Via Frugal Travel Guy, Northwest is offering new members who enroll by July 15 up to 6,000 bonus miles for flights. You will receive 1,000 Bonus Miles for any flight you take on Northwest Airlines or KLM within six months of enrolling. If you take a second roundtrip flight on Northwest Airlines or KLM during this six-month period, you receive 5,000 Bonus Miles.
United Raises Fees on Award Redemption and Changes
United is increasing a variety of fees for redeeming awards effective May 15. Change fees go from $100 to $150 (matching changes United made to many of its revenue fares). Telephone ticketing goes from $15 to $25. “Close-in Processing Fees” (1) now $100 (from $75) for ticketing less than 7 days from departure (2) $75 (from $50) for tickets less than 21 days from departure — where the $50 used to apply less than 14 days from departure, so they’ve stretched out the period for this fee. This doesn’t appear to change the fee waivers of United 1Ks (100,000 mile flyers) who can still change their award tickets at no cost over and over, constantly striving for better routings and carriers to meet their needs (thank goodness). (Hat tip to One Mile at a Time.)
A Snippet from Expedia’s Elite Customer Service
I booked a South African Airways ticket on Expedia yesterday. The person I booked it for wanted to include their South African frequent flyer number with the reservation. But Expedia doesn’t include South African in their long drop down box of potential programs. So I dropped a note to the Expedia Elite Plus email address. A couple of hours later I received this strange reply: Unfortunately, due to technical, regulatory, and/or other limitations, we currently do not support frequent flyer programs from all airlines. In this light, you would need to contact South African Airways directly and provide them with the passenger’s frequent flyer number. The number is 800-722-9675. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Technical, regulatory, and/or other limitations?Certainly there’s no regulatory barrier to adding a South African Airways frequent flyer number…
Airtran 50% Bonus for Paying with Amex
Airtran is offering a 50% bonus on flight credit earning for purchases made with an American Express card with travel complete by the end of 2008. Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.
A Mileage Run Primer
Lucky walks through how he goes about constructing mileage runs. A useful narrative for those that have thought about taking an extra trip to earn the next level of status (which is how I generally recommend mileage runs) or to earn redeemable miles.
Improving Travel Photography
I’m a terrible photographer. I have a pretty good camera, at least as far as small digitals go, but I really don’t know what I’m doing beyond point and shoot. I’m also not a particularly steady hand, so I have a tendency to blur photographs (although fortunately my camera corrects for shaky hands to some extent — that setting I’ve figured out!). My picture taking strategy as a result amounts to take lots of photos. I don’t take just one picture of anything, I take several, on the assumption that some of them may not turn out and I really want to be sure that at least one does. Since digital memory is so cheap, I use pretty substantial memory cards, and I can just keep snapping phtoos at almost no marginal cost (ok, a…
Generous Northwest Worldperks Online Shopping Bonus
Northwest is ofering 500 Bonus Miles for every $50 spent shopping at the WorldPerks Mall between May 1, 2008 and June 30, 2008. Registration is required. The following merchants are excluded from the promotion: Blockbuster, FTD, Gamefly, Netflix, Teleflora and Vinesse. But otherwise all merchants are included. Gift card purchases don’t apply towards the bonus, except for GiftCertificates.com and Home Depot gift cards. Bonus is based on net purchase, excluding tax and shipping. The neat thing about this bonus is it isn’t offered on each purchase of $50 or more but rather is based on total purchases through the Worldperks mall. So your $20 and $30 purchases add up towards the promo. And the bonus can be earned multiple times, up to 50,000 bonus miles. This amounts to 10 bonus miles per dollar spent (if…
The Evolution of First Class Upgrades on Alaska, or How to Sit Upfront When There Are No Upgrade Seats Available
Alaska Airlines used to be the easiest upgrade in the United States, thinking back seven or so years ago. Back then upgrades came out of revenue inventory and cost only 5000 frequent flyer miles each way, confirmed at booking. Then they introduced U (capacity controlled upgrade) inventory, if memory serves around 2002. MVP Gold (top tier elite) members could confirm upgrades at the time of booking from any fare, provided U space was available. MVP’s (first tier elite) could do so on full fare tickets. The plus was that no miles were required. Of course any capacity controls are a bigger takeaway than whatever is offered in exchange. And this was the beginning of a gradual devaluation in upgrade benefits. Admittedly, Alaska had little choice — they began flying cross-country and doing so with 737s…
Award Chart Deal for Business Class to Europe
Cathay Pacific used to offer the best award value for business class from the US East Coast to Europe. You could redeem 60,000 AsiaMiles for business class on partner British Airways using their distance-based award chart. Then in October they bumped the mileage requirement to 80,000. Still a definite value compared to BA’s own chart (which requires 100,000 miles to London and 120,000 for several cities beyond). But not the mind-blower it once was. Many a time I had folks transfer 50,000 Starwood points to Cathay Pacific to get the needed 60,000 AsiaMiles and redeem for BA business class. The especially nice thing about that deal is that I’ve found availability on British Airways from the US East Coast to be excellent. One Mile at a Time points out another great redemption value across the…
Free Best Western Platinum Status
Ripped from Frugal Travel Guy: A bank is giving away BW status with a new account, but it seems you can sign up without a banking relationship. Here is the info you’ll need: Go to www.gcciasia.com/scb Enter promo code: BWSCB2008 First 6 Digits of Card: 486419 You’ll get room upgrades, bonus points and the right to buy points at $10 per thousand Haven’t done this myself, so your mileage may vary.
