Category Archives: Miles

US Airways Dividend Miles- Get 50% More Miles for Converting Hotel Points

Bonus, Convert, Hotel Points, Miles, US Airways
a flag with blue text
I don’t find this to be such a great offer or value but some might find this useful to top off their US Airways account or to get rid of leftover hotel points.
US Airways is offering a 50% bonus to convert your hotel points to US Airways miles. This offer sounds great at first but when you see what the conversion rates are you will definitely think twice.
Here is a list of the conversion rates which DO NOT include the 50% bonus:
  • Best Western Rewards: 5,000 points for 1,000 miles
  • Choice Priveleges: 5,000 points for 1,000 miles
  • Club Carlson: varies
  • Hilton Honors: 10,000 points for 850 miles
  • Hyatt Gold Passport: varies
  • Marriott Rewards: varies
  • Priority Club: 10,000 points for 2,000 miles
  • Starwood Preferred Guest: varies
  • Wyndham Rewards: varies
  • La Quinta: 6,000 points for 1,000 miles or 10,000 points for 2,000 miles
* I didn’t do much reading into the hotel programs that have a variable transfer rate. However, I read that transferring SPG 20K points will become 37,500 US miles which seems like a pretty good deal.
Miles must be transfered between March 11- March 31, 2012 to earn the bonus
Hotel bonus miles do not count towards preferred status
To find out more info about this offer and find out the conversion rates for programs that vary, click here

Delta Offers Free Access to Amazon with In-Flight WiFi

Delta, Hawaiian Airlines, In-Flight, Miles, Shopping, wifi

a close-up of a logo

On March 5 Delta announced that they will be offering free WiFi access to shop on Amazon.com and AmazonWireless.com on all Delta and Delta Connection flights with in-flight wifi access.

Delta offers the worlds largest WiFi equipped fleet of planes. Over 800 Delta aircrafts are equipped with in-flight WiFi service.

a black and white logo

I love shopping on Amazon.com. Shopping online sounds like a great way to kill some time during a flight. However, I have one problem with this offer- I can’t earn Hawaiian Airlines miles by clicking to Amazon through the Delta in-flight browser. Hawaiian Airlines is the only way to earn additional miles for shopping on Amazon. (You earn 1 mile per $1)

I wonder how many people will be interested in shopping on Amazon during theiur Delta flights?

To read the full Delta story click here
Check out the Hawaiian Airlines shopping portal here.

Choice Hotels- Earn Airline Miles + Choice Priveleges Points

Airlines, Choice Hotels, Choice Priveleges, Miles

Choice Priveleges is doubling the rewards you can earn.
You can now earn Airline Miles AND Choice Priveleges Points for your stay now through 2/29/12

Airline Miles can be earned with:

  1. Aeroplan (Air Canada)
  2. Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
  3. American Airlines AAdvantage
  4. Continental Airlines OnePass
  5. Delta SkyMiles
  6. FREE SPIRIT
  7. Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards
  8. US Airways Dividend Miles
  9. United MileagePlus
  10. Amtrak Guest Rewards

You must register for this offer prior to your stay.
Register at Choice Hotels Winter Promotion

Book your stay at choicehotels.com or by calling 800-4CHOICE

Spirit: A Million Miles & A Royal Caribbean Cruise Is Up For Grabs

Cruise, Miles, Royal Caribbean, Spirit Airlines, Spirit Cruises
a man standing on a boat in the ocean
Sign up with Spirit Cruises for their deals e-mails for a chance to win 1 million Spirit Miles and a Royal Caribbean cruise for Two.
  • Grand Prize: 500,000 Free Spirit Miles + Cruise for 2 on Royal Caribbean with a wide selection of voyages
  • First Prizes (5): Five runner-up winners will receive 100,000 Free Spirit Miles
  • Sweepstakes ends April 30, 2012

This is the third sweepstakes to come out with this kind of prize for signing up for cruise e-mails.  I posted about Delta and Priority Clubs’ sweepstakes in Januarary.
Sign up for the sweepstakes Here

You can also earn up to 15,000 miles by booking a cruise through Spirit Cruises. This offer ends on 2/23 and can be booked Here

ABC News- Channel 7 NYC- Taxing Your Miles

ABC News, IRS, Miles, Tax

ABC News just had a short report on the 11:00 news regarding taxing airline miles.

