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!
I like how miles can help my family travel and see places that would have otherwise been unattainable.
Still a great way to travel more for less even if it’s not as good as it once was
Fflying for free is alive and well.The points game is always exciting handling the constant hurdles thrown at us.
Great that the community still comes together and posts great deals and tips. Additionally, while many changes have been made to AA’s system, there are still great benefits and the ability to use avios is very helpful.
I added a trip to visit Mom over Christmas to a trip to Europe this summer for $5 and no extra points! That rocks!!
Miles and points have helped me to travel beyond my wildest dreams and they are amazing!
For blogs, I actually really enjoy reviews and stories from blogger’s trips. Those reviews have come in helpful, especially if I’m deciding two very similar hotels. In fact, I have done that just very recently, so the reviews offers an interesting perspective for me and helps me to break my tie-breaker.
Seeing the world
Avios redemptions that are less than 500 miles are still 4,500 points in economy
With the miles i can afford to go home more often
The miles and points are still only a bonus for traveling and a lot of purchases you make you get nothing extra.
Just started getting into this miles and points thing and its addicting.
Club Carlson credit card is a superb card -thanks to fantastic redemption policy.
At least I can get a Round trip to Tahiti from Shanghai in Couch with only 30K UA miles.
Hassles notwithstanding, we’ve taken free trips to Cancun and Moscow this year. And it’s not half over yet!
Love using miles for family and friends and flying them off in a luxurious way.
I am looking forward to using my points towards my honeymoon. The wedding is all about the bride but the honeymoon is all about the groom!
FTU and similar events can be a great resource too. I met some great people at the one I attended.
Even with devaluations, miles and points make it possible to see things in a way I couldn’t otherwise afford.
I’ve been flying for forty years. I still can’t get over how I can be on one side of the globe one day and the other side the next.
recent bonus to go to Europe and Asia for $130.00 !!
I haven’t taken a trip on points in 6 months and I’m itching to go again. Thanks for all you do!
Hey free points and miles are awesome, sometimes better than others, but always awesome!
Thanks to the Biarding Area bloggers and FT my parents will be traveling to Europe for their first time and going on first class no less!
I love when I read about all the great deals. I was able to score a $400 flight to Norway thanks to all the amazing boarding area blogs!
The ability to take my family of four on annual vacation to new and exotic places for minimal cost is only doable to having the ability to earn and burn miles.
I’m flying in premium cabins to Asia for a wedding this winter, which is still only possible for me through the use of miles.
The opportunities to see the world , and visiting places I had never even thought were possible!
Thanks to this blog, I just got a Barclay’s US Air card and 40k miles. Thanks!
Thanks to all these amazing blogs, I have status in every hotel chain. Such a nice perk when traveling.
Miles can still be a great insurance policy for last minute travel!
I have used miles and points to fly to South America for free for three weeks last year.
I stayed in five star hotels on a trip to Paris for free thanks to the boarding area bloggers!
I love that the points/miles “community” is full of folks who love getting a good “deal,” even if it means jumping through hoops to find the best ways to earn and burn your points for great travel.
By reading blogs, I learned how to use Avios points for great hotels stays, too.
I flew an internal Russian airline (Saravia) last week that’s based out of a single airport. New Embraer planes. Leg room. Clean. Pleasant flight attendants. I regretted the flight was only 80 minutes out of two days of flying to get home. It was surprisingly pleasant.
By reading forums, I learned everyone has to start somewhere and it doesn’t hurt to ask for assistance.
I can afford to take more than one vacation a year because of points and miles! Life is too short not to take advantage.
I love sharing with my fellow travelers, where to learn about miles and points on blogs and forums.
Every day is another opportunity to go somewhere we haven’t yet been, so every day above dirt is, by definition, a good day.
The merger of US with American has opened up new earning possibilities!!!!
Travel is worth jumping through hoops. In the meantime, I believe that the race to the bottom will soon turn around.
My wife and her mother are taking a 3 week trip to Europe in business class, staying most of the nights on points. All of this was paid for from this hobby that blogs and FT helped me learn. Thank you! My wife and mother-in-law are actually airborne on LH429 right now.
Yours and other boardingarea blogs are a great resource for understanding the anatomy of booking an award. Despite the devals, the MS & churning game is still interesting to me.
I love the smell of jet fuel and blogging in the morning.
Glad we can still liquidate gift cards thru bluebird!
The opportunities that travel provides provide memories of a lifetime, no matter how much the game changes
Despite all the negatives, I have really benefited from collecting points and miles over the last few years. I’ve been able to go places, do things, and live out experiences I never could have afforded otherwise. And thanks to blogs such as Gary’s, I have become much more educated on how to better maximize the points and miles I collect…especially needed given the rash of recent devaluations.
I have been all over the US, to Japan, Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia, all while flying up front and staying at posh hotels for essentially pennies on the dollar. All thanks to this little hobby.
I am new to the world of miles, previously being happy to earn with credit card purchase with AMEX redeem for where I could. Since last year we’ve flown to England on Virgin Altantic with ANA miles transferred from AMEX and are going to Australia and Japan with Skymiles and United miles acquired with a buy miles bonus and sign up offers. This hobby has been berry, berry good to me.