So I’ve been at this blog for several years. I’ve shared offers for free status, just for signing up. Folks have gotten plenty of upgrades as a result, whether airline, hotel, or rental car. I’ve shared free miles offers, sometimes from just clicking a link and other times for churning credit cards, savings accounts, prepaid debit cards, purchasing travelers checks, and whatnot. Folks have also gotten cheap trips via discount promotions and mistake fares that I’ve posted. And I’ve worked hard to help folks learn to get the most of their miles, whether via options to transfer or launder via other programs or how to get the best value redemptions or the best return in premium classes using the least amount of miles. Hopefully y’all have gotten your nickel’s worth of free advice! But I’d…
British Airways Free Status and Bonus Miles for Premium Class Travel
I don’t usually highlight promotions for paid premium class travel, but this one is interesting. British Airways is offering residents of Europe other than the U.K. both progressively more bonus points and elite status for a single roundtrip in their longhaul business or first class product. Details are here and vary by your country of residece. The offer is for free silver status for a year based on a single roundtrip in business class, and BA Silver is enough for lounge access across oneworld. In addition the bonus point offers are as follows: Residents of Belgium, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Monaco, Netherlands, and Switzerland earn 18,000/50,000/100,000 bonus miles for 1, 2, or 3 roundtrips during the promo period. Residents of Andorra, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Faeroe Islands, Gibraltar, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland,…
The Best Mileage Management & Tracking Tools
I don’t just participate in a coiuple of airline and hotel loyalty programs, I participate in dozens. That’s great for taking advantage of the best promotions on offer, and it’s great when the time comes to redeem miles because I have s omany options. But it’s cumbersome to manage — all those account numbers, all those passwords, and a lot to keep track of like how soon will points in a given account expire? Fortunately there are plenty of solutions that make this easier — aggregating account information in a single place, allowing login to an account with a single click, updating all account balances at once. And offering it all for free, for a couple dollars a year, or at most a bit over a dollar a month. There are really three sites worth…
The 10 Worst Hotels in America
Ok, we all have our lists. Hopefully no one has experience with all these properties, to be able to make an informed comparison. But here’s a fun list of places to avoid. Beaches Oceanfront Resort in Daytona Beach, Florida: “If you consider Hell a resort, then this is a resort” Ramada Plaza JFK: “We had stayed here about nine years ago–same reason, delayed flight. The place apparently had not been cleaned between these two stays” Velda Rose Reort Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas: “I think Velda died in our room.” Airport Plaza, Brook Park Ohio: “One of the beds was broken and propped up with a stack of Bibles.” Continental Bayside Hotel, Miami Beach, FL: “the cabby laughed when we asked him to take us there!”
American Express Usually Responds to Complaints with Free Points
I’ve complained (on multiple occasions) to American Express when I saw posted on Flyertalk that there was a targeted bonus miles offer that wasn’t sent to me. I’ve written to their corporate office and I’ve used their online email messaging system. The online system is quicker and easier, but writing to their corporate office has yielded larger point bonuses. I’ve also complained about new signup bonus offers that are larger than what I got when I first signup up for a card. American Express has been known to provide the difference in miles or points, or at least part of the difference, as a goodwill gesture. It seems that most points-related complaints are met with free bonus points, at least in my experience (bear in mind that I’m a pretty high-volume charger). Frugal Travel Guy…
Washington, DC to Lima Peru for $285 all-in
This is wide open for May and June, 2010 only. You fly from DC to either Miami or JFK on American and then connect to LAN to Lima. 5-day minimum stay. Last day to depart on this fare is June 17. Fare basis is QLESP516. Non-refundable, non-upgradable (though I’m not an expert in LAN’s upgrade rules), but will earn full miles if credited to American.
Airtran $25 Discount Vouchers to and From Florida, Apply to Each One Way on a Roundtrip
Dan’s Deals tells you how to sign up for multiple Airtran $25 discount e-vouchers and use those on each direction of a roundtrip. Upshot from them is flying to Ft. Lauderdale from $19+tax each way.
Award Booking Services Featured in Travel Insider Newletter
David Rowell’s excellent weekly Travel Insider e-newsletter mentions my award booking service today: Here’s an interesting new service offered by Gary Leff, a respected and knowledgeable commentator about all matters airline related, and someone I’ve swapped occasional emails with for some years now. He is offering to help people book award travel, and says he can both take the hassle out of the process and also use his extra knowledge and familiarity with the ins and outs of award travel restrictions and – well, not so much loopholes as the creative opportunities that can be taken advantage of, in a way that might enhance your ability to secure the travel you’re trying to find. He’ll do this for a $150 fee for one person, and $100 for each extra person traveling on the same itinerary. …
500 Free Marriott Points
Boston-area Marriotts are offering 500 points in exchange for signing up to receive information. Submitting your name, email and Marriott Rewards number is all that’s required. (Via Lucky.)
Are Checked Bag Fees Good for Consumers?
Gabriel Okolski makes the unpopular case that checked bag fees are good for consumers in the long-run. His suggestion is that as a result of paying for checked bags, customers will demand better baggage handling. Now, one possible contrary data point is that Delta is the airline with both the highest revenue per passenger from checked bags and also the most baggage problems per passenger. If Okolski was correct I would expect to see airlines reaping more revenue from checked bag fees performing better in baggage delivery. But fair enough, perhaps this is a process where performance will improve over time and Okolski references innovations that are just now being made to make his case. So we’ll have to wait and see empirically. Although in the current environment, with how tickets and services are priced,…
