American is offering progressively more bonus miles for each of your first five roundtrips booked between July 18 and September 15 for travel between September 4 and November 15. First you need to register for Bourne Legacy co-branded “Welcome To The Program Sweepstakes” by August 31. You have to watch a couple of videos, listen to an audio clip, and click a button to reveal a marketing message in order to be permitted to register. (Or you could probably just click here, which is the page you reach after jumping through the hoops.) Then you have to register for the promo itself by September 15 (and only travel after registration will count towards the bonus). Note that N, O and Q fares are not eligible to earn the bonus miles. These are the lowest fare…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for July 2012.
Legal Settlement Will Allow US Merchants to Add Surcharges to Credit Card Transactions
Lots of news on the multi-billion dollar settlement today, but tough to get good details on what exactly has been agreed to and tougher still to predict how it will all play out. But a case I wrote about earlier in the week, where merchants were suing over claims of price fixing in the fees charged to process credit cards, has been settled. Visa, Mastercard, and several banks will pay out over $6 billion dollars. They will temporarily reduce interchange fees while they write new credit card processing agreements. And, as explained by Visa’s press release, we’ll see: Modifications to Visa’s rules to permit retailers to impose a surcharge on credit transactions subject to a cap and a level playing field with other general purpose card competitors. The rule changes on surcharging likely would be…
How to Keep Up with View from the Wing
I want to make sure you get all of the best deals and opportunities I write about. Clearly I think it’s worthwhile or else I wouldn’t be writing it. But hopefully you find it worthwhile, since you’re reading it! At least the vast majority of emails I get suggest that folks find my posts useful, and if you’re one of the five figure visitors each day checking in here then you may want to pick the easiest method for your own reading comfort. You can follow me on Twitter Or friend me on Facebook You can of course bookmark the blog, or just type www.viewfromthewing.com into your web browser. There’s also an RSS feed for this blog, so you can subscribe via your favorite blog reader. I used to love Google Reader but am far less enamored of it…
Bits ‘n Pieces for July 12, 2012
Around the Frequent Flyer World in 30 Seconds: MileValue is offering a seminar in Honolulu at 10am on July 21, how to maximize miles for folks living in Hawaii. Via Milepoint, an interesting article on how the federal government is trying to reduce its spending on hotels, and how the hotel industry is lobbying against it. Million Mile Secrets discovers that you can earn Delta miles for paying taxes with a Suntrust debit card — and that PayUSATax charges just a flat $3.49 for debit card tax payments. Normally the ‘convenience fees’ aren’t worth the miles earned paying taxes by credit card. So this is a great workaround. JonNYC at Traveling Better points out that the American Airlines website says you can redeem miles online for Iberia’s Madrid-London flights. This hasn’t previously been announced, and…
Petition that the TSA Should Follow the Law on Nude-o-Scopes
Via Bruce Schneier: This is important: In July 2011, a federal appeals court ruled that the Transportation Security Administration had to conduct a notice-and-comment rulemaking on its policy of using “Advanced Imaging Technology” for primary screening at airports. TSA was supposed to publish the policy in the Federal Register, take comments from the public, and justify its policy based on public input. The court told TSA to do all this “promptly.” A year later, TSA has not even started that public process. Defying the court, the TSA has not satisfied public concerns about privacy, about costs and delays, security weaknesses, and the potential health effects of these machines. If the government is going to “body-scan” Americans at U.S. airports, President Obama should force the TSA to begin the public process the court ordered. The petition needed 150…
Up to 2 Free London Hotel Nights with British Airways Ticket Purchase
Some airlines such as Turkish offer a free hotel night with an overnight stopover in Istanbul, regardless of class of service. It’s a little-known benefit that applies even to economy travel and helps Turkish make more sense as a carrier of choice for travel to and from destinations that don’t get a ton of service, where picking Turkish requires spending the night. Several carriers, especially in the Middle East, will offer a similar service for premium cabin customers at least on paid fares. But British Airways has come out with a promotion offering London hotel nights, potentially even two free nights, and is offering it with any paid roundtrip ticket to London this summer originating in the U.S. regardless of booking class. Purchase travel between the U.S. and U.K. through Thursday, July 25 for travel…
A US Airways Acquisition of American is Getting Less and Less Likely
It’s been all over the news that American is looking at merger partners as part of its bankruptcy process, and that has plenty of people speculating that an American Airlines – US Airways deal might finally get done, that it’s looking inevitable since American is willingly coming to the table. I don’t believe that’s what this move means at all, I don’t think a US Airways acquisition of American has become more likely. I believe it’s a necessary part of the process while American’s management would prefer not to be acquired. And the progress that American has already made makes them an increasingly costly acquisition target. Which means that any odds of acquiring American must be going down, not up. There are three reasons American is becoming increasingly costly to buy: American is making money.…
500 Free Aeroplan Points
Similar to the offer for 500 free Delta miles from Accorhotels, you can earn 500 free Aeroplan points from them as well. You probably cannot earn both Aeroplan and Delta miles with the same Accor account, you have to choose one to deposit your mileage earning with and that choice will be used when they sweep for the 500 mile bonus. (HT: Milepoint)
Final Week for 100,000 British Airways Point Signup Bonus
Key link: British Airways Visa: up to 100,000 point signup bonus The most lucrative credit card bonus this year gets pulled July 18. The offer is: 50,000 points after first purchase 25,000 points after spending $10,000 on the card within a year 25,000 additional points after spending the next $10,000 on the card within that year There’s a $95 annual fee, spending earns 1.25 points per dollar, and the card has no foreign currency transaction fees. After $30,000 in spend within a year they award a free companion award ticket – the second passenger travels on an award booked on British Airways flights for no additional points (though both passengers are charged taxes and fuel surcharges). And of course there are plenty of ways to goose your spending to get there. (There’s also good discussion in the comments to this…
Starwood Introduces Cash & Points Awards for (Some) Top Tier Category 7 Hotels
Starwood cash and points awards are a great way to stretch points, especially at the category 3, 4, and 5 levels. You spend part cash, part points or put another way you buy back points at a discount. A category 4 hotel costs 10,000 points for a regular award night, or $60 and 4000 points. So you’re effectively buying 6000 of the points you need for the night for $60, or 1 cent per point. Up until now, Starwood’s top redemption category 7 didn’t include a cash and points option. However they announced today that some category 7 hotels would begin offering cash and points award nights. During ‘low’ or regular season a category 7 room is 30,000 points. Cash and points runs 15,000 points plus $275. So you’re buying the remaining 15,000 points you…
