There is a very important lesson, that’s easy to forget sometimes. Your frequent flyer program is lying to you (although some lie more than others). There’s no purity here, so the offenses are all relative and need to be kept in perspective. Still, United coming right out and saying that they don’t keep their promises and don’t need to should be galling. Despite explicitly promising in late 2011 not to take away benefits or confirmed upgrades from million mile flyers, United did exactly that in early 2012. A lawsuit was filed for breach of contract, with one suggesting being that the million miler program was separate and apart from MileagePlus itself and the latter’s claim that members have no rights and United could do whatever it wished wasn’t a get out of jail free card.…
Potentially Huge: Earning Miles for Paying Your Bills at 7-11 With Debit and Gift Cards
Doctor of Credit writes about 7-11 ATM bill pay as a tool for using PIN-enabled gift cards and mileage-earning debit cards to pay bills. Many 7-11 stores now have the ability to pay bill via their ATM machines. You can find which ones have the feature here. These allow you to use some PIN enabled gift cards, line OneVanilla cards. And it allows you to use debit cards, like my Suntrust Delta debit card (that I haven’t heard any recent successful reports of signing up for, some I’m grateful for my legacy card that earns 1 Delta mile per dollar; eventually that has to go away). You can use the machine to pay bills like cell phone, cable, and insurance — all things I pay directly by credit card anyway. You can also pay some…
25% Off Virgin Atlantic Economy and Premium Economy Awards
Virgin Atlantic a 25% off award seat sale discounting economy and premium economy redemptions. This is a sample of available cities and roundtrip prices, though the sale applies to nearly all routes. Open jaws are permitted as long as both city pairs are eligible for the promotion, for instance Los Angeles – London – San Francisco is allowed. Virgin Atlantic has run award sales many times over the years. As seen in the charts above, there are fuel surcharges added to award tickets. But those have been reduced for economy awards (the flipside of course, is that this is an offer for economy awards only, so you won’t get a‘onesie’). Award cancel and redeposit terms are generous. It used to be you’d lose 25% of your miles but there was no cancel/deposit option within 7…
The World’s Cheapest Award Tickets (Just 1500 Miles) — And How to Get Even Those Miles Free!
air berlin’s topbonus — a program in which you can earn miles regularly free or cheap — has discounted economy awards — specific routes on sale for as little as 1500 points one-way. Over 500 city pairs are on sale, both long haul and short haul. You must book by September 14 for the current deals. Travel periods vary, but in general run through March 31. Flights are as little as 1500 miles plus taxes and fees each way. You get 500 point for joining (they’ve given as many as 1500 just for signing up!) and you get 500 miles for registering with a duty free shop (offer was extended for 2014). Boom. No doubt some will be tempted to rinse, repeat. Points presumably won’t post quickly enough from the newsletter in order to use…
Lifemiles Eliminates Their Online Shopping Portal
Avianca’s LifeMiles has ‘discontinued’ their online shopping portal. Our e-store has been disabled, we regret any inconvenience this may cause. If you have transactions that are pending, these will be credited once the stores approve purchases and miles to be credited. If you have any further queries please write to soporte@lifemiles.com I’m surprised to see this go. Online shopping portals are usually quite a good deal for the airlines selling the points. And of course the President of Lifemiles has said he considers the miles they sell to be far better for the company than those awarded for flying. This is a company that outdoes even US Airways in selling miles on the cheap. There were some good opportunities to earn miles with the eStore, entirely apart from the feeding frenzy two years ago. So…
Free $5, Get Better Food from Restaurants, and Make the Most of Marriott Points
News and notes from around the interweb: Get $5 free from Paypal A simple rule for making every restaurant meal better The most lucrative way to use Marriott Rewards points is travel packages. Miles Professor offers a good introduction. Pluses and minuses of each of the American Express prepaid products The 20 Most Annoying Things About Airplane Travel (HT: Alan H.) 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!
Double Redeemable Miles for Six Months! From Qantas…
I was sure excited to see a double redeemable miles promotion. I wonder whether my preferred frequent flyer program will match? Hah. At double miles, that makes Qantas’ long haul award chart almost reasonable. Registration is required and tickets must be purchased by September 12 — this is for new tickets purchased between September 5 and 12 only — but travel can be through February 28, 2015. So that’s about six full months of double redeemable miles. This is double miles of course off of Qantas’ ‘simpler’ earning structure. It’s always seemed odd to reduce earning, then increase earning, but what else are you going to do when you’re losing as much money as they are?> Qantas miles are great if you want to upgrade on Qantas. Otherwise there are generally better programs, period. It…
Earn Double or Triple Starpoints for Your Fall Hotel Stays
Starwood Promotions: Starwood is out with their fall promotion — double Starpoints on eligible stays of two or more nights and triple Starpoints if the stay includes a Friday or Saturday night (Thursday or Friday night in the Middle East) between September 15 and December 15. Where have we seen this before? (No quadruple points option this time, nor any mobile booking bonus.) Registration is required by October 31, but there’s no reason not to register now — just in case — even if you don’t expect to make any eligible stays during the promotion period. Perhaps you’re like me: I often find that I don’t know where my future self is going to stay… Here’s the list of non-participating hotels, which is to say that Starwood Preferred Guest isn’t picking up the whole cost…
Handcuffed and Detained: Your Next Trip Report Could Land You In Trouble
A man taking photos of his flight’s aircraft and cabin crew was taken off the aircraft in handcuffs, questioned, re-screened, and then let back on before the flight continued. Some passengers claimed air stewardesses were crying and one asked who would look after her children if anything happened. Nick Taylor, 40, from Blackburn, Lancashire, left the plane with his wife and son and paid £1,000 for new flights home. He said: ‘I had to make a decision, do I risk my family for the sake of £1,000? ‘The air hostesses were crying and there was a scuffle at the front of the plane. There was a very tense atmosphere. So what exactly made everyone so concerned? The ‘agitated’ passenger launched into a series of bizarre antics when his request to see the cockpit was rejected.…
Great Simple Strategy to Use Rental Car Miles and Save on Taxes Still Works!
One useful trick with rental cars — if you want to earn miles rather than rental credit, a preferred strategy with Avis — is not to give your frequent flyer account number when you make the reservation and just request the miles after the rental is over. There’s two reasons that made this exceptionally useful. Usually you’re talking about a small number of miles. One of the best things about it is being able to credit miles to just about whatever program you wish. This let you keep accounts active, keep miles from expiring. So you pick later where the miles go based on where you need them. You save on taxes. Rental car companies generally charge a fee to recoup the taxes paid when buying miles from US airline frequent flyer programs. But once…
