When I bought a condo I earned six figures in United miles for being referred to a realtor. Basically they were rebating a bit more than half their commission in the form of United miles.
There are opportunities to earn miles for mortgages as well, and for using a moving company. Big dollars are involved in real estate, so big miles are too.
There are several existing offers, and one that’s new — at least to me.
A little over two years ago American introduced multiple levels of prices for these higher-priced awards. Occasionally these cost 20% fewer miles, most of the time they cost a lot more miles.
The price did not vary by flight (how sold out it was, or how likely to sell out) but by date. So some days were more expensive than others. You could still book the last seat available on an almost sold out flight for the lowest extra miles cost if it fell on a lowest price date.
THIS NO LONGER HOLDS TRUE at least for New York JFK – Los Angeles and New York JFK – San Francisco. WITHOUT NOTICE American changed how they manage awards on these flights on Monday August 15.
Expedia.com is selling Delta fares between Los Angeles-area airports (excluding LAX) and Singapore for $1600 round trip in business class.
And you can book American Airlines to China from $1719 roundtrip.
All of American’s transatlantic business class flying is supposed to be done with fully lie flat seats. That’s part of their joint venture with British Airways, Iberia, and Finnair. And it’s the message they’ve been sending to their customers.
That was supposed to happen a long time ago. But it’s been significantly delayed and still isn’t being projected for Boeing 777s until the end of next year.
American also flies some Boeing 757s across the Atlantic and it was reported nearly two years ago that these would get lie flat seats, too.
IHG Rewards Club has moved to ‘gamified’ promotions with different pieces meant to incentivize behavior among members — with the specifics driven by data about your activity so far, like whether you’re a co-brand credit card holder or an elite.
You’ll have an opportunity to earn a minimum of 30,000 points between September 6 and December 15, but there are reports of much bigger bonuses.
Through September 16 Hilton HHonors is running a sale on Hilton points. You have to log in to see the offer, so it’s possible some people don’t get the full 50% off, but I haven’t heard from folks yet that are offered something else.
Hilton usually charges a penny apiece for points, so with this bonus is selling points for half a cent each. That’s tied for the cheapest I’ve ever seen (in June 2015 they offered a 100% bonus on purchased points).
Last fall I spoke with then-AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin and suggested that with their higher award pricing (since March 22), they could loosen their routing rules somewhat. She indicated they were looking at that.
And it appears they’ve started to because back in April they started to allow flying Cathay Pacific or American Airlines to Hong Kong, and travel beyond to India and the surrounding region on Cathay Pacific, as a single award — instead of requiring you to fly via the Atlantic.
Now they’ve loosened this further.
Delta is running a sale on awards to Europe in either coach or business class booked by August 25 for travel between September 23 and April 6. Europe travel is weak, and we’ve seen plenty of sales on paid tickets. In Delta’s pseudo revenue-based program that means spending fewer miles for those tickets, too.
Specific routes are on sale with a 7 night minimum stay and roundtrip booking required.
United partner and Star Alliance member Austrian Airlines has opened the flood gates with business class award space between North America and their hub in Vienna.
In fact there are 8 or more business class seats available on most flights from a variety of cities right now! (There’s coach space, also.)
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Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
