Starwood is running another promotion very similar to last quarter’s… except a bit worse.

This quarter’s “Bring on the Nights” promotion offers 2.5k bonus points per 5 nights stayed at Starwood hotels between January 5th through April 30th.  Registration by February 28th is required.

The last promotion for 2013 offered a similarly tiered bonus system for nights but also came with double base points on stays.  I’m unlikely to go out of my way to collect stays at Starwood properties for the sake of picking up points from this promotion; but given I had 50+ nights with Starwood last year, it’s hard for me to not expect a few stays this spring.

Starwood has opened up registration for their double take promotion for summer 2013.  As the name indicates, they’re offering double Starwood points on all stays between May 1st and July 31st, subject to a few hotel exclusions.

As an additional kicker, stays during the promotion booked with the Android or iPhone mobile apps earn an additional 500 point bonus.

Hat Tip: Loyalty Traveler.

American and British Airways are once again offering bonus miles on roundtrip itineraries from the United States and Canada to Europe.  Registration with the respective programs (AAdvantage and Executive Club) is required.

• Each “full fare” roundtrip itinerary earns 20k miles.
• The fifth roundtrip itinerary earns an additional 100k miles.

The promotion is restricted to trips booked on or after March 18th for travel between March 18th through May 31st.  “Full fare” is defined by:

• American Airlines-operated: F, A, J, R, D, I, Y, B, H
• British Airways-operated: F, A, J, R, C, D, I, W, E, T, Y, B, H
• Iberia-operated: J, C, D, R, I, Y
• OpenSkies-operated: W, E, T, Z, A, Y, B, H

I analyzed a similar promotion last fall with a focus on comparing the value proposition between Club World awards and Club World tickets obtained by upgrading with Avios.

One Mile at a Time notes that Alitalia is giving away 2k miles for signing up for their rewards program (by March 30th, an additional 2k for flying with Alitalia, and an additional 2k for having any activity in the account within 3 months.

Dropping in 1k membership rewards points yields 5k Alitalia miles.  It’s not quite a business class roundtrip to North Asia (90k), but it’s a start.

Hyatt’s More Possibilites promotion is now open for registration.

• Every three nights earns 3k Gold Passport points.
• Hyatt Visa holders earn an additional 600 points per 3 nights (a 20% bonus).

It’s not the most exciting promotion, but it’s a slightly stronger rebate than Starwood’s current promotion (2k points per 4 nights).

I noticed in New Girl in the Air’s point purchases recap that Amtrak is once again offering a 30% bonus on purchased points, up to 10k per year.  This brings the cost to 2.12 cpm

This brings the total cost of a Northeast Regional coach one-way to $84.80.  I’ve discussed the value for last-minute redemptions before.

I’ve been focusing on Starbucks elite status this year. As a Gold elite, their lastest fast-track to status (for purchasing a Verismo system) is another devaluation to their program:

Amtrak is offering a 30% bonus on purchased points from now until December 31st.  This brings the cost of 650 points, bought in increments of 500 plus bonus, to $13.75, or 2.12 cents per point.

While Amtrak adjusted the prices for its awards upwards in April, Northeast Regional coach awards still run a mere 4k points (or about $84.62 under this sale) and offer last-seat availability.  A last minute revenue ticket can easily run more:

While booking with Avios is another good-value for short haul flights, capacity-controlled award inventory can be problematic:

From now until December 31st, AA is offering bonus miles on mile purchases.  Additionally, the normal 40k/year cap has been lifted to 60k miles.  Miles cost $29.5625/1k (inclusive of taxes) for purchases of 6k miles or more, plus a $35 processing fee on the entire transaction.

The bonus system is tiered.

As to best amortize the $35 transaction fee, purchasing 60k miles for $1808.75 yields 90k miles, yielding a cost of 2.01cpm.

One Mile at a Time and View from the Wing both note that the 25% off sale that I discussed yesterday is applicable to itineraries originating the United States, not just London.  As a US-originating roundtrip is far simpler than the alternatives, it’s worth examining whether this sale has any value for flights to the UK.

For comparison, a simple AA-ticketed and operated JFK-LHR flight runs 50k miles (in business class) and $2.50.  A quick glance at upcoming award availability turned up a BA-operated flight for comparison.  Thanks to BA fuel surcharges, the award has fuel surcharges baked into its cost of $435.20.

For comparison, the same award is bookable from British Airways and falls under the 25% off sale:

Based on yesterday’s analysis, booking now saves me about $75 in terms of Avios points at my cost of acquisition.  Even under optimistic assumptions about the cost of acquiring AAdvantage miles by credit card spending, there’s a gap of $245 ($225 versus $470) in acquisition costs.

This example shows the rub of the situation:  British Airways imposes asymmetric fuel surcharges for flights on the same route.  For the JFK-LHR flight, BA’s taxes and “fees” breakdown as follows:

In comparison, the total for LHR-JFK is $110.93 higher (due to UK Air Passenger Duty), but the fuel surcharge is $160.74 lower (despite eastbound flights being shorter and presumably having less fuel burn).

For eastbound flights, Avios, even under this promotion, is not a bargain if there are comparable AA-operated itineraries available.  For westbound flights, Avios is relatively competitive when considering the cost of acquisition, especially under this sale.

United is offering 20% off the redemption cost of coach bookings made between now and November 15th to Europe for travel dates between January 15th, 2013 and March 13, 2013.  This brings the total for a US-Europe roundtrip to 48k miles from 60k miles.  The offer is restricted to United-operated flights and applicable to one-way tickets.

American’s off-peak period to Europe runs between October 15th and May 15th annually, bringing the total mileage cost down from 30k miles for a coach one-way to 20k miles.  Rather usefully, the off-peak price is applicable to British Airways-operated flights as well.  BA flights still carry the customary British Airways fuel surcharges, so an “award” with BA transatlantic segments could easily run as much as an outright revenue ticket.

US Airways offers its own off-peak awards for US Airways metal for itineraries between January 15th and February 28th.  In addition to their discount coach roundtrips for 35k miles, US Airways offers business class roundtrips for 60k miles.  While coach inventory seems plentiful, business class is a bit more disappointing:

I’ve started a listing of the best options for purchasing points outright.  While these are only occasionally a good value, the option to buy points can often be useful in topping up  an account for a specific award redemption.

Club Carlson is offering a 50% bonus on points purchases from now through November 10th, 2012.  As points are normally priced at $7 per 1k points, this brings the cost to $4.67 per 1k points.  Club Carlson imposes a 40k points per year purchase cap (or under this promotion, effectively 60k points).

Carlson’s top-tier properties normally run 50k points.  While there have been far cheaper ways of obtaining 50k points historically, purchasing points can be cheaper than paying the nightly room rate.  For one night in Paris, July 12th-13th room rates for the Radisson properties are hovering around $410+.  In comparison, buying 50k points would cost $233.33 under this promotion.

