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Time to Vote for the Freddie Awards

by Gary Leff on January 15, 2005

Jan 15 2005

Balloting for the Freddie Awards has begun. For 17 years, frequent travelers have been asked to make their picks for the best frequent travel programs via the Freddie Awards. Introduced by InsideFlyer magazine publisher Randy Petersen in 1988, the Freddies allow consumers to rank airline and hotel programs from their point of view. The awards have grown in stature and importance and are the most prestigious consumer-generated awards in the industry. The nice thing is that the Freddies are voted on by hundreds of thousands of real travelers. I get rather sick of having to roll my eyes at the hotels and airlines that claim to be world’s best this and that as determined by an award they’ve funded themselves. When a program wins a Freddie Award they tend to trumpet it pretty loudly. I’ll…

AA Tax Offer

by Gary Leff on January 7, 2005

Jan 07 2005

H&R Block is offering up to 1000 American Airlines miles for filing your taxes with them.

American Airlines AAward AAvailability ChAArt

by Gary Leff on December 3, 2004

Dec 03 2004

American Airlines publishes a chart, perhaps updated weekly, with a rough guide to award availability between select city pairs. This isn’t nearly as useful as Continental’s real-time availability calendar, but it’s a start. The city pairs are all domestic, and availability appears to be listed strictly for coach awards, but some disclosure is better than no disclosure at all — although the color coding (white, yellow, green) eerily resembles something from the Department of Homeland Security.

American Airlines Redeploys Pillows

by Gary Leff on November 17, 2004

Nov 17 2004

American is pulling pillows from its MD80 aircraft and redeploying them to other aircraft flying longer routes. They think they can save a six-figure amount in cleaning costs by not hunting down pillows on their MD80 aircraft. The usual silly explanation is given, however: “It will streamline our cabin service,” Hat tip to Today in the Sky.

Holiday Shopping Bonus Miles

by Gary Leff on November 17, 2004

Nov 17 2004

The online shopping portals are rolling out the mileage offers. United is offering 1000 bonus miles for spending $50 and 2500 bonus miles for spending $100 at one of five select merchants, on top of the regular miles earned. The bonus can be earned three times on purchases made through December 31. Send $100 in flowers via FTD, for example, and earn 4500 miles – for a nice 45 miles per dollar spent. That’s a nice improvement over the otherwise-excellent 30 miles per dollar that’s available the rest of the year Through December 31st, Delta is offering 150 bonus miles when you spend $100 and 500 bonus miles when you spend $250 in addition to regular miles earned with selected merchants at their online mile. If you earn $150 with two or more merchants you’ll…

American Airlines Enters Calls Center Alliance With Hotels.com

by Gary Leff on November 16, 2004

Nov 16 2004

American Airlines has entered into an agreement with Hotels.com to transfer customers from one call center to another. In other words, when you end your call with American the AAgent will ask whether you would like to be transferred to Hotels.com for hotel accomodations. American will even give you 150 miles for completing a Hotels.com stay. It’s strange that American is charging booking fees for making a reservation through a call center at the same time they’re using their call center as a cross-marketing profit center. My strategy will be whenever I want to make a Hotels.com booking I’ll call American, ask a silly question (But not book a ticket! Don’t want that booking fee!), and take the Hotels.com transfer for the bonus miles. The only other place offering points for Hotels.com bookings is GlobalPass.…

Free miles

by Gary Leff on July 4, 2002

Jul 04 2002

Since I have so many new visitors, I thought I’d take a moment to summarize some of the quick ways to click for miles that I’ve posted: 1000 Continental miles for completing a survey 2000 Hilton points for updating your profile Up to 2500 Delta miles for referring new Skymiles members 500 USAirways miles for signing up for their free golf newsletter 1000 United miles and 500 American miles Up to 300 American miles for taking a survey 1500 Alaska Air miles for email signup

I’m on the board of

by Gary Leff on June 20, 2002

Jun 20 2002

I’m on the board of America’s Future Foundation but had to read about the AFF blogging roundtable from Eve Tushnet, Gene Healy, Jen Rajkowski, Bear Droppings, and Heather Hosford. Man, it was popular!

Fly First Class

by Gary Leff on June 20, 2002

Jun 20 2002

I still remember my first flight in First Class. I remember playing with the seat controls and the massage feature. I still have the menu. I can still taste the shrimp appetizer. Believe me, you never want to go back. But… first class is expensive. Fortunately, I don’t pay for it. You don’t have to either. There are lots of ways to upgrade to first class from coach. First, many airlines offer the ability to upgrade for free if you purchase a “full fare” coach ticket. These are the really expensive tickets that are refundable and don’t have a fee for making changes. Other airlines allow you to upgrade such a ticket for a fee. Still, I don’t buy full fare tickets. My employer won’t shell out that kind of money. After all, a full…

Eat Food Get Miles

by Gary Leff on June 19, 2002

Jun 19 2002

A friend asked me today whether I knew about iDine. Of course, I know all about it — it’s great. Here’s how it works. It’s free. You sign up. You go to restaurants. You earn 10 miles for each dollar that you spend at restaurants that are on their list — including miles for tax and tip. You can choose to earn miles on Alaska, American, America West, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, or USAirways. The whole system is automatic. You register your credit card, and the points post automatically when you pay your bill with that card. The only limitation is that you are generally only able to earn miles at a particular restaurant once per month. However, there’s a way around this constraint… a glitch in their system. Just sign up different credit cards…

american

Time to Vote for the Freddie Awards

AA Tax Offer

American Airlines AAward AAvailability ChAArt

American Airlines Redeploys Pillows

Holiday Shopping Bonus Miles

American Airlines Enters Calls Center Alliance With Hotels.com

Free miles

I’m on the board of

Fly First Class

Eat Food Get Miles

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