As promised two weeks ago, I’m giving one lucky blog reader 5 free rental car days courtesy of National. This is the last of 3 giveaways from these generous folks, it started with a Victorinox carryon bag and was followed by National Car Rental Executive Elite status, and now someone gets to rent a car and not pay! Here’s the fine print that goes along with the free rental days, not especially onerous but I share the legalese nonetheless which amounts to you still pay the taxes: Complimentary Car rental covers the base rate for the number of consecutive prize days awarded, but excludes taxes, other governmentally-authorized or imposed surcharges, license recoupment and concession recoupment fees, airport and airport facility fees, fuel, additional driver fee, or optional items, which shall be the responsibility of winner.…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for May 2011.
Frustrations and Successes Using Delta Skymiles to Book Hard to Get Awards
Points, Miles, and Martinis posts about using Delta Skymiles to get to Tahiti in business class on Air France. I’ve written in the past the irony that while Delta miles are in my experience the toughest to use they are actually the best-positioned for premium cabin travel to the two toughest award destinations, French Polynesia and Australia, the former because they partner with both Air Tahiti Nui and Air France and the latter because they partner with V Australia. In fact both scenarios require a departure from the West Coast and the hard part isn’t the business class seat as much as getting a domestic flight to the West Coast included in the award. If you live in an Alaska Airlines city you’re fortunate because Delta miles can be used on Alaska, which has much…
1000 Miles for Every $100 in Restaurant Spend with United Dining For Miles
There’s an All You Can Earn bonus (registration required) of 1000 miles for every $100 you spend at participating restaurants through June 30. And unlike the Delta bonus offer, there’s no limit to the amount of bonus miles you can receive under the offer. And there’s a 1000 mile bonus for joining if you aren’t already a member, You just need to register using the Welcome Bonus link, create a profile, and spend at least $50 at a participating restaurant within 30 days of registration.
Earn National Free Car Rental Day and Status Credits with Enterprise Car Rentals
I’ve just received an email from National Car Rental that as of May 1 you now earn free rental day credits and credit towards elite status in the National Emerald Club through rentals at Enterprise. We’re pleased to announce a valuable enhancement to your Emerald Club® benefits. Now you can earn Emerald Club rental credits at participating Enterprise Rent-A-Car locations, including more than 6,000 neighborhood locations in the U.S. and Canada. This vastly improves your ability to achieve Executive® or Executive Elite® status and earn Free Rental Days on your Emerald Club account. Your qualifying* Enterprise rentals will count toward improving your Emerald Club status and earning Free Rental Days redeemable at National locations only. So whenever you need to rent a vehicle and National is not an option, rent from a participating Enterprise location…
Around the Blogs: Great Offers I’m Not Writing About
MJ On Travel describes a dining for miles offer of up to 5000 Delta Skymiles — 1000 miles for every $100 in spend at participating restaurants through June 30. (Registration required.) Lucky says that American Express Platinum cardholders get 300 Membership Rewards points for using a Delta lounge. You get lounge access when flying Delta, and they’re incentivizing you to use the benefit. When they swipe your Amex they give you a certificate to redeem for the points. In Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, and JFK you could presumably even lounge hop for more miles. And since you get Amex points, you could even be earning Continental or Aeroplan miles for visiting a Delta lounge! The Points Guy invited MrPickles to guest blog, and we get a detailed discussion on using Big Crumbs to earn cash back…
Leveraging Monster Credit Card Signup Bonuses for Even (MANY) MORE Miles
The legendary beaubo passes along the following suggestion for maximizing the miles earned from massive credit card bonuses — rope in all of your family and friends, and have them give you control of their frequent flyer accounts. This is radical, but then again that’s the beaubo-style! For the BA 100K deal (really ANY credit card deal), recruit friends and family, who are not willing or able to travel, to open up credit cards accounts and get sign up bonuses. offer them either cash, say up to .25-.5 per bonus mile, so you are not getting free miles, but still VERY cheap miles OR offer them a redeemable award, like a mid-tier hotel night. open up FFP account in their name (but you control PIN) have them give you their SS#s and you actually sign…
Buy Hilton HHonors Points Today at Half a Cent Apiece
Today’s Discover America Daily Getaway from American Express is purchase of Hilton HHonors points — 100,000, 150,000, and 250,000 point blocks and when you pay by American Express you get a 10% discount and bring the price down to half a penny apiece. Buying points from Hilton HHonors directly is limited to 40,000 per year and costs about a penny a point, so this is a deep discount relative to the normal cost of purchasing points. It’s a good deal, and yet I’m torn. My usual mental model is that the average Hilton HHonors redemption gets you about half a cent per point in value. So you’re more or less prepaying the cost of an average reward stay. Not that appealing. There are of course some really strong redemption values, and if you are likely…
Up to 75% Bonus on Transfers of Hotel Points to US Airways
US Airways is offering bonuses on converting hotel points to Dividend Miles during the month of May. There are (3) stackable bonuses: General members get a 25% bonus on transfers Dividend Miles Mastercard holders get a 25% bonus on transfers Dividend Miles elite members get a 25% bonus on transfers So a Dividend Miles elite member with a co-branded Mastercard gets a 75% bonus on transfers into US Airways from hotel programs. Since the bonus is on top of any provided by the hotel partner themselves, a transfer of 20,000 Starpoints would yield 43,750 US Airways miles with a full 75% bonus. Bonus miles will post each week starting May 16, and they will continue sweeping weekly through September 5 to catch any transfers that are slow to post. The full list of hotel transfer…
And the Award for Worst Airline Lounge in North America Goes to…
Some of you are going to say that the honors go to the United Red Carpet Club at Dulles that had the rats. But I haven’t seen reports of Red Carpet Rodents in some time. Though I’d at least agree with the overall sentiment, that the very first thing a lounge should offer is a clean respite from a sometimes-dirty terminal. Sure, there are other minimum conditions necessary to qualify as a lounge that is actually an improvement over sitting at the gate, such as peace and quiet, wireless internet and comfortable seating. But it starts with cleanliness. And given that standard, I wonder whether there’s any worse lounge than the US Airways club at La Guardia? Here’s where I headed in the lounge today, the only open seats by the window over looking the…
Do Bloggers Get Treated Better at Hotels, and Who Has the Best Late Check-out Benefit?
The Frequent Traveler Awards were held at Citi Field, but were managed out of the Sheraton LaGuardia East, which also served as host for the Randy Petersen Travel Executive Summit and for Frequent Traveler University over the past several days. I have to say that for an airport property in New York, it worked surprisingly well. The rate was reasonable, I believe the conference rate was $159, and the hotel itself was just fine. The beds were comfortable Sweet Sleepers, the rooms were clean, and the space worked out just fine. There was confusion at the front desk, it isn’t the easiest place to catch a cab from (though a few blocks down at the subway cabs often congregate and you can of course take the subway!), but it has the huge advantage of being…
