US Airways has launched a new Dividend Miles promotion for their Shuttle service between Washington, DC, New York City and Boston. For every three segments flown on the Shuttle between now and 31 May 2013 Dividend Miles members can earn 5,000 bonus points. The maximum points earnt under this promo is capped at 50,000 per member.  Registration is required.

image

As far as mileage-earning promos based on flying go US Airways is pretty good and this one doesn’t disappoint. My first mileage run was on US Shuttle flights almost a decade ago (that time it was bonus EQMs!) and the routes are still a great option for earning extra points it would seem.

Virgin America has extended their partnership with Singapore Air to now include frequent flyer reciprocity for travel on each others’ flights. The rates aren’t great on the earning side for Elevate members but the redemption options – particularly for short-haul in the SE Asia region – aren’t too horrible. Sortof like Avios in that regard. For KrisFlyer members the earning rates are actually quite reasonable on VX flights, though the sliding scale on redemptions makes things interesting.

 

Either way, probably the best news for Elevate members is that there is a Facebook promotion for 500 free Elevate points going on right now. You have to like the Virgin America page to get started on the promo and then you can enter to win a trip for 2 (economy class) to Hong Kong, Tokyo or Seoul from San Francisco or Los Angeles on Singapore Air metal. Connecting service to the gateway will be provided by Virgin America. And even if you don’t win the big prize every entry gets 500 free Elevate points.

More details on the expanded Virgin America/Singapore Air partnership and earning rates here.

Club Carlson has a new promotion out this month offering a 25% discount on redemptions in China through April 2013. From the promo email:

Enjoy 25% Gold Points® savings on standard Award Nights at participating Radisson Blu and Park Plaza® hotels in China. Book and complete your stay now through April 30, 2013 and save your well-earned points for more rewards.
Book your Award Night using promotional code 25REDEEM to redeem fewer points for these select hotels. For example, you would need just 21,000 points to redeem a night at a Category 3 hotel in China instead of the standard 28,000 points.

The participating hotels are:

Beijing

Shanghai

Chongqing

Tianjin

Wuxi

Liuzhou

Not the best deal ever, but a pretty good one if you’re headed that way in the coming months.

Sheraton hotels are offering a bonus promo of 1,000 extra points for any rooms booked on the Club levels at their hotels through May 31, 2013.

Bookings made online at Sheraton.com/club or through Starwood’s Customer Contact Centers are eligible. If booking online, look for rate plans DAILYFS or SICLUB to auto-populate. If booking through the Customer Contact Centers, please ask for Promotion Code CL1.

This can be an easy way to get some extra points cheap, but only if the price differential from the regular room to the club justifies it. For SPG elites that is an even more pronounced concern as the other club benefits – complimentary breakfast, high-speed Internet, etc. – are generally included in their status-based benefits at the hotels.

Not necessarily the best deal out there, but worth looking at the prices, just in case.

Free bonus points if you are going to be flying on United Airlines‘ new (again) San Francisco – Paris service during the first 6 weeks of service. Get a 100% bonus for full-fare tickets (B and higher) and 50% for nearly all discount fares. The N and G buckets – cheapest 2 United offers – aren’t in the list but I also don’t think that they are available on transatlantic routes so probably not a huge deal.

Registration is required.

Other fine print details:

Enjoy our new nonstop service between San Francisco (SFO) and Paris Charles De Gaulle International (CDG), plus earn 100% bonus award miles in United Global First℠, United BusinessFirst® and full-fare United Economy® (F, A, J, C, D, Z, P, Y and B fare classes), or 50% bonus award miles in discounted United Economy (M, E, U, H, Q, V, W, S, T, L and K fare classes).

Simply register and book travel between February 12, 2013, and May 31, 2013, then fly between April 11, 2013, and May 31, 2013.

  1. Offer is valid for travel on nonstop flights marketed and operated by United between San Francisco (SFO) and Paris Charles De Gaulle International (CDG).
  2. Offer is valid on tickets purchased between February 12, 2013, and May 31, 2013, for travel between April 11, 2013, and May 31, 2013.
  3. Connections into and out of San Francisco or Paris Charles De Gaulle International are allowed, however the bonus is only valid for segments between San Francisco and Paris Charles De Gaulle International.
  4. Bonus can be earned an unlimited number of times during the promotion period.
  5. Bonus award miles do not count toward Premier® status and do not apply to class-of-service, Premier bonus miles or promotional Premier qualifying miles.
  6. Offer is not valid on flights marketed or operated by other carriers.
  7. Offer is not valid on government fares.
  8. Roundtrip is defined as travel from an origin city to a destination city with return travel beginning in the destination city back to the origin city. Open jaw and circle trip itineraries do not qualify.

Buying points is often a tough value proposition to justify. For program where the redemption value is fixed (or relatively so) such as JetBlue‘s TrueBlue program it is even harder to realize good value from such a purchase. From now through March 15, 2013 the game changes a bit as JetBlue is offering up to a 50% bonus on purchased points, depending on how many you buy to begin with.

image

  • Buy 5,000-9,500 to get 20% bonus points
  • Buy 10,000-19,500 to get 30% bonus points
  • Buy 20,000-29,500 to get 40% bonus points
  • Buy 30,000 to get to 50% bonus points

The bad news is that at the top end you’re still paying around 1.9 cents per point when the maximum redemption value is around 1.6 cents each. If it was possible to just buy a few at that rate to top off an account for an award it might be reasonable. But you have to spend a lot to get to that level. That’s not nearly as helpful.

Not a great deal, but better than nothing if you’re in the market to top off an account anyways.

Nothing quite like a simple, comprehensive double points promo to get me excited. Southwest just brought one to the table and it is pretty darn juicy. Plain and simple, double points across the board from now through 15 May 2013 every flight in every fare class on every route earns double points. EVERYTHING! Yeah, I like that.

image

The company is also offering a double tier points promo for itineraries starting or ending in Milwaukee over the same dates. That means double credits toward A-List elite status with Rapid Rewards.

Registration is required for both promos.

This is quite a deal, one that anyone flying on Southwest should be registering for. Git ‘er done!

The month of February has US Airways back in promo mode on their Shuttle flights between Boston, New York City and Washington, DC. The carrier is offering double award miles for all Shuttle trips flown in the month. That means 1,000 award miles and 500 elite miles for each segment rather than 500/500.

Registration is required for this promotion.

With the February 1 expected date for Malaysian Airlines to join the oneworld alliance rapidly approaching it looks like some of their future partners are getting around to posting earning rates for MH-operated flights. JAL seems to be the first in line, with the earning chart showing up online in the past day or two. Here’s a shot of the important part of the page:

image

Not so exciting to see so many fares earning only partial credit. Even more worrisome is that there are a number of even cheaper buckets – N, Q, O and G at least – which earn no credit at all in the JAL program. It is also a bit strange to see S listed as a revenue bucket as at least one source I saw suggests that it is an award seat, not revenue. If they are aligning with the other oneworld partners it seems that U and T or X would be the business and economy awards, respectively, so maybe S is revenue now.

Anyways, just one of several partners who will need to update their details by Friday, but it is a start. Expect others to follow soon enough.