Linda Burbank is the new travel troubleshooter for USAToday.com, replacing Chris Elliott, who they let go a couple months ago.
Valentine’s Flower Offers
FTD looks like the winner so far, offering 20 United miles per dollar spent or 15 American miles per dollar spent.On the whole FTD is pretty reliable. Not as good as Proflowers.com but better than 1-800-Flowers.I’d rather earn Starwood points for my flowers orders, but 10 Starwood points per dollar from 1-800-Flowers (with the bonus 200 points per order having expired) just isn’t the best offer. But if 1-800-Flowers would offer 100 Delta miles per dollar again I’d sure order fast from them!Earning miles for flowers isn’t the only option. Points.com also offers the ability to burn miles in exchange for flowers.
Best practices for mileage earning and burning
SmartMoney.com has a basic strategy piece on accumulating and redeeming miles, including ten tips from experts. Likely nothing new for readers of this blog, but still worth a quick review.
USAirways Raises Mileage Requirements for Awards… but Not Really
Charlie Leocha reports that an internal snafu had USAirways telephone agents quoting a price of 50,000 miles for a coach award ticket with no capacity controls — an increase of 10,000 miles. Apparently the matter has been cleared up — the increase may go into effect but hasn’t yet. Developing…
More double miles for taxes
The Delta American Express is also offering double miles on tax payments made between February 15 and April 15.Update: A reader writes: The Starwood federal income tax offer this year is double points, $4000 MAX, March 15-April 15 ONLY, apparently www.officialpayments.com only. It’s not announced yet. I called earlier this week, and asked. I haven’t seen or verified this yet but it makes sense.
Double Miles for Credit Card Tax Payments
United Visa is offering double miles on tax payments from March 14 through April 30, 2004. I’m still holding back to see who has the best offer. Two years ago the United Visa offered 5000 bonus miles for any tax payment. I paid $5 online. Last year I chose double Starwood points with my Starwood American Express.We’ll see what else comes down the pike…
1000 United miles
Register to receive e-mails about United GroceryMiles and receive 1000 miles.
United iDine Bonus
Pay with your United Visa at iDine restaurants (Sunday through Thursday from February 1st through April 29th) and earn 250 bonus miles each time (up to 10 times for a total of 2,500 bonus miles). You need to have filled out an online profile with iDine to earn the bonus.
Fly in Comfort and then Fly Uncomfortably for Free
A new Notiflyer details a promotion being offered by both Northwest and United — fly from the U.S. to Europe in business or first class and earn a free (non-upgradeable) coach ticket to anywhere the airlines fly.Registration for the promotions is required to earn the free ticket and relevant links to the promotions are in the Notiflyer piece.
Should frequent flyer programs be abolished?
Several readers emailed links to me today to Scott McCartney’s Middle Seat column that argues airlines would be better off without frequent flyer programs. By giving away 10% of their product, major U.S. airlines missed out on some $25 billion in revenue between 2000 to mid-2003, Mr. Beyer says, doing a back-of-the-napkin calculation assuming travelers would have paid for trips taken with awards. Those same airlines posted pretax losses of about $28 billion over the same period. He sees a connection: “There is a cost to these programs, and it’s massive.” Of course this initial calculation is just silly. It makes little sense to add up the free trips and multiply by hypothetical fares. First, the awards wouldn’t all have been revenue tickets without the miles. Second, the bulk of the seats seats being taken…
