air berlin’s topbonus — a program in which you can earn miles regularly free or cheap — has discounted economy awards — specific routes on sale for as little as 1500 points one-way. Over 500 city pairs are on sale, both long haul and short haul. You must book by September 14 for the current deals. Travel periods vary, but in general run through March 31. Flights are as little as 1500 miles plus taxes and fees each way. You get 500 point for joining (they’ve given as many as 1500 just for signing up!) and you get 500 miles for registering with a duty free shop (offer was extended for 2014). Boom. No doubt some will be tempted to rinse, repeat. Points presumably won’t post quickly enough from the newsletter in order to use…
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Lifemiles Eliminates Their Online Shopping Portal
Avianca’s LifeMiles has ‘discontinued’ their online shopping portal. Our e-store has been disabled, we regret any inconvenience this may cause. If you have transactions that are pending, these will be credited once the stores approve purchases and miles to be credited. If you have any further queries please write to soporte@lifemiles.com I’m surprised to see this go. Online shopping portals are usually quite a good deal for the airlines selling the points. And of course the President of Lifemiles has said he considers the miles they sell to be far better for the company than those awarded for flying. This is a company that outdoes even US Airways in selling miles on the cheap. There were some good opportunities to earn miles with the eStore, entirely apart from the feeding frenzy two years ago. So…
Free $5, Get Better Food from Restaurants, and Make the Most of Marriott Points
News and notes from around the interweb: Get $5 free from Paypal A simple rule for making every restaurant meal better The most lucrative way to use Marriott Rewards points is travel packages. Miles Professor offers a good introduction. Pluses and minuses of each of the American Express prepaid products The 20 Most Annoying Things About Airplane Travel (HT: Alan H.) 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!
Double Redeemable Miles for Six Months! From Qantas…
I was sure excited to see a double redeemable miles promotion. I wonder whether my preferred frequent flyer program will match? Hah. At double miles, that makes Qantas’ long haul award chart almost reasonable. Registration is required and tickets must be purchased by September 12 — this is for new tickets purchased between September 5 and 12 only — but travel can be through February 28, 2015. So that’s about six full months of double redeemable miles. This is double miles of course off of Qantas’ ‘simpler’ earning structure. It’s always seemed odd to reduce earning, then increase earning, but what else are you going to do when you’re losing as much money as they are?> Qantas miles are great if you want to upgrade on Qantas. Otherwise there are generally better programs, period. It…
Earn Double or Triple Starpoints for Your Fall Hotel Stays
Starwood Promotions: Starwood is out with their fall promotion — double Starpoints on eligible stays of two or more nights and triple Starpoints if the stay includes a Friday or Saturday night (Thursday or Friday night in the Middle East) between September 15 and December 15. Where have we seen this before? (No quadruple points option this time, nor any mobile booking bonus.) Registration is required by October 31, but there’s no reason not to register now — just in case — even if you don’t expect to make any eligible stays during the promotion period. Perhaps you’re like me: I often find that I don’t know where my future self is going to stay… Here’s the list of non-participating hotels, which is to say that Starwood Preferred Guest isn’t picking up the whole cost…
Handcuffed and Detained: Your Next Trip Report Could Land You In Trouble
A man taking photos of his flight’s aircraft and cabin crew was taken off the aircraft in handcuffs, questioned, re-screened, and then let back on before the flight continued. Some passengers claimed air stewardesses were crying and one asked who would look after her children if anything happened. Nick Taylor, 40, from Blackburn, Lancashire, left the plane with his wife and son and paid £1,000 for new flights home. He said: ‘I had to make a decision, do I risk my family for the sake of £1,000? ‘The air hostesses were crying and there was a scuffle at the front of the plane. There was a very tense atmosphere. So what exactly made everyone so concerned? The ‘agitated’ passenger launched into a series of bizarre antics when his request to see the cockpit was rejected.…
Great Simple Strategy to Use Rental Car Miles and Save on Taxes Still Works!
One useful trick with rental cars — if you want to earn miles rather than rental credit, a preferred strategy with Avis — is not to give your frequent flyer account number when you make the reservation and just request the miles after the rental is over. There’s two reasons that made this exceptionally useful. Usually you’re talking about a small number of miles. One of the best things about it is being able to credit miles to just about whatever program you wish. This let you keep accounts active, keep miles from expiring. So you pick later where the miles go based on where you need them. You save on taxes. Rental car companies generally charge a fee to recoup the taxes paid when buying miles from US airline frequent flyer programs. But once…
Some Guy Built a Real Flying Model Airbus A380. There’s Only Three Problems…
While I’m posting videos on Sunday evening, here’s one courtesy of @phil_muller of an incredibly impressive model of a Singapore Airlines A380. This thing flies! There are only two things wrong with it. Here’s the rub: There’s no suites class onboard. No award inventory, either. And you cannot Book the Cook. Other than that, awesome! 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!
The TSA’s Official Instructional Video for Kids!
I don’t even know what to say. This apparently isn’t new, though it was new to me. (HT: Toqueville) 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!
Fly540: Flying an African Low Cost Carrier.. And Living to Tell the Tale!
I’ve only offered up this blog to guests post a couple of times in the past, always when the reader has something unique to contribute that outside my expertise, or outside of the experiences I’m able to share. Attorney Eric M. Fraser on the Supreme Court’s Northwest vs. Ginsberg (the case of the Rabbi who complained too much and was kicked out of his frequent flyer program). His contributions here, here, and here. My co-worker Pakistani Correspondent (or ‘P.C.’), a young woman using miles for the first time and flying business class for the first time — redeeming Amex points transferred to Delta to fly Saudi home to her family in Lahore, Pakistan over Christmas and New Years. Her contributions: New York JFK – Jeddah Saudia Lounge, Jeddah and Jeddah-Lahore CIP Lounge in Lahore, Pakistan…
