Via Matthew, United is apparently loosening its award routing rules today. Historically, United has allowed: One stopover or an open jaw on a roundtrip award. Then they introduced one-way awards, including on partners. And that meant you could do a ‘double open jaw’ (they couldn’t restrict whether you flew back out of the same city you arrived in, or returned to the same city you departed from, since they were just one-way awards). But no stopovers on one-way awards. Now, you can have a double open jaw on a roundtrip award. Why not just do two one-ways? Because if you need to cancel two one-ways and aren’t a 100,000-mile flyer you will pay two $150 change fees per person. So this means lower fees, is more consumer friendly to offer this option. Now also you…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for February 2011.
US Airways Credit Card with 35,000 Bonus Miles and No Fee the First Year
Via Rick, US Airways is offering a no fee the first year credit card with full mileage earning, something they haven’t done in several years. Here’s the offer: 35,000 bonus miles with first use, no fee the first year ($89 thereafter). The card also comes with a $99 companion ticket valid for up to two passengers ($99 each when you buy a ticket of $299+tax or more), an annual US Airways Club Pass, 10,000 elite qualifying miles after each card anniversary, and zone 2 boarding on US Airways flights. The no fee offer is geared to US Airways Chairmans elite members, given that the URL for the offer is http://www.mostmiles.com/Chairmans but it does not appear in any way to be a targeted offer, anyone can take advantage of it. If you haven’t had a US…
Tales of bmi Diamond Club’s Demise Have Been Grossly (Somewhat?) Overstated
Back in June it looked like bmi’s Diamond Club frequent flyer program had only a year left of life, that it would be merged into Miles & More in the summer of 2011. Wandering Aramean reports that tales of the program’s demise have been grossly overstated — at least according to a chat with bmi’d CEO, the Diamond Club program will not get folded into Miles & More during 2011. And they’re even still investing in and working on the program, introducing Star Alliance awards (ed: (meant to say — upgrade awards) this spring. I still ultimately expect Diamond Club to cease as an independent program evetually. The CEO isn’t denying that this is a likely outcome. But it won’t happen so quickly. That’s great for me because I still have plenty of bmi miles,…
Milepoint.com Private Beta Registration Link Revealed
Last week I shared that I was stepping down from my roles at Flyertalk so that I could focus on a new frequent flyer community that Randy Petersen is starting. That project is Milepoint.com, and it’s now in private beta. We’re using the month of February to begin building content on the site. Because when the doors open and folks come on it, it’s important that they find useful information there. And a group of people that are answering each other’s questions. It was important not to publicize the private beta too early, or else folks would come on over and wouldn’t see what they wanted, probably wouldn’t come back. Creating a community is about creating a useful experience, you need memebrs to create content but you need content to attract members. Solving that chicken…
I Just Received a Bonus Offer and I Have No Idea if It’s a Good Value or Not!
Expedia just sent out an email offering 1000 bonus points for Valentine’s hotel bookings using a coupon code: • Book a hotel* ($100 minimum) • Enter Coupon Code iHeartPoints at Checkout • Travel by February 16, 2011 Now, you would really have to heart points for their own sake to take advantage of this promo. Because the program which has just launched hasn’t even outlined their reward chart. We have no idea what 1000 points is worth! If I had to guess, a point would be worth a penny, but that could be completely wrong. It’s just the cynic in me. They haven’t told us what we can do with their points, but they want to motivate us with bonus points. Perhaps I should start a program where you can accumulate miles, but you cannot…
Best Western Stay Three Get One Free Offer
Best Western is running a free night promo through April 11, with additional point giveaway opportunities just for registering. The offer is: Stay three times by April 11 and earn a free night voucher good at any Best Western in the U.S., Canada, or Carribean valid through June 30. (Registration is required prior to qualifying stays in order to count towards the promo.) Then they have three additional ‘kickers’ on top: If you pay for three stays with a Best Western Rewards Mastercard, you’ll earn an additional 1000 bonus points. If your three stays are at two (or three) different ‘brand descriptors’ of Best Western, you receive an additional 6,500 bonus points. A daily prize drawing from among those who have registered, they are giving away between 6500 and 260,000 points each day, and also…
Incredible Venue Announced for the 2011 Frequent Traveler Awards
The First Annual Frequent Traveler Awards was an amazing evening last year. And now the time is approaching to do it again. The goal last year was to ensure that an award was given out in 2010. But late in the year doesn’t make sense, when members are being asked for their views of loyalty program accomplishments in the previous calendar year. So the plan from the start was to shift to a regular date in the spring, and we’re doing that — the last Thursday in April, April 28. A venue for the awards has been announced: Citi Field, the Mets stadium in New York! Frequent travelers will have an opportunity to attend, more infomration on that to come, but what an amazing night to be a part of — your favorite frequent flyer…
How to Get the Best Hotel Deals
Points, status, and bonuses are often the most leveraged way to secure the best overall travel experience at the lowest price overall. In other words, best value proposition — combination of best rooms, best benefits like breakfast and internet, for the lowest price considering all that you get. That’s mostly what I write about and how I approach my own travel. But there are times when it’s all about price, not all about the best overall travel experience. So instead of ‘how do you get elite status quickly?’ or ‘how do you leverage that status with points promotions and upgrades?’ this post is about ‘how do you get the best price?’. I’m going to give a shot at look at airfare, hotels, and rental cars separately. Let’s start with hotels. Though since I’m not always…
How to Use Delta Skymiles to Book International Premium Class Awards
Yesterday I wrote a guide to redeeming US Airways Dividend Miles for awards on their Star Alliance partners. Now Troy has written up a similar guide for Delta Skymiles. Delta’s availability on its own flights tends to be much less generous than most other airlines. But they do have some pretty good partners, and those partners often have decent availability. But Delta makes the process more cumbersome than most airlines to find the great partner award availability, and to get it at the ‘low’ award level price. First, because the Delta website is very limited in the partners it has on offer. Second, because for most cases the only way to ‘hold’ an award is on the website, otherwise it’s instant ticketing only, which makes tinkering difficult. Third, because Delta agents aren’t very adept at…
SOME Things I Won’t Do, Even for the Miles…
MilesQuest points out that you can earn American Airlines miles for ordering Domino’s pizza. That’s great and all. But then you actually have to eat Domino’s pizza. I’ll forgo the miles on this one, thanks.
