News and notes from around the interweb: The most lucrative miles for flowers offers The design strategies behind the most innovative new airplane seats. (HT: @A_W_Gordon) Chihuahua runs free in LAX terminal. Turkish Airlines is selling miles at 1.84 cents apiece through June 30 (up to 50,000 miles can be purchased per account each calendar year). Use a card with no foreign transaction fees if you buy. Changes are coming to the program June 1. I don’t expect that Turkish metal business class roundtrips between Los Angeles and Istanbul will cost 70,000 miles any longer. (HT: Loyalty Lobby) 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…
Last Chance: I’m Giving Away 25,000 American Miles Plus Lounge Passes
A couple of weeks ago I wrote that American Express Platinum cards would still get you into US Airways and American lounges through the end of April. Platinum cards lost access a month ago. Citibank is now the sole issuer of cards that offer lounge access with the new American Airlines. And they’ve got – by far – the best credit card offer in the market with a 100,000 mile signup bonus for their Executive Card which bundles American and US Airways lounge access. This month they’re ready to tell you about this card in American and US Airways lounges. If you come in with a card that used to come with lounge access, they’ll give you a club pass (valid for a year). They’ve also given me plenty of miles and club passes to…
Up to $1250 in Free Lyft Rides in 24 Cities Through May 8
I’ve written mostly about Uber, the on-demand car service app, starting nearly two years ago with Why Taxis Suck and What You Can Do About It. Uber offers several levels of service — from blacks cars and SUVs to a model where individuals with their own cars will pick you up and take you where you want to go (for less). In that space they have several competitors like Lyft and Sidecar which I’ve written about less, having used them less. But Lyft just expanded significantly yesterday. And they’ve got a compelling offer to promote their growth. First, don’t use my referral link to sign up. Use promo code SLICKDEALS and you’ll get a $50 credit (which is better than the standard $25 for being referred). Second, in the 24 new cities they’ve launched service…
May the Points Be With You: Double Points and Elite Qualifying for Star Wars Day
I’m currently at Frequent Traveler University, which I’ve described as being like a Star Wars convention for frequent flyers. That’s just mild self-amusement. Virgin America, on the other hand, goes there. Leave it to Virgin America to invoke the holy trilogy (yes, sadly, there were movies beyond the first three). To them, a transcontinental flight is indeed far, far away and they’ll give you double points — that count towards status — if you >register and then book and fly transcon flights between April 29 and June 11. Oh no, they di’int.. And they want the 4th to be with you. You can be a ruler of your galaxy when you fly far away with us on May 4, 2014, and take a #StarWarsSelfie on a Virgin America flight dressed as your favorite Star Wars…
Insights from My Breakfast with the Vice President of Hilton HHonors
Yesterday morning I had breakfast with Mark Weinstein, Vice President of Hilton for the HHonors program. (Full disclosure: He offered, but I bought breakfast; we met at my hotel – a Marriott – and so I was the only one in a position to earn points.) My sense is that they know they took a hit with last year’s devaluation. And they’d like to build some of the passion back amongst the most dedicated flyers. Of course they’re not going to undo last year’s major changes… Mark heard from me more than he revealed things to me, but he did promise that there were no big negative changes looming on the horizon. (They’ve already done that.) My message to him was that: The program is too complex, hopelessly so. Reducing complexity isn’t about taking away…
United’s Jeff Smisek Wants MileagePlus to Be More Revenue-Based
While everyone else is making money — $200 million or more for the quarter for American, Delta, and Southwest — United lost $600 million and says it’s not their fault. If it wasn’t for the same bad weather the airline faced, they say they would have only lost $400 million. When it comes to an airline that believes their customers are the problem, they’re clearly doing it wrong. So what do you do? Be more like the cool kids, Southwest and Delta. In all things, and certain in the frequent flyer space. From United’s earnings call: Michael Linenberg – Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division Okay, good. And then just one other question here. And I guess maybe this would be for you, Jim, as well. You look at how Delta is sort of rethinking their…
Cheap Virgin America Coach and First Class Fares for Flights That Don’t Exist
Virgin America claims they are getting two gates at Dallas Love Field (the rights to which are being given up by American as part of their deal with the Department of Justice so they could merge with US Airways). Other airlines say they haven’t heard anything about losing out on the competition for these gates. The City of Dallas denies any decision has been made. Virgin America is running a sale on those routes anyway. The offer is $79+tax each way between Dallas Love Field and: San Francisco Washington National Los Angeles New York LaGuardia They are also offering 50% off nonrefundable first-class and Main Cabin Select on these routes. Purchase tickets by 11:59pm Central on April 26. Travel for Love Field – San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington National must be between October 13…
1000 Free Club Carlson Points!
Club Carlson will give you 1000 points for filling out a form with your email address, account number and twitter handle and following Club Carlson on twitter but you must be one of the first 15,000 to do so, so act now. Points won’t post for 4-6 weeks. You must be a Club CarlsonSM member to receive 1,000 bonus Gold Points® (the “Bonus Award”) as part of the #HashtagHotel promotion (“Promotion”). To earn your Bonus Award, complete the registration form on the Club Carlson blog (http://blog.clubcarlson.com/) and “follow” the Club Carlson Twitter handle (www.twitter.com/clubcarlson). Promotion limited to one Bonus Award per member. We will award a maximum of 15,000 Bonus Awards. Your Twitter account must be active for a minimum of 30 days to be eligible for the Bonus Award. We will credit your account…
Get a Free Starbucks Star!
This isn’t for everyone, but at the same time when I notice these offers they’re surprisingly popular. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that my readers on the whole like Starbucks. (I already know that you like something free, especially something that starts out too expensive.) I first wrote about free Starbucks stars a month ago. And then more Starbucks stars. And then two weeks ago yet again. Some may say this is too much coffee, too much of a buzz, but we go once more into that breach. Reader @Tdrag97 tweeted me to go to Starbucks.com and log into my account. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you’ll see: Click on the link and an additional link will appear at the bottom of the screen to watch a video. Click…
The Craziest Things We’ve Done to Earn Miles
I asked readers to share what’s on their mind and one reader mentioned earning miles for a hair loss consultation even though she had a full head of hair. That’s a famous one. The offer was 20,000 Delta miles for going in to see Bosley, I did it (with more hair then than I have today) and picked up my own miles as well. I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my life to earn miles. There are things that some people only think are crazy — like buying coins from the US mint with a credit card, depositing those coins in the bank and paying off the credit card; like opening online checking accounts and funding them with a credit card (with banks coding the transactions as purchases) and using the new checks…
