Via Randy Petersen, United is offering (1) Mileage Plus elites who (2) have a United Visa a 20% rebate on roundtrip saver awards booking on United and United Express. One-way awards, open jaws, and stopover awards are excluded from the rebate offer, and partner flights are excluded as well. As with most United offers, I imagine that anyone will be able to register for the offer (and registration is required), but only those eligible (elites with a Mileage Plus Visa) will actually receive the benefit. This is one of my pet peeves about United promotions — if they aren’t going to allow a member to take advantage of an offer, don’t confirm that the member has registered successfully! But then United’s IT has never been close to the best… The offer requires booking by December…
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Excitement Builds for the “Chicago Seminar DO” October 16-17
Flyertalkers have over 300 rooms reserved at host hotels. Many people are sharing rooms, of course. Still others are staying at properties of their own choosing. And many more are local. So it’ll be interesting to see (and Frugal Travel Guy, the organizer, would actually know) if we hit 500 actual attendees. Regardless, this will be by far the largest in-person event in Flyertalk history. It’ll trounce the London DO and the first Star MegaDO even if anyone who reserved a room through the event itself was on their own, no one stayed off-site, and no local attendees had signed up. The main Flyertalk thread for the event has over 1100 posts and has been viewed over 86,000 times. There are at least two other large threads for the event as well, one for RSVPing…
Starwood American Express Introduces New Elite Qualification Benefit
At the end of July, American Express announced changes to the Starwood Amex card — no more ‘50% off rack rate’ reservation certificates, replaced by third night free on paid stays at Sheraton, and five night credits towards elite status annually. At the time I wished for night credits, not just stay credits. [T]he five nights towards status will be helpful to some, but I would have loved to have seen the opportunity for more elite credit based on spend volume or the ability to earn stay credits rather than nights. And now, Loyalty Traveler notes that that’s exactly what they’re going to do — give out not just 5 night credits each year to cardholders, but two stay credits as well. Plus, if you have the personal Starwood American Express and the small business…
Frequent Traveler Awards Banquet – Open to the Traveling Public
Frequent Traveler awards voting wraps up October 15. If you haven’t voted, now’s the time. Already several hundred thousand travelers have cast ballots in each hotel and airline category — literally millions of votes cast for the best loyalty programs out there. The award ceremony will be held Thursday, November 4 in Houston — and the traveling public is welcome. There will be top leadership from the airline and hotel frequent flyer and frequent guest programs in attendance. In all, I expect about 350 attendees. There are a limited number of spots left, but you’re welcome to RSVP. It’s not free, however… Randy Petersen did pick up the full tab for travelers who wanted to join for dinner at the Freddies. But we just don’t have the deep pockets or sponsors to make that happen.…
Hilton 4th Quarter Promo — Double Points turn into Quadruple Points if Your Stay Includes a Sunday Night
Loyalty Traveler flags Hilton’s fourth quarter promo. It’s not all that impressive, but better than a hole in the head as my grandfather used to say. The offer is double base points from October 12 through December 30, and quadruple points if the stay includes a Sunday night. Registration is required, but as of this writing the registration page isn’t up yet. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since they’ve been advertising the link in at least one print publication. They’re sending folks to a dead link and losing eyeballs and business that they’re paying to drive to the site. C’mon HHonors, what’s the wait here?
Coming Tweaks to the Qantas Frequent Flyer Program
Musings of the Global Traveller has the scoop on changes to the Qantas Frequent Flyer program. Silver gets easier to achieve and they’ll also get access to the same increased award availability flying Qantas metal that’s offered to Golds and Platinums. Award assistance and change fees go up, Platinums lose anytime lounge access and Silvers and Qantas Club members lose priority check-in on domestic itineraries. All in all Kiwi calls the changes mixed, with non-status members losing out and Silvers gaining slightly, nothing great added for Golds and some gains and losses for Platinums.
Your Secret Travel/Mileage Life Could Get You on TV
Randy Petersen has posted that a TV show is looking for real life frequent flyers for a reality TV show. The premise is to find members of FlyerTalk to star in this TV show which will address a story of your secret life as a frequent flyer or more likely … mileage-obsessed. The key here is your double life — the life that most know you in “reality”, but then to focus on your life that only we know you for. I know you are out there, sane in the office or business and even home environment, but as soon as the next triple bonus miles or mileage run numbers come in showing miles at .03 cents or elite status with a single 12-city itinerary or even the lure of a five-star hotel award night,…
US Airways Adjusts their Award Zone Definitions, First Class to Thailand Drops 40,000 Miles in Price
US Airways has posted a new Star Alliance award chart (.pdf) on their website, I haven’t noticed any changes yet to their mileage prices but the zone definitions have changed slightly. Russia used to be listed as North Asia, and so flying Russia – Europe – Hong Kong (for instance) for only 40,000 miles roundtrip in first class. Now Russia is gone from the list of countries on the chart, it’s possible that it’s been recategorized to Europe, I haven’t checked with US Airways yet. But they may have read about all the Flyertalkers jumping on that award value bandwagon. The one most interesting to me is that Thailand was moved from South Asia to North Asia. So first class from the US to Thailand just dropped in price from 160,000 miles to 120,000. Wow.…
A trip report, flying Toronto to Lahore in PIA economy…
.. No, it wasn’t me. Saria sends along this story of flying Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) from Toronto to Lahore. In coach. And I realize that this story is repeated across airline and flight, worldwide. Patriotism demands that we fly by PIA, also because no one else does. The airline must be doing fantastic business since all its flights are always fully booked regardless of a date or destination. The reasons routinely given are: School holidays, Haj season, wedding season, summertime vacations, while winter is traditionally a convenient time for expatriates to visit families back home and, at times, even excuses like the excitement generated by a new batch of senators and people rushing back to Pakistan to watch the spectacular oath-taking ceremony. Reports about the airline losing money appear as a clever ploy to…
American Airlines Coach Roundtrip Ticket for Free Small Business Program Signup and One Roundtrip by January 31
Several airlines offer small business loyalty programs, these are generally stackable with the miles that individual travelers earn for their itineraries. The idea is to quote the small business number at booking and the company earns points in addition to the passenger. American’s program is called Business ExtrAA. Since points expire after two calendar years following the year in which they’re earned, single travelers unaffiliated with a company don’t generally earn significant rewards through their own travel alone, especially since the points-earning is spend-based rather than miles-based. But even a solo traveler can earn some modest points for their travels, for instance lounge passes. And certainly even lower and mid-spending solo top tier elites will likely earn the points necessary for an extra free roundtrip ticket or to nominate someone for AAdvantage Gold status after…
