PointsHound is a website that will give you frequent flyer miles for making hotel bookings. They will give you 100 miles just for signing up (this is my referral link — the 100 miles comes from being referred by an existing member, and the referrer only gets points when a new member actually makes a booking through the site — if you’d like feel free to add your own referral link in the comments). You can choose earning miles with United, Delta, Hawaiian, and Aeromexico. And while many websites like TopCashBack and eBates will offer cash back for the hotel bookings you make through the hotel’s own website, PointsHound rebates you in the form of miles and has you book through their own system. The downside to making bookings through third party websites is that…
Frequent Flyers Sue US Airways and Hawaiian Airlines Over 200 Million Miles Uncredited From Shopping Portal Transactions
Last June, one of the most lucrative mileage promotions ever offered big mileage bonuses for purchasing web hosting and storage from a company called easyCGI through the US Airways and Hawaiian Airlines online shopping portals. Back in mid-June, the US Airways mall had an offer from web hosting company EasyCGI for 4,757 miles per purchase. The offer had no restrictions on product specific purchases, length of service or quantity limits. It specifically said there were no restrictions. Now, this didn’t seem like a mistake — there was a similar offer being made through the Hawaiian Airlines shopping mall for 7,269 miles per purchase with no restrictions. But even though the Hawaiian mall was offering more miles, US Airways was the bigger deal — both because US Airways miles have more uses with more partners, and…
Save the Date for the Next Frequent Traveler University
Announced on Milepoint, the next Frequent Traveler University will be held April 26-28 at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner. Ticketing for the event, and hotel booking at a special rate, will open shortly. But for now I just wanted to make sure the date was out there so that folks could block it off on their calendars. The next Frequent Traveler University will be held at the Sheraton LAX, November 30 – December 2, and is sold out. 400 folks will be attending to talk about frequent flyer miles earning and burning with Ben Schlappig of the One Mile at a Time blog, Frequent Miler, MileValue, Pizza in Motion, Million Mile Secrets, and Wandering Aramean. And talking talking travel with Cranky Flier and representatives of loyalty programs. And the incomparable Randy Petersen. Details on the…
Wyndham Making Good on Their 16,000 Point Bonus Offer
In the middle of the month Wyndham came out with a promotion of 16,000 bonus points with each of the first three stays at a handful of new properties. The crazy value to the promotion was that many of the hotel properties are really inexpensive, and Wyndham Rewards credits no show stays as a matter of policy (most hotels don’t give you the points unless you actually show up). The promo made it possible, for instance, to earn miles in a variety of frequent flyer programs (by transferring Wyndham points) at less than a penny apiece. Wyndham declared that the promotion was targeted, even though the terms and conditions of the offer were clear that all that was necessary to be eligible to participate was to (i) be an active member (ii) book a stay…
American Relaunching Itself as a Premium Airline… and the Challenges of Frontline Service Delivery
While the trend among US airlines has been to cut costs, American has done as much to make investments in their premium products as any US carrier — and has done so throughout their bankruptcy. Now, many of the investments will take several years to come to fruition. But there’s little question that they are working to position themselves as a top end premium carrier worthy of the corporate contracts (where they already have an advantage) and paid high yield traffic (where there’s less competition among US airlines). It’s even tough to keep up with all of the product improvements that have been announced over the past year or so. They’re putting brand new international seats into their aircraft: a new first class seat (which will ultimately be offered only on their 777-300s) and a…
American’s Problems Won’t Be Magically Solved By Merging With US Airways
Cranky Flier has a piece today where he answers a reader asking him whether he’s biased against American Airlines by basically saying no, he isn’t biased, American just does stupid things and needs a merger to save themselves. Go read the piece and decide whether a more correct, Straussian reading of his post is “Yes, I am biased against American.” He begins with a shout-out to American’s achievements in the 1980s: [T]hroughout the 1980s, American was a shining beacon of awesomeness. It had previously effectively invented the computerized reservation system. It was the first to really make a frequent flier program relevant. It perfected the hub and spoke system. And it successfully developed modern revenue management. He cites several big errors made at the same time — acquisitions and hubs that didn’t work out —…
Malaysia Airlines Joining Oneworld on February 1
I have an upcoming trip to Malaysia booked with American AAdvantage miles and have been holding off booking my domestic connecting flight, hoping that I could just add a segment on Malaysia Airlines at no cost (other than for incremental airport taxes). Sadly that isn’t to be. Malaysia Airlines was supposed to join in the second half of 2012. Now word is that their join date will be February 1, 2013. They will be a good addition. And as their oneworld admission approaches, there’s a good chance that their frequent flyer partnership with Delta could come to an end. I expect to much prefer the options provided by American for Malaysia redemption over those that featured in Delta’s Skymiles program — specifically Delta didn’t permit first class redemption and added fuel surcharges to awards on…
Good Luck With Your Travels During the Storm!
I’m home in DC, not much looking forward to the coming storm, not planning to fly Monday through Thursday so my travel plans aren’t being interrupted. But I did try to log on to my power company’s website, to no avail. And according to DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com the problem isn’t me: Not very encouraging when the power company’s website is down before the storm. But at least I’m not flying, because today is already bloody. The largest number of proactive cancellations were on United, focused primarily on the New York area but also Washington Dulles. In total and across all airlines over 1200 U.S. flights have been cancelled so far today. Tomorrow there will be many, many more cancellations. Here are the re-accommodation policies of various US airlines. Alaska Airlines American Delta JetBlue Southwest United US Airways…
50% Off Club Carlson Award Nights in Europe, Middle East, and Africa
Club Carlson is offering a 50% discount on award nights at some hotels in Europe, Middle East, and Africa for bookings made between October 29 and March 30 and stays consumed from November 1 through March 31. You need to Use promo code 50REDEEM when searching for your booking in order to receive the discount. Participating hotels are here. Me, I especially like the Radisson Blu properties so value the 50% discount most at the participating ones in places like Bergen, Norway; Jeddah; Addis Ababa; Dresden; Budapest; and St. Gallen, Switzerland. The offer is valid for standard room awards only, and not to cash and points bookings.
25% Off Alitalia Bookings Through October 28
Alitalia’s 25% off promo code, which was originally supposed to expire on October 26th, has been extended for bookings made by October 28th. You just need to book your tickets on the Alitalia website and add coupon code SPECIAL at checkout for travel between November 5 and March 27 (with December 20 through January 6 blacked out for this discount). Sadly I am not currently aware of any fixed-amount $315 discounts this time. But if you have any need to fly Alitalia, or go to Europe (or fly from or within Europe) this is a great deal. (HT: The Flight Deal)
