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!
There are still lots of big sign up bonuses.
Miles have helped my 3 kids see their grandparents that live on the other side of the US every summer for the past three years!
My friend was so jealous about my great trip mostly done on points, that she has now started point collecting and is planning a trip to Costa Rica next year on points.
I never would have traveled business class otherwise!
Free travel is great!!
I am just starting to earn miles, but I already love the game!
I would have never been able to pull off a RTW trip (IAD > LAX > CDG > FCO > BUD > PRG > NRT > HKG > IAD) for $412.37 and 25,000 miles without the advice, hints, and alerts I’ve seen on your blog! Thank you!
New to miles and points this year and am amazed at the benefits and value. We’ve been traveling in a completely different style for much less and are loving it! Thanks for the great tips!
I love the way people disseminate information, easy to understand and hard to decode which makes it a fun challenge.
As a young mileage guy, it has been exhilarating over the past year learning all the tricks, dos and dont’s to earning miles. While I am no expert by any means, I am fortunate enough through this blog as well as several others to slowly begin to educate myself on easy ways to earn miles so that I can one day travel the globe. Thanks again for all that you post!
Despite recent devaluations, points and miles still offer huge savings on premium travel!
Learning about travel opportunities can be fun and rewarding.
Just got back from Asia on miles. Despite everything, free flights are still possible.
Its amazing how small the world has become thanks to points and miles – no special thought is given to someone who has visited Europe, Asia, etc anymore. Just think what the same would have been 50 years ago.
I love that miles and points can take me places I would otherwise not be able to go!
Points and miles have allowed me to have some wonderful vacations with my family. Fantastic memories and experiences.
1st class all the way due to miles
I love learning about all the tips and tricks that my fellow travelers post! Thank you!
Knowing the tricks to get miles without much flying has gotten me several great overseas trips.
There are still many sign up bonuses to take advantage of!
New and improved business class
Miles keep me dreaming!
Thankful for whatever is available– IT’S FREE
ALways nice to plan for the next free trip
I love learning all the tips that my fellow travelers can share. Thank you!
Great Hyatt stays recently reinforcing (for me) the tremendous value of Diamond status…
Even though mileage program has been devalued, I have still gotten a ton out of the knowledge that you and other bloggers give out. I’ve been able to fly to Germany, first class to Bali, and have already booked tickets to Peru.
Thank you for all the information you provide.
Points let me reconnect with family without worrying about cost
I’m relatively new to all of this so I still have great sign-up bonuses ahead of me!
Before the advent of travel-oriented blogs, trip planning frequently involved buying expensive (and outdated) travel books. Now, thanks to Gary and his colleagues, readers get extremely valuable (up-to-date) travel information totally free-of charge.
Amazing suite stays that I otherwise can’t afford.
I love learning new things from bloggers. The blogs also save me time from having to search for the information through forums.
The best thing is that we can still complain about all the devaluation, removed categories, and changes. Just think they could just get rid of the programs completely. Every time I walk into a hotel, take a flight, or rent a car and get points, or use points I am extremely happy that they haven’t decided to get rid of the programs completely!
Travel bloggers always help me know when there are promotions to register for or good deals to keep an eye on. Thanks for your help!
First-class upgrades to relax.
I love blog and forum giveaways! Inspires me to give out travel perks to my friends.
I love reading this blog and learning how to earn more points so that I can travel more! Thanks so much!
Appreciate all the shared knowledge
I love how we were able to move across the country with UA miles which we redeemed to get a room on an Amtrak train.
More information sharing than ever before means mistake fares don’t go unnoticed and techniques are refined.
(Entry 3):…and still receiving the benefits of getting to know all the kindred spirits who pursue miles, points, travel…
I like all the trip reports.
Enjoying the daydreaming that goes along with planning a trip with points.
Saving money and doing the things I love which couldn’t be done w/o points.
Miles and points allowed me to get my dad two RT tickets to his hometown (a 6-hour flight away) for his 70th birthday! And I know I’ll be able to do the same for my mom – even if it takes more points, or more effort on my part.
I flew UA last week and was only 1 hour late! 😉
Points are great and rewarding!
Like the transfer of knowledge. 1
1-Like the information provided.
One really positive thing about Points and Miles is that, just like other forms of currency, they can usually be converted from one program to another. So if the value of your Airline Miles drop in value, you can hedge against the devaluation by converting them to potentially more lucrative Hotel Points and vice versa.