Bank of America is offering 15,000 bonus Aeroplan miles with first purchase and 10,000 more bonus miles for $1000 in spend within 90 days of account opening. The $60 annual fee is not waived, I have rarely if ever seen Bank of America mileage credit card offers with fees waived. They’re upping the signup bonus just before Aeroplan ups the mileage required for their best awards on July 15.
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250 Free Virgin America Elevate Points
Gilt City/Jetsetter will give you 250 Virgin American Elevate points for registering (and more points with first purchase from each site).
The Best Insights from the Other Travel Blogs in the Past Several Days (Read It All Here in One Place, They Blog So I Don’t Have To)
Priority Club Insider lists various discounted rate offers for Intercontinental Hotels Group properties (some Europe-specific). (Meanwhile, here’s my post on getting the best hotel rates across all the chains and also how to score hotel upgrades as well.) Million Mile Secrets describes how to still churn the Citibank American Airlines cards and how to get multiple cards approved with bonuses at the same time if you’re a first-time cardmember. As I’ve noted here on this blog before, the monster bonuses like 75,000 miles after modest spend that supposedly expired still seem to work. The Points Guy notes a 25% bonus on transfers from the US American Express Membership Rewards program to Virgin Atlantic. There are a few decent award options, such as Gulf Air, but mostly this remains a poor deal given fees that often…
Looking for Reader Input on ‘Blogger Junkets’
I recently had a conversation with a well-known writer about some of the things that are offered by travel providers and their PR firms and that get turned down. From some well known brands that you would be surprised actually ask. Things like paid product placement along with ongoing commissions based on customers driven to the product through the writing. Aside from the fact that this person would lose their job… It made me realize that I’m pretty darned naïve. First, the fact that these offers are forthcoming suggests that it’s going on a whole lot more frequently than I realized. Even though I rarely read blog posts noting that the content was sponsored. Lots of travel bloggers that I read get comped trips. The Points Guy, who deserves much congratulations for leaving his job…
When I Have My 15 Minutes of Fame, I Won’t Be Flying Southwest
I don’t follow TMZ, and didn’t know who Scott Disick was. But I do now. Kourtney Kardashian’s boyfriend flies Southwest. He’s apparently the worst kind of gate lice, instead of waiting to board he tries to bribe the gate agents to let him on first and shoves ahead of families with small children. (Maybe he got confused and thought he was on United, thinking he had purchased ‘premier for a day’..?) His representative, howver, denies both the bribe and pushing ahead of the kids. But his representative lacks credibility, also claiming that the Chicago-Midway to Islip flight was diverted to Detroit, which didn’t happen. And yet for some reason Southwest reserved an exit row seat, and no F16s were scrambled.
Hotels.com One Free Night for a Paid Night if You’ve Stayed with Three Major Chains During the Past 18 Months
Hotels.com’s Welcome Rewards program is offering a free night after making a paid booking through them if you can show that you have stay activity with three different major hotel chains since January 1, 2010. They call the promotion ‘The Great Unloyaling’. They make you submit proof from each of the chains, then they give you a coupon code to apply to a paid booking which has to be completed by November 15. That paid stay will earn you a free night equal in value to the average daily room rate of the stay you pay for, up to $400 (to be credited to your account 4-6 weeks after the paid stay has been completed). So if you book a one-night $400 stay, you’ll get a free night for future use worth up to $400.…
Joe Brancatelli’s Solid Advice on Frequent Flyer Mileage Earning and Burning
Joe Brancatelli whom I often disagree with but is always worth listening to, writes about frequent flyer award redemption at portfolio.com, and points out that airlines aren’t being dishonest when customers find their miles are difficult to use: I never go on a radio or TV show without my sound bite at the ready: “What part of restricted did you think the airlines were kidding about?” If your goal is to fly the family to Disney World for 25,000 miles a seat on President’s Day Weekend, you’re sure to be disappointed. If your rating of a frequent-flyer program is based solely on your ability to fly first class to London for Wimbledon later this month for only 50,000 miles, I’m comfortable saying that you’ll be watching tennis on television. If you think you can have…
Amazing 50% Bonus on American Express Membership Rewards Transfers to British Airways
The U.S. American Express Membership Rewards program is offering a 50% bonus on transfers to British Airways Executive Club through July 31. Points from Amex transfers post to BA instantly in real-time, and the bonus posts right away as well. (The fine print says ‘one bonus per cardmember’ so you may only get to do this once during the promotion period, though time will tell whether or not that’s enforced.) In February and March there was a 40% transfer bonus offer and that was a huge deal, of course this is even better. While I wouldn’t make transfers without a specific award in mind, because I do hugely value the flexibility of Amex points more than I do most bonuses, and it’s important to understand what BA miles are good for and what they aren’t,…
US Airways 3000 Bonus Miles for Crediting a Flight, Hotel and Car Rental to Dividend Miles
US Airways is offering 3000 bonus miles for crediting a flight, hotel stay, and rental car to your Dividend Miles account between June 1 and July 31. No registration required. Hotel points transfers don’t count, Starwood Platinums can’t just transfer 1 point over to US Airways to get their hotel credit for the promotion. It’s not a huge bonus but might get me to throw an odd hotel stay their way and once I’ve done that the rental car piece makes sense, I suppose this sort of engagement is meant to get people in the habit of crediting their non-flight activity to US Airways in the hope or expectation that they’ll continue to do so out of habit. I’d wish for a bigger bonus, but every 3000 helps!
Was the Government Really Prepared to Kill Everyone Onboard the United Flight that Returned to DC After a Seat Reclining Incident?
Scott McCartney blogs about the incident Sunday night onboard United’s DC- Accra flight where the aircraft turned around after two passengers got into a fight over a reclined seat. He notes “[w]ith seats squeezed together closely in coach cabins, reclining seats have become a major annoyance for many passengers” and flags etiquette issues. I think there’s a more important point here. McCartney notes, Two F-16s from Andrews Air Force Base were scrambled to shadow the flight until it landed safely. Now, there is only one thing that the F-16s could have done in this situation. Either they do nothing, or they shoot down the plane. I’ve seen quite a bit of coverage over this incident, most of the coerage notes that fighter jets were scrambled to respond. But nobody points out that those fighter jets…
