As a followup to American AAdvantage President Maya Leibman’s online chat with Milepoint.com members, she’s gone through questions that were submitted but weren’t answered due to lack of time, and written up answers. The new American AAdvantage rep on Milepoint has posted a link with additional questions and answers from Maya. I was especially intrigued to hear hints about the return of threshold bonuses for AAdvantage members flying beyond 100,000 miles per year. Hopefully they’ll keep segment qualifiers in mind, too, as they develop this part of the program.. Meanwhile, I understand there will be more questions and answers to come, and great to see the new American AAdvantage presence on Milepoint.
Hilton Point Stretchers are Out for Stays through November
Via Deals We Like, Hilton has published point stretcher availability for June through November. Point stretchers discount award redemption by 40%. They’re offered mostly at properties during their low seasons or when they otherwise expect quite low occupancy. Just as paid rates go down, when a point stretcher is available point rates go down as well. That’s especially worthwhile on shorter stays. For stays of four nights or more there are discounted awards for co-branded credit card holders and for HHonors elites (which even includes silver members, and you only need to have one of their credit cards for that). For instance, I recently redeemed for a 5-night resort stay and the redemption was 20% offer (32,000 points per night instead of 40,000). Of course, had the hotel been on point stretcher, it would have…
Spirit Airlines Runs an Anthony Weiner Sale!
It’s HARD to resist their fares! Screen caps from the Spirit Airlines website today: My wife says I’m a 13 year-old boy. Which is why I really, really want to like Spirit Airlines. But even if I like their advertising, I won’t actually fly them. Spirit is a bad airline and even when I defend them (as I often do), it’s in the context of “they have a right to be bad, and this is what the customer is buying and they shouldn’t expect anything different.” Spirit used to charge extra for booking online. That made carryon baggage fees. Their President, who spawned the ‘cockroach’ movement amongst passengers when he was at US Airways for saying publicly that passengers on low fares aren’t people they value, writes nasty emails to internal staff about his customers…
US Airways 100% Bonus on Purchased Miles is Back!
At one point — between November 2009 and November 2010 — US Airways had regular offers of a 100% bonus on purchased miles, either 9 or 10 of 12 months I believe. But in 2011 they’ve focused mostly on either targeted offers or offers with components designed to determine what drives consumer behavior and optimizes the sort of purchases that they’re looking for. In April and May it was a mileage transfer bonus and a purchase miles bonus only for co-branded credit card holders. Mid-February through March they required use of a downloadable app in order to qualify for the full bonus. In January it was an offer targeted at past mileage buyers. They also discounted rather than bonusing awards. They must have had enough fun with the analytic toys, because they’re back to offering…
$10 Discount Coupons for Airtran ($20 Savings Roundtrip?)
Airtran is offering $10 discount codes in conjunction with Little Debbie. One code per email address. Book by August 31 for travel August 1 through November 18. It’s one discount code per email address, and the rules do say “Limit one (1) discount per person” though presumably in practice this means one $10 discount per reservation. I imagine you could get two codes, and book two one-way tickets instead of a roundtrip, taking $10 off each one-way (for a total discount of $20 roundtrip). The terms and conditions of the offer do not require roundtrip travel. (HT: scflier on Milepoint)
25,000 Aeroplan Mile Signup Bonus for U.S. Credit Card
Bank of America is offering 15,000 bonus Aeroplan miles with first purchase and 10,000 more bonus miles for $1000 in spend within 90 days of account opening. The $60 annual fee is not waived, I have rarely if ever seen Bank of America mileage credit card offers with fees waived. They’re upping the signup bonus just before Aeroplan ups the mileage required for their best awards on July 15.
250 Free Virgin America Elevate Points
Gilt City/Jetsetter will give you 250 Virgin American Elevate points for registering (and more points with first purchase from each site).
The Best Insights from the Other Travel Blogs in the Past Several Days (Read It All Here in One Place, They Blog So I Don’t Have To)
Priority Club Insider lists various discounted rate offers for Intercontinental Hotels Group properties (some Europe-specific). (Meanwhile, here’s my post on getting the best hotel rates across all the chains and also how to score hotel upgrades as well.) Million Mile Secrets describes how to still churn the Citibank American Airlines cards and how to get multiple cards approved with bonuses at the same time if you’re a first-time cardmember. As I’ve noted here on this blog before, the monster bonuses like 75,000 miles after modest spend that supposedly expired still seem to work. The Points Guy notes a 25% bonus on transfers from the US American Express Membership Rewards program to Virgin Atlantic. There are a few decent award options, such as Gulf Air, but mostly this remains a poor deal given fees that often…
Looking for Reader Input on ‘Blogger Junkets’
I recently had a conversation with a well-known writer about some of the things that are offered by travel providers and their PR firms and that get turned down. From some well known brands that you would be surprised actually ask. Things like paid product placement along with ongoing commissions based on customers driven to the product through the writing. Aside from the fact that this person would lose their job… It made me realize that I’m pretty darned naïve. First, the fact that these offers are forthcoming suggests that it’s going on a whole lot more frequently than I realized. Even though I rarely read blog posts noting that the content was sponsored. Lots of travel bloggers that I read get comped trips. The Points Guy, who deserves much congratulations for leaving his job…
When I Have My 15 Minutes of Fame, I Won’t Be Flying Southwest
I don’t follow TMZ, and didn’t know who Scott Disick was. But I do now. Kourtney Kardashian’s boyfriend flies Southwest. He’s apparently the worst kind of gate lice, instead of waiting to board he tries to bribe the gate agents to let him on first and shoves ahead of families with small children. (Maybe he got confused and thought he was on United, thinking he had purchased ‘premier for a day’..?) His representative, howver, denies both the bribe and pushing ahead of the kids. But his representative lacks credibility, also claiming that the Chicago-Midway to Islip flight was diverted to Detroit, which didn’t happen. And yet for some reason Southwest reserved an exit row seat, and no F16s were scrambled.
