Place of Travel Deals, Frequent Flyer/Guest Programs
Please remember, this 50% bonus is still active until May 31st, but it’s just for 1st time only. If you are unsure, you can try to register, it will tell you.
If you don’t qualify for above offer, you can register this one, up to 40% until June 30th, you will earn 25% for transfer less than 99999 miles, or 40% if more than 100,000
Hat tip ATL787
Delta is offering 50% bonus on MR transfer to Delta miles again, if you transfer50K or more, you will also earn 25K Elite qualifying miles.
However, this offer is valid for one time only, which means only your first transfer will be counted, so in order to get 25K MQM, you must transfer 50K at one time
Registration required, and promotion is running until May 31st, 2011
In addtion, Lucky also mentioned 30% bonus transfer promotion
The last 50% bonus promotion just ended yesterday, a new one is here
Register, then transfer 50,000 Membership reward points to Delta before Dec 31st, 2010, you will earn one of the following
$250 Macy’s Gift Card
or
20,000 bonus Membership reward points
bonus selection must be made during registration and can not be revised. However, you can earn bonus multiple times by breaking down your transfer into 50K each.
Hat tip to davevt98
Via lucky, from now until Dec 15th, you will earn 50% delta bonus miles on Membership rewards transfer to Delta, if you trasnfer 50K points or more, you will also earn 25K Delta Elite qualifying miles.
You need to register.
View from the wing talked about his take on the very best airline mileage award values and I’d like to add more.
Without a doubt, airline mileage award always get better value when redeeming on business/first class, but I know some people enjoy to visit more places than burning miles all at once, so I will also mention some good redemption on economy too. Back in 2008, I wrote an article to summarize all good value awards, but two years later, lots of them changed. here is my new summary:
American Airline:
70K/90K in business/first from Asia 2 to South Pacific including Easter Island
60K/90K in business/first from Asia 1 and 2 to Middle East
20K/40K in economy within Europe
20K economy within countries like Chile (excluding Easter Island), Argentina
Low season economy to Europe, South America 2 and Asia 1
Also, most importantly, all award can be redeemed for one way at half of RT cost.
Alaska airline:
Besides what’s Gary has mentioned in his blog, 7500 for one way travel within Alaska is also a great value
British Airways:
all economy/business award on single partner Lan from NA to South Aemrica(especially Southern South America) are excellent value.40K in economy, 80K in Business, all can be redeemed for one way at half of RT cost. Note: IPC(Eastern Island) is considered as part of Chile, so same amount as to South America
Also, all econ/business award on lan within South America/single country are also good value. 20K economy for within same country, 25K economy within south america, times 2 for business, divide by 2 for one way.
All BA awards allows unlimited stopover provided u are using the most direct routing, that means from LAX-IPC, you can get at least 2 stopovers, one in LIM, another one in SCL.
BA single airline to Asia in business class is considered a great value too.
British Midland:
BD still offers one the best award redemption table in business class. as mentioned before, no big changes since then. besides the great value in business class, there are some excellent value in economy class too.
one way Non stop flight within Europe from Zone 1 to 2, for Cash+miles, this award costs only 3000 miles+some cash. some non stop flights can be very expensive within the region.
Economy/business class within zone 5 or btw zone 5-6, within zone 5 costs only 5000 miles+cash in economy one way, but zone 5 covers almost entire Middle East/Central Asia/North Africa all the way to Tanzania.
Continental:
CO currently has exactly same redemption table as UA, but routing and award rule/availability are much much better than UA.
From North Asia-South Asia business class costs only 30K, you can go as far as Indonesia and you can find some crazy routing on Co website.
In addition, unlike most *A carriers program, you can combine non *A carriers with *A carriers when u searching online, that’s including VS upper class.
Don’t forget, you can one stopover+one open jaw with CO miles
For same amount, you actually get much better value with CO mile than UA.
Delta:
After NW and DL merged, DL have the worst availability in the entire industry, especially for award to Asia. However, with help of KL and AF, award to Europe/Middle East/central Asia/Africa are not that terrible yet.
