If you text HAMPTON to 40491 you will receive a text message with a phone number to call.

Call that number with your Hilton Honors number and receive 10,000 Hilton Honors points.

By doing this, you agree to receive text messages from Hilton.

If the mailbox is full, email renee.snoke@hilton.com.

Link to Facebook page describing the promotion

UPDATE: deal is dead

Go to American Airlines Facebook page, “like” them, enter in your AA number and you’ll then earn between 100 to 100,000 AAdvantage Miles.

I earned 100.

Thanks to Dan’s Deals

I’ve pretty much set up everything to be paid by my Delta American Express card now except for my gas bill. They are still living in the 1900s and make you pay by check.

Today I happened to be on their website and noticed that for a $1.99 fee, you can pay by credit card. They don’t American Express, but do take Visa and Mastercard. To avoid the fee the next couple of months, I went ahead and initiated a payment of $300 so I’ll have a credit on my account towards future bills.

You may want to check out your own utility and gas company to see if they offer credit card payments as well. Whatever it takes to get miles!

When it comes to my travel, I like to plan a lot ahead. I like to pick the best seats, the best hotels, the best flights, the best restaurants, and the best places to see while traveling.

I’m also a hoarder of miles and points and to some extent pretty selfish about it. I always make sure that all the promotions, deals, and credit card bonuses are credited to my account. It wasn’t until just recently that I started to do the same for the rest of my family (thank you AwardWallet.com for making this task VERY easy).

This past fall, I applied for the Platinum American Express card and credited the 25000 MQMs and 50000 Skymiles to my account.
For this trip, I used my wife’s Skymiles to book her ticket and paid for my ticket so that I could get the miles and MQMs. As I said – I’m pretty selfish in that regard.

As I logged in to my Skymiles account yesterday, I saw that my first class upgrade had cleared on both legs. My wife wasn’t eligible for upgrades because she was traveling on an award ticket. Uh-oh. A moral dilemma – should I as the person who earned the upgrade sit up front or allow my wife to?

My wife is so supportive of my travel. As I’m dining at fantastic restaurants and sleeping at fantastic hotels in exotic places, she’s having Spongebob Macaroni and Cheese and Dino Nuggets with our kids. In fact, during one trip, I was upgraded to business class coming back from Hungary and slept the whole way and arrived pretty well rested. She was scheduled to arrive six hours earlier from California but due to some mechanical issues her 1 1/2 hour flight turned into a 7 hour marathon with two crying kids. As I approached her at the baggage pickup, I was confused as to why everyone looked so disheveled. I felt completely refreshed – she looked like she wanted to run away.

I’m also a pretty tall guy so I NEED the extra leg room. Our economy reservation was for two exit row seats side by side but foolishly I booked her in the middle and myself on the aisle. So we’re left with a first class seat and a middle exit row seat.

As we approached the gate in Miami, I wasn’t sure what to do. What is the protocol for traveling with your spouse? Who should benefit from the upgrade? I decided to go ahead and let her take the shorter leg up in first class to Cincinnati. I thought that I was a pretty unselfish guy for giving up MY first class upgrade to her.

As we were boarding the four hour flight to Cincinnati, I looked at her again. I could see in her eyes that she knew it was MY upgrade and she wasn’t going to say anything but she desperately wanted to sit up in first again if but for a moment to forget about all the months of watching our children, the late nights, the dirty diapers, and everything that she has done for us while I traveled.

As we boarded the plane, I handed her my first class ticket, kissed her on the forehead, and headed back to the dreaded middle seat. I keep looking up towards first class thinking that she’ll turn around and acknowledge me back here. But there hasn’t been a single glance. She must be swept up in having a comfortable seat, plenty of leg room, and actual meal, and reading her book without someone asking her for anything.

So – to my wife sitting up in seat 3C right now – thank you for all that you have done on my behalf to help my career. Thank you for all the times you have sacrificed and not complained about it. Thank you for allowing me to take advantage of all of the bonus offers to get me higher status. Enjoy the upgrades – you deserve it. Now I’ve got to get back to fighting for armrest room with my two seat mates in economy.

Dear Delta

Your Sky Club in Miami is beautiful. You have really comfortable chairs. They are so comfortable that I would prefer to sit in my chair and do work rather than sit in uncomfortable bar stools at a counter.

It would be really helpful if you could put outlets near the chairs so that we’re not forced to work at the counters in order to charge our laptops.

Thank you

MilesQuest

Sometimes I wonder how much testing happens when companies roll out their products. The Delta check in kiosk is a pretty quick way to check in. Today as I was checking in and I was offered the ability to move to one of three earlier flights. As a Platinum – there is no change fee. My biggest concern was which seat would be available. I didn’t want to be sitting in at a window seat and my first class upgrade on both legs had already cleared.

As a passenger, I would like to see what seats are available before I make the decision to change my flights. I ended up having to ask one of the gate agents if they could look at the seat map to see what seats were available. Five minutes later, he said that though the kiosk had offered one of the earlier flights as an option, there was in fact no seats available on the connecting flight??

Rather than repeat this same process for the two other flights and because there was a pretty long line at this point, I went ahead and stuck with my original itinerary.

My suggestion to Delta – show me the seat map before allowing me to switch!

We’re half way done with our cruise. The staff has been extremely nice, the accommodations have been top notch, but I’m realizing that cruising isn’t our style.

I’ll have a full write up after we’re done of the pluses and minuses plus some money saving tips for those of you taking this particular line.

Our Maldives trip is coming quickly and I can not wait.

One of the benefits of the Platinum American Express is lounge access and so we’re sitting at the Sky Club by Chili’s in Atlanta.

I’m very impressed with this Sky Club – plenty of seating, nice assortment of snacks, and overall very comfortable.

On to Miami!

There are an incredible 63 people on the upgrade list for my flight to Atlanta. And I am only number 19 as a Platinum. The joys of flying out of a Delta hub!

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday and everyone has their favorite food for the big game.

Why not order some pizza from Domino’s AND earn some American Advantage miles?

First – register your credit card here

Then, go here and click on the “Order Now” button to be taken to the Domino’s Pizza website.

You’ll earn 1 Advantage miles per $2 spent at Domino’s – so it’s not like you’ll be earning a free trip to the Maldives anytime soon – but if you have an account that’s near expiration this is the perfect way to extend it cheaply and quickly.

As a Cowboys fan – Go Steelers!