I watched the report a couple of times and jotted down what the reporter said.
Here it is:
“All of those incentives offering free airline miles may not be so free after all. Free miles could cost you like when you open a bank account and get free miles. The IRS now says those miles are considered taxable. However the taxable rule does not apply to free miles you earn either from flying or buying merchandise.”

I know this is being talked about quite a bit and I am not looking to get too deep into this discussion. I just don’t get how we could get taxed on miles which we do not officially own. The miles have no set monetary value. The value is all relative to what they are used for. Some might use it for a flight, others for gift cards or other items from a shopping portal.
Hopefully this does not really affect us and bring down the value of our hard earned miles…

First Credit Card of 2012- Chase Southwest Airlines- 50,000 Points Sign Up Bonus

Chase, Credit Cards, Miles, Southwest Airlines

In 2011 I earned an amazing 775,000 miles from credit card sign up bonuses. I detailed how I did this in a post on 1/3/12. (you can check it out here)

I’ve been thinking a lot about my 2012 strategy for credit cards applications. My plan is to only apply for cards offering a bonus of 50,000 miles/ points or more.
Hopefully there will be some huge, killer offers like the last couple of years. Somebody has to come out with a new 75-100K offer at some point. (or at least I really hope so)

a card on a beach

To start off 2012 I decided to apply for the Chase Southwest Airlines Premier Card.
You can currently earn 50,000 bonus points after first purchase. That’s enough points for 2 free flights and worth the $99 membership fee in my opinion. If you decide to keep the card a second year, you receive 6,000 more bonus points which can be redeemed for a $100 “wanna get away fare” which covers the $99 fee.

I currently have 3 Chase credit cards so I did not think that I’d get instant approval for the Southwest card. I was planning to call Chase and move around some credit or possibly cancel one card if needed to get the approval.
To my surprise I did get instant approval and after one purchase (probably for $2), I will have 50,000 points with Southwest.

a screenshot of a computer
The approval screen

If you’d like to apply for the Chase Southwest Credit Card Click Here
(FYI-This is not an affiliate link and I DO NOT get any commission)

Win Two Tickets To South Africa

JetBlue, Miles, South African Airways, Tickets, Win
a close-up of a sign

 South African Airways is giving away two tickets to South Africa

All you need to do is enter your name and e-mail address by 1/20/12 to enter. Winner will be picked on January 31, 2012.
Grand Prize: Two round trip tickets to Johannesburg or Cape Town, South Africa from Washington (IAD) or New York (JFK) on board South African Airways.
 -This offer is open to legal residents of the 50 United States & Wash D.C. and Canada
-You must be 21 years old

-Prize valued at $3200 USD

This offer is part of a promo called 10,000 Reasons To Buy A Ticket on South African Airways:
“South African Airways and JetBlue have teamed up to make travel more rewarding… Like 10,000 TrueBlue® points more rewarding! And that’s a whole lotta points. So many points, in fact, that if you play your cards right, it could be enough to redeem for a free* flight!”
A nice part of this bonus is that if you book a flight you can earn points on JetBlue AND SAA!
I am not interested in purchasing a flight to South Africa at the moment, I’ve been there two times. But I am definitely interested in winning a free flight!!!
You can sign up for both promos by clicking here.

Mileage Earned In 2011 From Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses

Miles, ,

I had a very successful year adding lots of miles to my accounts in 2011.
It was probably my best year ever!

There were so many great credit card offers available & I took advantage of many of them.

I also reached one of my goals: Lifetime Status on American Airlines!
(I wrote about it here)

I tried to remember all of the cards that I signed up for in 2011. I probably left a couple out!

Continue reading Mileage Earned In 2011 From Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses →

Japan: 10,000 Free Flights For Foreigners- Not Approved

Chile, Foreigners, Free Flights, Japan, Miles

I post this with great disappointment… When it was announced that Japan would try to help the economy and jump start it’s tourism industry by possibly offering 10,000 free flights to foreigners, I got pretty excited. I started thinking where I would want to go and what itinerary I would propose on my application…

I read a short while ago that this program was not approved as part of  the government draft budget of 2012.

