It’s been a tough 18 months in the frequent flyer world. It’s easier than ever to earn points, but the cost of awards has gone up, up, up.
Miles and points have been very good to me, and I do my best to give back where I can. I don’t make a public show of my charity, but I do my best to give the best advice I can and to offer giveaways when things are offered to me. And when I have gift cards, I can either turn them into money orders or do various frequent flyer experiments, or I can give them away.
So here, I thought I would give away $400. And what better way to give them away than to my readers who comment on this post?
Goodness knows it’s been a tough 15 months or so for frequent flyers.
- United devalued its award chart, especially premium cabin awards and especially partner awards in first class.
- Delta devalued its award chart, and then decided they didn’t want to wait for changes to go into effect so they imposed an interim devaluation. Then they finally decided to go revenue-based.
- Southwest devalued its points, underscoring just how arbitrary such changes can be — there’s no fundamental reason to devalue a revenue-based frequent flyer program, higher ticket prices automatically make an award cost more already. Here they just decided to make their points worth less.
- American eliminated international gateway stopovers and distance-based awards and US Airways eliminated the 90,000 mile business class award.
- Hilton devalued the most among hotels, such that I am no longer inclined to stay with them when I can avoid it. I didn’t re-up my Diamond status (or accept free Gold status).
- Others devalued as well – Marriott with big award category shifts, Hyatt with a new more expensive award category 7 and other changes.
And that’s just a small sampling.
So I would like to focus on something positive for a change, and I’m looking to you for help to do so!
Here are the prizes:
- (4) $100 gift cards
So here’s how you enter.
- Leave a comment on this blog post. Say something positive above miles and points, blogs, forums, or your fellow travelers.
- Enter by Noon Eastern, Friday May 30. That’s 4 days from this writing, and there are four prizes.
- Enter no more than 4 times. Four prizes, four days to enter, you can enter by commenting up to four times. (It doesn’t have to be one per day, the only limitation is that you cannot enter twice in a row you have to at least wait for someone else to enter before you enter again each time.)
- Four prize winners will be drawn at random. As in past, I will use random.org for the drawing.
- Fine print. Void where prohibited by law. All of my decisions are final and unappealable, I want to make giveaways as easy as possible and with the fewest headaches possible.
So, what do you like about miles and points, blogs, forums, or your fellow travelers?
- You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
And here is a positive about my fellow travelers or at least those of you who blog — I really appreciate hearing all your great trip reports and stories. I feel obligated to single out Lucky and Mr. Pickles, who have provided me with hours of amusement, but everyone who shares is appreciated. I don’t use every — or even most — of your ideas, but I truly enjoy hearing your stories.
Traveling in style via miles and points!
Even though I want to qualify for EXP every year with AA, I always make sure to book a few award trips for myself and for my children and husband. This will continue. Life is good!
AA off peak lasts half the year!
Free night @ Hyatt
Devals are no fun, but free travel is still free travel. Maybe it’s not free, but I have flights to MDW, EWR, BOI, PDX and 13 free hotel nights from 4 credit cards and I’ve already used almost half the points before booking any of the above
flying first class is very nice
The cost of limes is coming down and United is starting to serve them again!
Thanks to you and your fellow bloggers I’ve learned to travel the world in premium cabins for just a fraction of the retail cost and see parts of the world I’ve only dreamed about.
Thanks for all your help over the past years. We have traveled to Hawaii over 10 times without paying for 1 airline ticket.
3 recent trips. About $7,000 out of pocket. Thanks to points and miles, over $90,000 in travel. And the experiences: priceless.
Life and Miles Are Good
One of my favorite things about traveling is taking someone who has never traveled. Yes there are tons of questions beforehand and lots of “hand holding”, but it is a nice reminder of why I travel. Points (especially with credit card signups) have made this possible.
Miles allow me to travel to destinations that I would have never visited if I had to pay for it all
Sometimes you just have to take a moment and enjoy the journey? Plenty in life to be positive about.
WE had great weather in DC this weekend, thinking “POSITIVE” thoughts for weather next weekend in NYC Using Ambassador 2-4-1 @ Intercontinental Times Sq in corner sky suite touring the Concorde & walking n Central Park #164
Oh, another positive I just thought of about my fellow travelers. As a birder, I usually do B&Bs or eco lodges or other places where it’s much more important to stay where the bird is than to get a free or luxury room. Therefore I saw little value in the hotel points game. However, after being prodded by a few of you, I learned that I can sign up, pick the low hanging fruit, and gain a few freebies worth the chasing…not as often as you folk willing to stay in the birdless Maldives etc. but often enough to make it worth the doing. So thanks for that!
Can’t wait to spend my Barclays arrival points!
Travelling is one of the best things one can do with his time, and to be able to travel more and for less, using miles, is great!
My fourth positive — a fellow traveler/poster just said the cost of limes is coming down. What great news! And I heard it here first…Good luck all.
The miles & points community is like no other — learned a lot from folks like you!
they help me keep in touch with friends who are scattered throughout the country.
I love the miles and points have allowed me to travel to places I would not otherwise have!
There are still good mileage deals out there, and some of the European & Asian programs are gaining luster.
If it weren’t for miles I would never be able to experience first class international travel.
Even with the changes, I still love my free trips. Cancun, here I come. .. Thank you Chase! 😀
Want to thank FT community for being there for my family from 120 deals to VCE to other great deals
Thank you
Miles and points has taken me places otherwise impossible. For that, I’m thankful
Gary – You are still my go to for travel advice as you experienced in February when there was trouble getting to Kathryn’s wedding. I couldn’t be more thankful for your advice over the years. 🙂 Through you indirectly I’ve visited Cyprus flying first class and taken advantage of stopovers to visit extra cities.
Thanks to all of the bloggers I get to take vacations I would never have taken before.
I enjoy reading tips and staying up to date from blogs like View from the Wing!
Points still makes the world more reachable than cash alone!
Less valuable miles are still more valuable than no miles at all!
Despite all the negative news, I still have passion for flying.
Thanks for all your posts
Even with the devaluation I can still travel coach for free with my family. I am looking forward to fly first/ business in the near future thanks to the credit card sign up bonus still exist.
It was a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Thanks to those that serve and have served.
there is still what to save up for (amazing vacations)
The game continues and evolves with the great help from you. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
for last minute coach tickets, sure beats paying
the number and quality of products you can redeem for keeps going up
Points and miles can still take you to places we all dream about.
…that the next big thing is right around the corner!
Thank you for looking our for us, its not all about the commission, you truly care
I have learned so much from travel blogs that have allowed me to travel places I never could have dreamed of!
While it has been harder and harder to redeem for premium awards, I’m thankful for still being able to book last minute domestic flights to see family and friends on a whim with Aeroplan/Star Alliance, Skymiles/Delta, and now Avios/One world. These awards at 12.5k or less each way still make it worth my effort to collect miles.
Everyone is so sharing and willing to help one another out!
I love flying to Thailand for $150!
Despite programs and miles being devalued, there are still some good credit card deals out there, like the Citi/AA 100k miles card. That’s something positive!
I just love the way people share on these blogs.