The latest updates
Want a single place to find all the promotions available from your loyalty program of choice? Most don’t have such available. And until today JetBlue didn’t either. Fortunately for TrueBlue members that has changed.
There is now a page on the TrueBlue site which lists all the active flight promotions for the program. Definitely a nice add to the site.
Hilton has a slightly convoluted promotion out this morning with marginal potential upside. Still, if you’re going to be booking a Hilton hotel today anyways for a stay this summer it is at least worth checking out.
Jumping through hoops for a few points isn’t the worst thing in the world, I suppose.
That said, Hilton managed to evoke one of my pet peeves: They’ve listed all the times in “EST” despite the fact that we’re in Daylight Saving Time during the summer months. Odds are they’ll actually enforce the times based on EDT, not EST, but that’s still sloppy work by whoever wrote the program T&Cs and annoying to me.
When Emirates announced that they were launching service between New York City and Milan later this fall I guessed that the route would be a great place to look for decent fares. While that part hasn’t materialized quite yet the first miles promo related to the route has been announced: Double miles for the first two months of flights.
The offer applies for all revenue tickets on the route and the 100% bonus will be a doubling of the base miles earnt for the flight, regardless of cabin. Also, it only applies to round-trip travel and tickets must be purchased by 20 June 2013 and travel completed by 30 November 2013 to qualify. More details are available on the promo registration page; registration is required.
Got any Club Carlson-related stays coming up in the next 9 weeks? If so, you might be in line for a nice chunk of bonus points. From now through July 21, 2013, every 2-night or longer stay will earn 10,000 bonus points, in addition to the 20 points/dollar which comes with the program. Registration is required and must be completed prior to check-out to earn the points.
As best as I can tell there is no maximum on the number of points which can be earnt through this promo, other than the limit in the number of days between now and when it expires.
American Airlines and Klout have teamed up to offer online influencers a free entry to an Admirals Club lounge. The promotion also includes the opportunity to win a free annual subscription. The gist of the deal is that Klout members with a score of 55 or higher can get a free day-pass as part of their entry into the contest for the free annual subscription; the day pass is valid through July 31, 2013. For lower Klout scores you still get an entry into the annual pass giveaway but not a free day pass. Also, anyone who want to sign up for a discounted membership can use the coupon KLOUT50 for $50 off the subscription price.
To enter the contest go to http://aa.com/klout and then click the button to link your Klout account to AA. It doesn’t appear to me that they get access to much of your account data through the link, though I’m honestly not certain. Then again, it isn’t like Klout actually knows much about me anyways…
Not a bad deal for a free pass.
Both Delta and Hyatt confirmed changes to their elite benefits today, confirming changes which had been rumored over the past several week.
Hyatt’s change means that Diamond Elite guests now get a choice of 1,000 bonus points or a local F&B amenity upon arrival at all properties worldwide, not only in the US, Canada & Caribbean. More points is always good, right?
Delta’s change is a bit more controversial. The carrier is altering its policy for “same-day change” of plane tickets. Here are some highlights of the new policy:
And, of course, the fee structure:
Silver Medallion members, general SkyMiles members and non-members:
Diamond, Platinum, and Gold Medallion members:
Delta’s new policy is decidedly middle-of-the-pack at best in terms of benefits for top elites. And the need for the same fare class to be available can be quite limiting, though United has a similar policy and mostly addresses that by opening up most fare buckets close to departure. This is going to be an interesting one to watch.
JetBlue‘s latest sale – launched on a Monday rather than their typical Tuesday offer – comes with a bit of extra in it this time around: Quadruple TrueBlue points.
The catch is that you have to register first, book quickly and travel in the noted window. But, assuming that all works for you, the bonus points are pretty nice. rather than the typical 3x points per dollar TrueBlue members will earn 12x points per dollar with this promo, plus 3x for booking online:
Quadruple points are awarded on the base TrueBlue point offer only, meaning that Members qualifying for this offer will earn twelve (12) TrueBlue points per dollar spent on their individual flight. Members can still earn the three (3) bonus points for booking on jetblue.com, for a total of fifteen (15) TrueBlue points per dollar spent on their individual eligible Quadruple Points flight booked on jetblue.com.
It is also worth noting that there are some decent fares included in the sale, along with a bunch of black-out dates (4/8 – 4/22/13 for routes to/from BOS, PWM, PVD and BDL). Travel on Friday and Sunday is excluded from the sale per the T&C but I’m seeing some instances where the sale fares are available those days anyways, so I’m not so sure about that.
Anyways, it is a pretty aggressive promo and worth checking out if you’ve got spring-time travel still to plan.
There was plenty of discussion earlier this week as people scrambled to book free Avis weekend rentals using a coupon/AWD code of unknown provenance. That fun came to a screeching halt this evening when Avis addressed the situation via Twitter:
Avis renters please note that AWD TUEA002 is invalid and your reservation will be cancelled, pls contact cust.serv@avisbudget.com asap.
— Avis Car Rental (@Avis) March 28, 2013
Yeah, that’s not going to work out so well after all.
Best I can figure, the fun started with a post on FlyerTalk. From there Mr. Pickles posted about it on his blog and then several others followed up with posts as well. The details made it over to Dan’s Deals and Slickdeals and then, not much later, died a rather unceremonious death.
Is anyone really surprised? I certainly am not. Pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered. And yet people still appear unable to control themselves.
Virgin America has a promotion available for either double or triple miles on 13 routes from their west coast hubs at Los Angeles and San Francisco. The promotion runs through 30 June 2013 (it started back in February; dunno why I missed it then). Registration is required.
There are eight routes where Elevate passengers will earn double miles on all flights. There are five additional routes which earn double points for the first two round-trips and triple points for additional flights. Here’s the list from Virgin America:
Reading the fine print on the offers I also see this little gem:
Bonus Elevate points earned in this offer will also qualify towards Elevate Gold or Elevate Silver status.
Yup, these bonus points count towards elite status in the Elevate program, too. That’s a nice little perk, especially given that status is achieved by spend, not distance flown. Halving the cost to get there is a nice deal, indeed.
With the recent partnership between Virgin American and Singapore Air this promo also opens up the possibility to get at the SQ awards a bit cheaper than otherwise. And that’s on top of the already decent rates they offer in some circumstances.
Hilton’s Q2 2013 earning promo is now open for registration, offering members up to 10,000 bonus points per week for stays between April 1 and June 30, 2013. The bonus points are earnt at a rate of 1,000 per night for weeknight (M-Th) stays and 2,000 per night on weekends (F-Su). Note that in the Middle East and Africa regions the weekend is Thursday through Saturday. There is no cap on the number of points one can earn in the promo period.
Certainly not the most generous of promos around and different from the double points/miles promo last quarter. Would this promo be more useful to you than the last one? Seems that the cutoff point is $100/night as to whether it is or not. More expensive rooms would fare better with double points while cheaper rooms benefit from the fixed earnings. And on weekends that number goes up, while room rates often go down.
And don’t forget about the recent changes to the HHonors award charts. Those points might be worth less than they were a couple months ago. Or more, if you like Bratislava.
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