Starwood announced their upcoming promotion on Milepoint this morning: SPG Double Take. Between May 1 and July 31 Starwood is offering double points at most hotels (non-participating properties.. hate that!) and 500 bonus points for all reservations booked on Starwood’s mobile site or iPhone/Android mobile apps (no excluded properties). Registration is not yet available, I tend to remind folks of these things once registration opens but Starwood is happy to remind you via text as well if you’d like: Request a text from us letting you know when registration starts in late April. To opt in, text DBLT to 44264 in the U.S. or 447950080934 in the U.K. Back in the fall they offered double or triple points and a mobile booking bonus. So certainly this one sounds familiar (I did a double take!). This…
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Category Archives for General.
The Death of the Double Miles Award: and Why the US Airways/American Merger Will Kill it For Good
I’m going to stake out a prediction for the US Airways-American Airlines merger that I haven’t seen anyone else make yet — it spells the death knell for the ‘double mileage award’. Most US Programs Used to Charge ‘Double Miles’ for a Seat When There Wasn’t Award Availability Traditionally US frequent flyer programs offered to let members book any seat on any flight for twice the miles. That way if there wasn’t any “saver” award inventory, it would still be possible to use your miles. Now it wasn’t always precisely twice the miles. Up until October 2006 United Airlines Mileage Plus offered awards from North America to Australia in business class at 90,000 miles roundtrip — or 150,000 miles for what they called "standard" or rule-buster style awards where you could have any empty seat…
50% Bonus When Transferring Hotel Points to US Airways
It sure seems to be US Airways day! (That is, in addition to April Fools Day…) There’s no registration required. US Airways will give you a 50% bonus on top of whatever miles your hotel program sends over to US Airways with an activity date in April. The promotion is supposed to be valid for transfers initiated in April, though the terms and conditions appear to have a typo in them since they seem to require points to be reported by a hotel program within the next 9 days! The last date that activity from a qualifying partner can be received by US Airways for bonus miles consideration is April 10, 2013, regardless of the eligible activity date for such activity. That’s clearly a mistake, and I’m unconcerned about it. What I don’t know, though,…
250 Bonus Miles for Every US Airways Booking Paid for With MasterCard
Register and every US Airways booking made by October 31 for travel through December 31, paid for with a MasterCard, will earn 250 bonus miles. At least one segment of the reservation must be for paid travel on a US Airways (or US Airways Express)-operated flight. Bonus miles post 6-8 weeks after travel is completed.
British Airways First Class, Seattle or New York to Anywhere in Europe for $120!
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen amistake fare as good as this. And while British Airways has pushed back on honoring these sorts of things in the past it seems pretty clear that under new FTC guidelines they’ll really have no choice. Your trip has to be entirely on British Airways, and originate in Seattle or New York (please add a comment here if you find it from other British Airways cities, but I haven’t seen it work from anywhere else yet) but apparently you can fly from those cities to anywhere in Europe for about $120 all-in. The exact price will vary just a bit based on the airport taxes of your destination, and I haven’t been able to get it to work for just London (you need to connect beyond London…
US Airways 50% Bonus for Shared (Transferred) Miles in April
US Airways usually offers a bonus of some sort for shared miles or purchased miles. When they run a 100% bonus on purchased miles the cost to buy miles directly is 1.87 cents apiece, something that many consider. Their best offer is a 100% bonus on sharing miles — transferring miles from one account to another, with the amount of miles transferred being matched by the same number of additional miles. That lets you buy additional miles at just a penny apiece. April’s offer isn’t as good as either one, but will be strategically useful to some that need to top off an account towards an award or clear out an orphan account with just a few miles in it. Limited time offer: Give a 50% bonus when you Share Miles! Share miles from from…
Frequent Traveler University in April is Sold Out — Book Your Tampa Tickets Now
Next month’s Frequent Traveler University in Northern Virginia has been sold out for months. Some folks have been able to secure tickets because, while tickets are non-refundable, they are transferable up to about four weeks before the event. So folks who bought tickets speculatively, or who discovered they had work or other conflicts, were able to transfer tickets to those who remained alert and jumped on the opportunity. Today marks the last day where April Frequent Traveler University tickets can be transferred. In all, we expect 650 people at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner April 26-28 — the biggest gathering of frequent flyers ever. They’ll come to hear from me, Randy Petersen, The Points Guy, Lucky from One Mile at a Time, Million Mile Secrets, Seth of Wandering Aramean, Frequent Milers, Rapid Travel Chai, plus…
Last Day to Cast Your Vote in the Freddie Awards
The Freddie Awards are in their 25th year of representing the voice of the frequent traveler, honoring the best in airline, hotel, and credit card loyalty programs during the previous year. Today is your last chance to vote for your favorite programs, the ones you believe did the best job for their members in 2012. Last month I predicted that you would be among more than 1,000,000 frequent flyers expressing their collective voice. In fact – and I don’t have final numbers yet — it appears that nearly three million people have participated so far. I’ve had the great honor of serving as Chair of Nominations for the Freddies, so I’ve been in touch with leadership at scores of frequent flyer programs over the past couple of months preparing for this. And as a co-founder…
“Mystery Flights” Ain’t New: Extreme Price Discrimination and a Vacation Adventure Saves Money
Alex Tabarrok writes about GetGoing.com, the website that has you pick two destinations and they book you non-refundably into one of them. It’s a price discrimination trick, they should be able to sell you cheaper tickets because you’re the most price sensitive kind of consumer — not one booking based on destination (since you don’t even have final say over that destination), but one truly booking on price. To maximize profit, airlines want to charge higher prices to consumers who are willing to pay more (inelastic demand) and lower prices to those who won’t buy unless the price is low (elastic demand). In essence, this comes down to charging business travelers more and leisure travelers less. In our textbook, …Business travelers, for example, are more likely to want to travel at the last-minute so airlines…
TMZ Airport Edition: Shirtless Justin Bieber and Monkeys at Security and Customs
Yesterday anabolism posted the news on Milepoint that Justin Bieber went through airport security in Poland with his shirt off and pants down below his underwear (photos and video). Apparently he wasn’t ordered to disrobe and he didn’t put his shirt back on post-security. Personally I’m most surprised that he was going through a public security checkpoint considering he was flying private, but I’m not at all familiar with Polish security procedures for private aircraft. Today, tom911 flags on Milepoint that Justin Bieber’s pet monkey has been seized by customs in Munich. monkey has been seized from pop star Justin Bieber after he flew it into Munich from the US on a private plane. The pet, a capuchin called Mally, is thought to have been given to the singer for his 19th birthday on March…
