Category Archives for Airlines.
Alaska Airlines is ending its 1000 mile online booking bonus September 5th. Beginning September 6th, though, you’ll be able to earn the bonus only by paying with an Alaska Airlines Visa. And somehow the article introduces this as an exciting new improvement, titling as New 1,000 Mile Online Booking Bonus. Heh.
Via the Upgrade Travel Blog, USAirways is selling day passes to its lounges for $25 through August 31 — rather than their usual $40 — by mentioning promo code ES25. Details here. Most US carriers sell day passes for $50, though $25 is the usual price for access to the Alaska Airlines Boardroom without a membership. (Boardroom members can buy day passes as gifts for only $15, and a year and a half back Alaska was selling these around Christmastime for only $12.50.)
United has introduced Star Alliance upgrade awards — upgrades on most of their Star Alliance partners confirmed by redeeming miles. These has been available on other Star Alliance carriers for several months, United has just introduced them, but it’s notable that only Star Alliance offers this quite so broadly.United miles can be used for upgrades on ANA, Asiana, Austrian, LOT, Lufthansa, TAP Portugal and Thai Airways. (United miles could previously be used for upgrades on Lufthansa, but those were space available rather than confirmed.) Currently there are no upgrade options for other Star carriers such as Singapore, Air Canada, bmi, Swiss, Spanair, SAS, South African Airways, etc. Hopefully they’ll come in the future. Unfortunately you need to be buying nearly a full fare ticket in order to use this option. Y and B coach fares…
Cinemark Theatres are again offering American Airlines miles for the purchase of a large soda. Back in 2004 the offer was just 100 miles per soda. Now it appears that not all codes are winners, but at least 1 in 5 are and those receive a minimum of 500 miles and a long-shot chance for 100,000 miles. Sounds great, right? Just go to a Cinemark theatre and dumpster dive for these codes off sodas and get some award tickets. Alas there’s a limit of 10 Instant Win 500 AAdvantage miles Game Piece codes and two 5,000 AAdvantage miles Game Piece codes per account. Of course, each member of your family can have a separate account and I’m willing to bet that excess codes wind up on eBay… Since there aren’t any Cinemark theatres near me…
Via my father-in-law, Progressive offers 500 Alaska miles for an auto insurance quote — but only for residents of Washington state and Alaska.
I’ve probably undercovered the introduction of the Mileage Plus Choices program (okay, I’ve undercovered everything since I haven’t had the time or brainspace to post for the last couple of weeks). The June 2006 issue of Inside Flyer calls the Choices program “The New Golden Egg” so it certainly warrants a mention, though I’m not nearly as high on it as Randy Petersen seems to be. United’s new bombshell, Mileage Plus Choices, means looking at the future of frequent flyer programs in a whole new way. The “Choices” program allows United Visa cardholders to use the portion of their miles earned through their credit card as a form of cash to buy airline tickets, hotel nights, or rental car days (along with a few specialty items) with their miles. The program is incredibly confusing at…
Effective this past Saturday, May 20, United Mileage Plus members earn miles on “USAirways West” — USAirways flights operated under the America West flight certificate. This ends one of the more confusing mileage accrual issues in recent times, where USAirways is a member of Star Alliance and a partner of United’s but a sizable portion of USAirways flights were ineligible for United mileage accrual because they were ‘really’ America West flights operating under the USAirways name — meaning they were old America West flights, operating under the old America West flight certificate, and America West was not a United partner even though the company was merged into one and now called USAirways and the flights were sold as USAirways flights. Mergers are indeed messy things, and in this case quite customer unfriendly. That piece of…
Both USAirways.com and AmericaWest.com now both direct you to the same, new website. It looks like a rocky transition, the website was put up before it was ready. Some Flyertalkers are reporting that the merger of their frequent flyer accounts is a mess, with their status being downgraded. Others see miles missing from their accounts. Some attempted ticket purchases either are or are no going through, or in some cases going through without notice to the traveler (so they’ve bought tickets but need to call the airline to find out, and even the airline representatives take awhile to figure out that yes, indeed, a ticket has been purchased). Developing…
Citibank is offering 25,000 American Airlines miles for purchases of $250 or more on a new American Mastercard. It’s today’s (day 18) American AAdvantage 25th Anniversary offer, though I owe the heads up to the indispensable free MilesLink newsletter. I still like the 20,000 mile offer better because it comes with fee waived the first year, and a simple $1 gas purchase will trigger the bonus. The 25,000 mile offer’s $85 fee comes immediately, so you’re paying 1.7 cents a mile for the incremental 5000 miles. Update: the offer mentioned in MilesLink and today’s AAdvantage25 offer are different. The former is 25,000 miles for $250 in spend and an $85 annual fee. The latter is 25,000 miles for $250 in spend and fee waived the first year. In theory you have to apply today to…
A Flyertalk member posted a summary of Wednesday’s Alaska Airlines MVP Gold lunch in Anchorage. (Alaska regularly hosts gatherings for their top tier elites.) Key points:A new Platinum top tier will be introduced in 2008, requiring 70,000 to 80,000 miles. MVP Gold “Guest Upgrade” certificates will be going electronic in 2007 (bye bye, eBay). Alaska’s website can now book partner awards on Delta. Alaska will be introducing a new destination that members “will really like.” Rumors have been flying for a long time about Hawaii, but this is hardly confirmation of that. (Alaska’s 737s can make the jaunt…)
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 »