100K business from US-EU with open jaw and stopover
110K business from US-EU, with stopover in EU, then open jaw from Africa/ Middle East/Central Asia or v.v
120K business from US-any Africa/ Middle East/Central Asia with stopover in EU and return from another region
If you are still wondering how to travel btw these regions Africa/ Middle East/Central Asia, BMI miles I mentioned above is your friend.
Also, 20K in economy anywhere within Asia is not that bad.
Note: Delta Awards allow one stopover+one open jaw for travel to/within any region provided their stupid system can recognize it.
KLM/AF:
KLM and AF offer 50% off redemption award year round to selected destinations, a lot of times, economy award from US-Europe can be as low as 25K, also business class award often half off too.
United:
Really, I can not find any,as I said, UA and CO have exactly identical redemption table, but UA has too many restrictions such as *A blocking, open jaw or stopover, not both. Non*A partner can not be combined with *A partner, etc……
US airways:
I just mentioned US airways few days ago, it’s one of the best program is US now.
US airways consider Russia as North Asia, from Russia-Hong Kong 20K in economy and most program consider Russia as Europe, so you only need 40K from Hong Kong to Europe in coach RT, first to Russian with US airways miles+AA miles from Russia to Europe.
or even better, fly to LED, then take a cruise to HEL.
Low season redemption on US own flight is a excellent deal too.
ANA:
I mentioned here and here how to best use ur ANA(AMEX rewards) miles.
Virgin Atlantic:
Whenever award is on sale
Lan(distance based)
Dan deals had a summary on Lan kilometers, best is for non stop short haul flight.
Once again, there are many good redemption levels to certain regions/countries on different programs worldwide, but accumulating and managing miles on those programs may not as easy as programs mentioned above, so I won’t suggest to put your miles into a program you are not to familiar with or just for a particular award unless u need to travel to/from that region frequently.
The reward certificate is not the one u find at Costco, it has some restrictions such as min stay 2 nights, not valid hyatt place and summerfield Suite, Andaz and New york+Victor in Miami, max 2 certificates per stay.
The certificate expires Dec 30,2010 and AMEX MR promotional redemption rate valid until May.
However, it does bring some good value if u stay at a full service Hyatt for 2 nights. You must have offer code HDC186 during the reservation process. I picked Hyatt Orange County weekday as example, the cheapest with offer code is $238 for 2 nights+tax, without offer code, it’s the same price, so you got extra $100 saving for 2 nights. Although, this certificate says u can not combine with other certificates, it should not be too hard for u to combine this one with certificate u get from Costco at 20% off price. Do you think they really read every single line of the certificate at US full service Hyatt?
Tip of the hat: Frugal Travel Guy
Here is the official contest post for Gold coast of Australia, sponsored by boardingarea.com and American Express gold rewards card.
To enter: Please answer “What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?” in comments section btw Today and March 28th 11:59:59 PM mountain time, anything you like to answer. There 20 boardingarea blogs are participating, you can make one entry per each blog and here is the full list. Please remember, one entry per blog.
Winner will be selected and notify by boardingarea on March 29,2010(Faster than any other contest,right?)
Prize: winner will get 8 days, 7 nights vacation for 2 including meals, transportation, fun and most importantly, your airfare and hotel stays are Points earning. In addition, you will also get $2500 American Express gift check for you to spend on anything you want.
You can find out more detail on this contest here
Please note: The contest is only open to resident of 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 years of age or older
Don’t wait, enter ur chance to win now!
Got this offer email today, you can earn up to 40% bonus from MR transfer, as I said, Delta program is bad, but if u can find a seat, one stopover and one openjaw are permitted.
| Transfer Points | Mileage Bonus | Total Miles |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 to 49,000 | 10% | 1,100 to 53,900 |
| 50,000 to 149,000 | 20% | 60,000 to 178,800 |
| 150,000+ | 40% | 210,000+ |
Not a great offer, but someone may be interested
You need to register here
Via Lucky, you can now transfer points from AMEX MR to British Airway.
but I assume people already have enough balance on their BA account via the craziest sign up offer ever.
In addition, you can get 5000 bonus Ba miles if you transfer 1000 points from MR to BA account before Jan 31st,2010.
One bonus per each AMEX MR account.
Any way, I still think the best place for MR points are ANA or Air Canada program.
From now to March 31st, transfer MR points to Delta and earn 20% bonus. You need to register here
