News and notes from around the interweb: Never Let a Mile Go to Waste: Always sign up for the program (and track your miles with a site like Award Wallet). Don’t Link Your Facebook Photo When You’re Trying to Stay Anonymous: Accor hotels exec caught posting glowing reviews of his chain’s hotels on Tripadvisor and writing negative reviews about their competitors. (HT: Udi A.) Stay in a Hotel Bed Even When You’re Home: The W Hotel Store has promo code MDXTW for 40% off through May 31 (sometimes the codes don’t expire when they say they will). Good deal if you’re shopping for a bed. I have the Queen Plush Top with featherbed (the more expensive pillow top mattress sometimes sees reports of a ‘memory’ and may not last as long). They’ve got good, overpriced…
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Once Again, Things That Could Have Been Brought to My Attention YESTERDAY!
Over the past week and a half AviancaTaca LifeMiles has made some modest mileage price increases in their award chart and increased the cash component of cash and points awards from 1.3 to about 1.5 cents per mile. These changes were made without any advance notice (as they’ve made earlier changes to their award chart as well). Some frequent flyers went rather ballistic on the LifeMiles Facebook page. Their social media reps were at first denying that any changes had been made. Now, apparently, LifeMiles has sent out an email acknowledging the changes. I haven’t received it, perhaps because I subscribe in Spanish (thinking I’d get more info out of them if they don’t have to first translate to English – guess not). Here, German frequent flyer site vielfliegertreff.de, with the aid of Google Translate:…
Up to 40% Off Purchased United Miles Through June 30
United is offering a strong discount on purchased miles. Save 20% when you buy less than 25,000 award miles Save 40% when you buy 25,000 award miles or more As always with United, you can purchase up to 100,000 award miles per calendar year per account. With this offer you can buy miles at ~ 2.3 cents per mile, which is darned good for United miles considering what they usually ask. I’ve seen sale prices of 2 cents for American miles and a hair under 1.9 cents for US Airways miles of late, but United usually gets more even with its purchase miles promos. Which isn’t entirely unfair since MileagePlus miles for most folks offer the best redemption opportunities. Here’s the pricing for the top amounts purchasable: Still, I do not buy miles speculatively. You…
2000 United Miles for Joining a Gym
Now that we’re past New Years Resolutions (and we’ve all broken ours), gym signups are down. Gyms need to incentivize memberships. And they’ll pay companies to get them members, including companies that will kick back miles to you (rebating a portion of their commission). You can earn 2000 United miles for joining a gym through GlobalFit’s “MileagePlus Fitness” program. They have offers from Anytime Fitness, Bally Total Fitness, Curves, 24 Hour Fitness, New York Sports Clubs, and more. The site claims best pricing, better than what you get walking into the gym, but I haven’t verified this. Hat tip goes to Notiflyer and they did verify one pricing instance: We checked out the price for a membership with 24 Hour Fitness that earns miles and the cost was a $259 payment for an entire year…
The Travel Insurance Scam: Read this Post Before You Book Your Next Trip
Travel Insurance Worth it? No. There are generally two elements to travel insurance – cancellation coverage (you get your money back for non-refundable deposits if you have to cancel for covered reasons) and interruption coverage (the cost to get home if you have to cut the trip short for covered reasons or extra costs due to airline issues along the way). Generally one policy covers both of these things. And if you book a trip through an online travel agency, or even possibly through your airline’s website, you’ll probably be offered travel insurance. If you’re booking a trip through a travel agent, they will probably recommend travel insurance. But is it a good idea? Why Do Travel Agents Recommend Trip Insurance? There are basically three reasons why travel agents recommend trip insurance: They make money…
Bits ‘n Pieces for May 23, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Tnooz carries my predictions about how online hotel booking will change in the near future. Frugal Travel Lawyer tells you how to get free Godiva chocolate every month. A stewardess for Nigerian airline Arik Air was arrested after she was found with six kilos of cocaine at Heathrow. The drugs were discovered “on a bus which had been used to transport air crew following a flight from Lagos.” If it had been a smaller amount of blow I’d have considered it a reasonable defense that one needs mind-altering substances to deal with busing around Heathrow’s underbelly. (HT: uggboy on Milepoint) One Mile at a Time writes that the cash portion of AviancaTaca LifeMiles cash and points awards seems to have gotten more expensive. Whereas it used to be…
One Day Left to Enter National Car Rental #SummerOnTheGo Giveaway
On Tuesday I announced a giveaway offer of a bunch of cool stuff from National Car Rental. You still have a day to enter. And since I don’t take anything myself when I do those, I have two of National’s “Summer On-The-Go” Prize Packs: Package one: Apple iPod Touch, $250 AMEX Gift Card, National-branded swag Package two: Apple iPod Touch, $50 iTunes Gift Card, National-branded swag I’ve gotten a couple of questions about what the National-branded swag is. National Golf Umbrella National Ultimate Privacy Luggage Tag National 14oz Striped Coffee Tumbler Since I’m not getting these for myself, I don’t know more than that! But they’re a nice add-on to the iPod Touches and gift cards. Remember, to enter: Take a picture of yourself adding leisure to a business trip or business meeting. For instance,…
Earning Miles for Most of Your In-Airport Purchases
ThanksAgain is the service you link your credit card to and then you earn miles automatically when shopping with participating merchants. It’s like making purchases through an online shopping portal to earn miles for what you’re buying anyway, only it’s for in-person retail purchases. And it functions like Rewards Network (formerly known as iDine but which to me will always be Transmedia), you hand over your credit card for the purchase and the miles credit automatically nothing else to do and the store clerk doesn’t see any difference between those who earn miles and those who don’t. I first wrote about ThanksAgain in 2007 when they were giving 500 miles in your choice of program just for signing up. Back then it seemed like most of their partners were dry cleaners, none of which were…
American Samoa to Confiscate Frequent Flyer Miles from Government Workers
Up until 2001, employees of the US federal government were not allowed to accrue frequent flyer miles from official travel and apply them towards personal trips. They were supposed to earn miles and use them to offset the cost of government travel. This didn’t really happen in practice. Since employees weren’t benefiting from collecting miles, those that weren’t attuned to also earning elite status tended not to bother collecting the miles at all. There was no good way of tracking the miles earned on government travel, and certainly no good centralized way of monitoring this. It’s difficult to parse out miles earned from one type of activity from miles earned for things like credit card spend, rental cars, hotel stays, transfers in from other programs, etc. And then actually using the miles for work purposes…
A Supreme Court Watcher Explains the Issues Raised By the Rabbi’s Account Closure Complaint
Yesterday I discussed the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the case of the Rabbi whose Northwest account was closed for complaining too much. Ginsburg sued. His complaint was dismissed in federal district court on the basis that state law can’t be used to address airline price, route or service issues since those are pre-empted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act. A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling disagreed, and now the Supreme Court will hear the issue. I asked reader and attorney Eric M. Fraser if he’d share thoughts on the case. Mr. Fraser is an attorney with Osborn Maledon and an active flyer. He has written posts about the Supreme Court at SCOTUSblog and has preferred status in US Airways’s Dividend Miles program — status he doesn’t want to see disappear. His comments follow:…
