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!
Being able to use miles to fly the family business class from the East Coast to Australia (bought one ticket, used miles for two more). That’s a positive experience. Having a reference site like View is icing on the cake.
It’s still the only way I can afford Business Class to South Africa.
Positive is that i will be traveling with my daughter in business class to Warsaw and returning through London on miles and avios and some cash.
I’m feeling very positive about the fact that I’m flying to Africa in business class for my first ever safari this fall for close to free, having redeemed Alaska miles on Emirates.
A famous philosopher once said, “some miles and points is better than no miles and points.”
I love the general openness and willingness to share in the frequent traveler community. I got the AA/US to Europe deal this weekend from someone I didn’t even know was “one of us.”
Without advice from this blog and others, I would never have sat in BA or Virgin seats priced as high as $14,000 without miles or strategy. Nor made a habit of it.
It gives my husband a refound purpose since his illness.
Miles allow me to fly my mother-in-law to visit. Wait….this is supposed to be a positive comment….
I’m positive with what we have now bec give it a few years and there will be more devaluations
I’m happy that we have blog areas where everyone can share their thoughts and successes for the greater good of all others.
Qualified Star Alliance Gold again!
No matter how many devaluations there are we still find ways to use points
Positive is that i was able to get my mother business class ticket on Lufthansa to visit us in Washington DC suburbs.
With patience I was still able to get 3 seats on United in GX SFO-LHR and back this July/August at the saver rate!
Besides the perks, it’s just such a wonderful game to play. Easy enough to learn the basics, hard to master.
Despite the devaluations, you can still redeem the miles for great trips, they just cost a little bit more
Positive – i have almost enough miles to take my family to Tokyo for the Spring break 2015
Appreciate the occasional glimpses of civility that still exist, like folks helping passengers in rows forward of them get their bags from overheads, etc
Happy big corporations can’t move slowly and the community is quick to pick up on innovative ways to earn miles faster than they can take them away!
Just booked SYD-HKG-LAX return on CX for holidays next year in J using miles generated through the USDM share promo. Bargain!
Looks like 1K is within reach this year
I am shifting my focus from airline points to hotel points. I have had some great experiences redeeming hotel points for luxury properties which I would not have been able to afford.
I’m excited to try out the new United GFL at LHR this summer.
I learned about the points and miles a few years ago. I am grateful to be able to use them to reduce our travel costs for a trip or two trips per year. Even there are negative changes, we can still learn new things from the bloggers, and earn points to offset the travel costs. Thanks.
The fact that those of us in this community continue to share and educate one another so we can find new ways to counter the obstacles that the airlines and hotel chains keep throwing our way
Despite the changes, it would be nearly impossible to travel like we can by using the resources of the forums and blogs and it’s hard to not be positive about that.
I understand that the devaluation is upsetting but miles and points still save me a great deal of money. I travel to Austin for several football weekends in the Fall and the hotels in downtown raise their prices quite a bit but the amount of miles stays the same. It saves me thousands of dollars per year using miles. This blog and the people that post here are a blessing.
I’m one of the few who appreciate what the on board staff of Air Canada flights go through. They keep me happy.
I like that we can combine programs and cards to cover almost every single expense of a trip.
Despite increasing weather and mechanical delays, I am still grateful that my frequent travel allows me to visit family every summer.
I recently booked an awesome trip using Alaska Airlines miles (Mexico City->NYC->Barcelona with a weeklong stopover in NYC). I had to cancel today following a death in the family. They were gracious, helpful and great to deal with. Waived the fees and refunded the taxes, etc. I had paid. Love Alaska Airlines and their generous mileage plan!
I’m thankful that I can earn enough miles to provide for myself and others I my family.
Despite devals, miles are still a great way to enjoy great travel for limited dollars
Just started, but really looking forward to building status with one–or more!–airlines.
I love that above all miles/points allow one to live life to the fullest by getting places and doing things with points that are out of ones normal financial reach
I’m glad vanilla reload spots are starting to appear once again!
Was able to plan to fly my daughter and family — 5 tickets- to Montana for a week this summer, on USAirways miles, when no One World partner flies anywhere in the state (Yay, Alaska/Horizon!)
Miles/points has helped me travel more easily than before. I just surprised my mom a few weeks ago for mother’s day using avios!
Hyatt Diamond requal is also within reach
Even though it’s gotten more difficult, I can still redeem my miles, turn left when I get on the plane, enjoy a decent seat, food and service, some good Champagne, and disembark halfway around the world 10 or 12 hours later…traveling is still magic!
Positive about status challenges!
I’m so excited to increase my travel using points and miles. Seeing the deals that come up and blog posts from awesome travelers really get me excited to try going to new places.:)
Having status makes coach travel a much more positive experience.
If it weren’t for blogs like this one, I wouldn’t have figured out how to take my family of five to Africa for FREE in business class with points.
Positive about medallion upgrades
i don’t expect to fly for “free.” I use my miles to travel in premium cabins for somewhat less than the cost of economy. “Champagne taste, beer budget” is what i call it!
Straightout, if it weren’t for Skypesos, I wouldn’t have been able to start an Early Music Festival in Montana. Just this year (the 10th I’ve done this), I got 13 ff tix for soloists (and instruments — one cello and one theorbo).
new cards, new bonuses!
Happy that so many bloggers generously share their secrets with us, so we can fly free too.