I realize not everyone is going to be buying tickets on Middle East carrier Etihad. They fly from several US cities and are a pretty good way to get not just to the Middle East (they’re based in Abu Dhabi) but beyond to places like India and Pakistan. But some readers might be, and a surprising number are based in regions where this could be especially useful as well. Plus it’s a huge bonus: 25,000 bonus miles for online booking to any destination in any cabin as long as you book before February 15. That means a short hop, say, Abu Dhabi – Doha even earns the bonus. The only restriction seems to be that you have to enter your Etihad Guest number in the reservation at time of booking. There’s also double miles to…
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The End of Newark, American Sells Miles Almost As Cheap As American Does, Or You Can Buy Them From Flower Companies and Get the Flowers Free (Bits ‘n Pieces for February 4, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: A few weeks ago I summed up the best mileage earning offers for flowers. United and American both have 30 miles per dollar offers with FTD plus 200 or 250 additional fixed miles. There’s also now a 35 Delta mile per dollar offer with FTD. Here’s where Southwest plans to fly non-stop from Dallas Love Field once the abominable Wright amendment limiting flights at that airport finally goes away. American has two stackable bonuses for purchasing miles that — through February 6 only — allow you to buy miles at 2 cents apiece. Of course US Airways and American are merging, and US Airways is currently selling miles for even less (and does so regularly). In another reminder that new management at American (i.e. old management at US…
The Family That Travels Together… (How to Leverage Your Elite Status Edition)
Paul offers this travel — and family — advice: My advice is to give your child the same first name as yours. In that way you can share status (albeit against the program rules) while still alive. For frequent family travelers, parent could go for high status in Star Alliance and SPG, child for One World and Hyatt. Only downside is that you can’t travel together 🙂 After death, the child can just pick up where their parent left off. And if they too named their child with the same name, we could have some 150 year old platinums out there 😉 See also: Tokyo’s “oldest man” may have been dead for decades (family collects a man’s pension for 30 years after he died). You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and…
1500 Mile American Airlines Shopping Portal Bonus
The American AAdvantage shopping portal has another bonus running, this time for up to 1500 miles based on spend through February 14. Thanks to Pizza in Motion for sharing this. You’ll earn as follows: $150 in collective spending on the AAdvantage eshopping portal earns a 500 mile bonus. $300 in collective spending on the AAdvantage eshopping portal earns a 1,000 mile bonus. $450 in collective spending on the AAdvantage eshopping portal earns a 1,500 mile bonus. No registration is required. Back in November they ran a 2500 point bonus. Those points posted for me earlier in the month: While the company that runs the shopping portal doesn’t always show the love with customer service, as long as points from transactions do post (and my luck has been good), the bonus itself should post as well.…
40% Bonus on Unlimited Purchase of Alaska Airlines Miles
Alaska Airlines is offering up to a 40% bonus on purchased miles through March 15. Here’s the breakdown of the bonus: Limited Time Offer: up to 40% Bonus Purchase miles between February 1 and March 15, 2014 and get up to 40% more miles! Buy 5,000 – 19,000 miles: get a 20% Bonus Buy 20,000 – 34,000 miles: get a 30% Bonus Buy 35,000 – 40,000 miles: get a 40% Bonus This isn’t all that uncommon an offer. For the majority of November and December they were offering up to a 35% bonus. This offer of 40% is, of course, better than that. A purchase of 40,000 points earns 56,000 miles at a total cost of $1182.50 or ~ 2.1 cents per mile. Key things to know: You can buy up to 40,000 miles per…
What Good Does it Do to Require Minimum Spending for Elite Status When Your Systems Can’t Properly Track the Spending?
This Year Delta and United Are Requiring Minimum Spending to Earn Elite Status for 2015 Delta made their announcement back in January and United followed with theirs in June. Both require spending on airline tickets, not just flown miles, in order to reach status. And they’ve tied that spending at 10 cents per status mile — 25,000 mile status level requires $2500 spend 50,000 mile status level requires $5000 spend 75,000 mile status level requires $7500 spend United’s 100,000 mile status level requires $10,000 spend Delta’s 125,000 mile status level requires $12,500 spend These requirements apply to frequent flyers whose accounts list addresses in the United States. Somewhat surprisingly I haven’t heard of accounts being shut down (yet?) for “moving abroad” to skirt these spending thresholds. It’s Not Just Total Revenue That Matters It’s a…
Attention Christopher Elliott: Frequent Flyer Programs are Ladders of Opportunity
Christopher Elliott, who likely deserves a patent on making unsupported — and unsupportable — claims in columns about travel, has a new one: “Have travelers lost the class war?” He pegs his piece on class warfare in the skies on the introduction of American’s new premium configuation Airbus A321 which will begin flying New York JFK – San Francisco next month. Oddly the class warfare didn’t begin when the plane started flying JFK – Los Angeles last month. Nor did lie flat seats on either route generate a class war when those were first offered by the incumbent competitors on the routes. Here’s the meat of Elliott’s class struggle argument: Meanwhile, ordinary passengers languish in crowded waiting areas and are wedged into airline seats that seem to shrink between flights. When they complain, they’re often…
US Airways Credit Card Holders Get a 100% Bonus When Buying Miles
US Airways is running another targeted 100% buy (and gift) miles bonus offer, this time for their co-branded credit card holders. That allows you to buy miles at 1.88 cents apiece. When you go to the purchase miles offer, you have to verify your account details. Then if you’re eligible you’ll see: Get 100% bonus miles when you buy miles Use your US Airways MasterCard® or Visa® credit card to buy and you’ll get or give a 100% bonus – up to 50,000 miles. The offer says ‘use your US Airways…card’ and indeed you not only need to be on record as having one (to be targeted for the offer), it appears as though the payments page will only give you the offer to pay with one. I’ve not tested whether a different Visa or…
A Big Signup Bonus for US Bank FlexPerks Visa – How Big Depends on the US Olympic Team!
US Bank has upped the signup bonus on their (proprietary points) FlexPerks card. These are points that are useful for buying you paid airline tickets, not points that transfer to airline miles. In general they won’t get you much value for premium cabin international awards. But it’s a good signup bonus, a fun promotion, and they offer good value in the spend category of charitable donations so that’s a unique feature. Here’s the offer: You get a minimum of 20,000 FlexPerks points after $3500 spend within 4 months Then you get an additional bonus based on how many medals the US wins during the Winter Olympics — each Gold is worth 500, each Silver 250, and each Bronze 100. Results from the last Winter Olympics would have yielded a bonus of 29,550 points so ~…
You Can Use Your HHonors Award Nights in the Afterlife, or Let Your Family Use Them Here On Earth
Hilton HHonors had a rule against transferring points at death, but in practice allowed it. Now they’ve made their practice official, updating their terms and conditions to make the ability to transfer points to a designee when you pass official. Of course, after last year’s devaluation, it shouldn’t be all that hard to use up every last HHonors point long before you die. Interestingly, last year Delta changed its rules so that miles only expire at death and are no longer transferable. I can’t say that I fully understand the logic of a frequent flyer program’s choice in this regard — I suppose it’s a tradeoff between breakage and encouraging loyalty while a member is alive (to the extent they’re cognizant of a program’s policies), or perhaps these calculations don’t go into a decision to…
