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!
At least the fellow point and mile enthusiast haven’t devalued their friendliness
Living life to the fullest!
An awesome, positive travel experience is boarding the plane, heading for the middle seat in the back, when the agent hands you a new First Class boarding pass due to your elite airline membership level. Bottom line, It pays to be loyal, read newsworthy travel blogs and keep traveling for miles. (Just had this upgrade event on my flight fm HNL to SFO!). Aloha. Mahalo.
love the new Chase partners and the possibility for 1st class suite
With all the cutbacks, maybe FAT america will lose some weight after going hungry on so many flights.
I just want to call out the flyertalk forums generally for being absurdly positive and helpful.
How else can I fly Lufthansa first class and use the FC terminal if it’s not for miles?
I’ve been able to stay at very nice hotel rooms and suites where I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.
Miles are great for last minute bookings!
It always pays to be nice. No matter how bad your day, you’ll feel better and so will the person with whom you are interacting. And once in a while, something really wonderful will happen!
While airfares are mostly up over the last few years, my home airport of BOS has actually seen average airfares decrease, which is welcome.
I’m so thankful for all the info I get from travel bloggers! My family and I have been on multiple free trips now we would have never been able to take without all your help!
A wise man once said: All that is gold does not glitter, but all who travel with points shine like the sun.
Travel bloggers are generous, helpful people leading us on this great hunt for the great deals! Always willing to share, help me get better at getting miles AND will even reward me sometimes. What’s better than that??
Sharing the information is definitely very helpful. I appreciate the IHG & Chase posts – very easy to score free travel!
Blogs provide entertainment made by real people who really travel all over the real world.
TSA PreCheck is such an amazing gift when you walk up to a mess of a security checkpoint but only have 2 people in front of you in the PreCheck lane
My greatest joy is to take my son on Business class/First class international trip to see my family using points.
We used miles to creatively route through Egypt for a quick stop at the pyramids while transiting between Turkey and Jordan!
I am positive that I will enjoy an upcoming award trip that was booked on AA with off season awards = only 20K miles one way to Europe.
I have learned so much from everyone and traveled many places for free on points.
Airline FF programs: The True Equalizer!
I am so thankful to all of the travel bloggers for sharing their knowledge so I can learn from them!
I love the unexpected upgrade when you think you’re merely on a waitlist
I love flying in First for pennies on the dollar.
first time using awards to book free flight to europe and watching my favourite football team for the first time.
Love Gary’s hotel reviews.
Points take me to hotels I would never be able to afford!
Excited for my first European flight in business class, all possible bc of points and miles!!
Being able to travel with my boyfriend to Hong Kong in CX F for free (almost)!
Our honeymoon was booked totally on points, looking forward to 10 days in Italy in free hotels and flying in business class. Thankful to all the bloggers!!
I like free stuff.
Sharing tips & tricks about travel with other frequent travelers.
I used miles to book at great trip to South Africa later this year, and I am using hotel points for each hotel along the way. It would not be possible without miles and points.
Club Carlson second night free for award stays is great!
Blog posts and tips from other frequent travelers allow me to have a better traveling experience!
Great CITI offer for 100,000 points!
Despite all the changes this year, FF programs still provide a way to put intercontinental business and first within reach without breaking the bank.
Best rate guarantees for free hotel stays
Free travel for spending quality time with my friends and family.
I love flying and earning miles for it.
Thanks so much for the free education. And gift too
Despite all the changes there are good ways to earn miles, such as with credit cards…
…and I just love finding and learning about new tricks, such as manifactured spending!
Gary’s advice produced a wonderful gift for me. My sister’s family was in a severe car wreck several years ago. Everyone was Life-Flighted and survived…but her husbanded exceeded $1 million in medical bills so he’s now no longer “insurable”. They are consumed with medical bills and can’t afford to splurge on travel at all. Fast-forward to the end of 2013: Gary posted about a Southwest credit card offering 2+ roundtrips, and his advice on how to cash in the miles before the devaluation. I was able to get the card, meet the minimum spend, and fly my sister and her son cross-country to Disneyworld for his birthday (using the bonus miles). I live nearby, so I had the vacation-of-a-lifetime with my 5-yr nephew & sister… and he loved it, with all the Disney employees wishing him a Happy Birthday all day long. The trip ABSOULTELY WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE without Gary’s brilliant suggestions. I am so appreciative, and I almost hate posting this story here because it will get lost in the thousands of posts. I really want Gary to know what a wonderful gift he gave us with his advice.
Also, the ability to redeem miles for awards and fly for free is amazing!
It’s still incredible to be able to redeem miles for travel you otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford!
Sign up bonuses are still huge (i.e. AA Exec 100k, churnable)
We’re going to Disney World with my sister this Fall entirely using miles and points!
Despite devaluations, miles and points have been very valuable to me and my family, enabling us to travel in comfort (business class) and stay in fabulous hotels (Park Hyatt Milan) that we never would have paid for ordinarily.