Len M. is my US Airways Dividend Miles news ticket this morning. He sends along a promotion to earn up to 100% redeemable mileage bonus on flights through November 17 if you also complete partner activity. If you do one of the following by November 17 then all of your qualifying US Airways flights through that date will earn 50% bonus redeemable miles. Field goal – 50% bonus miles on fall flights Spend $2,000 on your US Airways Visa or US Airways MasterCard® card** Book and stay with any of our hotel partners Book and rent from any of our car rental partners Even better, do one of the following by November 17 and your flights through that date earn 100% bonus redeemable miles. Touchdown – 100% bonus miles on fall flights Fly to or from Charlotte, Mexico City or…
US Airways 100% Bonus on Sharing Miles is Back – the Best Mileage Purchase Offer Returns!
US Airways is offering a 100% bonus on shared miles (miles transferred between accounts) through October 15. You can earn up to 50,000 bonus miles with the offer, which should appear instantly with the transfer. Share miles bonus For a limited time, when you share miles, the recipient will get a 100% bonus – up to 50,000 miles. Just share your miles by October 15, 2013. Share 10,000 miles, give 20,000 miles Share 30,000 miles, give 60,000 miles Share 50,000 miles, give 100,000 miles Transfers are available in 1000 mile increments, and each 1000 miles transferred — up to 50,000 — earns a corresponding 1000 mile bonus transferred into the recipient’s account. The cost for this is “$0.01 per mile plus a processing fee of $30 and a tax recovery charge of 7.5%” — transferring…
American’s Fantastic First Class Availability to Asia for the Whole Family
As a followup to my posts on how to find award availability for the whole family — I’ve written about the routes with four or more business class award seats on Star Alliance airlines (so using United, US Airways, Air Canada points etc) between the US and and Europe and between the US and Asia — I’ve put together an illustration of routes with best first class availability on oneworld between the US and Asia. To begin, recall basic principles. More seats are harder than fewer seats. If you can split up (a family of four might fly 2+2) that makes things much easier. Roughly six months out is a good sweet spot for searching award space. Shorter flights are in less demand. East Coast – Europe is far easier than West Coast – Europe.…
And The Award for Most Overrated Lounge in the World Goes To…
You can read my reviews of the B>British Airways Concorde Room at London’s Heathrow airport here, here, and here. The lounge is supposed to be super-premium, oneworld top tier elite status alone doesn’t get you in. British Airways has a first class lounge, elites are relegated there. This lounge is reserved for BA’s first class passengers and super-premium customers. So it should be nice, in BA’s home airport no less. And yet… the internet connectivity is poor, the service is poor, the food is bad, and the furnishings are becoming threadbare in the cabana shower rooms. Well-kept bathroom facilities Inedible burger It turns out, though, via Lucky, that the Concorde Room has more in common with a United Club at Washington Dulles than I even realized — a poor hygiene rating. Out of Date Ingredients…
A Loyalty Program Offer I Would Never Accept: FREE SPIRIT DINING
Spirit Air’s Free Spirit program now partners with Rewards Network (formerly iDine) and has introduced Free Spirit Dining. You earn 5 FREE SPIRIT miles per dollar spent at participating restaurants. So now you can choose to earn miles for your dining with United, American, US Airways, Delta, Alaska, Southwest, or… Spirit. Spirit’s miles expire after 90 days of inactivity unless you have their co-branded credit card and charge to it every month (although presumably charging somewhat less frequently can meet the 90 day requirement). Some airlines have close-in redemption fees. Spirit’s fees start within 180 days of travel. After Greyhound started a loyalty program in 2006, I coined the conundrum of having nothing good to offer “the Greyhound Road Rewards problem.” Spirit has this in spades. They do not have redemption partners. The reward for…
Hilton’s 4th Quarter Promotion — From a Lump of Coal Up to Quadruple Points
Hilton is now sending out ‘advance notice’ of their 4th quarter promotion, “More Nights, More Points” which is one they’ve run before. We’re giving you an exclusive first look at our Hilton HHonors™ More Nights, More Points promotion. Beginning October 10, 2013, stay two nights and earn double HHonors Points for your entire stay. Stay three nights to triple your points, and four nights or more to quadruple your points. Simply book and stay at any of the 4,000 hotels in 90 countries before January 31, 2014. It’s a quick ticket to unforgettable experiences. Folks on single night stays get nothing, but longer term stays get a generous bonus. The website URL in the email I received was unique to me and didn’t require entering my account number in order to register. The website —…
Did You Know You Could Check Your Wine for Free With Alaska Airlines?
Alaska Airlines offers to check a case of wine for free (even for general members) on flights departing Sonoma County airport in California, Pasco/Tri-Cities, Walla Walla and Yakima in Washington state, and any airport in Oregon. Apparently wineries found that checked baggage fees were a stopper for out of state passengers who didn’t want to make wine purchases and then have to add a cost to transport the wine home. Some wines of course are much more accessible at a winery, others can be obtained at home or by mail, and the checked bag fees can flip the calculation of whether it’s worth schlepping as well and emotionally grate on the customer. As a result of the program, Alasks has gone from checking 2 cases of wine per week per participating airport to 30 —…
US Airways Running Targeted TRIPLE Elite Qualifying Miles
Heels First Travel has the scoop on the US Airways triple elite qualifying miles offer. Airlines offer general, non-targeted elite qualifying bonuses generally when travel is down and their models predict they’ll have fewer elites. It’s a way to re-engage their most frequent customers. In a new world where Delta and United have adopted minimum revenue requirements for status starting next year, I fully expect programs to run the same sorts of predictive models. And especially if fares drop in the future I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become somewhat common to have double elite qualifying dollars offers. There are three kinds of targeted elite qualifying mileage offers, more or less: Incentivize travel on a new, underperforming, or newly competitive route. If a discount carrier starts throwing flights at an airline’s bread and butter…
2500 Free Miles for Joining Saudia’s Frequent Flyer Program
Saudia is offering 2500 bonus miles if you join by September 30. Saudia’s award availability is amazing, flying Saudia from New York and DC it’s one of the easiest uses of Delta Skymiles. Many won’t see value in joining Saudia’s own frequent flyer program and that’s cool, but for those who do free miles are free miles. As part of this offer – in celebration of Saudi National Day – they’re offering 25% off of Guest, Business, and First Class international flights booked by September 30 for travel between November 1 and December 10. I’m confident that three of you will find this useful. (HT: MileNerd) You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe…
Great Fare: $686 from Washington DC to Kuala Lumpur
Via jaunders1 on Milepoint, there’s a Turkish Airlines fare from Washington Dulles to Kuala Lumpur that prices out for less than $700 all-in roundtrip. Here’s a sample itinerary: The fare is $124.50 each way plus taxes and fuel surcharges. Fare basis is WV33XPC. So ‘W’ inventory needs to be available on all of the flight segments. And W fares do not earn miles in United’s MileagePlus program or in the US Airways Dividend Miles program. So a cheap fare but not a mileage run for most. Outbound travel must be during November, or between January 10 and March 10. Earliest return is the first Sunday after outbound travel, in other words a Saturday night stay is required. Interestingly (and irrelevantly) the fare contains a restriction that it cannot be sold in Sudan. I find Kuala…
