Rocketmiles is offering two stackable promotions that will let you earn 5000 bonus Virgin America points through July 15, 7000 if you are a Virgin America elite, on top of the usual miles earned for hotel bookings. PointsHound, which has hotels that you can still earn elite status and receive status recognition with, is also offering stackable bonuses this week. Normally being referred to PointsHound by an existing member get you 250 bonus miles with your first booking and the referrer gets 250 miles as well. I’ve arranged that folks signing up through my link will receive the full 500 mile bonus in their choice of participating programs. (You also get additional mileage earnng signing up through this link as you get a 60 day trial of ‘level 2’ points earning which is ~ 50%…
Alaska Airlines Now Has One-Way Awards on All But Two Partners — Cathay Pacific Becomes Possible!
Back in March Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan introduced the ability to book one-way and mixed partner awards online and for some partners. Initially you could book one-way awards on American. You could also book one-way at full roundtrip price on Delta, or mix and match American and Delta in a roundtrip. Then in April they introduced one-way and online booking for British Airways awards. Most partners were added earlier in the month, with online booking possible. I just noticed at the end of last week that one airline not previously on the list — Cathay Pacific — could now in fact be used to book one-way awards only those awards require calling Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. Cathay Pacific awards are not bookable on the Alaska Airlines website. Here’s their one-way and roundtrip award chart for…
Get Instant Top Tier Elite Status With Accor Hotels
Instant Platinum (top tier) status in the Accor Hotels loyalty program comes around with some frequency, each time it does the signup link won’t stay active for long — sometimes a couple of days, sometimes just hours. Here’s a current offer for instant Platinum status. (HT: Loyalty Lobby) Note that the signup page is just a signup page, no indication on that page that accounts will start at the Platinum level, but indeed it’s currently working as of this writing. You must open a new account, it cannot be applied to existing accounts. And when you do so you must use an email address that’s not currently on file with them. Even if you don’t frequently stay at Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, and other related properties frequently, you never know when you might find yourself…
American’s New Redesigned Boarding Pass
American has rolled out a re-designed boarding pass with a more modern look and more information. Of course it’s not all that radically different. But it is better. It’s a minor thing, the look and feel of the boarding pass, but in general I like it. Compare it to an old card stock boarding pass from American. The new boarding pass will dsplay the TSA PreCheck logo if you’re eligible to use the PreCheck lane (provided the airport you’re using has one). They’ve also changed the elite status and boarding group designator. Instead of printing it, and displaying it as though it were a watermark on the card stock, it will be in the bottom left hand corner and inside of a circle. Black means elite status or other ‘priority access’ eligibility, and if it…
What Strategy for United Elites that Don’t Spend Enough on Tickets to Retain Status Under New MileagePlus Revenue Rules?
Reader C.B. has had United status for a decade or more, but he really does fly on the cheapest tickets and won’t meet the minimum spending threshold for 2015 status based on his spending on United tickets in 2014. So he wrote looking for thoughts on what to do — what airline to credit his United flying to, for instance, with the goal that he would at least have some recognition on United. The goal, then, is Star Alliance Gold which gets lounge access, priority boarding and security and free checked bags. You may be ahead of me, but with United’s unfortunate but not unexpected revenue-qualifier announcement, I know that I won’t be the only one in 2014 moving United flight credits to another [Star Alliance] carrier in order to achieve Gold there — and…
New Stackable First Hotel Booking Bonus from Rocketmiles
Rocketmiles, a website that kicks back substantial miles to you for you hotel bookings (but generally doesn’t provide credit for elite status, and for some chains bookings won’t allow elite recognition, also has a limited set of properties)., has introduced a new mileage-earning partner in Virgin America and has a bonus offer to promote it. Book by July 15 for a stay consumed by December 31 and credit to Virgin America for a 3000 mile bonus — or 5000 miles if you have Virgin America elite status. Those of you that got a status match from Virgin America may have that through June 30 so there’s a bit of a narrow window for maximizing this even more. This is a first-time booking bonus for new Rocketmiles customers, so folks that have used the site before…
How the American Arlines App and My Own Stupidity Cost Me 45 Minutes and Made Me Miss a Meeting
I use the American Airlines mobile app a lot. It’s probably risky in some ways — I’m assuming the risk that the airline’s IT systems will be working and able to generate and scan the boarding passes, and they won’t be limited to working with paper. I’m assuming the risk that I’ll have a decent enough data connection to be able to pull up the app (it has to open and log in) and then connect to open the boarding pass. And I’m assuming the risk that I don’t run out of battery. I’m syncing with two Exchange server email accounts in addition to Gmail and Yahoo. That drains battery on my Android phone. But all of those things are, more or less, a function of the technology. I’m aware of those risks and assume…
Thrifty Promises You a Free Rental Car Day But Changes its Mind
The Associated Press‘s David Koenig covers last week’s marketing debacle where Thrifty Car Rental sent al of their frequent rental members an email saying they qualified for a free rental day .. by accident. I haven’t rented from Thrifty for years (a decade ago they were exceptionally generous with mileage-earning in their partnership with America West). I got two copies of the email, which tells me I probably have two accounts in their database and also that those accounts must still exist. Apparently it was just the wrong data pull. hrifty Car Rental says it’s sorry, but many customers who were offered a free one-day rental won’t be getting that after all. The company says the offer was intended for a select group of top customers but was sent accidentally to many other people. ……
And the Award for Worst Frequent Flyer Program Name Goes to…
Lucky thinks new Star Alliance member EVA Airways’ frequent flyer program has the most horrible name out there — Infinity MileageLands. And it is, no doubt, a bit bizarre and probably the result of a bit too literal translation from Chinese. That’s something that gets brands in trouble. There are famous stories that I’ve never checked out myself because I don’t think I want to know if they’re apocryphal. Like Frank Purdue’s “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” being translated as “It takes a virile man to make a chicken aroused.” Or “Pepsi: the Choice of a New Generation” becoming in Chinese, “Pepsi will bring your dead ancestors back to life.” An of course nothing tops the Chevy Nova in Spanish: “no va”… But I’d like to challenge the assertion that…
Real World Airfare Savings: Using Hidden City Ticketing to Travel for Less
Last year I explained how to use ‘hidden city ticketing’ to save big money on airfare. Airlines often price tickets from one city to another through a hub cheaper than flights that terminate at the hub. Flying United New York to Milwaukee through Chicago is often much cheaper than just flying New York to Chicago. But if you get off the plane in Chicago and don’t board your connection to Milwaukee, you’ve potentially saved yourself a lot of money. This is called hidden city ticketing. In the live example I gave in that post, I helped someone save $1415 on a one-way ticket. That’s a big deal. If you’re interested in the technique, read the post, it walks you through how to do it – and how not to do it – including simple pitfalls…