I haven’t made it out of the airport in Japan but do plan to visit someday. A free flight would’ve been great motivation to go!
While looking into trip ideas for spring break this past year, we had narrowed our options to Japan and Chile. Both were available for really great deals using miles. After going back and forth with our options, my wife and I decided to go with Chile. We booked our flights to Chile on March 10 and I woke up to news of the devastating earthquake that had just hit Japan. It looked like our choice would’ve been made for us by mother nature had we not decided the day before!

Here is the press release from the Japan Tourism Agency:

”Fly to Japan! Project”(10,000 FREE FLIGHTS TO FOREIGNERS)

The project titled Fly to Japan! (to offer flight tickets to 10,000 foreigners with high potential to communicate Japan’s attractions), which had been covered in a number of media in autumn this year, was not approved as a governmental draft budget of FY 2012.

We express our hearty gratitude to a multitude of people for offering inquiries and messages to support Japan after its coverage.

As the recovery from the earthquake is an ongoing urgent task, Japan has been vigorously working towards its restoration with the support from the world. Almost all of Japan has been back to normal and ready to welcome visitors. We are sincerely looking forward to having you to see Japan with your own eyes.

Japan Tourism Agency and Japan National Tourism Organization would like to inform you of the events and promotions in 2012. If you are interested, please register as a Visit Japan fan from the site below:

I do wonder if the Fly To Japan program was just a publicity stunt to get people interested and talking about Japan again. Then again, I am sure the money that would’ve been used to fund this program will go to use in rebuilding and helping the people of Japan.

AwardWallet- Not Really Losing American Airlines Tracking

AA, American Airlines, Award Wallet, Mileage, Miles

Sites like AwardWallet are extremely useful for keeping track of all of your airline & hotel mileage balances all in one place.
I definitely recommend that you sign up if you don’t have an account.
If you would like an invite to join or a free upgrade coupon (for first time users, 10 available), please e-mail me at michaelwtravels@gmail.com)

When American Airlines account tracking was removed from MileWise a couple of months back, I figured that AwardWallet would soon follow due to pressure (legal action?) from AA.

I am happy too say that this is not exactly the case for
AwardWallet.
I received an e-mail earlier today stating that they will no longer be able to store our American Airlines information/ passwords. They will release a browser extension which will allow each AW user’s browser to store the info. This will let our AA information to continue being shown with our other mileage accounts!

Here is the e-mail:

Dear Michael,
American Airlines has contacted us and stated that we may not access its website on your behalf and that we may not store any of your American Airlines account data on our servers. As a result, in the coming weeks we will release a browser extension which will enable you to check your balance and still display that balance along with the rest of your loyalty account balances; however, the data, such as your username, password, balance and any other attributes will only be stored in your browser so we will never have access to it. Also, this browser extension will be accessing American Airlines website from your computer and not from our servers. Since we do not have this extension ready yet, please save all of your American Airlines accounts and password in a secure place so that you can enter that data when we release the extension. Here are the accounts that you have stored with AwardWallet today:
Please open this page to print these account numbers along with your passwords before December 4, 2011. In the coming weeks we will release the AwardWallet browser extension to those users who wish to participate in our beta. If you want to be included in the beta, please follow this link: http://awardwallet.com/participateInBeta/

We will send you an email when we are ready for you to participate in the beta. Depending on how many volunteers we have we may not be able to invite everyone to limit the amount of support requests.
Please note that your American Airlines data will be removed from our servers on December 4, 2011. This will not have any impact on your actual American Airlines account or mileage balance.
If you have any questions regarding this email, please read this FAQ first : http://awardwallet.com/faqs.php#34
Also in order to avoid too many redundant emails regarding this matter please post your questions on our forum: http://awardwallet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1567
We apologize for this inconvenience, and we always strive to make AwardWallet the best reward tracking service.
Thank you,
AwardWallet team.
AwardWallet.com

If you have AwardWallet or plan to sign up, make sure to register for the beta if you want AA to still be tracked.

What is your favorite site for tracking all of your account balances???