Now that we’re past New Years Resolutions (and we’ve all broken ours), gym signups are down. Gyms need to incentivize memberships. And they’ll pay companies to get them members, including companies that will kick back miles to you (rebating a portion of their commission). You can earn 2000 United miles for joining a gym through GlobalFit’s “MileagePlus Fitness” program. They have offers from Anytime Fitness, Bally Total Fitness, Curves, 24 Hour Fitness, New York Sports Clubs, and more. The site claims best pricing, better than what you get walking into the gym, but I haven’t verified this. Hat tip goes to Notiflyer and they did verify one pricing instance: We checked out the price for a membership with 24 Hour Fitness that earns miles and the cost was a $259 payment for an entire year…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for May 2013.
The Travel Insurance Scam: Read this Post Before You Book Your Next Trip
Travel Insurance Worth it? No. There are generally two elements to travel insurance – cancellation coverage (you get your money back for non-refundable deposits if you have to cancel for covered reasons) and interruption coverage (the cost to get home if you have to cut the trip short for covered reasons or extra costs due to airline issues along the way). Generally one policy covers both of these things. And if you book a trip through an online travel agency, or even possibly through your airline’s website, you’ll probably be offered travel insurance. If you’re booking a trip through a travel agent, they will probably recommend travel insurance. But is it a good idea? Why Do Travel Agents Recommend Trip Insurance? There are basically three reasons why travel agents recommend trip insurance: They make money…
Bits ‘n Pieces for May 23, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Tnooz carries my predictions about how online hotel booking will change in the near future. Frugal Travel Lawyer tells you how to get free Godiva chocolate every month. A stewardess for Nigerian airline Arik Air was arrested after she was found with six kilos of cocaine at Heathrow. The drugs were discovered “on a bus which had been used to transport air crew following a flight from Lagos.” If it had been a smaller amount of blow I’d have considered it a reasonable defense that one needs mind-altering substances to deal with busing around Heathrow’s underbelly. (HT: uggboy on Milepoint) One Mile at a Time writes that the cash portion of AviancaTaca LifeMiles cash and points awards seems to have gotten more expensive. Whereas it used to be…
One Day Left to Enter National Car Rental #SummerOnTheGo Giveaway
On Tuesday I announced a giveaway offer of a bunch of cool stuff from National Car Rental. You still have a day to enter. And since I don’t take anything myself when I do those, I have two of National’s “Summer On-The-Go” Prize Packs: Package one: Apple iPod Touch, $250 AMEX Gift Card, National-branded swag Package two: Apple iPod Touch, $50 iTunes Gift Card, National-branded swag I’ve gotten a couple of questions about what the National-branded swag is. National Golf Umbrella National Ultimate Privacy Luggage Tag National 14oz Striped Coffee Tumbler Since I’m not getting these for myself, I don’t know more than that! But they’re a nice add-on to the iPod Touches and gift cards. Remember, to enter: Take a picture of yourself adding leisure to a business trip or business meeting. For instance,…
Earning Miles for Most of Your In-Airport Purchases
ThanksAgain is the service you link your credit card to and then you earn miles automatically when shopping with participating merchants. It’s like making purchases through an online shopping portal to earn miles for what you’re buying anyway, only it’s for in-person retail purchases. And it functions like Rewards Network (formerly known as iDine but which to me will always be Transmedia), you hand over your credit card for the purchase and the miles credit automatically nothing else to do and the store clerk doesn’t see any difference between those who earn miles and those who don’t. I first wrote about ThanksAgain in 2007 when they were giving 500 miles in your choice of program just for signing up. Back then it seemed like most of their partners were dry cleaners, none of which were…
American Samoa to Confiscate Frequent Flyer Miles from Government Workers
Up until 2001, employees of the US federal government were not allowed to accrue frequent flyer miles from official travel and apply them towards personal trips. They were supposed to earn miles and use them to offset the cost of government travel. This didn’t really happen in practice. Since employees weren’t benefiting from collecting miles, those that weren’t attuned to also earning elite status tended not to bother collecting the miles at all. There was no good way of tracking the miles earned on government travel, and certainly no good centralized way of monitoring this. It’s difficult to parse out miles earned from one type of activity from miles earned for things like credit card spend, rental cars, hotel stays, transfers in from other programs, etc. And then actually using the miles for work purposes…
A Supreme Court Watcher Explains the Issues Raised By the Rabbi’s Account Closure Complaint
Yesterday I discussed the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the case of the Rabbi whose Northwest account was closed for complaining too much. Ginsburg sued. His complaint was dismissed in federal district court on the basis that state law can’t be used to address airline price, route or service issues since those are pre-empted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act. A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling disagreed, and now the Supreme Court will hear the issue. I asked reader and attorney Eric M. Fraser if he’d share thoughts on the case. Mr. Fraser is an attorney with Osborn Maledon and an active flyer. He has written posts about the Supreme Court at SCOTUSblog and has preferred status in US Airways’s Dividend Miles program — status he doesn’t want to see disappear. His comments follow:…
Planning an Award Ticket a Year Out? Here’s When Airlines Load Their Schedules
There’s a persistent myth that the best time to book an award ticket is instantly when an airline’s schedule opens — and that the time is 12:01am exactly 330 days prior to travel. But this isn’t quite right on two levels. Different airlines publish their schedules at different times Different airlines load award seats at different times — not necessarily when their schedule loads Airlines want to release those seats as (saver / low) awards that they don’t expect to sell for cash. They may load some award seats when the schedule opens but ~ 11 months out they only have a rough idea of what seats are going to go unsold. They may not add a single award seat on a given flight when the schedule opens. As time passes, as the date of…
I Don’t Like Airline Change Fees Either, But I’m Not a Buffoonish US Senator
The U.S. Senate is sometimes called the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” The Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate. The name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders In this grand tradition, Senator Chuck Schumer wants airlines to reverse their recent increases in change fees on non-refundable tickets. The New York Democrat said on Sunday that higher fees recently implemented by Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and U.S. Airways make it difficult for families on budgets to travel, according to the Associated Press. The four carriers recently raised fees on ticket changes from $150 to $200 The distinguished Senator Schumer’s Wikipedia entry describes his political style, Schumer’s propensity for publicity is the subject of a running joke among many commentators. He has…
DC’s Taxi Commission Sends Me a Nastygram
In response to my post the other day on Washington DC’s taxi protection racket cracking down on Uber again, I got a nastygram from the DC Taxicab Commission’s public information officer. Her argument is essentially that they aren’t forcing Uber to go out of business here, since they could always just comply with the new rules. But nowhere has she or anyone else explained the consumer harm that supposedly follows from Uber being allowed to run its business (which is why the much more likely explanation is that the taxi commission is backing entrenched interests, as they’ve done before — with a string of federal convictions to show for it). It turns out, of course, that the DC taxi commission’s valiant efforts to protect consumers are occurring despite never having actually received a complaint from…
