Through June 27, 2013, American Express Membership Rewards in the US is offering a 20% bonus on transfers to HawaiianMiles. The bonus is hard coded into the transfer ratio, meaning the bonus posts instantly and you can earn it as often as you’d like.

Sadly HawaiianMiles isn’t a very lucrative frequent flyer program, so there are very few circumstances under which this represents a good value, in my opinion.

One case where it can make sense is for travel on Virgin Atlantic. Hawaiian is Virgin Atlantic’s only airline partner that doesn’t impose fuel surcharges for redemptions on them. Hawaiian’s award chart for travel on Virgin Atlantic used to be extremely lucrative, as they charged 140,000 miles for Upper Class to anywhere in the world, meaning you could do a roundtrip from San Francisco to London to Hong Kong to Sydney and back, for example. Then in November of last year they devalued their award chart for travel on Virgin Atlantic with no advance notice. Now it’s 125,000 miles for business class between the east coast and Europe, so factoring in the 20% transfer bonus that’s ~105,000 Membership Rewards points.

The next best alternative is booking through ANA which charges 63,000-68,000 miles for roundtrip tickets on Virgin Atlantic between the east coast of the US and London, though you’ll be hit with ~$820 in fuel surcharges. So in that case I’d say booking through Hawaiian represents a better value.

Other than that there really aren’t many good uses of Hawaiian miles. While they can be transferred at a 1:2 ratio to Hilton HHonors, that only applies to miles earned directly through the program, and not those transferred in. So if you want to transfer points from American Express Membership Rewards to Hilton HHonors, you’ll want to go through Virgin Atlantic.

For actual travel to Hawaii you’re almost always better off booking through British Airways Avios if flying coach between the west coast and Hawaii, or booking through Singapore KrisFlyer for travel in first or business class or from the east coast. You can find more tips for redeeming Membership Rewards points for travel to Hawaii in this post.

Hawaiian does have random partnerships with JetBlue, Virgin America, and more, but I don’t find them to be all that valuable.

Can anyone think of any other uses of HawaiianMiles that would be worthwhile with this transfer bonus?

Back in April I shared the details of a promotion Etihad was running for their BusinessConnect program. They’re offering a 5,000 mile sign-up bonus just for signing up your business. There are no strings attached, other than that you have to upload a copy of your EIN. While I have a legitimate business, truth be told I’m lazy and instead uploaded a blank word document, and still got approved for the program, and the 5,000 miles posted quickly.

I actually forgot about those 5,000 miles until they emailed me yesterday. While 5,000 miles is a lot for nothing, 5,000 miles in a program you don’t otherwise accrue miles in really isn’t worth a whole lot.

Ah, they have a reward shop! Suddenly those 5,000 otherwise useless miles were worth something. For fewer than 5,000 miles they had memory sticks, iPad cases, etc. — a bunch of things I actually could use. So in the end I ordered an iPad case for just under 5,000 miles, and shipping is free.

Anyway, there are plenty of things in their rewards shop for fewer than 5,000 miles that retail for $30-50, so if you haven’t already you might as well join their BusinessConnect program and get something for free.

Ritz-Carlton Rewards has announced a pretty lucrative summer promotion, which will be valid for stays between July 1 and October 31, 2013.

Through this promotion you earn one complimentary night at a tier 1-3 Ritz-Carlton after making two stays. You can earn a maximum of two free nights through the promotion. Registration for the promotion is required prior to September 30 for accounts created before June 4, 2013. Accounts created on or after June 4 are automatically registered for the promotion. The free night certificates will be deposited in eligible accounts within 3-5 business days of the second stay, and are valid for a year.

Interestingly the terms and conditions state that “the member receiving this offer has been specifically targeted,” though I think it’s safe to assume that’s not the case since the promotion shows up on the front page of Ritz-Carlton’s website.

You can find a listing of hotel categories here, so you can see the tier 1-3 properties that these nights can be redeemed at, which usually go for 30,000-50,000 points per night.

This can be a really good deal for some properties. For example, the Ritz-Carlton Moscow is a tier 3 property so you can redeem your free night certificates there. Some days the best available rate for a standard room is $1,000USD per night with tax.

(Tip of the hat to Josh)

US Airways more or less offers monthly promotions on the purchase or sharing of miles. In January they offered a 100% bonus on purchased miles targeted exclusively to those that purchased miles in 2012, in February they offered a targeted 100% bonus on purchased miles as well, in March they offered a “mystery” bonus of up to a 100% on purchased miles, in April they offered a 50% bonus on shared miles, and in May they offered a 100% bonus on purchased miles for everyone.

This month they’re basically offering a slightly better version of the April promotion. Through June 30 they’re offering a 50% bonus on the sharing of miles. Sharing miles (meaning transferring them from one account to another) ordinarily costs one cent per mile, plus a 7.5% tax, plus a $30 transaction fee.

Through this promotion they’re waiving that transaction fee and offering a 50% mileage bonus.

That means if you transfer 50,000 miles to someone else’s account you’ll really get 75,000 miles, and it will cost you $537.50, or 2.15 cents per “generated” mile.

So this is a good deal if you’re looking to top off an account, in my opinion, but isn’t a rate at which I’d proactively transfer miles unless you have a specific redemption in mind. During the standard 100% bonus on purchased miles they’re available for 1.88 cents each, so this is a bit more expensive.

The very best promotions that US Airways runs, however, are the 100% bonus on shared miles, like the one they ran last October. Through that promotion you’re basically paying just over a penny per mile, which is an amazing deal. Here’s to hoping that returns sometime soon…

The past few years the US Travel Association and American Express have been sponsoring Daily Getaways, which is basically a promotion offering discounted travel packages to encourage travel within the US. As I posted back in March, the promotion will be back this year, though at the time the calendar wasn’t published.

Well, the calendar has now been published for two weeks of the five week promotion.

Here’s the schedule for the first week, from June 10-14:

And the schedule for the second week, from June 17-21:

The above isn’t especially exciting — I think what we get excited over are the Hyatt and Starwood points, though the past two years there have been so few packages and so much competition to the point that snagging them is kind of like winning the lottery, even if you’re there exactly when the promotion begins.

As a reminder, if you pay with an American Express card you get an additional 10% off, so in sharing my thoughts below I’ll assume everyone’s paying with an American Express.

So the first day you’re basically looking at Marriott gift cards for 20% off. Not bad, assuming you stay at Marriotts. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are all pretty boring to me. I assume they’ll interest some, though they’re pretty specific.

For the following week the Club Carlson points are probably the most interesting offering. You can buy 50,000 points for $174.60, or 100,000 points for $346.50. I value Club Carlson points at maybe 0.4 cents each, so it’s a good deal, though not an amazing deal, in my opinion. Keep in mind you can get a lot more value out of Club Carlson points if you have their credit card, since the second night of an award redemption is free.

The other interesting offering is Avis Chairman’s Club membership for $1,003.50. This is basically the Concierge Key/Global Services equivalent of car rental status. I doubt you’ll get $1,000+ in value out of it unless you rent a lot, but it’s a cool status nonetheless.

Anyway, here’s to hoping weeks three through five are more exciting!