Club Carlson offers additional redemption options in the form of transfers to airlines.

• 2k points to 250 airline miles (8:1)
• 50k points to 8k airline miles (6.25:1)
• 100k points to 18k airline miles (5.56:1)

United is currently running a tiered bonus scheme for transfers from hotel programs to Mileage Plus through November 30th:

• Transfer in 5k miles: 1k bonus.
• Transfer in 10k miles: 2.5k bonus
• Transfer in 25k miles: 5k bonus
• Transfer in 50k miles: 15k bonus

While Loyalty Traveler discusses converting Carlson Points to United Miles en masse to take advantage of this.  Buying 60k points (for $280) for an account with orphaned (6k or more) Carlson points in it can be a viable option as well.  The combined 66k balance converts to 10k United miles hitting the 2.5k bonus tier.

Ordinarily, United charges $37.625/1k to buy miles directly.  This scheme, primed with a small amount of orphaned Club Carlson points, brings the cost down to about 2.24cpm.

SPG is currently running a 20% off promotion on purchased SPG points, bringing the cost down to $28 per 1k points.  SPG limits accounts to purchasing 20k points per year.  The promotion ends November 30th, 2012.

If tied to particular redemption plans, buying points can capture value.

• My night at the Sheraton London Heathrow was a Cat 2 weekend redemption for 3k points, saving $100 (3.3cpp).
• My stay at the Sheraton Brussels Airport was a Cat 4 cash and points redemption for 4k points and $60, saving $180 net–from a normal $240 nightly room rate (4.5cpp).
• Loyalty Traveler demonstrates value in purchasing points to stay at the Westin Resort and Spa, Ka’anapali.   Similarly, there is value for the other Starwood properties (4.83cpp as an outright award for the Sheraton and 2.99cpp for cash and points at the Westin Resort Villas):

Even in “low-value” territory close to the 2.8cpp price, award bookings can offer flexibility that the lowest rates don’t carry.

I am exceedingly late to the party announcing double redeemable and elite qualifying miles on American Airlines as an apology for recent operational performance troubles, but here goes.

For everyone, AA is offering:

• Double EQMs between November 1st and December 31st.
• Double RDMs between November  16th and November 26th.

For elites, the double RDM window spans the entirety of November and December.

The promotion requires registration by December 31st with code AATHX and is good on all ticketed itineraries, even those purchased before November 1st.  Double miles (whether elite or redeemable) are restricted to AA marketed and operated flights.

Try as I might to not look a gift horse in the mouth, the extra EQM do little to convince me to hop on a few more AA planes than I already was going to.  (The redeemable miles, on the other hand…)

As a follow-up to last month’s 100% bonus on shared miles, US Airways is now offering a 100% bonus on purchased miles to the general public.

US is charging $37.625 per 1k miles (inclusive of taxes), bringing the total cost for 100k miles to $1881.25.

As I had a string of Starwood stays last week, I was far more concerned with SPG’s Better by the Night promotion and overlooked the other promotions that were more quietly announced.  Loyalty Traveler notes another promotion, one for Aeroplan miles, that stacks for nights between September 10th and December 9th:

• 3 eligible nights earns 3k Aeroplan miles or 5 nights earn 5k miles.
• If at least 3 nights are in Canada, SPG is offering an additional 3k miles.

As I’ve had 6 eligible nights since September 10th already, I went ahead and registered today.

While Aeroplan suffered a number of devaluations last year, both explicitly in its award chart and more quietly in the form of fuel surcharges, the program has still been quite good to me in the aftermath.

United has altered the terms of its unadvertised promotion (at least in the United States) for credit card spending between August and October.

It looks like my British Airways and Alaska Airlines (offering 3 points per dollar on gas/groceries/drug stores/restaurants until the end of the year)  cards can get some attention instead.

United is currently offering a 5k mileage bonus for spending $1k between August 1st and October 31st, including spending from prior to registration.  Given that these sorts of promotions ought to encourage marginal spending, the lack of advertising for it (I saw it on View from the Wing who saw it on Milepoint) defies common sense.

American and British Airways recently kicked off  a promotion for roundtrip travel in premium cabins/near-full fare economy between the U.S. and Europe, September 25th, 2012 through January 31st, 2013.  The promotion has tiers according to the number of trips taken:

• First roundtrip: 15k AAdvantage miles (or Avios)
• Second roundtrip:  35k AAdvantage miles (or Avios)
• Third and subsequent roundtrips: 50k AAdvantage miles (or Avios)

While I normally don’t dwell upon paid business class (or even full-fare coach), American’s terms include British Airways World Traveler Plus fares booked into W, E, and T.  Since I received my BA visa from Chase, I’ve been wondering what I would do with the Avios I’ve been accumulating.

British Airways offers a rather sane route for international upgrades.  Upgrades with Avios are available to the next cabin of service if there is award availability for that cabin.  (This might be less than ideal in its own way, but it feels far more straightforward than looking through United.com for “R” inventory to confirm upgrades at booking.)

Since BA considers its premium economy product (World Traveler Plus) a separate cabin between its coach product (World Traveler) and its long-haul business class product (Club World), one has to purchase a premium economy ticket to upgrade to business class.  The base Avios for JFK-LHR is 20k, so the cost to upgrade (in terms of Avios outlayed) is 10k in each direction.

I’ve been looking to fly BA Club World for some time, but I haven’t quite begun to tolerate the rather steep fuel surcharges levied by BA (for nearly all of its awards) or by AA (for BA-operated awards).  To put this into perspective, consider a simple roundtrip between New York and London in business class the MLK weekend this upcoming January.  As a baseline, I’ll lookup the cost of booking this trip as an award with American.

There’s a bit of BA-operated award availability that weekend:

Great.  50k miles each way makes 100k roundtrip… but that range of $2.50 to $700.00 in “Taxes and Carrier-Imposed Fees” is rather ominous.

If it sounds ominous, it probably is ominous.  The total cost of this award is 100k AAdvantage miles and $972.60.  Booking as an outright award with British Airways is similarly grim, 80k Avios and $1151.25:

Now that we have BA flights with business class award space available, we can price a premium economy itinerary with ITA to get a feel for the cost of upgrading a revenue trip.  Since AA showed availability on only the BA flights out of Newark (and not JFK), we can request only those flights from ITA:

As BA186 and BA189 fly only between Newark and London Heathrow, ITA is offering us a single itinerary:

Clicking through on the price offers a detailed fare breakdown:

With a price in mind, we can now go book via BA’s website, booking a flight with cash and upgrading with Avios.  As expected BA186 and BA189 are available.

Clicking through yields a bit higher of a price (due to increased fuel surcharges levied by BA on business class tickets):

In the price breakdown, there’s a small button to see the full details of where our money is going.  The discrepancy is entirely attributable to the $370 increase in fuel surcharges.

