that makes agents a bit uncomfortable, for one of several reasons. (1) You know more infomration than they do. It’s their job,…
My Progress on the Amazing US Airways Holiday Shopping Promo
As a followup to my last post on the shopping promo where you can buy miles for $0.007 apiece, I thought I’d update my miles posting progress. Gaiam, a Dividend Miles Mall member not separately listed on the promo page, posted for me this morning and was listed as “SHOPPING MALL, GAIAM” My Bose purchase posted as “SHOPPING MALL, BOSE” — although I’m a little bit concerned that this won’t count towards the promo (95% that it will, but I’m paranoid) because the promo page highlights only “1,500 bonus miles when you buy the new QC15 headphones” rather than all miles counting towards the promo. Still, since all shopping partners count, this should as well. Later in the promo I may make some extra purchases just in case. My Sears $5 gift card (free shipping)…
Delta-Singapore Partnership Ending
One Mile at a Time notes that the partnership between Delta and Singapore Airlines will end May 15. It’s been likely for awhile that this would go away. It dates back to Singpaore taking a 5% stake in Delta in 1989, divested ten years later. But the partnership continued for a decade past that. And in practice what it meant was the ability to redeem Delta miles on Singapore (and vice versa, but what Kris Flyer members would have wanted to?). Singpaore Airlines awards were the one great redemption option available with Delta Skymiles. It was the only true first class redemption available, and a good one at that. A couple of years back Delta started collecting hefty fuel surcharges on the awards, but that didn’t bother me — the ability to use Skymiles for…
The Jefferson Hotel’s Outstanding Service Recovery
Several weeks ago I stayed at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, a grand old property that I gave somewhat mixed reviews to. I had a nice suite upgrade, and the room had one of my all-time favorite bathrooms as a result of one of my absolute favorite showers ever (large shower room with three separate shower heads — two on opposite walls and one overhead). There were some real service failures and slips, though, and I concluded at the time that the hotel was much much better at service recovery than actual service. The valet dinged my car door, my room didn’t do much to keep out the noise from my neighbors above, and service in the restaurant was slow — in fact twice we were forgotten for 30 minutes at a time during the…
US Big Bonus Holiday Offer is AMAZING, Get In On This One…
The US Airways Dividend Miles holiday shopping promotion (discussed here and here) is amazing. It’s one of the best shopping promos I have ever seen. It offers the opportunity to buy miles at 7/10ths of a penny apiece using purchases from TrackItBack (which normally gives 40 miles per dollar but if you reach the 250% bonus level it earns 140 miles per dollar). There have been some concerns, though, about whether you really earn 250% as bonus miles on top of the regular miles earned for shopping, for your first ten shopping transactions as long as you have transactions with five different merchants. There have been concerns about whether all of the merchants in the US Airways Dividend Miles mall count as separate partners for qualifying towards the 250% bonus or not. Essentially, the promotion…
Brussels Airlines Joined Star Alliance Today
Brussels Airlines officially joined Star Alliance today. Why care? New to the network are more connections from Brussels Airport, which has now become a Star Alliance hub. These include four destinations in Africa which are currently not being served by other Star Alliance member carrier: Bujumbura, Burundi; Conakry, Guinea; Kigali, Ruanda and Monrovia, Liberia. In fact, I’ve already used them to make an award booking (through my premium service): two passengers in business class from the U.S. to Kigali, Rwanda, Continental from Newark to Brussels and on to Kigali on Brussels Airlines. Their return flight from Kigali makes a one-hour stop in Entebbe. Expert Flyer users, note that their award search tool is wrong as of today — if you use Expert Flyer to search award inventory, it will pull up “Z” class which used…
