Earn free frequent flyer miles by purchasing dollar coins

by Grant Martin on

Rewards credit cards are a great way to earn a few percent cash back or frequent flyer miles for everyday purchases, but they’re geared against the consumer’s rate of purchase — the more you spend, the more rewards you earn.

Intrinsically this concept conflicts with the budget traveler. Sure, 2 miles for every dollar spent would be great, but few people spend enough money each month to make the miles worthwhile. If one spends 300 dollars and earns 600 miles per month, for example, it would take 41 months to save enough for a free flight on most airlines.

But a few savvy consumers have learned to game the system, all courtesy of the US mint. On their website, the mint advertises free shipping for over $500 in purchases of presidential $1 coins — at cost. This means that a user can show up at their online store, purchase $1000 worth of dollar coins on their rewards card and have them shipped to their front door for free. A quick walk to the bank puts that money back into circulation (hopefully for the payment of one’s credit card bill) and the user emerges a few miles richer. At that point, the user can repeat the cycle.

Sounds like a cash advance, right? Sort of, but mileage hounds have found that the neither the credit cards nor the IRS view it in that way, so they’re still buying dollar coins and reaping the rewards.

As to any impact on one’s credit score or the value of carrying 20lb boxes to the bank every day, the jury is still out, but for those with time and a bit of financial flexibility it seems like a great trick to earn miles.

You can read more details and extensive discussion over at Flyertalk and Milepoint.

Traxo: all-in-one mileage, points and status tracker

by Scott Carmichael on

Last week, we took a look at ten ways to prevent your hard earned miles and points from expiring. From that article, we received a tip to check out another new online mileage tracker – Traxo.

Traxo describes itself as “an automatic, intelligent new system for organizing, managing and sharing all of your trip details”. What this means to us travelers, is that the site automatically monitors your miles and points on over 40 different sites. The system knows how to access almost every major airline, hotel chain, online travel agency, rental car company and credit card reward program – and once entered into their site, you’ll have a single point of reference for all your accounts.

Best of all, the site does more than just display your account balances – it also tracks your current membership status, informing you how far you are from the next tier. It also collects all your (upcoming) trips, and its social features can share (parts of) these trips with authorized friends and family members. Other handy features can alert you when miles or points are going to expire, giving you plenty of time to find a quick way to add some new activity.

Of course, as with all sites that “scrape” from your accounts, you need to be well aware that there may be risks involved, but the Traxo privacy policy seems quite adequate.

The site is easy to navigate and accounts can be added very quickly. Best of all, the service is free of charge. To take it for a spin, head on over to Traxo.com.

Frequent flier classes help you learn (and game?) the system

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Who knew a seminar could turn you into Gadling top dog Grant Martin? That isn’t the explicit promise of Grant-caliber savvy – nobody would be so bold – but two courses developed by Nicholas Kraley can bring you a little closer to maximizing your miles and taking that all important mileage run in December.

Kraley is something of an expert, having picked up more than 1.5 million miles in the past decade as a diplomatic correspondent and business travel columnist over at the Washington Times. The curricula he has developed for his “On the Fly” seminars – “Saving on airfare and redeeming frequent-flier miles” and the advanced course, “Securing top elite status and flying in luxury” – reflect his experience.

According to USA Today:

“No one has ever done this before, as far as I know,” Kralev says. “It took me years to learn all that stuff, since there are no books or classes about this, and I thought there must be enough people out there who want to fly cheaply but in luxury.”

Interested in checking this out? The program kicks off June 25 and 26, 2010.

Forgetting to earn miles when pre-ordering the iPad

by Amy Chen on

I was amused to read that on Day 1, about 120,000 iPads were sold on “a product that 99.9% of purchasers haven’t touched or for that matter, even seen in person,” CNN reports.

I’m embarrassed, but not for the reason you’d expect. On Day 2, I pre-ordered the 3G version of the iPad, due to start shipping in late April. In my eagerness to get my hands on the tablet, I committed a rookie mistake: I forgot to access the Apple Online Store through United Mileage Plus Mall.

For some reason, online shopping is the one mileage-earning opportunity that I often overlook. I’ve even gone as far as bookmarking the Mileage Plus Mall page in hopes it’ll remind me. But no, I forgot — again.

After buying the 64GB model ($829) and a case ($39), my total came to $945.05 with taxes. I’m kicking myself because had I remembered to log in first with my frequent-flier account, I would’ve earned 945 miles toward my United account. (The Apple Online Store lets you earn one mile per dollar).

If I end up buying a dock for the iPad or a wireless keyboard ($69), I’ll try to remember my own advice. Feel free to remind me.

On the road with a Gadling mileage runner

by Grant Martin on

Whether you ethically believe in the mileage runs or not, they play a serious, vital role in many frequent flyer’s lives. The concept, in case you’re unfamiliar, has to do with flying around willy-nilly at year’s end solely to reach a certain number of earned-miles. In turn, rewards are given to loyal passengers who fly these high volumes, often so great that it’s actually worth the cost of flying those extra few miles.

I found myself in the above situation as November came to a close this year, 7,000 miles short of reaching 100k on American Airlines, a status that they refer to as Executive Platinum (EXP). Flashy. With said status comes a variety of perks: extra bonus miles when traveling, free upgrades and waitlist priority to name a few. To most, however, the biggest perk is called an EVIP, or System Wide Upgrade, a voucher that effectively lets passengers book a ticket in coach to anywhere in the world and then upgrade to business for free.

