[Offer currently unavailable.] Last night the story broke on Milepoint about Capital One offering a 100,000 mile ‘matching’ bonus for signing up for the Venture Card — they’ll match up to 100,000 miles from one of your frequent flyer accounts as a signup bonus (after spending $1000 on the card within three months) in addition to the normal 10,000 point bonus. I did describe the points as being worth $1100 in airfare, and their reps pinged me to point out that they’re redeemable towards travel generally and not just airfare. Fair enough. But the question that everyone keeps asking is whether or not they have to have earned 100,000 miles from credit card spend in order to have their miles ‘matched’ by Capital One. I said pretty clearly from my read of the terms and…
About Gary Leff
Meet the Heads of Several Frequent Flyer Programs over Lunch on April 29 in New York
Details of the Randy Petersen Travel Executive Summit have been announced. The world’s oldest, as well as the first ever frequent flyer program AAdvantage®, the program that started it all, turns 30 on May 1st this year. The mileage Guru himself, Randy Petersen invites you to celebrate 30 years of miles and points. We will take a look back — and towards the future. The leaders in the loyalty industry will join Randy, including Maya Leibman, President of AAdvantage Jeff Foland, President of United Mileage Plus Jeff Zidell, Vice President of Hyatt Gold Passport And more guests to be confirmed! What to expect Randy will take you for a ride through the highlights of the last 30 years of miles and points Each of his guests will have a 15 minute presentation and after, there…
The World’s First 110,000 Mile Credit Card Signup Bonus
[Offer currently unavailable.] Details in this Milepoint thread. Capital One offers a 10,000 ‘mile’ signup bonus for their Venture Card. But they’ve added a huge kicker — they will match up to 100,000 miles you currently have in another program. So if you have an account with one of several airlines that has 100,000 miles in it, when you spend $1000 on their Capital One Venture card within 3 months they’ll give you the usual 10,000 miles plus 100,000 miles. Since it’s a ‘match’ they’ll give you whatever your current balance is, even if it’s less than 100,000 miles of course. Now, Capital One “miles” are really just credits towards the purchase of airfare, a point is worth a penny’s worth of travel. I don’t really like this for my regular credit card spend. They…
100 Free Starwood Points
Starwood is giving 100 free Starpoints for registering your pledge to participate in ‘Earth Hour’ by March 26. (HT: Carol)
Combine Miles and Elite Qualifying Acitivity Between United and Continental Mileage Accounts
United and Continental will now let you move miles back and forth between your own accounts in the two frequent flyer programs. This is great to combine balances towards an award. It also means that effectively, Starnet blocking is dead, at least until the programs are actually combined. Because unless they’ve imported the architecture to do it over onto the Continental Onepass side, you could always just move your United miles over to Continental to book an award ticket. So at least for those in the know, if not for everyone, we’ve got full access to Star Alliance partner award inventory with United miles through the end of the year. You can transfer miles once per 24 hours, in 1000 mile increments and up to 200,000 miles per transaction. You can also combine your account…
Hyatt’s Second Quarter Promo is Out!
It’s not Faster Free Nights, it’s more like the promo from end of 2010, The Great 10k. Between April 1 and June 30, members earn 10,000 Gold Passport points after their first five nights, and then 5000 points for each additional two nights. A maximum of 60,000 bonus points for 25 nights can be earned under the promo. Registration will be required, I’ll update this post when I come across the link. Update: The registration website (goldpassport.com/possibilities) won’t be live until March 31.
Milepoint.com Giving Away 25 More iPad 2’s Just for Registering
As I mentioned last week, Milepoint is giving away an iPad every day in the month of March. To be eligible for the drawing each day, all you have to do is register for the site which is quick and easy. So far iPads have been won by the following members of milepoint.com: Kagehitokiri Raffles dcpatti IMGone joanek Marty McFry Jaimito Cartero fuseli joediver Sean Colahan Randy Petersen announced mid-stream that it’ll be iPad 2‘s being given out, not just the older iPads everyone was expecting. And there’s still about 25 iPads left to win. The earlier you register the more chances to win.
In and Around Singapore
Touring Singapore: This is a Continuation of “Trip Report – A Private Jet Experience: Alone in First Class on ANA and Thai, Plus Singapore First, a Suite, a Villa, and Some Incredible Food Porn” Past installments:Prologue: The decision-making and booking process Washington Dulles – Chicago in United First Class and the Greatest Airport Hotel Ever, the Intercontinental O’Hare Alone in First Class on ANA, Chicago-Tokyo Singapore Airlines First Class, Tokyo-Singapore JetQuay Planeside Pickup in Singapore Intercontinental Singapore Ambassador Suite I wasn’t to bed until nearly 4am, the internet wasn’t working properly in my room and I needed to have the outsourced company that manages it for the hotel reset the connection. I had somehow gotten frozen out of my work server, and even after getting the internet going I still needed to get on Skype,…
There’s Actually Good Mexican Food in the DC Area. In a Gas Station.
Yesterday, Tyler Cowen blogged about R&R Tacqueria, the deli attached to the Shell gas station at 7894 Washington Blvd. in Elkridge, Maryland. Yes, seriously. Blogged about a deli attached to a gas station. Since Tyler is for all intents and purposes my boss, I naturally had to go check it out today. (No, seriously, it turns out that I needed to be in Laurel, Maryland just before lunch time, so it was perfect happenstance.) Tyler wrote: It is the best huarache I have eaten, ever, including in Mexico. It is the best chile relleno I’ve had in the United States, ever. They serve among the best Mexican soups I have had, ever, and I have been to Mexico almost twenty times. I thought he was exaggerating, that it would be good in a “hey, I…
Intercontinental Singapore Ambassador Suite
(This is a Continuation of “Trip Report – A Private Jet Experience: Alone in First Class on ANA and Thai, Plus Singapore First, a Suite, a Villa, and Some Incredible Food Porn”) After departing the JetQuay terminal, our driver took us to the hotel. He took a moment to call them and let the property know we were on the way. I sort of expected that would mean they would know who we were as we walked into the property, but that wasn’t the case. On arrival I walked into the hotel lobby. The entrance is to a small area with a bell desk and check-in desks, a rather unimpressive area. Off to the right you’ll find the full lobby of the hotel which is far nicer. It was after 2am and I was looking…