Chase has been offering 10% off BA-operated itineraries booked via BA.com for its US-based cardholders.  This discount ends at the end of the year for outbound travel occuring in 2012, so it is unfortunately not applicable to this particular trip.  Nonetheless, as this trip is booked into a “T” fare bucket, it does qualify for the promotion that I began this post with.

This particular trip costs 20k Avios points and $1751.25, but it earns miles on the itinerary (approximately 7.6k with class-of-service bonus) and under the US-Europe roundtrip promotion (15k for the first roundtrip).  Recall, the net costs of an AA award operated by BA were 100k AAdvantage miles and $972.60.  Factoring in the opportunity cost, there is a tradeoff of 122.6k AAdvantage miles for $778.65 and 20k Avios points.  Even under the most optimistic of valuations for Avios (1:1 with AA), booking BA-operated flights with AA offers a platry 0.76cpm valuation.

Other possible routes to London in Club World include waiting for a business class fare sale ($2012 roundtrip, as we saw this summer) or booking a much more sanely priced, AA-operated award.  For my sample dates of travel, only AA First Class was available on the outbound flight, bringing the total for the roundtrip to 112.5k AAdvantage miles and $286.70.

Delta has unveiled a similar promotion for flights between the the U.S. and London in business class/near-full fare economy.  Since I don’t collect Skypesos, I haven’t spent much time thinking about how to make efficient use of it.

View from the Wing notes that Aegean is offering 2000 status miles for signing up for an account.  Rather crucially, Aegean has an extremely low bar for Star Alliance Silver status (4k status miles), which offers a free checked bag on United and US Airways.  For the time being, Aegean offers “lifetime” (for the lifetime of the program’s generosity) status.  FlyerTalk has a crash course thread for additional information.

While US-based fliers are used to fares which earn at least 1 mile per mile flown, Aegean credits discount United coach fares (W, S, T, L, K) at 50% (or in the case of United’s recently added N fare, potentially 0%).  All US Airways revenue fare classes (that I’m aware of) credit at 100%.

For the traveler without status (and any forgone elite redeemable mile bonuses), crediting a cheap US Airways transcontinental flight to Aegean can be a cheap way of obtaining free baggage allowances in the future.  Based on the current US Airways share miles promotion, the opportunity cost of 2k miles is $22.70 (if the transaction fee is amortized over 50k miles).

US Airways is offering a 100% transfer bonus when sharing up to 50k miles between accounts during the month of October.  With the $30 processing fee, a 50k transfer prices at $567.50 or 1.135 cents per net mile.  While it isn’t quite as good as Grand Slam last year (approximately 0.34cpm), this promotion requires far less attention and effort to benefit from.  As noted in the promotion terms, “accounts less than 12 days old are not permitted to Buy, Share or Gift miles,” leaving two weeks to open an account to participate.

To make the value of these miles a bit more tangible, it’s worth consulting the US Airways award chart.

• Off-peak (Jan. 15 - Feb. 28) North America/Hawaii to Europe in business class is 60k miles (or 55k for US Airways Mastercard holders) plus taxes/fees.  The cost of acquisition for those miles under this promotion?  $681 (or $624.25 respectively).
• A Star Alliance North America to North Asia award (potentially routing with a stopover in Europe)  is 90k miles in business class.  United runs 100k in comparison.
• A Star Alliance North America to the South Pacific award is 110k miles in business class and 140k miles in first class.  United charges 135 and 160k miles respectively.

While I still haven’t put the miles I earned from Grand Slam to good use as I promised (since I took two revenue and one award trip to Europe in the meantime), I’m oddly tempted to top-up my account a bit.

US Airways is also running a (targeted) 100% bonus promotion for buying miles this month. as well

Alitalia is running a promotion for 15% off bookings made by noon (European time, 6AM Eastern) tomorrow by using coupon code WEEK15US for travel between October 1st and March 31st.  The promo is applicable to Delta flights on itineraries entirely within the US in addition to flights actually operated by Alitalia.

For example, a simple JFK-LAX roundtrip on Delta priced with ITA:

The same itinerary, priced with the coupon on Alitalia’s website:

It’s my understanding that these fares earn full Skypesos with Delta (or could be credited to Alaska).

While BMI is nearly gone, it is still taking membership applications for its loyalty program, Diamond Club.  Creating a new account with voucher code “1JA1KD” yields 1k bmi miles that can be transfered to Avios.

Alaska Airlines is offering a $50 discount certificate for new Mileage Plan members resident in California who sign up by October 26th, 2012.  The discount code is valid for travel between September 5th and November 10th for travel from California.

While prices out of Newark on Alaska are generally not competitive with United for me, Alaska routinely has $168 one-way all-inclusive fares to and from Hawaii out of San Diego, Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento.

ANA sent out a survey yesterday valid between August 9th and August 16th.  Even though United.com (prior to 3/3, Continental.com) has improved rather steadily over the past year for searching partner availability, ANA’s Star Alliance search is still quite valuable.

One Mile at a Time mentions that Hyatt is offering a 90-day trial of its mid-tier Platinum status for Visa Signature card holders.  Notably, Platinum status comes with free internet access when staying at Hyatts.

I’m a bit late to the party, but Jetblue is having a 20% off sale on flights between 5/1 and 6/13 booked today.

Based on my flight last night, there’s a joint Citi-AAdvantage promotion offering 30 free minutes of wifi per flight until February 16th.

Word on the street is that the Chase Sapphire 50k Ultimate Rewards points for $3k of spending in 3 months is now a “limited time offer.”

United is advertising 20-25% off redemptions to Europe and Central/Southern Africa.  There are a handful of restrictions:  tickets must economy saver tickets, the trip must include a Saturday stay, and tickets must be booked by January 16th.

Rather oddly, they’ve further subdivided the discount into 20% off (“peak” days) and 25% off (“off-peak” days).  Given we are already discussing discounted economy awards, it’s surprising that to have even further distinction in award levels in a two-tier award chart.

The bottom line?  One can travel to Europe for 45k miles roundtrip in coach.

FlyerTalk reports a possibly targeted Hertz promotion:  Get 500 gold plus points for two rentals or 1000 gold plus points for three rentals.  1000 gold points is enough for a two day weekend rental.

I was able to register, but I hadn’t received the targeted email.

FlyerTalk and Million Mile Secrets have found a 60k Mileage Plus explorer offer offering 50k miles on first purchase and 10k miles after $25k in spending.  dabearz73 on FlyerTalk suggests logging into one’s United account and then going to the offer website.

I currently have the United Mileage Plus Select Visa Signature card and formerly had the Continental OnePass Plus Mastercard.  I’m able to see the 60k offer when I’m logged in.

