It’s not just miles and points, I’m looking for deals in just about everything that I do. I don’t always sweat the small stuff, a dollar here or there, but if it isn’t costly to do so I will (I’ll grab frequent flyer miles or Fatwallet cashback even on a $15 purchase). I scrounge for coupons when making online purchases, I used to find Googling the online store’s name and ‘coupon’ would work but there are so many bogus coupon sites looking for their own referral commissions that it’s a pain to sort through. In addition to searching Ev Rewards for the best shopping portal returns, I also head over to the Hot Deals forum at Fatwallet (and to a lesser extend Slick Deals) and search for the merchant I’m buying from, it’s amazing how…
About Gary Leff
Checking the Status of Your Flight
Scott McCartney’s latest column is on the various flight status websites you can use to track a flight, monitor position, gate changes, etc. Frequent travelers know that airline websites, and those from the major booking services, are often lacking. The conclusion of the piece? That my own favorite and most used, FlightStats.com, comes out as most useful and reliable. (This is also the one which the KVS Availability Tool integrates with.) Not mentioned in the piece, one of my favotire tricks for United Airlines flight status is to check United Cargo, when a flight is delayed this site will give you the real reason why — useful when the airline doesn’t want to give you compensation, claiming that a delay is due to ‘weather’. Update: Upgrade: Travel Better reports that American’s cargo website offers useful…
Hall of Shame: Amtrak Guest Rewards
So you have to ride the train, and at least they give you points for that. But that’s more or less all you can say about Amtrak Guest Rewards. I used to like their 2500 point award, one-way in the Northeast Corridor for unreserved service. I’d keep some tickets on hand. Of course, Amtrak doesn’t even have unreserved service anymore. And they upped the point requirements with just hree weeks’ notice. And they both imposed maximum points transferred out of the program in a year and dropped United as a partner without any notice at all. These more or less made me not trust the Guest Rewards program. But their problems go even farther. Amtrak Guest Rewards has just implemented online award booking. In other words, they’ve entered the ’90s. But there’s a glitch. In…
New American Credit Card Offers
Oct
07
2007
Citibank is offering 25,000 bonus miles and first year free for the Ameircan Airlines business and personal mastercards and personal American Express. All cards require $750 in spending within the first four months to qualify for the bonus. These cards can generally be churned every few months, and signing up for all is 75,000 miles at a pop.
New Alaska Airlines Mileage Expiration Policy
Oct
03
2007
Alaska Airlines has followed the industry trend and announced a new mileage expiration policy. They’re moving from the old standard of three years to two. Now, they’re still more generous than the current reigning policy in the industry of 18 months. And any activity, earning or redeeming, will keep an account active — no worrying about which kinds of miles extend and account and which do not. And finally, there’s an explicit way to extend expired miles — within a year of expiration, a $75 fee will reactivate an account. Last year I kept my brother-in-law’s Alaska account active by signing him up for a free Points.com account. I think he earned 20 miles. The MilesLink newsletter points out that the first date that miles will expire is April Fools’ Day 2008. Heh.
New USAirways Business Mastercard
Oct
03
2007
Juniper Bank, which issues the USAirways Mastercard — one of the better airline mileage card values — now has a business card though it isn’t quite as lucrative. The best offers for the personal card include two years fee-free, 50% bonus miles on first year spending, and 15,000 miles with first purchase. The business card will match the signup bonus but at a $79 annual fee. (There’s a no fee version with just 5000 bonus miles at signup.)
Delta Offers Elite Qualifying Miles for Eating
Oct
03
2007
iDine (aka Rewards Network) has a new Delta dining for miles bonus that offers both redeemable miles and elite qualifying miles (registration required). Four qualifying dines of $25 or more in October and November earns a bonus 1000 miles that even count towards status. Now, it’s just 1000 miles. But the notable thing is that the bonus offers the opportunity to earn elite status for something other than flying. Already increasingly common (and in some measure pioneered by Delta) is elite status through credit card spending. And last year USAirways offered its ‘Everything Counts’ promo at the end of the year where most miles (credit card spending excluded) counted towards status. Some Dividend Miles members became Chairmans Preferred 100,000 mile ‘flyers’ by sending a whole lot of flowers. So this is another step in that…
Breaking the Value Proposition: a Nail in the Skymiles Coffin
Oct
03
2007
Traditionally frequent flyer miles are redeemed for capacity controlled awards. Airlines offer a limited number of seats for redemption that they expect would otherwise go unsold. And some travelers are frustrated they can’t find the seats. But in general there’s always been the option to spend more miles in order to get any open seat. With United, it’s the “Standard” award rather than “Saver.” With Delta, this higher mileage option has been known as “SkyChoice.” But Delta has announced that as of December 1, spending double the miles no longer gets you any seat. Instead, it just gets you access to more award inventory. Now they’re not the only airline to do this. They’re following Northwest’s lead. But they’re still in the minority. Rulebuster, Standard — or whatever you want to call them — awards…
Amtrak Small Business Program Signup Bonus
Amtrak’s new small business program allows you to earn points in addition to the standard Guest Rewards program both for your travel and those that enter your small business program membership number. Accounts in this program earn 25% of the base points earned on Amtrak by each traveler. Through December 31, 2007 enrollment code STR07 yields a 1500 point signup bonus. (I got a copy of the offer and ignored it, so thanks to Samit for beating me over the head with it…)
Request Your Records
Unsecure Flight has sample forms online to request copies of records kept on you and your flying by the Department of Homeland Security.
