Through Thursday only United is offering up to a 100% bonus on purchased miles. But there’s a catch. If you get the 100% bonus then miles are 1.88 cents apiece. That’s the regular price US Airways offers miles at, pretty much every month, with their promotions. And you may not be able to get the 100% bonus. It depends how many other people buy miles. You need a critical mass of others buying to get in on the deal — sort of like Groupon, but:
About Gary Leff
United is Evaluating a New Business Class Seat!
New United business class seats! A reader (who would like to remain anonymous) passes along an email from United gauging his interest in demoing a new international business class seat that United is considering. You’re one of our most valued customers, and your perspective on the United travel experience matters greatly to us. We would like to invite you for an in-person exclusive event at the Boeing Dreamliner Gallery to try a few aircraft seats we’re prototyping and let us know what you think. We are conducting research next week right outside of Seattle, and would like to invite you to participate for one day or night in a simulated flight experience to test new BusinessFirst seat prototypes. If selected, you would be invited to participate in a 9-hour overnight “flight” with a few other…
IHG Rewards Brings Back “Big Win” Promotion for the Fall With a New Name
IHG Rewards Promotions — for the fall it’s “Into the Nights” but it’s basically a redux of “The Big Win” which is fun, specific offers targeted though so whether or not it’s especially lucrative will depend on the offer you get — and how easy it is to earn tons of bonus points depends on your stay plans. A few people have managed to add incremental stays at the margin quite lucratively with the offer in the past, but in general it’s not quite generous enough to be worth staying just for the points. The tag line of the earning potential is “Earn at least two free nights, 50,000 IHG Rewards Club bonus points or 10,000 bonus miles” though of course many members will be given an opportunity to earn more. A look at how…
Sarcastic Shocker: US Airways 100% Bonus on Purchased Miles is Back
US Airways is offering a targeted bonus of up to 100% additional miles when you buy miles through Seotember 30. The offer is targeted, then you go to the buy miles page you have to enter your account information to see whether you’re being offered a bonus. (And there may be other, smaller, bonuses targeted to some accounts.) At least I’m suggesting it’s targeted because of the requirement to verify your account information — although it does look like the details of the bonus is itself in the background, which suggests to me that the bonus may not vary although it’s possible some won’t be eligible. If the offer is available to you, buying miles at a 100% bonus means buying them at a cost of 1.88 cents per mile. US Airways is almost always…
The Most Useful Advice from this Blog
Doctor of Credit asked me for my ‘most underrated blog posts’ and I admit I had a hard time figuring out what to share. Does that mean things I think are great but that didn’t get much notice? (That probably means I was wrong about their being especially good…) You can generally find many of my best posts using the left hand sidebar of the side, and also archives of my trip reports — flights, hotels, lounges, food, and activities. Thinking on my favorites, though, I’d suggest my primer on American financial reviews. There’s also the basics of throwaway ticketing, constructing awards with American AAdvantage miles, and making sure you actually have a ticket when you redeem United miles on partners. For best advice there’s probably hang up, call back, how to upgrade, and how…
How to Eat Sushi (You’ve Been Doing it Wrong!)
Eat the roll with your fingers. Turn the sushi pieces on their side with your chopsticks before dipping fish into soy sauce. Definitely don’t eat the ginger slices together with the roll or fish! And don’t shake soy sauce off the sushi. 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!
3000 Mile First-Time Hotel Booking Bonus Extended Through October 10
Rocketmiles is a hotel booking site with a limited number of hotels and in a limited – but growing – number of cities. It rebates you a potentially large number of miles for your reservations. (You generally won’t earn hotel points for your stays booked through the site.) You get to choose whose miles you want to earn for your stays. In addition to the standard bonus they are now offering a 3000 mile bonus in your choice of mileage program for completing your first booking by October 10.
Delta Against Its Customers: No Longer Permits Expertflyer Access to Inventory, Seat Maps, Fares, or Even Flight Status
Delta has forced Expertflyer to remove access to all of its data from the website.
This Amazing Viral Landing Video Didn’t Really Happen. Here’s How We Know!
This video of a Delta jet making a rather amazing landing has been making the rounds. I’ve seen it on Facebook, and three readers sent it to me. The strength of the nose gear on the Boeing 787 is very impressive! But… this didn’t really happen. Delta has ordered 18 Boeing 787’s. None have yet been delivered. This sure looks like a computer-generated background. Microsoft Flight Simulator? A training simulator? Definitely not a video of an actual landing. Don’t try this one for real, pilots! 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!
It’s Too Dang Early for This!
The meal service standards that US Airways went to in the spring — and American adopts tomorrow — call for an ‘enhanced snack basket’ in first class on all flights from 700 to 999 miles. Fort Lauderdale – Washington National is 899 miles. So it gets an enhanced snack basket. It’s not an ‘exception market’ for a meal like the shorter Chicago O’Hare – New York LaGuardia. Here’s the thing. There actually is some variation in the snack basket. Sometimes it has fruit. Sometimes there are shrink wrapped breakfast cakes. And sometimes there’s not. Like on a 6:55 a.m. departure. I appreciate catering, especially departing from a terminal where the only ‘restaurant’ offering hot food didn’t get the hot food ready for opening and where only one place offers something they even call a cappuccino…
