26

Sep

TM Travel World has an excellent post where he lays out how he plans to get 36 ‘hits’ in the US Airways Grand Slam promotion and earn 100,000 bonus miles.

What’s useful about the post is that he details the specific items he’s doing and buying and their costs. I have many different items myself, and I’m not likely to hit the top bonus for 36 activities, but there are some useful nuggets here.

  • He’s going to earn four different partner credits from hotel points transfers into US Airways. Starwood Platinum members can transfer as few as 1 point to miles in their choice of programs, you need to transfer a minimum of 100 miles for this promotion. Then he’s transferring points from Hyatt, Hilton, and Goldpointsplus.

  • He’s going to credit six hotel stays and six car rentals to US Airways for six ‘hits’ apiece. The car rentals he’s doing just for the miles at about $30 apiece.

But here’s where it gets interesting.

  • Register for the US Airways dining for miles program (Rewards Network aka iDine). You can just use a credit card that’s not registered with another Dining for Miles program and use it this one time. He says, “Plenty of Burger Kings on the list, just buy a kid drink.”

This one I’m not too sure about:

1 hit from miles for magazine, the lowest 300miles is not longer on the list, so I choose 400 one


I haven’t followed the Flyertalk thread on this promotion, but I assume he’s talking about redeeming miles to get a magazine subscription and imagined that only mileage-earning activities would count. The terms and conditions of the offer do say

Use of a partner without earning Dividend Miles will not count as a Hit.


I know it’s listed as valid in the Flyertalk master thread for this promo but it sure seems like it shouldn’t be. Anyone that has kept up with the promo discussion want to weigh in here?

  • He’s done a quote request with 21st Century Insurance and he’s taking a ride on a Supershuttle.

  • Here are the shopping purchases that seem useful to earn hits:

1 hit from Vinesse– buy pocket wine tasting guide, 4.95+2.5 shipping, you go to their website, find Gift section, then find book &CD section, this guide is there)

1 hit from Dividend Miles Wireless-Again, like last year, Cellphone wipe, 3.49+4.99 shipping

1 hit from OfficeMax– MMF wedgy scabbard antimicrobial pen refill – $0.59 + $7.95 shipping…

1 hit from Skymall– Search “Improvements”, then sort by price, you will find a item with $2.99 + $7.95 shipping

1 hit from Biscoff– cookies #0213 – $13.56 + $7.95 shipping…

1 hit from ChronoMed– Frequent Flyer Support Pack – $29.95 + $6.95 shipping

He suggests a boutonniere from FTD, but I actually needed to send some flowers to I used FTD via the US Airways website (granted, giving up more miles with United in so doing).

Then there are hits to be earned by buying miles and by transferring miles, the former being especially lucrative with the 100% bonus on purchased miles that US Airways is running.

  • He also explains how to use the fewest miles at points.com in order to get a mile into your US Airways account for a partner credit:

I swap 20 miles AA to 5 Asia miles then swap to 1 US airways miles. Alternatively, you can swap 53 US miles to 18 Greenpoints, then swap back into 1 US airways miles

I’ve earned a hit by transferring e-Rewards points to US Airways and another hit from e-miles as well. And I made a purchase from the US Airways shopping mall, I regularly order from drugstore.com and usually buy via the Continental Airlines mall with a Continental Mastercard which earns double miles, so I did give up some more miles to move the activity to US Airways and earn the partner credit.

7 Comments

  1. Mike Smith said,

    Does all that add up to 36 hits?

  2. Jennifer said,

    I asked US airways customer service re: Use of a partner without earning Dividend Miles will not count as a Hit.
    They responded, ordering magazine (using mile not earning) also earns a hit.

  3. Jeff said,

    I can confirm ordering a magazine will generate a hit.

  4. George said,

    Yup, magazine gets a hit. It’s already been earned on mine.

  5. US AIrways Discounting Lounge Membership for 3 Days Only - View from the Wing said,

    [...] Acquisition of AirtranRon Schnell on On Southwest’s Planned Acquisition of AirtranGeorge on Strategies for Earning 100,000 Bonus Miles Through the US Airways Grand Slam PromoJason H on Opting Out of e-Rewards’ Creepy ‘Advanced Cookies’beaubo on Behind the [...]

  6. Boraxo said,

    So how much are you “paying” for 100k points when all is said and done? And of that amount, how much was for purchases of things you actually need and wouldn’t have bought elsewhere?

  7. asher said,

    how can you see your hits ?

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