Virgin America is offering a bonus on purchase of miles that gets progressively larger the more miles you buy, up to a 50% bonus. This applies to purchases through January 31. The maximum points you can purchase in a year is 20,000. Buying 20,000 miles nets a 10,000 mile bonus. That means you get 30,000 miles for $1040, or about 3.5 cents a mile. The thing to remember is that Virgin America’s award chart is a bit different from legacy carriers, so in some ways that equates to buying miles from such other carriers for a bit over two pennies. I’m not a buyer at that price, but for topping off towards an award it’s a non-crazy price. For instance, buying 30,000 miles is enough for a one-way San Francisco – London award in Upper…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for January 2013.
Bits ‘n Pieces for January 3, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Instant top tier platinum status with Le Club Accorhotels is still working. Turkish Airlines is still offering status matches, including to elite members of other Star Alliance programs. That means if you have Gold or higher status with United or US Airways, you can get a status match from Turkish and free lounge access when flying in the domestic U.S. Travel & Leisure‘s January issue quotes me in their “Most Important Travel Trends of 2013 piece — I argue that international award seats are easier to get than domestic, and they pick up the argument from me that airlines which block tools that help frequent flyer members manage their miles (like Award Wallet) reduce their own members’ loyalty. United is offering 2000 miles for joining a participating gym.…
US Airways Finally Tells the Truth — Lufthansa First Class is Not Offered by the Dividend Miles Program
I was emailing yesterday with Ben and after discussing something on a completely different topic, and mentioned I needed to write about the addition of a new footnote in the US Airways award chart. He replied, “was *just* writing it as you emailed. Hah!” Of course Ben is a professional blogger and got his thoughts up right away. I, on the other hand, had my first day in a new office. I have been overseeing the construction and permitting (egads, it involved getting a County re-zoning), which all completed last week — just in time for move-in. So things were a little bit chaotic. And I’m about 16 hours behind. US Airways Updates Their Award Chart to Say Lufthansa First Class is Not Offered The US Airways partner award chart (.pdf) has been updated to…
United Drops Price of Buying Elite Qualifying Miles
Loyalty Lobby says that United has dropped the price of its ‘premier accelerator’. That’s the option to not just buy additional redeemable miles when you buy a ticket, but also to buy elite qualifying miles at the same time (additional qualifying miles in the amount equal to the miles you’ll fly on your trip). People have been known to use this option to buy a ticket they do not intend to fly — the purchased points post immediately, rather than after your trip — and then cancel the ticket (either buying a refundable ticket, or of course tickets purchased at United.com are generally refundable for 24 hours). The ticket gets refunded, the extra mileage purchase does not. So folks calculate the number of elite qualifying miles they need, come up with an itinerary which flies…
Bits ‘n Pieces for January 2, 2013
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: The Pizza in Motion blog is giving away a free roundtrip ticket on American Airlines and also a choice of 25,000 United miles or 25,000 Hyatt points. A good blog, but one that gets less attention, which means chances of winning are likely to be pretty good. Frequent Miler has a useful update on which retailers let you go through a shopping portal to buy gift certificates and earn points or cash back, and then go back through the shopping portal to make a purchase and earn more points or cash back while paying with the gift card — in other words double dipping, earning twice the reward for each purchase. United will be featuring Chris Guillebeau’s $100 Startup as an audio book in its inflight entertainment March…
American Offers Golds and Platinums Who Didn’t Requalify a Chance to Buy Back Status
American is offering Gold and Platinum members who didn’t re-qualify for that level the option to buy back their status. You have to have flown at least two elite qualifying segments in 2012 If you did this last year you cannot do it again for 2013 Offer is available through May 15 Status is of course valid through February 28, 2014 Pricing varies based on your 2012 qualifying activity level. Platinums who flew at least 40,000 miles or 48 segments can buy back their status for $619. Platinums who flew less than that buy back status for $769. Golds who flew at least 20,000 miles or 24 segments can buy back their status for $409. Golds who flew less than that buy back status for $559. Is it worth it? This pricing may be cheaper…
One of the Best Ways to Save Big on Expensive Hyatt Hotel Nights: Hyatt Tweaks Pricing on Stay Certificates
I’ve written in the past how you can use Hyatt stay certificates to reduce the cost of your hotel stays. The idea is that Hyatt sells gift certificates, you can give someone a Hyatt hotel stay as a gift. You can even give yourself a Hyatt hotel stay as a gift with these certificates. The certificates are a fixed price, with several ‘levels’ which are valid at different hotels. And those fixed prices are often substantially less than some hotels cost on a nightly basis. Hyatt stay certificate reservations are even cancellable, the certificates have an expiration date though. And you’re supposed to have to have the certificates in hand in order to make the reservations, an innovation several years ago towards this end was to require that you enter the ‘certificate code’ when making…
A United Customer Learns of a Big Elite Status Mistake — After Spending Over $1 Million on Their Credit Card
A reader — and industry insider — copies me on a complaint to United Chairman and CEO Jeff Smisek. Dear Mr. Smisek, I am very dissatisfied with United Airlines Mileage Plus & its credit card partner, Chase, as I believe United has been unfaithful to the terms & conditions of the Chase Presidential Plus Credit Card, which I hold. In 2012, I used a combination of Premier Qualifying Miles (PQM’s) earned from flying on United Airlines and PQM’s earned from my Chase Presidential Plus Credit Card to achieve United Airlines Premier Platinum Status (75,000 PQM’s earned in a calendar year). I earned 38,000 PQM’s from my Chase credit card, as this card rewards its holders with 1,000 PQM’s for each $5,000 in spend on the card. The rest of my PQM’s were earned from flying.…
Buying Money With Money for the Miles: Go Beyond Bluebird’s $5000 a Month Limit, and How to Play Even Without Vanilla Reloads
I’m going to say a bit today about the current status of ‘Bluebird’ and ‘Vanilla Reloads’ as a mileage-earning strategy, and offer some tips for folks that are already pursuing that strategy to do it even bigger while also offering something to the folks that haven’t been able to take advantage so far because they cannot find Vanilla Reload cards in their area that can be purchased with a credit card. Buying Money with Money Vanilla Reload cards — the holy grail, the ability to buy money on a credit card and use the money to pay off credit cards while earning points in the process — can be difficult to find in some cities, and folks run into all sorts of different policies when trying to purchase them. I’ve written about these cards in…
Make Your New Year’s Resolution..
… not to miss out on the best deals, short-lived opportunities, and all the intel on what’s going on in the world of miles and points. And it’s free. But you already know that, since by definition you’re already reading this blog. Make it your New Year’s Resolution not to miss out on any of the deals and analysis. Join the more than 25,000 people each day who keep up with miles and points at ViewFromTheWing.com! You can follow me on Twitter Or friend me on Facebook There’s also an RSS feed for this blog, so you can subscribe via your favorite blog reader. And you can have each day’s content emailed to you overnight, just enter your email address in the box on the left hand side of the page. Never miss out on a deal or…
