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!
Where there’s a mile there is a way.!
what a great blog, thanks
I love the sense of community on blogs and how everyone is helping everyone out!
Happiness is a great trip with the hubby to Europe.
I have learned so much from this site and I have been able to take my family on a variety of trips we could not have taken otherwise. We just got back from a great holiday weekend trip that would have cost $2100 if we hadn’t used points. Price after points – $126.00!!
Points let me try things I couldn’t afford.
Just had my first Hyatt stay – amazing customer service.
thankful for the wonderful info you supply
All of us owe everything to Randy for starting Flyertalk, and now Milepoint. We wouldn’t be here without him.
Chase Ultimate Rewards are valuable and easy to get!
Flyertalk has all the answers!
Miles/points allow me to travel to places that I otherwise would not have.
Points and miles makes travel very affordable…
I love being able to take nicer vacations more often than when I was just paying cash.
Miles and points have given me a higher quality of life!
People are still sharing tips!
It may have cost me more points than it would have a year ago, but I was still able to take my girlfriend on a business class trip to Paris in July. Both of our first time ever doing a transatlantic flight in anything other than coach.
Blogs contain a wealth of information to help one achieve their travel dreams!
FlyerTalk rocks!!!
Miles/points has allowed me to book 2 business class flights to Asia for my parents. It is their first time to Asia since immigrating to North America over thirty years ago. That made me feel good.
I would not have traveled without points. It has opened the door to distant travel never seen possible. The more I read the more I learn from fellow travelers which has made it more rewarding.
My vacations still cost me a lot less for a lot more!
Nothing better than traveling around the world in premium cabins for very little cost.
Miles/points make travelling at the last minute/emergencies less stressful.
Saving for miles gives me a goal and routing everything through my credit cards and online shopping portals makes me pause before every dollar I spend, so I’m actually more disciplined about my budget!
points programs let me stay in nice places.
Anything that can earn me a few free nights in a classy hotel in Paris is worth it in my book.
I love that bloggers like you share information with travelers like myself to make traveling as easy as possible. (For a newbie like myself, traveling is not exactly easy.)
Still love checking out of a hotel with a zero dollar bill b/c of points!
It’s gotten harder, but the long and short of it is that miles and points still allow me to travel and take my family to places that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to go!
I love that I’m able to stay places I could never afford to otherwise.
blogs such as this that share the incredible tools with readers like us!
I love traveling but also love the game. Sometimes I’m not sure which I like more!
Miles and points helped get my soon to by wife and I a honeymoon in Bali & Tokyo for just $90/taxes and fees total!
These elements make things more exciting!
Learning how to travel using miles and points has expanded my travel dreams and made me realize that my bucket list is doable.
The best thing about traveling is coming home to a loving family.
Redeeming for first class flights and luxury hotels I could otherwise not afford sure makes it all worth it.
We were so inspired by Gary’s review of Conrad Koh Samui that we booked a stay. We had a wonderful time! [Unfortunately, we didn’t get the same great rate with points as Gary did, nor get the 2-bedroom villa, but didn’t do too bad and was a much better value than post-devaluation that’s for sure.]
I’m still getting amazing value from points and miles. I might not fly Lufthansa First again anytime soon, but I just spent a week in Mexico with family for less than $400 all in. That’s a week that I wouldn’t have had with them without this hobby!
Still able to save money by using miles and points.
With a completely flexible schedule this summer before I start grad school, I was able to book an open jaw ticket to Europe to maximize the number of countries I can visit.
Points and miles have brought my family closer-literally and figuratively
ive been able to build up miles on AA/ US
I love the Club Carlson second award night free benefit!
I am also going to add that without miles and points, my family and I probably wouldn’t travel in business class (first time ever for them) for one of our big international trip for their milestone birthday. They still talk about that trip fondly — just lots of special memories.
Blogs and forums can be helpful with methods of miles and points accumulation but I also enjoy them for seeing reviews of aspirational redemptions that I can dream about and eventually go on the same or similar trips.
I like using points and miles to travel in a way I never could have imagined when I was younger. Now that I’m approaching 50, traveling has become just as exciting as my post-college backpacking trip across Spain. Ok, a different kind of exciting.
I was able to take my son to see her GrandMa for free after 2 years, what’s better than that !!!
I love the openness of the frequent flier community, that people share and spread their tips and knowledge. I have learned a lot from it and have try to share back as well.