I traveled just over 144k miles this year, approximately 125k of which were revenue flights:

I wound up with four redemptions:

• 2 nights at the Westin Ka’anapali Ocean Resort Villas as part of Starwood’s Free Resort Nights promotion.
• 1 upgrade from coach to p.s. business class on a redeye (20k UA miles)
• New York to Sydney to Auckland to Los Angeles to New York in business class from Aeroplan (76k Amex Membership Reward points)
• A trip to Asia (via Europe) in business class for early 2012 from Aeroplan (50k Amex Membership Reward points)

I earned miles and points from a number of sources:

• United/Continental had 102.5k EQM (mostly from flying, a bit from UA spending) or about 205k redeemable miles from flying.  I earned the 50k signup bonus on both the United Mileage Plus Select Visa Signature card and the Continental One Pass Plus card.  I picked up another 25k Mileage Plus miles from rental cars (until the end of August, 1k per rental from Hertz) and spending on my credit cards.
• American had about 35k EQM from flying (or 70k redeemable miles).
• US Airways Grand Slam yielded about 119k redeemable miles for about $400 in marginal spend.
• I earned 30k SPG points from the Starwood Amex signup bonus (for $4.5k in spending over 3 months).  I picked up another 12k SPG points from 10 revenue stays (including Foursquare/Facebook check-in bonuses) and credit card spending.
• I earned 55k Club Carlson points (50k bonus, 5k for the stay itself) for staying in a US Radisson Hotel by New Years.
• I earned 75k Membership Reward points for the Amex Premier Rewards Gold card and 50k for the Amex Platinum card for $1k in spending in 3 months for each card.
• I’m well on my way to 50k Chase Ultimate Reward points from my Chase Sapphire card (for $3k in spend over 3 months).
• I picked up 40k Alaska Airlines miles from the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature card after my first purchase.
• I earned about 10.2k in Hyatt Gold Passport points from 5 revenue stays.

To give perspective on my ability to meet credit card spending thresholds, I spent approximately $22k on credit cards.  My total spend on flights occurring in 2011 (inclusive of StarMegaDo3) was $8367.49 for revenue flights and $431.27 for award flights.  I spent $2703.62 on hotels (19 stays and 23 nights) and $1727.10 on rental cars (inclusive of insurance, but not gasoline, for 19 rentals, 34 rental days).

SPG is offering bonus points on multinight stays between 1/9 and 4/8.  Two night stays earn double points; three night or more stays earn triple points.  The offer has a number of nonparticipating hotels.

MilesQuest points out a Priority Club promotion for watching a short video:

1. Go to priorityclub.com/visa1000

2. Enter in one of the promo codes

   SKAEXGTNC4 SKAEXR6WC4 SKAEX8M4C4 SKAEX9KYC4

3. Watch the video.

I ended up scoring 37 hits for the US Airways Grand Slam this fall.  The ease of repeating this obviously depends on one’s purchasing habits:  I frequently rent cars and stay at hotels, for example.  I’ve italicized the hits that I consider reasonably accessible to even infrequent travelers.

Free Hits:

• 21st Century Auto Insurance:  The free quote they gave me provided me 200 US Airways miles and another reason to never own a car in New York City.
• Audience Rewards:  Answering six audience rewards trivia questions yielded 12 US Airways miles.
• Dividend Miles Toolbar:  I performed three searches with the toolbar and got an otherwise free hit (and 1 US mile).
• Dividend Miles Dining:  I registered one of my credit cards and bought a slice of pizza at a nearby restaurant for 11 US miles.
• e-Miles:  I did e-Miles and did a transfer to US for 500 miles.
• e-Rewards:  I did a few surveys on e-Rewards and did a transfer to US for 500 miles.  Hertz fortunately sent me an invitation shortly into Grand Slam that permitted me to transfer out to US Airways.

Purchasing Things:

• 1-800-Flowers:  I spent $13.99 on my order with shipping to get a small stuffed animal, 140 US Airways miles.
• Biscoff:  I spent $13.47 for an order of cookies and 42 US Airways miles.
• Buying Miles:  I bought 1000 US Airways miles for $37.63.
• FTD:  I bought a tin of Ms. Field’s cookies for $43.98 to get 850 US miles.
• Netflix:  I got a 6 month Netflix subscription for 1.5k miles with an all-in cost of $47.94.
• Network Solutions:  I registered a domain name for 3 years to get 2k US miles for $26.09.
• OfficeMax:  I placed an order with OfficeMax (that I would have inevitably placed) for 179 US miles.  For those without such an inclination, it is possible to order a box of paper clips for about $9 with shipping.
• ShareBuilder:  I funded an account and placed an order to get 2.5k US miles for $9.95.
• Shopping Mall:  I ordered a book from Barnes and Noble via the shopping mall portal to get 22 US miles.
• SkyMall:  I bought a dog collar for a FlyerTalker to donate to his local humane society to get 21 miles for $14.63.
• SuperShuttle:  I took a SuperShuttle instead of public transportation back from JFK to my apartment for 50 US miles.  It was $10.00 more than I would have paid to take the Airtrain/LIRR to Manhattan.  Members of FlyerTalk have discussed taking a “ride” from the Phoenix Airport to its aloft for $3.00 after discount.
• TD Ameritrade:  I funded a TD Ameritrade account with $2.5k to get 2.5k US miles.  My opportunity cost is the greater of a negligible amount of interest or 2.5k UA miles (via another signup promo).
• Teleflora:  I ordered flowers for $44.98 to get 750 US miles.
• ThanksAgain:  I bought a Restaurant.com certificate for $1.00 to get 3 US miles.
• TrackItBack:  I bought a single sticker for $24.94 to get 500 US miles.
• Vinesse:  I bought a wine tasting notebook for $18.57

Renting Cars:

• Hertz:  I had 6 car rentals (5 two day rentals and 1 three day rental) during the GS period for 650 miles.  Since I would have rented these cars anyways, my only cost was the opportunity cost of not earning 650 UA miles instead.

Staying at Hotels:

• Hilton Stay:  I stayed at the Seattle Double Tree in September and chose fixed points.  With the Hilton Q3 promo, this earned me 1k US miles.  My opportunity cost is 1k in UA miles (or about 1.2k in Hilton points, a slightly less valuable alternative).
• Hyatt Stays:  I stayed at two Hotel Sierras by Hyatt in November, crediting my stays to US for 500 miles per stay.   Since my stays were $90 per night, my opportunity cost was 585 Hyatt Gold Passport points per night.

Transferring Points:

• Choice Transfer:  I bought 5.5k Choice Hotel points for $55 and transfered 5k to get 1k in US Airways miles.
• Exchange Miles:  I converted 4 AA miles to 1 US mile.
• Hilton Transfer:  I converted 10k Hilton HHonors points to 850 US Airways miles.
• Magazines for Miles:  I got myself a subscription to The Economist (a $100 or so value) for redeeming 3.2k US miles.  There were 500 mile redemption tiers.  Since I started this in September without a single US Airways mile to my name, I used the miles I earned from partners and the initial hit bonuses to buy my subscription.
• SPG Transfer:  I converted 1.5k SPG points to 1.5k US Airways miles.
• Share Miles:  I shared 1k miles for $40.75.

