For every three roundtrips on United, United Express or Ted flown between September 7, 2004 and January 31, 2005, United will give you a free coach domestic roundtrip ticket. Tickets must cost a minimum of $250, and discount economy tickets can’t include a Saturday stay. Registration is required by November 30th. The free tickets will be valid through June 10, 2005 for travel within the 48 contiguous US states (though residents of Hawaii and Alaska can fly from their home state to the US mainland). The free tickets are not upgradeable, require 14-day advance ticketing and a Saturday night stayover, and certain travel dates are blacked out. On the plus side, they are booked in “S or T class” meaning deeply discounted coach rather than coming out of award inventory. Hey, I won’t want to…
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$20 Donation Yields 5000 Hilton HHonors Points
City of Hope, which supports breast cancer research, is offering Hilton points to encourage donations. You don’t actually have to do the walk for breast cancer – you can walk ‘virtually’. And $20 donations earn the points at the following walks: Florida – Ft. Lauderdale Sunday, October 24, 2004 Florida – Miami-Aventura Sunday, October 03, 2004 Florida – Orlando Sunday, September 12, 2004
New Marriott Promotion
Marriott is awarding 5000 bonus points for every three stays paid for with an American Express card between September 15th and January 31st. Registration is required, and the bonus can be earned up to five times.It’s always interesting to see promotions like this one with hotels and airlines that otherwise don’t partner with the credit card issuer. Marriott teams with BankOne to offer a co-branded Visa, and is has split with the American Express Membership Rewards program. Yet they managed to come to terms with Amex to fund this promotion.
250,000 United Miles for $150?
You can earn 5,000 United miles for every $10,000 financed on a home equity loan until November 15th. The offer then reverts to the usual 1,300 miles per $10,000.Since some of the offers which may be available under this program have the bank paying relevant costs such as appraisal fees, the only expense is interest — which you’ll pay for just as long as it takes you to withdraw the funds and pay them back. Then once you discount for the tax deductibility of the interest you do pay, and the fact that you’ll likely earn some interest while the funds are temporarily parked before being paid back, the cost should be next to nothing for a large chunk of miles.By the way, the 250,000 miles assumes an equity loan of $500,000. Admittedly most of…
10% Off at Best Buy
Best Buy has a printable 10% off coupon for use over Labor Day Weekend.Of course, if you buy in-store then you can’t get miles via an online shopping portal.
Air Marshalls Enforcing — and Breaking — the Law
It’s not just for TSA screeners any more! Via David Rowell, there were 753 incidents of misconduct by federal air marshalls during an eight-month period of 2002. Federal air marshals have slept on the job, tested positive for alcohol or drugs while on duty, lost their weapons and falsified information, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general said Monday in a scathing report on the air marshals program. The report criticized the the lenient treatment received by the marshalls, including paying them during forced leave.
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American Joins the Bandwagon – Ticketing Fees
American Airlines will charge a $5 fee for tickets purchased over the phone and $10 for tickets purchased at domestic airports. This fee applies to both revenue and award tickets but is waived for top-level elites (Executive Platinum).
Sorry for Not Writing, I’ll Try to Soon
This week is one of my busiest of the year at work. Y’know, my real job. Not this hobby of mine called miles and points. I don’t get paid for this, y’know! So if I want to keep getting paid well enough to have spare time to share my thoughts on travel with you, I have to pay attention to pressing concerns with my job.. at least this week. In the meantime, I did order my free desktop computer and monitor this afternoon. My free flat screen TV finally shipped and is on its way. And my free iPod is truly amazing. For those of you working towards completing these same offers, reader David Caplan shares the following tidbit: tickle.com is really easy. The sign up form is short, the cost is $1 and you…
Bad Credit Card Advice from Frommers
A new article up at Frommer’s discusses no-fee mileage earning credit cards.Most airline credit cards come with an annual fee and earn one mile per dollar. Some airlines offer a no fee card that earns one mile for every two dollars spent. So it should be basic math – is the value of those extra miles worth more than the annual fee? That’s what this article discusses.However, it gets several facts wrong. [T]he airlines charged the consumer from $45 to $65 per year to use these cards. Umm, no, the banks charge the fee. The fee does not go to the airline marketing partner. Now for the all-important question, are the no-fee credit cards worth it? Depends on how much you fly. Typically, a holder of an annual fee airline frequent flyer awards-based credit card…
