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 being able to get premium cabin tickets for a reasonable price.
This is game that is full of winners.
I like how points let you travel in style.
A credit card offering 100k miles and I’m allowed to have more than one. I just booked 4 rt tickets lax-lhr in October and still have miles left. Amazing!
There still are great deals to be had!
It’s hard to travel in Economy after flying in Business/First often.
Let’s remember it’s still free, even if it’s devalued!
More and more 787’s in the sky.
Still lots of good opportunities out there, particularly if you know where to look.
No fuel surcharges on many airline award tickets.
Thanks to points and miles I’ve exclusively flown business or first internationally for the past ten years.
Miles and points allow me and my loved ones to travel together to places where we couldn’t imagine before. And reading the blogs becomes a hobby and part of my daily routine already. Feeling good that it’s part of my life now.
it allows me to travel in a low cost
Points have allowed me to visit my family in germany for the past 3 years / once each year. and an extra trip to Spain.
Adding a little extra to my European vacation with a free flight to Helsinki on what may be one of the last times with an international stopover advantage. Glad I read about it before booking my ticket and before it went away. Thanks!
US airways still has its share miles promotions!
I’ve never flown international business, only Y, but this year I’m on track to do so because of miles! Yay!
People sharing deals with one another!
I wouldn’t have been able to travel to many of the places I’ve been to in the past year if not for miles and points!
Makes dreams come true
Lowering the cost of travel!
Points and miles have opened the world to my family of 4. Europe, Jamaica, and this summer S America with plans for Africa next summer. And my kids are still in elementary school!
I get to see places I’ve never seen before!
I love lamp and I love miles
Gary: Thank you for sharing both your knowledge and experience. Looks like the credit card sign in bonuses and points offer a much better value than the regular frequent flyer programs after their devaluation.
This is the only way I can take EK F!
IHG Pricebreaks!!
Thankful that I can earn miles to provide free flights and nights for myself and my family.
The points/miles game helped me travel for free with my family and lead me to start my own blog this year. Thanks for the giveaway.
Love your site
I have learned so much from VFTW! Has made the world of points much more straightforward and easy to navigate!
Points will still allow me to fly on Business/First for the price of Y
Hyatt points and cash
Miles allow us to travel premium at economy prices
Love love to be positive about the VIEW! The best resource for people who love to travel and get to know the rest of the world! Thanks for making it a little bit more affordable for us!
Not just miles and points, but all kinds of discounts (like cash and points) have let us experience all kinds of fun travel!
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. We can work around ‘limitations’ until the volatile cycle of the airline industry reverses. The incentives will come back.
I love the trip reports! Definitely very aspirational for many of us.
This community has helped my girlfriend and I travel throughout the country and Europe for pennies on the dollar.
It’s great that Singapore Air is now a transfer partner with Chase Ultimate Rewards!
I love I can see the world when I normally couldn’t afford to
No matter the devaluation, using free points gets you a better deal for your money over paying cash…(well most of the time)!
Even with all the devaluations, I still get to travel with my wife.
She’d totally pick this one as the winner. Ain’t too proud…
It’s still easy to find last minute rewards.
Man. spend has evolved even w/o easy VRs.
The great feeling of a mileage run and getting tons of miles for very little.
Change = new opportunity. It means new ways to earn miles and new topics for bloggers to write about. 🙂
Bonuses through shopping portals and dining!
Status is still reachable and aspirational travel can be attained with sufficient planing and flexibility.
I’ve gotten some great premium-cabin flights via miles that I would never have been able to have otherwise.