Yesterday I wrote about a new, better offer for my favorite credit card: 40,000 point signup bonus after spending just $2000 on the card within 3 months. Commenter nknight wrote about having applied for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card when the signup bonus required $3000 in spending. Since it’s since been reduced, I suggested sending a ‘secure message’ through the Chase website asking to have that amount reduced to $2000 based on the new offer. My guess had been that this wouldn’t be successful – that I’ve usually seen Chase match new bonus amounts offered within 90 days of signing up for a credit card, but that I hadn’t seen them reduce the requirements to receive a bonus. Well, turns out my skepticism may have been wrong. Commenter Esteban reports: I got my spend requirement…
The TSA Song (“Twisted Sexual Assault”)
(HT: Frequently Flying)
More Details on the Amazing Alaska Airlines $350 or Less First Class Opportunity
Jared of Online Travel Review has been doing yoeman’s work on the amazing deal where you can buy Icelandair miles and fly Alaska Airlines first class to anywhere they fly in the US and Canada (including Hawaii and Alaska) for $350 per person or less. Today he explains Icelandair’s rules for connections and stopovers on these awards, which offers insight into a problem some folks have had getting their itineraries approved. You’re permitted one stopover on an award. Yes, a stopover is permitted even on a purely domestic U.S. award ticket! A stopover is considered anything more than 4 hours. So if your connection in, say, Seattle is 5 hours then that is a stopover. If you overnight in Seattle both directions that isn’t allowed because it’s considered two stopovers. So one connection (or stopover)…
Frequent Flyer Events Get Mainstream Attention
Filmmaker Gabriel Leigh has a CNNgo piece on the frequent flyer experiences that the Milepoint.com community puts together — Frequent Traveler University and the MegaDO trips. A few months ago I found myself headed to a Sheraton hotel in East Rutherford, New Jersey, one of the more anonymous towns in the United States. The purpose of my trip: Frequent Traveler University, a two-day series of seminars on getting the most out of miles and points. …At these events, you tend to get a rapid-fire guided tour of the extremes people go to for miles. The language might sound unfamiliar to the non-enthusiast, peppered as it is with phrases unique to the flyer world. A “mileage run,” for example, is a flight taken for the sole purpose of accumulating miles or attaining elite status. Most of…
3000 Points on Your Next Priority Club Stay
The great thing about Priority Club is that they offer so many promotions, they’re usually marketed towards specific subsets of their members but usually anyone can register. I don’t plan stays based on my ability to actually earn these bonuses. They don’t always post. But more often than not they do Here’s one from Heels First Travel: I just got an email, apparently the first of four, to help me maximize my Priority Club points, offering 3,000 bonus points on my next stay. Use code: 7974 to register. On Sunday Loyalty Lobby outlined the different kinds of promotions that Priority Club offers and which are usually stackable. The best source for staying up to date with all of the bonuses offered is Priority Club Insider.
2-Day Offer to Buy United Miles at 2.3 Cents Apiece
In April United offered a 40% discount on purchased miles promoted to its Facebook and Twitter fans. The offer is back and only available through Wednesday at 11:59pm Central. If you purchase between 15,000 and 100,000 miles the cost is 2.1 cents per mile plus tax. You can’t use it for less than 15,000 miles so if you need just a few thousand for your next award this is no help. And the price is too high just to bulk up your account. But if you need some miles towards your next international business class award, and you have a reasonable likelihood of redeeming that award in the near-term, this is the lowest price that United offers to sell miles. Of course, it’s not that much less than you can straight-up buy points from Chase…
Understanding Starwood Preferred Guest: Hotel Awards
Key Link: Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card Starwood Preferred Guest isn’t an especially rewarding program for earning points based on the money your spend at its hotels. It is, however, an exceptionally generous program for earning points from the money you spend on its credit card. Starwood hotels are your Westin, Sheraton, Le Meridien, W, St. Regis, and other associated brands. A non-elite member earns 2 points per dollar spent at a Starwood hotel property. It’ll take $5000 spending (without elite bonuses) to earn a free night at a medium category (four) hotel. Leaving aside even the top of the top hotels in the chain, it’ll take $15000 spent at a hotel to earn a free night at their very expensive properties. Compare that to Hyatt where a non-elite earns 5 points per dollar…
Why the Best Small Community Airport Subsidies Reveal We Should Shut Down that Program
Today Cranky Flier takes up the task of defending the undefendable — highlighting ‘worthy’ investments this year by the federal government’s Small Community Air Service Development grants. There were 61 applications from communities for money from the government, 33 were funded (“because the ones who know about the programs are the ones that get the money!!” said the late night infomercial…). Cranky highlights five and declares, “That’s it for my favorites.” Not a good ratio or one that the program can be proud of. And he promises that tomorrow we’ll hear about the silliest winners. But I wouldn’t even come close to giving him his wins for the program. They’re wasteful and silly. Here’s Cranky on giving Los Alamos, New Mexico (9) flights a day to Albuquerque. The Los Alamos Shuttle Lastly, there were a…
Why Government Travel Policies Make Sense For No One.. Except Government
Last week I posted that federal government per diem allowances for travel would stay the same in 2013 as in 2012. There was a big move afoot to reduce travel costs, in one model by excluding higher-end properties from the calculations of what hotels generally cost. The hotel industry enlisted its lobbyists, got Members of Congress to object, and the move was killed. Instead, the approach to ‘saving’ money was to ‘not spend more‘. Much to the disappointment (though relief) of members of Congress representing cities with the most hotel rooms in the world and with the most hotel rooms being sold at federal government rates in the world. This post led to some interesting comments, both in the original post and with folks over email. (Some of the ideas in this post are mine,…
Doing My Best, and Trying to Do Better With This Blog (or Why it’s Not 2002 Anymore)
When I first started blogging in May 2002 it was just sort of a way of chronicling my thoughts as I came across deals, learned more about frequent flyer miles, and wanted to share my enthusiasm with a small group of friends. I used to write something and get 30 hits a day. My ‘big break’ that led to a few HUNDRED views a day was when I started producing IMPEACH NORM MINETA bumper stickers back when he ran the Transportation department (which then had control over airport security). It was my ‘personal blog’ and I still think of it that way. And I often have the sort of filter that one expects from a blog that isn’t actually being read by anyone. Back in 2006 a New York Times piece covered me (with a…
