I ran a short contest and was extremely pleased with the results. The giveaway: Two sets of (2) $100 Visa gift cards. To enter readers had to offer a travel tip. The full comments section, as a result, is well worth a read. I selected two readers that submitted tips at random to be the winners. And here they are. The first winner is Elizabeth: Make sure to pad extra time for connections between domestic and International flights, no matter how short that domestic flight will be. This is especially true when there are a limited number of International flights to your destination. Any delay could make you lose more than a full day at your destination. The second winner is Sarah C: Bring a pen! It sounds so simple but I recently forgot one…
About Gary Leff
PointsHound Extends First Time Booking Bonus Through October 11
PointsHound Lets You Earn Miles for Hotel Bookings PointsHound and Rocketmiles are the two major websites that award you frequent flyer miles when booking hotel rooms. In general Rocketmiles has the biggest mileage offers, but they also have the fewest hotels and are in a limited – but growing – number of cities. Booking through Rocketmiles will not entitle you to earn points and elite stay credit through a hotel loyalty program. (Some hotel chains like Marriott and Hyatt will honor elite benefits on third party bookings, while Starwood and Hilton’s policy is not to do so.) PointsHound has more hotels in more locations, a subset of which are referred to as ‘DoubleUp’ hotels where you earn miles and can still earn hotel points and elite stay credit. As a result I’ve found PointsHound to…
Giveaway: $400 in Visa Gift Cards
Offer Your Best Travel Tips in the Comments by 10am Eastern Saturday morning to Win. Some of y’all will remember that I hosted an online forum about technology and travel that was sponsored by National Car Rental coinciding with the launch of their new mobile app. I rent regularly from National and had been looking forward to the introduction of a mobile app (finally!) and the folks participating in the chat were friends and travel heroes. I like the products I like, I share the reasons why here, and I don’t want there to be confusion over my motives — if I benefit personally from a referral link I always say so in the post, I frequently try to arrange to give any miles I may earn from referrals back to you in the form…
Inside Flyer Interviews the Bloggers
The October issue of Inside Flyer interviews several miles and points bloggers. I was asked about ‘non-obvious frequent flyer programs to consider’. I give a short reason to consider each, and not a full discussion of caveats, but still hopefully the list is useful. The “non-obvious” frequent flyer programs to consider are: – Aegean Miles&Bonus (Star Alliance) because it’s a quick way to status that won’t expire as long as you keep your account active. Flying 19,000 qualifying miles in one year gets Star Alliance Gold status, and you just need to credit miles to the account once every three years to keep it. That means United lounge access even when flying domestically on United. – Avianca LifeMiles (Star Alliance) has one-way awards, no fuel surcharges, a reasonable award chart and cash and points awards—you…
Why Airlines Run Double Elite Qualifying Offers, and Why it Matters That This Isn’t Limited to U.S. Programs
Airlines monitor the number of elites in their program pretty closely, even as they jealously guard the specific numbers. When economic conditions, or airline performance, depress travel and especially frequent travel airlines can incentivize flyers that have historically been their best customers to get back into the air. They can do that with bonus offers and also with bonus elite qualfiying mile offers. Sometimes the offer is route-specific, not because travel is down but because they want to make sure their best customers stick with them when a competitor introduces new service on a route. And sometimes the offer isn’t made to everyone, isn’t based on general conditions, but based on a particular flyer’s patterns. If you were an elite before, but have lapsed in your flying, the airline might reach out to you with…
How New York JFK Coordinates Arrivals and Departures for World Leaders
Probably no airport handles as many tarmac transfers by car in a day as Frankfurt, where all passengers in Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal are chauffeured to their aircraft in a Mercedes or Porsche. Munich handles fewer transfers by car, but it’s a regular occurrence as first class passengers arriving and departing from an apron position are shuttled by vehicle. Here in the U.S. United and Delta now offer limited tarmac transfer programs. But New York probably sees the most complicated airport operations — tarmac receptions combined with constantly changing plans and complicated security arrangements — when world leaders descend upon the city for a U.N. General Assembly meeting. The New York Times carries a nice piece telling some of the colorful stories involved in managing the VIP airport process at New York’s JFK. The Czech…
Bits ‘n Pieces for October 3, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Lufthansa Miles & More offering discounted 55,000 mile business class redemptions between the US and Europe Alaska Airlines re-introduces their online shopping portal with a bonus of 750 miles with purchase of $25 or more by October 31. McDonalds may introduce a rewards program The original cast of airplane will be promoting Wisconsin tourism. The coming ‘Occupy Wall Street Prepaid Debit Card’ meant to offer low fee financial services for the unbanked and a “protest with every purchase” has fees that are higher than American Express’ Bluebird fees. (HT: Saverocity) You can join the 30,000+ 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 . Don’t…
Two Days Only: Double Miles for October Hotel Bookings from Rocketmiles
Rocketmiles, the hotel booking website that rebates a substantial number of miles to you for your reservations, is offering a double miles promotion for bookings the next two days that are consumed in October. Bookings must be made by October 4, 2013 at 11:59 PM Central, you’re limited to one double miles bonus, and your reservation checkout date must be by October 31 (so reservations must be entirely in October, not just begin by October 31). I had hoped this would be stackable with the 3000 US Airways mile first booking bonus but the terms and conditions state, THIS PROMOTION CAN NOT BE COMBINED WITH ANY OTHER BONUS MILE/POINT OFFERS. Rocketmiles tends to offer the most miles per hotel booking, but you also generally do not earn points or stay credit in hotel programs and…
35% Off Beds and Bedding at the W Hotels Store
The W Hotel Store is offering 35% off beds and bedding with promotion code WSTAR35. I purchased a W Hotels bed using a 40% off code, back before the May 2010 price increase on beds. There are still on rare occasion 40% off discounts that pop up. But 35% is the usual discount that comes along every few months. Nonetheless, I’ve found it to have been a good purchase. I chose the ‘plush top’ rather than pillow top mattress, and added a feather bed. It’s lasted wonderfully, though I’ve since changed out the feather bed. (There are reports that the pillow top version won’t last as long, that it has a ‘memory’ or rather it wears out more quickly.) In my experience W Hotel Store purchases post as double points earning when paying with a…
How to Book a Business Class Award to Bangkok in North Asia Using US Airways Miles (in Front of Hundreds of People)
After my fateful phone call to Delta to book a two passenger business class award to India, it was Lucky of the One Mile at a Time blog’s turn at the microphone. This was all part of a presentation in a ballroom at Frequent Traveler University — after giving a talk on the basics of award booking, making the most of your miles, the idea was to bring the lessons together and watch them in practice. I had managed to get a telephone agent to construct an award on Saudia and on Aeroflot between New York JFK and Delhi — after running through all of the standard traps of a Delta agent not knowing who their partners are, not seeing award availability, and not thinking it was a permissable routing. Now it was Lucky’s turn…
