Talking about Up in the Air a couple of days ago, and what we’ve learned since then, brings back a certain nostalgia for that earlier and in some ways more innocent time. Here’s another edited down scene to go along with the one that I shared on Thursday. What was your favorite scene in the film? You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for May 2014.
Here’s How to Find Airline and Hotel Mistake Deals
Earlier in the week I write about the very best airline and hotel mistake deals that we’ve seen. Naturally several readers wanted to know, but how do you find these? And that’s a subject of an entirely different post. This one. Two things to understand in your quest for fat finger discounts (leaving out digits on a fare or rate), currency conversion errors, and other special opportunities. There aren’t as many airline airfare mistakes as there used to be. Airlines have better tools, especially for international fares, to catch mistakes before they’re actually published. Those tools began rolling out in 2009, and now it’s mostly international airlines that haven’t really learned to use them that wind up publishing international mistakes. (This refers to price mistakes, but other kinds of mistakes like routing rules still persist.)…
Should You Take Advantage of This 50,000 Point Bonus? Can You Get Expedited Immigration? And Should You Jump on Amex Daily Getaways? (Bits ‘n Pieces for May 16, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Lots of buzz that the 50,000 point Southwest Visa signup offer is back. It’s a very good offer, worth over $700 in airfare when redeeming for ‘Wanna Get Away’ fares. But it never did go away, Chase just hadn’t been marketing it. I’ve been writing with it regularly and including it on lists of best offers. The Miles Professor talks about how she uses Paypal to generate spending and miles and offers her perspective on how not to raise Paypal’s ire while doing so. Tons of digital ink spilled over American Express/US Travel Association Daily Getaways deals that come around once a year. I haven’t covered them because I haven’t seen any that have especially appealed (today for instance you can speculatively pre-purchase one night at a Super8…
Kim Kardashian Is Redeeming Miles to Bring People to Her Wedding.. And the Guests Are Angry
Apparently Kim Kardashian’s entourage would prefer to be earning miles rather than flying on free tickets. Or something like that. Kim Kardashian is cutting corners wherever she can to save a penny and will be bringing her entourage to their wedding using her frequent flyer miles! …Kim is so cheap that she is using her frequent flyer miles to fly her entourage to and from the wedding,” the source told Radar. “She is not paying for any of their transportation and is she is putting them up in a crappy hotel. They are not getting any money from her for their services, nor are they getting any special treatment.” Her entourage has to fly coach. They aren’t getting transport to and from the airport covered. And there’s real sour grapes brewing over it, or so…
Pay Your Mortgage and Other Bills Directly With a Credit Card (and Earn Miles)
Three months ago I wrote about a great way to pay your bills via gift card. Buy gift cards, earn bonus miles, and turn them back into cash by using them to pay bills. Read the post if you haven’t already, and then come back. The major downside is the limited number of vendors you can do this with via the method I discussed. Yesterday Million Mile Secrets wrote that you didn’t need to buy gift cards first, because the service — Evolve Money — would actually take credit cards. That they said it needed to be a debit card (and many gift cards work), but that if you entered a credit card number into the site instead of a debit card it would work. Lots of alarm bells went off for lots of people!…
Why Are US Airports So Bad?
A Hong Kong-based journalist emails to ask, “Why are US airports so bad?” The thing about US airports is they aren’t all bad. The most frequent experiences that non-US residents have are bad, but that’s mostly a function of Miami, New York JFK, and Los Angeles (the international terminal – egads – even with recent improvements). The airports that such folks see represent the worst of American aviation. Now, I actually like JFK’s terminal 7. It’s small and easy in/out. And terminal 8 is rather attractive. Much has been made of the massive revamp of the Delta terminal. But the airport itself remains a mess: there terminals aren’t connected at all airside, and in many cases you even need to go outside and cross a road to reach the interterminal train. You can’t even get…
500 Free United Miles
You can have 500 free United MileagePlus miles just for joining their free dining program. (HT: Mommy Points) There’s no restaurant spend required, the miles are just for doing the online signup by July 10. If you do credit dines at participating restaurants to the program, though, they’ll give you 500 more bonus miles for each of your first five qualifying transactions within 30 days of creating your online profile. For an overview of dining programs and bonuses see How to Earn Miles When You Dine Out at Restaurants. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals.…
The “Up in the Air” Deleted Scene That Shows Us Just How Much Has Changed in Four Years
Here’s a deleted scene from the film Up in the Air where George Clooney’s character is defending his refusal to ever spend any of his miles. Gosh, how dated and quaint that seems. Looking back on it, and I’ve been giving the same advice for at least the past dozen years — to earn and redeem in the same period, not to save miles for some future time, that acrrued miles will never be worth more in the future than they are today so earn, burn, and earn some more — but never before has that advice seemed more sound and more timely. The passage of the last four years, but more specifically the past 15 months in particular, shows that. Since Ryan Bingham wanted to earn 10 million miles (in the book, which bears…
Stay 3 Get One Free, Stackable Bonus and Discount, and Uber’s New Loyalty Program (Bits ‘n Pieces for May 15, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: Blogger and Milepoint co-founder joins Boarding Area and introduces himself. Please check out his site and give him a warm welcome! Uber is launching a loyalty program #UberLoyalty. It’s only in Phoenix so far, but could serve as an interesting test to roll out more broadly. They’ll reward the top 500 riders each month in that city with uber credits, hotel stays, and other benefits. Up to 50% bonus on purchased Amtrak points through June 30. Alitalia is offering a 30% bonus and 20% discount on purchased miles. Best Western Free Night After Three Stays from May 19 through September 1. Must register before your stay and no later than August 10. Bonus can only be earned once and used by January 31 at Best Western properties in…
Reciprocal Upgrades Coming to American and US Airways in a Few Weeks, But How Will it Work?
In a piece about how US Airways and American are offering the same exact flights for different prices, Scott McCartney of the Wall Street Journal gets this statement from American Airlines: American expects to be able to offer reciprocal upgrade benefits within a matter of weeks, spokesman Casey Norton said. This doesn’t come as a surprise, they’ve been working on the functionality and want to roll it out as quickly as they can. But this is the first time I’ve seen them put what’s this close to a timeline to it — they don’t say the number of weeks (since they’ll go live as soon as they’re confident the IT works), but they are saying ‘weeks’ and not ‘months’. This is important as they integrate the airlines and convince their best customers at each airline…