Overall, my opportunity cost was $402.92, 4 AA miles, 10k Hilton points,  1.17k Hyatt points, 1.5k SPG points, 4.150k UA miles, and a few hours of my time.  With the miles from activity (just over 19k) and the bonuses (100k), I’m a few hundred miles short of a first class award to North Asia via Europe.  Alternatively, this would cover nearly five domestic roundtrips (on Star Alliance carriers).

My list identifies 25 “easily” achieved hits.  If one values US Airways miles at 1cpm, the 24 hit tier is a reasonable target for about $350 (the 25 italicized hits minus the Choice Hotels transfer as a 25th hit is unnecessary).  This would yield 45k in Grand Slam bonuses and about 9k in net partner miles (by choosing a magazine subscription for 500 miles rather than 3.2k).

Back in August, I applied for the Amex Premier Rewards Gold card.  I met my minimum spend of $1k for a 75k Membership Rewards point bonus and was temporarily foiled in September with the pullback by Amex on the “bump the bonus” practice frequently discussed on FlyerTalk.  After a few exchanges with Amex via secure message, they credited the points I was promised in August.

With the devaluation of British Airways award chart into Avios and a salvo of Aeroplan devaluations (award chart increases, no domestic first class access on international business class awards, and suddenly imposed fuel surcharges on most Star Alliance carriers), I was left wondering what I’d do with all of these points, particularly as I was eyeing the 50k signup bonus for the Amex Platinum card.

Amidst this gloom came a discovery on Friday afternoon that Aeroplan was charging economy miles for business class awards (similarly business class prices for first class awards).  Over the weekend, I managed to piece together a comparatively simple Aeroplan award from Christmas through New Year’s in business class for 80k Aeroplan miles (acquired by transferring 76k Membership Rewards points and purchasing 4k Aeroplan miles for $120) and paying $222.77 in taxes and fees:  EWR-SFO-SYD (turn) - AKL (stop) - YVR - LAX (stop) - EWR.

Thanks to the summertime devaluation of blocking access to domestic first class seats on business class awards and scarce p.s. business class availability from New York, I booked my transcontinental segments on Continental which codes its domestic “first class” cabin as business class for ticketing purposes.

