I’ve written about this before — last month even — but it bears repeating. I had a conversation yesterday with someone who reads this blog regularly, who has seen me write about earning cash back or miles from online shopping including for booking travel online, basically free money or miles in your pocket for the purchases you’re going to make anyway. He knew about these posts and yet still wasn’t doing it. See for instance The Broad Array of Travel Sites Offering Cashback via Ebates and Purchasing Airline Tickets for Others, Getting Something Back for Yourself. Three things here: First if you use my referral link for E-bates we both get $5 with your first qualifying purchase, I won’t turn that down. Second, you should always consult EvReward before making any online purchase, it will…
Just Crossed the 2 Million Mile Threshold with American
I don’t mean this to ‘brag’ but just to share my genuine joy and excitement with all of my regular readers. American has been unique among airline programs in offering lifetime status for earning miles from any source,. So whereas United and Delta have offered lifetime status for millions of flight miles, American has offered lifetime status for millions of miles including those earned from credit cards, transfers in from other programs, really just any partners they have. I even earned American miles on my British Airways first class flight from London to Toronto (shh…), those are most of the qualifying miles in my statement snapshot below, and then I sent a note to AAdvantage because I was disappointed in the flight service received during the British Airways strike, and they deposited a bunch of…
What Some People Redeem Their Miles For
100,000 Air Canada Aeroplan miles will buy a roundtrip first class award from, say, San Francisco to Zurich or Frankfurt connecting on to Italy. Or it will buy four blenders or ten LCD toasters! Then there’s the 19,500 mile sunglasses. Or 24,000 miles for towels. Did I mention, though, that when you redeem that first class award to Europe, they have towels in Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal .. and you don’t have to redeem extra miles for them?
Wendy Perrin and Randy Petersen Do Lunch
Wendy Perrin writes about her lunch with Randy Petersen in the Conde Nast cafeteria. Having enjoyed lunch with Wendy there myself, I’m curious to hear how the pad thai was (I picked sushi), but I’m not sure I agree with all of the advice and predictions that Randy offered. Wendy points out that Continental miles haven’t in practice been expiring (despite a policy that would allow the program to deactivate dormant accounts), whereas United expires miles after 18 months of account inactivity. Radny sees this as a huge issue: Randy’s #1 piece of advice to the heads of the new combined program is: Do NOT impose an expiration date on Continental miles! To me it’s a no-brainer for the combined entity to adopt United’s approach. United recently reported that they recorded a $64 million gain…
United Improves Online Award Booking .. a Little Bit
The United website’s award search capability has added a new tab, in addition to saver and standard awards there’s now a tab you can click for Star Alliance awards. So far they’re only loading Continental and US Airways inventory, not the rest of their Star partners, but it’s a start. Star Alliance Awards Star Alliance® Awards give you the flexibility to fly on any of our Star Alliance airline partners for the price of a Saver Award. Currently, only Continental and US Airways flights be booked on united.com. If you are looking to fly on any other Star Alliance airline partner, please call 800-United-1 to book your award. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights. This is hugely significant on several levels. First, one-way awards. The challenge booking one-way awards on…
25% – 35% Bonus for Transferring Hotel Points to American Miles
American is offering a 25% bonus on converting hotel points into up to 20,000 miles and a 35% bonus for transactions converting hotel points into more than 20,000 miles. 40,000 Starwood points, for instance, become 67,500 American miles under this promotion. (Just don’t covert more than 60,000 Starwood points per day in order to maximize your bonus. You can’t get more than 99,999 American miles posted by Starwood in a day, and converting 80,000 Starpoints would generate 100,000.) American’s promotion email calls this an “Unprecedented Offer” .. I’d hardly call it unprecedented when US Airways is offering a 50% bonus on hotel point transfers, and Delta once offered a 150% bonus. So it’s definitely precedented. But still it seems worthwhile if you have a strong need for American miles. Offer expires June 30, 2010, and…
My Laviator Experience
Heather Poole pioneered the laviator idea, taking photos of yourself in airplane lavatories. About a week ago, Flying with Fish posted laviator photos of himself. I thought I’d continue the meme, from onboard Cathay Pacific First Class: What could be trashier than taking a picture of yourself in the lavatory? Except here I am, in a first class lavatory. Oh, sweet irony!
Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus 50% Off Multi-Passenger Award Redemption
Thai Airways is offering a 50% discount when redeeming awards on Thai international flights for 2 or 3 passengers for bookings made between July 29 and August 12 and travel through October 31. Award travel is valid for member self and an Award Nominee, or 2 Award Nominees, and both must travel together on the same departing flight and in the same class of service. Return travel can be separate. (Via TM Travel World.)
US Airways 90 Days of Silver Status for Ticket Purchase
US Airways is offering free silver status for 90 days. Registration required by August 15. Must purchase a non-refundable ticket at usairways.com for travel only on US Airways/US Airways Express and only for travel in the United States. Ticket purchase required by August 15 for travel beginning by September 15. Status will take up to 7 days to be reflected in your account after purchasing a ticket. Members who were elite members in 2009 or who have had complimentary or trial US Airways elite status within the past two years aren’t eligible. US Airways Silver status is of course also Star Alliance Silver, which gets you a free checked baggage allowance. (Via One Mile at a Time)
Vietnam Airlines Award Availability a Boon for Skyteam
Vietnam Airlines has joined Skyteam, and Wandering Aramean (sbm12 on Flyertalk) notes that they publish their award inventory publicly in global distribution systems like Worldspan and Apollo. And most importantly that partners are booking business class awards into what’s traditionally thought of as a discounte dbusiness class inventory. If indeed Skyteam partners like Delta are booking business class awards on Vietnam Airlines from the J bucket as it appears, and they allow members to book whatever seats that “VN” releases into J inventory, Vietnam Airliens’ addition to Skyteam is huge. Vietnam Airlines flies to Frankfurt and Paris, providing a great redemption opportunity from Europe to South Asia and beyond. They have decent North-South routes as well. If you can find a seat to Asia, most of the time you get then get where you’re going…
