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!
You are the best. You give information — the most valuable travel commodity.
Opened my eyes to travel destinations that I may not have considered before
I love to travel and I love reading you blog!
Agree with Patrick…always great to see first class seats given to military members.
I like points and miles because I can try new planes!
Thanks for all the very positive travel tips from thus amazing blog! I’ve got the system down now and can travel and travel!! Merci! Gracias!!
I love reading the blogs and am so grateful to everyone for their willingness to share information and expertise. I have learned so much and owe a huge debt to ya’ll!
I like how points and miles make first class international travel attainable – an experience everyone should be able to have as its a feeling like none other!
While there have been several devaluations this year, I’m glad that domestic tickets at the saver level are still holding steady at 25K or less ;).
For every disappearing deal, a new one will be just around the corner.
It encourages people to explore the world.
Miles got me my Cathay Pacific pajamas!
Don’t love the devaluations, but still love the points and miles!
I always remember that I get the miles, points, flights and nights for free and the companies I choose to do business with have no obligation to provide me with these benefits. I appreciate that they do provide the benefits as a means to gain my patronage of their particular airline or hotel chain.
This one time, at band camp…
It doesn’t matter. The important thing is I got to band camp for FREE!
Getting my parents Business class tickets from JFK – SEA and back later this summer for $42/person!
While the mileage world is indeed hurting, it makes it that much sweeter to still find and execute on the good deals. 🙂
ooh, lots of posters, but keep your fingers crossed.
I’d say the major positive is that despite the devaluations, points earning has been getting much easier. Additionally, some great new cash back cards have helped to ease the pain of devaluations and fuel surcharges.
Although news in the miles & points world is mostly grim, and getting miles in my part of the world is still hard, but the information I learned is very useful to me. We never stop learning, now do we?
Avianca has become a good redemption option for *A awards!
Love the information provided on blogs like this one.
No matter what we should be fortunate for the memories we have made traveling with miles and points!
There’s a silver lining to every devaluation… Maybe.
Hmmm… positive you say? I think I can do that… yes I can: this is great!
More credit card options now than ever
Nice guy offered to share a cab
Trying more programs and sweet spots thanks to bloggers.
On time performance has been getting much better with DL and AS!
skilled bloggers sharing ideas
Point collecting is fun and when you schedule that trip it makes it worth it.
Points translating to.business/first equals more sleep on overnight flights.
Redeeming for business class with points!
I am still positive that by subscribing to viewfromthewing I wont miss out on tips
I like that bloggers share their knowledge & help others enjoy life..
My favorite thing is the bloggers that helped me get enough points/miles to go to Hawaii in 9 days for 2 weeks with air and hotel paid totally!
I love the fact that by taking advantage of the credit card bonuses that Gary recommends, I can earn “free” airline flights and hotel nights by using the cards for everyday spending that I would be doing anyway.
I love this blog so much
unexpected upgrades at Starwood and Fairmont properties!
I love learning how to earn points through my everyday spend.
There are people in the FF community who are super helpful to those of us with less experience.
Keep up the good work Gary, it is much appreciated…
There are still good credit card sign ups!
I love reading travel blogs like yours
I’m excited to see the new UA terminal in BOS this summer!
We practically had a completely free 12-day trip to Portugal using USAIR points on TAP for our RT plane tix, using Carlson’s 1 award nite with the second night for free (2x = 4 nites)at the Radisson Lisbon, UAL points for 2 hotels we never would have found on our own, IHG points for 3-nites in Porto and a Douro River Cruise and one nite using TravelPony with a hotel stay right on the beach at a Mercure property (balcony and all) for only $89. I love collecting points.
Club Carlson free night with award booking when using their visa is a great deal. Using it in Berlin in two weeks.
Deals are still available
Since starting to read your blog and a few others, I have traveled more in the past 3 years than I ever thought I would in my entire lifetime! Thank you!
Gary, you rock at this blogging deal! Keep up the great work!