One of the main tipping factors for my decision to do OneWorldMegaDo was the ability to challenge for AA Executive Platinum from my status with United/Continental.  I sent an email with a screenshot of my Continental Platinum credentials on Sunday night and received my response today:

``` Dear Chris,

Thank you for your email to American Airlines. I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

Thank you for sending us the documentation we requested. In appreciation of your participation in the 2012 oneworld MegaDo, we have registered you for a fee-waived AAdvantage elite challenge.

To earn AAdvantage Executive Platinum® membership through February 2013, simply travel 20,000 elite qualifying miles between October 9, 2011 and January 13, 2012 on flights marketed and operated by American Airlines, American Eagle, or AmericanConnection®. To date, you have already earned 12,375 elite qualifying miles toward your goal.

Once you complete this challenge, expect your credentials in three to five weeks. Of course, your new benefits will be effective immediately, once your account reflects that you’ve met the challenge criteria.

We hope you enjoy the oneworld MegaDo! See you in January!

Again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to respond. I look forward to assisting you in the future.

Regards,

American Airlines ```

With my two trips to San Francisco booked, I’ll be sitting comfortably with Executive Platinum in early January.  The real challenge will be requalifying for United 1K and AA EXP next year with 200k flight miles.

Over the summer, I applied for and received a few credit cards:  The Starwood Amex (30k signup bonus), the Amex Premier Rewards Gold Card (75k signup bonus, after much argument with Amex), the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa (40k bonus), and the Continental OnePass Plus Mastercard (50k bonus).  Amongst the cards in my wallet (or drawer), my “Schwab” Visa was the only card I had with a waived forex fee.  That card is now dead and I’ve received a less rewarding BankAmericard instead.

As a result, I went in search for forex-free credit cards in this round of applications.  The Points Guy has a recent list of these cards.

Amongst the offerings from Amex are the Mercedes-Benz Platinum card (50k bonus, $475 annual fee) and the ordinary, unbranded Platinum card ($450 annual fee) with reports of a 50k bonus application working.  Unlike the “bump the bonus” nonsense of the summer, this application is actually advertises a 50k bonus.  Ordinarily, the $200 annual airline fee credit the card provides is nearly useless to me:  With elite status comes free checked bags, free standby, free same day changes and so on.  FlyerTalk has numerous reports of elites using the credit towards buying gift cards on an airline of their choice.  Since I expect to spend at least $200 more with American Airlines next year, my effective cost of the card is $250.  The remaining perks are the signup bonus and lounge access.  Needless to say, I applied and was approved for an Amex Platinum.

Chase has a few intriguing offers.  The Hyatt Visa turns into two free nights in suites thanks to having Diamond status with Hyatt.  The Priority Club offers one free night in any Intercontinental hotel each year and approximately 1.5 free nights as a signup bonus.  Between British Airways gutting its award chart last week and the lack of a 100k offer, the British Airways visa lacks appeal.  The Chase Sapphire has a 50k signup offer and provides reasonable earning rates for spending on travel and food (which account for most of my spending outside of my monthly rent check).

When I applied for the Sapphire, I got the dreaded “your application is pending review” message.  I called the reconsideration line (888-245-0625) and shifted my credit line from the OnePass Plus card to a new Sapphire card.  With OnePass being folded into Mileage Plus, my OnePass Plus card would likely turn into a MileagePlus Explorer card and disqualify me for any future signup bonuses from that card.  Nonetheless, I’ve been loathe to give it up as its rental car CDW coverage seems better than my other cards.  (When I called, they could enumerate clear terms and limits, but they could tell me whether certain cars were covered, cars that were beyond the limits offered by Amex, for example.)

Carlson is opening its first Radisson Blu in the United States.  For the first 50k registrants, staying one night will yield a 50k Carlson Club point bonus.   Based on the Carlson award chart, this ranges from 1 to 5 free nights for a single stay, depending on category.

I’ve been quietly working my way through Grand Slam.  I’m currently at 13 hits scored, 7 additional hits pending, and 16 hits planned.

I wandered over to book my ticket on OneWorldMegaDo a few minutes after 11AM EST when sales were scheduled to open.  By then, the blog on megado.com had fallen over and no link was available to book a ticket.  Fortunately, it seems I managed to get a ticket booked just in the nick of time as a sellout was announced a few minutes later.

Book first, ask questions later?

My attitudes towards the prospects of OneWorldMegaDo have changed quite a bit over the past two months.  Between the exciting lead up to StarMegaDo3 and the ominous changes to Mileage Plus (that didn’t materialize), I welcomed the thought.  After United ditched its plans for us at ORD on StarMegaDo3, my expectations of the next MegaDo tapered off a bit.  The launch party came and the AA mileage bonuses and Hyatt bonuses didn’t really appeal to me as I had started to wind down my flying on AA for the year so that I’d be ready for a marathon of PLT requalification/EXP qualification early in the year.

That’s all changed.  The details of the status challenge program were announced.  Challenges are free and are based on “base miles” (whether this includes the 500 mile minimums for current elites is still unresolved on MilePoint) rather than elite qualifying points (so cheap fares are have a good earn rate).   More importantly for me, the offer is available to current AA elites and is based on flights flown between October 9, 2011 and January 13, 2012.   With five JFK-LAX one-ways already flown/booked for that time period, I’m over halfway done with my EXP challenge (pending actually booking my OneWorldMegaDo ticket, qualifying for United 1K in November, and sending over proof of my status to American).

View From the Wing describes how to get 2500 Business ExtrAA points for taking a roundtrip by November 15th for Illinois or New York-based businesses.  Registering for a BusinessExtrAA account with promotion “EARN10” yields 2000 points after a roundtrip between October 4th, 2011 and January 31st, 2012.  Applying promotion “OCT11BONUS123” gives 200 points on application, 300 points for updating contact information, and 500 for taking a roundtrip by November 15th.

The BusinessExtrAA website feels like a website stuck in the style of American’s advertisements from the 1980’s, but it’s another way to earn awards on top of existing travel.  2400 BusinessExtrAA points translates into AA Gold for a single flier.

I ended up deciding to partake in the US Airways Grand Slam, albeit with some limitations.  Namely, I intend to use these miles within the first three months of next year for a comparatively simple trip to Europe.

Absent an especially good fare showing up in the meantime, a quick calendar search on ITA puts the price of an NYC-BER roundtrip in February at $616 all-in for an economy ticket.  Additionally, I would be earning approximately 15,820RDM (based on JFK-TXL-JFK with a 100% RDM bonus) for an additional value of about $158.20, bringing the net cost at approximately $450.  There’s tons of availability available on continental.com via Continental and Lufthansa in business class, however.  Assuming I have 100k miles to play with by the end of Grand Slam, I should use a value of at about 0.45cpm for US miles (ignoring US booking fees, taxes, etc.).  Since the ticket would be for business class rather than economy and would include a stopover, my valuation should be at least 0.45cpm but less than 1.478cpm, the cost of buying the miles outright.

I am not an elite member with US, so hitting the top tier (40 hits => 110k miles) would require that I start crediting Star Alliance miles away from UA/CO (where I get a 100% RDM bonus), a significant opportunity cost, or that I purchase trial elite status with US for at least $200.  Even with the trial elite status purchase as a hit, I’d still need to find three hits, leaving my cost for 10k miles at at least 2cpm.  Given the 100% mile bonuses that US frequently offers, reaching 40 hits is irrational.

Having examined the marginal cost of hits 33-36, I’m faced with a similar situation.  Even if I completely discount the inconvenience of finding and tracking them, the marginal reward for the 20k miles above the 32 hit level is worth $295.63 (based on the 100% bonus pricing of 1.478cpm with taxes, when available), or $73.91 per hit on average.  Using a slightly more reasonable valuation, at say 1cpm, these miles are worth $200 in total or $50 per hit on average.  Because these are, however, rather expensive hits, ease is a serious concern:  A 10k Hilton point transfer into 2k US points has an opportunity cost of $80 (based on 0.8cpp valuations for Hilton) less my valuation of 2k US miles (or $20) before considering the inconvenience.

For the sake of keeping things sane, I’m using a uniform cost between AA, UA, and US miles of 1cpm.  The miles gained by the activity itself offset the cost of acquiring the hit. So far, my first six hits have been…

