Buy Miles for 7/10ths of a Cent Through Tomorrow, Up to 20,000 Miles for Economist Subscription, and Delta Giving Up On Haneda

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About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. I just looked at the GOL chart. The chart has executive (first) class NA to Africa for 100K. Does that mean I can buy 100K GOL miles for $700 and fly to Abu Dhabi on Etihad?

  2. Note that the Gol Smiles bonus miles expire after six months, so the price effectively triples if you don’t use them by mid-December. The rest expire in a year.

  3. hmmm… so $595 for one way from US to Africa on Etihad apartments? that seems quite decent… is there YQ?
    do the GOL call center agents speak English?

  4. @Dave and @Lantean … Those award charts vary by partner (though they don’t publish the real rates for most of their partners). Etihad is more expensive than the award chart suggests. The only airline that matches up to that award chart that could do the routing is Qatar.

  5. I have read people having difficulty getting the awards booked. That said, ~$175 rt east coast to HNL is pretty nice. Haven’t checked the routing yet but it also looks like ~$700 rt to the Maldives is possible as us less than $500 rt to Europe, Africa, or South America if willing to travel economy.

  6. You didn’t mention that Terms and Conditions of Smiles offer make it clear that the offer is available only to residents of Brazil who have a valid CFP (think of it as Brazilian SSN) added to their Smiles profile and can only be purchased by a Brazilian credit card. Smiles program often does not work properly, and if you have done anything against their Terms and Condition, they would attribute all and each problem to that and you are stuck with some miles that are impossible to use.

  7. This isn’t an analysis of the offers presented, it’s a list of links to point folks to that they may be interested in reading about.

  8. Glad to see the uber ruling. It is criminal that uber drivers only make $4-$5 per hour. They should be making at least the applicable minimum wage and have the same benefits and protections as other employees.

  9. You could have simply written “offer for Brazilian residents” or something like that. It is not about an analysis.

  10. @Gene I don’t think it’s that simple. Here’s a good discussion of the regulatory regime and the incompatibilities with Uber’s model:
    http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/06/ca-labor-commission-has-just-killed-uber-though-it-may-take-years-to-bleed-out.html

    I’m not quite as sanguine as that post is about what this all means for Uber, as I don’t take this ruling as the end or the model for how Uber will be treated elsewhere.

    But to accomplish what you’d want I think we need to do more than take the current employment model and apply it to uber drivers.

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