Northwest is offering a 25% bonus on hotel points converted to miles by January 31. Registration is required.only valid for WorldPerks members who reside in North America. The bonus applies to points converted from Goldpoints, Hilton, Hyatt, Priority Club, and Marriott. Starwood transfers are not included.
Register by February 15 and dine 10 times (minimum $25 spend) by March 31 at qualifying restaurants to earn 5000 bonus Mileage Plus miles.
Tumi, my favorite luggage brand, is having their winter sale — up to 40% off on discontinued styles and colors. This seems to come twice a year (most recently back in June) and items are available until they sell out. Even with the sale this isn’t cheap luggage. You won’t find any $35 wheeled carryons here. But Tumi is outstanding for the frequent business traveler.
Starting March 1 American’s fee to upgrade internationally with miles increases from $250 to $300, and a new $150 fee will apply to mileage upgrades to and from Hawaii.Full fare tickets remain exempt from the fee, and upgrades requested prior to March 1 (for travel after March 1, even if the upgrade doesn’t clear until after March 1) won’t have the new fee structure apply. $250 to $300 ($500 to $600 roundtrip) isn’t a big deal — once the fee was introduced, a 20% increase in that fee is almost beside the point. The watershed was broken, off course the price would increase. Though extending the fee to Hawaii flights is a huge deal, a real blow to AAdvantage members. And, frankly, it’s not all that good a deal –“YUP” fares that confirm in first…
Won’t affect most folks, but Varig is leaving the Star Alliance as of January 31. No great loss in one sense — they’re not a particularly strong or valuable player — but Star Alliance is already really quite weak in Latin/South America (and the former loss of Mexicana was no help, either).
Usually each year in late December Starwood adjusts the categories that each hotel is in, determining the new number of points required for a property’s award redemption in the coming year. This year, since they’re introducing a new more expensive “category 7” for redemptions on February 1, they’re delaying the usual category adjustments until that time as well. Now, that doesn’t mean in practice that every hotel will be adjusted on February 1 — some usually happen a few days before the changeover, some a few days after (since in this past it’s been a cumbersome process for the programmers). And occasionally hotels get changed during the year as well, usually based on a review of their revenue that they request Starwood Preferred Guest to undertake. So don’t take this absolutely to the bank, and…
For years, one of the easiest way to earn large amounts of miles has been churning credit cards. Some issuers keep awarding signup bonuses no matter how many times you apply. There are even reports of successfully obtaining new United Visa cards every 34 days or so — along with the 25,000 bonus miles for new cardholders (on both the personal and business cards, with fee waived the first year!) each time. FirstUSA, which was acquired by BankOne, and is now Chase has been famous for allowing this on all of their co-branded cards — not just United, but also British Airways, Priority Club, Marriott, Southwest, etc. Citibank’s American Airlines co-branded products have been easy to churn, and Bank of America cards like the USAirways Visa have as well. There’s always a discussion of affect…
The Delta American Platinum Express is upping the ante. Instead of just the old 10,000 elite qualifying miles for a spend target, you’ll now get 10,000 qualifying miles when you hit $25,000 in spend during a year and another 10,000 qualifying miles when you hit $50,000 in spend during the calendar year. That’s 20,000 qualifying miles for credit card spending. The Delta Amex used to award qualifying miles for spending over the course of your cardmember year (i.e. between the months where your annual fee hits) rather than calendar year. For the 2007 transition year you get your 10,000 qualifying miles based on your cardmember year and up to 20,000 qualifying miles based on calendar year spend – so up to 30,000 qualifying miles. That’s Silver Elite status without setting foot on a plane, or…
Points.com sometimes offers reasonably nice signup bonuses, even for their limited-functionality free accounts. But 250 miles may be nice, but it occurs to me that in some cases 10 – 25 miles can be nice as well. My brother-in-law had about 9,000 miles in his Alaska Airlines account, with no activity since December 2003. Alaska accounts expire after three years of inactivity. We were pushing up against that deadline, and 9000 miles on Alaska are worth saving since it takes only 10,000 to confirm a first class upgrade (such as from DC to Seattle) from any coach fare. Bingo, 25 points posted to his Alaska account in a matter of days. And his account is good for another three years. Among others, these minor points offers are available for USAirways, Alaska, Midwest, Hawaiian, and American…
Through December 31, LanChile is offering 5000 points just for signing up for its frequent flyer program, no flight required. If you’re already a member, the link suggests that updating your account information will get you the bonus as well, although details on this piece are unclear. They’re a oneworld carrier, and have some outstanding award values. Starwood points transfer to them at 2:1 (with a doubling of the concommitant transfer bonus). For example 60,000 Starpoints yield 150,000 LanPass kilometers . You don’t necessarily want to park miles in LanChile’s program, as points expire in as little as 24 months and can only be extended by actually flying paid flights with LanChile. But it’s a useful program, and 5000 free points is a good start.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