• Points.com:  Exchanging 4 AA miles for 1 US mile.  Outlay: $0.00.  True cost:  $0.03, for the loss of 4 AA miles and the gain of 1 US mile.
• Biscoff:  Anna’s Trial Size.  Outlay: $13.47.  True cost:  $13.05, for the gain of 42 additional US miles.
• Audience Awards.  Outlay: $0.00.  True cost:  -$0.12, for the gain of 12 additional US miles.
• Hilton Q3 2011 Stay.  (Marginal) Outlay: $0.00.  True cost:  $0.00, since I would have used the 1k fixed miles bonus towards AA instead.
• e-Miles.  Outlay: $0.00.  True cost:  -$5.00, for the gain of 500 US miles.
• Hertz 2-Day Rental.  (Marginal) Outlay: $0.00.  True cost:  $10.00, since I would have used the long-running, albeit now apparently dead, United-Hertz promo for 1100 miles instead of receiving 100 US miles.
• e-Rewards.  Outlay: $0.00.  True cost: -$5.00.  Hertz sent me an invitation that included US Airways amongst the transfer partners so I took advantage of it.

This puts my true cost at $12.93 for 7 hits.

Today’s the last day for Amtrak’s 50% points bonus on purchases of at least 5k points.  Even at the normal point prices, purchasing points for an award is cheaper than a cash fare–especially for last minute travel–on some routes such as the Northeast Regional and Amtrak’s special routes for 1k awards.

FlyerTalk hypothesizes that the Audience Rewards Trivia Contest for US Airways miles might count as a hit.  It takes a moment and the answers can be readily found on the Internet.

Airfare Watchdog points out Air Canada’s 15% off coupon (FLYDEC15) for US/Canada travel through December 15, booked by midnight September 25 and a world-wide discount (FLYFEB29) booked by midnight September 25th.

I applied for and was approved for an Amex PRG card in August.  After getting my card, I activated it and then called in to apply code 6661.  On that day, the agent informed me that I was eligible, the code had been applied to my account, a notation had been made, and that I would likely need to call in to see the points post after reaching $1k in spending

My last purchase to reach $1k in spending this morning, so I called Amex MR.  The agent told me I was not targeted and consequently ineligible.  She then transfered me to a supervisor.  The supervisor informed me that while the agent I had spoken to had, in fact, made a notation in my account and given me the T&C of the promotion, American Express would not be honoring the promotion because I hadn’t been targeted.  While the agent in August was speaking with me, he had contacted their “operations manager” who had notated my account to indicate that I was not eligible for the promotion while I was on hold, yet the agent returned to the phone to tell me I was eligible.

For misrepresenting my eligibility, the supervisor told me that the employee would receive a “verbal warning.”  The supervisor understood my concern with the bait-and-switch, but could not provide any gesture of goodwill (even a single MR point) because of the operations manager’s directive.  As a bit of background to her denial, the supervisor informed me that while historically, Amex has happily honored promotions for nontargeted cardholders who call to apply them, they would no longer due to a “blog post” which attracted “attention.”

Since hanging up and calling again is a tried and true strategy for dealing with customer service, I called back tonight and the agent and her supervisor I spoke to had the same story (and noted that there was a record of my call earlier today).

The Gogo company representative on FlyerTalk announced that passengers on United’s p.s. service (JFK-LAX and JFK-SFO) will have 30 minutes of complimentary internet access during the month of September.

Depending on how well publicized this is to passengers actually on board these aircraft, service quality should range from normal to a true tragedy of the commons.

Loyalty Traveler reports another Marriott promotion for the fall, running not quite concurrently with their MegaBonus promotion.  Earning is limited to United, Delta, British Airways, Lufthansa, GOL/Varig, and LAN.

• The first stay earns a base of 2 miles per dollar.
• The second stay has a 1k mile bonus.
• The third and fourth stays have a 1.5k mile bonus.
• Subsequent stays have a 2k mile bonus.

The bonus is capped at 30k bonus points (or 17 stays).  The main advantage to this promotion is that it starts on September 1st.  If I stayed at Marriott hotels more frequently (or at least planned to this fall), this promotion would be a helpful addition to the MegaBonus promotion.  My offer was for a free night after two stays,  up to two free nights.  While a 4k mile bonus isn’t as valuable as two free nights, it’s a useful promotion (for the Marriott traveler) beyond that or before the MegaBonus promotion kicks in.

Starwood announced its Triple Up promotion.  For stays involving a Thursday or Sunday night, there is a triple SPG point bonus; for all other stays, there is a double SPG point bonus.  There’s a few nonparticipating hotels as well. Registration opens on September 6th for stays booked between September 6th through December 18th.  Registration closes November 15th.

Priority Club has a brand diversity-driven promotion from September 15 through December 31.  Stays earn a 500 point or 100 mile bonus.  Staying at 2-4 distinct brands gives a multiplier for a bonus to appear at the beginning of 2012.  Registration is currently open.

Marriott has a targeted fall MegaBonus promotion for stays between September 15th through January 15th.  My offer was for one free night (at a Category 1-4 hotel) every second stay with a limit of 2 free nights.

I’m not thrilled by any of these in comparison to the three stays for a free night promotion that Starwood ran earlier this year, but alas, it’s better than nothing.

I, like many others, jumped in on the AAdvantage eShopping advertisement for 83,871 miles with a rather small purchase from the Verizon website.   Since then, there’s been a massive thread on FlyerTalk (now 212 pages).

I finally got my consolation email.  For my less than $5 purchase of a charger, Cartera is promising 2500 AAdvantage miles to be posted within 10 days.  With a second purchase in the next month, I’m supposed to receive an additional 2500 miles.

It ought to be fun  seeing whether these miles actually post.

Registration is now open.  The promotion runs from September 14th through November 14th.

The 40th tier requires having elite status on US Airways.  While it’s possible to buy a 90-day trial of the lowest tier  for $200 (plus 7.5% in federal taxes), the additional 10k of redeemable miles isn’t almost certainly not worth it at 2.15cpm.  I currently have Star Alliance Gold via United/Continental, so the prospect of having another Star Alliance elite card isn’t especially appealing.

As discussed last week, I applied for (and received) the Amex Premier Rewards Gold card with a rather paltry bonus for $1k of spending.  I sent a secure message last night to apply promotion 6661 (75k points for $1k of spending) and was turned down.  A quick call to Membership Rewards this morning got the bonus applied to my account; although it should be fun to see whether the points credit automatically.  I’m not counting on it.

In the past 24 hours or so, this appears to have become an increasingly YMMV situation.  Promo codes are being checked for targeting.  FlyerTalk has reported failures.  Online Travel Review suggests that this is par for the course.

With the closure of the US Mint Direct Ship program for credit card funded purchases, it should be fun to get the $1k of spending onto this card quickly to resolve whether I’m actually going to bonus.

The 30k signup bonus for the Starwood Amex ends today.  The bonus is split into two halves, 10k on first purchase and 20k more after $4.5k of spending.

SPG points generally transfer at 1:1 with most airlines (United/Continental are exceptions).  Additionally, for every 20k points transfered, there’s a 5k bonus.

I’m always hesitant to buy miles and points.  Airlines and hotels are profit-seeking entities; they wouldn’t sell the miles and points without some chance of making a profit on them.  As a testament to this, I have a hockey puck sitting my closet from the AAdvantage/Verizon snafu, just waiting to be returned as part of whatever settlement of miles I might get.

Before handing wads of cash to US Airways and its partners, it’s worth figuring out the value of a mile. US Airways has an award chart for itself and for its Star Alliance partners.  An off-peak (1/15-2/28) award to Europe runs 35k miles in coach and 60k in business.  A quick check of availability shows that there actually are some awards to Europe available for that little, even around President’s Day weekend out of Philadelphia.  If I value a trip to Europe (in the dead of winter) at about $550, this amounts to about 1.57pm.   Availability next summer on US for the lower tiers of awards looks minimal, so its hard to point to a hypothetical trip to the summer and compare it to a $1k revenue fare.

US also has a Star Alliance award chart.  US isn’t quite as generous with awards as UA/CO.  There’s a limit of one stopover at a Star Alliance hub or an open jaw.  The Points Guy and FlyerTalk both have guides to maximizing these awards.  Hong Kong and Japan fall into North Asia for 120k miles in first; UA puts Hong Kong in South Asia (140k miles) and Japan by itself (135k miles).