Very simply put, one can thus purchase a $700 ticket to Tokyo and use an EVIP to ride in business class next to someone who paid $3400 for a proper revenue ticket. It’s a great perk for those who have time or fly enough to earn EXP. And frankly, if the goal is nearby it’s worth spending the few hundred dollars to reap these rewards over the next year.

Going back to November, I projected the number of miles that I would be short and realized that I needed to scoop up a few more before year’s end. So I began to construct a mileage run, a trip taken purely to soak them up. Destination? Duration? Unimportant. The right amount of miles in the right amount of time? Key. Here’s how it came together: Tools and Strategy

The obvious goal of a mileage run it to earn as many miles as possible for the lowest amount of cost and time spent. There are a few tools to search for fares by distance against cost, but the best is Farecompare. Using their Flyertalk tool, you can sort by Price Per Mile (PPM) and distance. It’s true FC will give you a ton of false positives, but patiently working through the schedules and availability will pay off in the long run.

In my case, I needed to fly at least 7,000 miles in under a weekend, so I limited my search to Europe and South America, eventually sifting out a $450 fare from Chicago O’Hare to Frankfurt, Germany that I could take departing on Saturday and returning on Sunday — on the same airplane, no less. Using the webflyer mileage calculator, I verified that this would earn me 8660 miles, so I booked the fare.

On the Road

After a night out with friends on Friday and a full day of work on Saturday, I left for O’Hare from work at 5:00PM for my 7:30 flight. In my messenger bag?

  • T-shirt and undergarments
  • Laptop and charger
  • Book: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  • iPhone with a wide spectrum of TED videos

By 6:15 I’m in terminal 3 of ORD, ambling slowly towards the K gates and marveling at the grandiose holiday decorations. As an AA platinum member on an international itinerary I get free access to the Admiral’s Club, so I step in for a handful of pretzels and to pick up a complimentary Vitamin Water, then I’m at the gate five minutes before boarding.

Seat 21A on this Boeing 767 is part of the first exit row just right of the boarding door, and I’m joined by a nearly silent, middle aged man in the seat next to me. We push back right on time and I watch UP as I eat my dinner, then listen to This American Life until I fall asleep.

Frankfurt

Despite light flurries in Frankfurt we land on time in the German metropolis, dazed from a few short hours of sleep. With three hours before my return flight, there’s no time to go into the city (or leave the airport, for that matter,) but there’s plenty of time to explore the airport.

With no checked bags I vault through customs, the distracted passport control agent absentmindedly stamping my passport as I held it out to page J. He never even looked at the photo. And as I break out into the bright arrivals hall, the buzz of Frankfurt International Airport consumes me.

Time to check into the Admiral’s Club. Going up a few floors I randomly pick a direction and start walking, looking up at the massive departures board as I pass underneath. Oslo. Copenhagen. Mumbai. Chicago isn’t even on the list yet, but when I look down I happen to see the AA check in counter so I amble up.

“Is it too early to check in?”
“Nope,” the security agent smiles, “Where are you coming from?”
“Chicago.” She raises her eyebrows. “Needed the miles.”
“Oh, ok.”

Both veterans of the security question volley, we do the normal dance: Yes, I packed my bag this morning in Chicago. Yes, it’s been with me this whole time. No, I have no weapons. And then she points me to the ticket counter where I pick up my boarding pass and get directions to the Admiral’s Club.

In five more minutes I’m sitting in a leather chair above the departures hall, poking at a massive German pretzel and waiting for the shower queue to clear up. Between the lounge facilities and the in-terminal grocery store I spend the next hour cleaning and waking up, the products of which are a clean change of clothes, hot shower and two purchased containers of fried onions (great for hot dogs!)

Briefly before boarding, the lounging passengers in the Admiral’s Club are paged, and the slow return to the aircraft commences for our 2:30PM departure.

Return

Seat 21A is just as I left it, refusing to lock into its upright position and slightly uncomfortable. A new pillow and blanket have however been left for me which I unwrap, unfold and immediately proceed to fall asleep under.

8 hours goes pretty fast when you bring a fully charged laptop, research papers and videos along the way — and even faster when you sleep for most of it. Before I know it I’m passing back through the jetbridge and into the halls of O’Hare immigration, 30 minutes prior to my scheduled arrival of 5PM on Sunday.

The Department of Homeland Security officer greets me with a nod as I approach his glass cubicle, and doesn’t even flinch when I tell him that I was on a mileage run. With a quick flick of his wrist he stamps my passport, then I pass straight through baggage claim and back into the open terminal, 22 hours and 8600 miles after I arrived.

Wrap up

So why don’t airlines just sell elite miles to passengers rather than making them fly in circles? They could sell the seat to a person who wants to travel and the mileage runner can stay at home and relax.

Partially because elite status needs to be earned. Any random exec shouldn’t be able to purchase the perks that many, loyal travelers spend weeks on the road cultivating. It’s a rite of passage, so to speak.

It also builds brand loyalty. When you scratch the airline’s back and spend thousands of dollars with them, the small tokens that they return to your mileage account make traveling that much easier. Everyone wins, in a way — it just takes a small amount of effort to get things started.

Ready to book your own run? Start with Gadling’s own guide to mileage running.