US currently has a promotion through September 15, 2011 offering a 100% bonus on purchased miles.  100k miles can be purchased for 1.478cpm.

The only official details about the promotion is its FAQ.  Discussions of last year’s implementation give a rough sketch of the award tiers.  I’m mildly curious about this year’s 40th bonus tier.

Online Travel Review details how to turn the current Amex Premier Rewards Gold card offer for 15k Membership Reward points for $1k of spending in 3 months into about 105k points for the same spend.  Membership reward points are transferable to several airlines, including several in each major alliance.

The process?  The first step is to apply and be accepted.  Then, calling and asking the customer service representatives to apply promotion code 6661 bumps the signup bonus to 75k points for the same spend.  A second call with promotion code 6664 in hand gives 10k points for every billing cycle with at least 15 purchases in it through November 15th.  Since there are three months from then to now, an additional 30k points are up for grabs.  Depending on what purchases are being made for the $1k of spending, the spending translates to 1-3k of additional points.

While I’ve been loathe to apply for cards offering points less tangible than direct hotel points or airline miles, I’ve been tempted by the distance-based ANA partner award chart.  105k MR points would transfer to 105k ANA miles, good for a trip of up to 18,000 miles in business class on ANA and one partner or ANA and a number of its star alliance partners.  Transfers to Continental are ending at the end of September, so this offer isn’t appropriately timed to convert all of the points into Continental miles.  Since I’m on track to finish the year with about 300k redeemable miles with United/Continental, I’m not especially concerned about turning these points into Continental miles.  Delta has frequent promotions for point transfers; in fact, there’s a 50% promotion available until the end of September.

As soon as Chase figures out on Monday what happened to my Hyatt card application, I’ll jump in on this offer myself.

There are a few discount codes for travel on American Airlines floating around if you’re touching an eligible city.  (Hat tip:  View from the Wing)

The 10% off code, 5591AG, is good for travel to AMA, AVP, BMI, BNA, BOS, BUR, CHA, CLE, COS, CVG, DFW, EVV, EWR, FSD, FSD, GRR, GSP, HPN, ICT, JFK, LAX, LGA, MCI, MKE, MLU, ONT, ORD, PDX, PIA, SEA, SFO, SGF, SHV, SJC, SNA, TOL, and TUL.

There’s another 10% off code, 6881BN, good for travel to LAX, BUR, ONT, and SNA.

The 15% off code, 4681BX, is applicable to BOS, BUR, BWI, DCA, DFW, EWR, FLL, HPN, IAD, JFK, LAS, LAX, LGA, MIA, ONT, ORD, PBI, SAN, SFO, SJC, SNA.  A discussion on FlyerTalk suggests that this code may have been disabled.  There’s a targeted offer for a 15% code if you install AA’s DealFinder 2.0 application on your computer.

Given AA gift cards with a $300 face value can be purchased at Costco for $269.99, the gift card discount and the 15% code can be stacked to net a 23.5% discount on the base fare.  When plugging in the codes for some fall travel tonight, the code only discounts the base fare.  Any applicable taxes will be on the discounted fare but aren’t discounted themselves.

American announced end-of-year bonuses for its elite members who satisfy certain elite qualifying point requirements who register by December 15th.  For Platinum and Executive Platinum members, it is possible to gift Gold to another AAdvantage member.

The qualification cutoffs are 40,000-49,999 EQP for Gold members, 75,000-99,999 EQP for Platinum members, and 125,000+ EQP for Executive Platinum members.  For the two lower tiers, these cutoffs reflect nearly (although it’s a bit of a stretch on the bottom end) qualifying for the next tier up on elite qualifying points alone (50k and 100k respectively).

Since it works on points rather than miles (and I tend to buy deep discount economy tickets, earning 0.5 EQP per mile), I’m unlikely to earn anything from this promotion.  Nonetheless, here’s to hoping that United brings back its elite rewards for this year as I’m on track to make 1K.

Delta is offering free wifi on its flights in August using the promotion code DIETCOKEGOGO (Hat Tip: View from the Wing).

Alaska Air is offering free wifi for smartphones and iPads in August and September courtesy of Visa Signature.

Last month, JetBlue announced they wouldn’t have another All You Can Jet promotion.  It’s been revived in the form of BluePass which offers “unlimited” travel to/from either Boston or Long Beach, CA, depending on the plan selected.  To refresh memories, the All You Can Jet terms are still available.

Pricing’s a bit steeper, but it is good for travel for three months rather than one.  “Boston All” comes in at $1999, “Boston Select” at $1499, and “Long Beach Select” at $1299.  Travel must touch the city named in the package.  The Select plans restrict which cities can be flown on the plan.  Unlike AYCJ, bookings can be done up to 90 minutes before departure and there are no change and cancellation fees.

Since Congress failed to reauthorize the FAA at midnight, many of the taxes on airfare have been suspended. 

There’s been an opportunity for airlines to try raising their fares.  Virgin America is calling attention to the tax holiday with a sale and  United’s fares seem relatively unscathed.

After a long string of stories about the program, the U.S. Mint has finally stopped taking orders for its dollar coin direct ship program paid by credit card.

It’s too bad as I was planning on quickly finishing up the spending requirements on my new credit cards.

In March, Jeff Smisek of United Airlines was mum about upcoming changes to United’s Mileage Plus and Continental’s OnePass programs.  United launched its “Mileage Plus Explorer” card.

As far as benefits go, it mostly resembles the legacy OnePass Plus card that I recently applied for to grab a 50k bonus mile sign-up while it lasts.  The headline benefits are a “40k” bonus mile sign-up bonus, a free checked bag, priority boarding, and two United Club passes a year.  To actually obtain the “40k,” one has to add an additional authorized user to the account (for 5k miles) and hit $25k in spending in a calendar year (for 10k miles).  With targeted 50k mile sign-up bonuses floating around for both the United Mileage Plus Select Visa Signature and the Continental OnePass Plus cards, the effectively 25k sign-up bonus is meager.

As a United 1P, I can already check three seventy pound bags for free and I get to board over the red–soon to be blue–carpet.  Like the OnePass Plus card, the card extends upgrade benefits for elites on domestic award tickets.  That said, since my miles are already destined for international travel in premium cabins, I’m unlikely to use this perk.  In terms of mileage earning, it’s a step-down from the United Mileage Plus Select Visa Signature card with its 3 miles (and 1EQM) per $1 spent with United, 2 miles per dollar for Star Alliance and “every day” purchases, and 1 mile per dollar for everything else.

What’s more telling of the changes to Mileage Plus to come is an official company representative’s post made on FlyerTalk.  Standard awards are being eliminated for those Mileage Plus members without the card or elite status.  While the standard awards can often be horrible values, especially for domestic travel, they at least give options to Mileage Plus members.

It’s an often repeated mantra on Flyer Talk.  For a brief bit today, JetBlue was offering $4-5 fares (each way, all-inclusive) for their one-day only LGB-BUR service in “celebration” of Carmageddon (Hat Tip: The Wandering Aramean).

I already have travel plans for this weekend, so I hesitated as I thought about how I’d get from there to Los Angeles and back in time to pick up the rest of my itinerary.  For deals like this (where most of the value comes from the entertainment value), I really should have booked without thinking first.  Worst case, I’d be out $16 (all four of the one-ways).  Best case, I’d have a good story to tell.

It’s worth remembering that “new” DOT regulations require:

Requiring airlines to allow reservations to be held at the quoted fare without payment, or cancelled without penalty, for at least 24 hours after the reservation is made, if the reservation is made one week or more prior to a flight’s departure date.

While I’d be less concerned about getting my $16 back from JetBlue (and since it’s 3 days out, it’s ineligible anyways), but it’s certainly a way of choosing to book first and ask questions later when good deals come up.  AA offers a 24 hour free hold (with upsell opportunities to extend it longer for a few dollars) and United/Continental offer 24 hour refundability.

AA sent me a link to their email “Appraiser,” which offers bonus miles for subscribing to various email lists.  My address appraised for 2k miles after being offered signups for mailing lists I thought I was already on.  If the miles clear, I won’t complain too loudly.

A discussion on FlyerTalk suggests that it’s accessible from a non-targeted link.

Hat Tip:  Mooper on FlyerTalk.

Cathay Pacific is holding a giveaway and sweepstakes with the opening of their Chicago to Hong Kong route.  Each week, the first 25 users to click through will have the chance to purchase a round trip for $100.  There’s also a sweepstakes for a free roundtrip as well mentioned in the full rules.

Hat Tip: The Points Guy.

Boingo is giving away a bit of their wifi service in celebration of their 10th anniversary.

Hat tip:  Stuck at the Airport.