Donate and earn miles when you give to Haiti relief

by Grant Martin on

Donating to the earthquake relief effort in Haiti should be a no-brainer, but for those who haven’t given or who would like to give more, the travel industry is offering a few additional mechanisms, some with incentives.

As of Tuesday morning, here’s a comprehensive list of how you can donate your miles via assorted airline or hotel websites.

  • American Airlines will give you 250 miles if you donate $50 to the American Red Cross or 500 miles for $100.
  • Continental OnePass members can donate to the American Red Cross directly, and CEO Jeff Smisek is reported to be matching coworker donations up to $50,000
  • Similar programs are in place at Delta and United.
  • Spirit Airlines, which flies daily flights to Haiti, is returning 5,000 miles to anyone who donates at least $5 to their charities.
  • JetBlue and Southwest won’t let you donate miles, but they do have donation links to the relief effort on their main pages.
  • In addition to matching the donations of their employees, US Airways allows Dividend Members to donate their miles.
  • Hyatt Gold Passport members can donate increments of 5,000 points by calling 1-800-228-3360, Hilton members can convert 10,000 points to a $25 donation at their site and Priority Club and Choice members can also chip in.
  • Starwood hotels are matching all donations, where 4,000 points will equal $50.
  • In addition to the $500,000 that Bill Marriott gave to the relief effort (classy!), you can donate your Marriott points here.

Did we miss anything? Drop off links in the comments below and we’ll update the post.

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.

Frequent fliers turn dollar coins into easy miles

by Aaron Hotfelder on

In the why-didn’t-I-think-of-this department, The Wall Street Journal wrote earlier this week about a brilliant scam plan that hundreds of frequent fliers undertook to essentially get thousands of frequent flier miles for free. According to the article, people were using credit cards with mileage awards to purchase thousands of Native American and presidential $1 coins for face value from the U.S. Mint, then depositing the coins directly into their banks when they were delivered.

A San Diego traveler named Patricia Hansen purchased $10,000 in coins from the Mint to earn 10,000 frequent flier miles. A New Jersey man bought $15,000 dollar coins and says that he had the UPS man load them directly into his trunk. The mileage trick was made even more profitable because the Mint paid the shipping charges on the coins.

A commentor who calls himself “Mr. Pickles” over at FlyerTalk, a forum where a community of travelers share tips and tricks for racking up miles, claims to have purchased $800,000 in dollar coins before depositing them into a number of different banks. He even posted photos of the coins when they arrived.

According to the Journal article, U.S. Mint officials were alerted to the miles-for-nothing program in late August of this year when they “noticed a sharp uptick in ‘large repetitive orders’ from a group of individuals… At about the same time, the Mint received reports from banks around the country that coins were being deposited that were still in their U.S. Mint boxes,” according to Mint spokesman Tom Jurkowsky.

Said Mr. Jurkowsky, “Is this illegal? No. Is it the right thing to do? No, it’s not what the program is intended to do.”

By the way, the scheme is still being tried by a few hardy folks over at FlyerTalk. Check out FlyerTalk’s FAQ about the program– including whether you can still take advantage of it– here.

For a more conventional way to rack up miles, check out Gadling’s Guide to Mileage Running.

Up in the Air: George Clooney becomes a frequent flyer

by Grant Martin on

Trailers for Up in the Air with George Clooney started surfacing on my desk this week, and I must admit, I’m eying them with curiosity, fear and interest.

I’m curious and interested because in a way, the film narrates the lives of many people I know, perhaps myself included, the life of a person always on the move who travels light — both physically and metaphorically.

What I’m afraid I’ll see is how these people are portrayed, the hollowness and vanity that sometimes comes with frequent travel and how this is reflected onto myself. Watching the trailers now available on YouTube, much of the dialogue rings familiar, even if it doesn’t apply to my personal life:

“Do you know that moment when you look into somebody’s eyes and you can feel them staring into your soul and the whole world goes quiet?”

“Yes!”

“Well, I don’t.”

But as all Hollywood movies go, I’m sure that Up in the Air will have a perfect ending and lesson learned, with all of us feeling as if we’re that clever, attractive businessman that finds love and starts life afresh.

I’m looking forward to the film.


Nice work on the product placement by the way. In this two minute trailer I saw American Airlines, Blackberry, Hilton, Travelpro and Mastercard. Incidentally, that shot of Clooney in front of the 747 and fountain was shot at Detroit’s Delta terminal.

Frequent Flyer Master — A product review

by Grant Martin on

If you’ve ever heard of the brand The Art of Non-Conformity you may have heard of Chris Guillebeau. Self described as a man who “writes, travels and helps people take over the world,” Guillebeau is a frequent traveler, speaker, entrepreneur and all-around social maven out in the blog and Twitter sphere. Among his claims to fame are a host of online guides for purchase, speaking on topics from successfully working at home to how to make money as an artist.

His latest is called Frequent Flyer Master, and it’s a guide to maximizing your earned frequent flyer miles, or as he puts it, “democratizing free travel.”

Earlier this week Mr. Guillebeau asked me to take a look, so as a frequent traveler myself I accepted a free copy of the $49 guide for a review.

Am I now a frequent flyer mile guru? Has my life changed? Has abject foreshadowing already ruined my review? Find out more below.The $49, 40 page, downloadable Frequent Flyer Master is separated into three major sections: Strategy, earning and spending miles. Throughout the course of the guide, Guillebeau patiently educates the reader on how frequent flyer mile programs work, pointing out numerous strategies, tips and tricks of the trade and then following up with a significant Q&A and onward reading section.

Much of the content focuses on how to best earn your miles, from on-the-ground activities such as skymall shopping to airline promotions to credit cards. Once rife with miles, Guillebeau continues onto best strategies for redemptions, speaking on booking technology, airlines and other travel tech.

It’s a great wealth of information and without a doubt would be extremely useful to an everyday, pedestrian traveler looking to get educated on the industry.

The predominant suggestion of getting miles and travel for practically nothing, however, is a bit misleading. It’s true that subscribers to this guide will have the means to earn 25k miles or a free plane ticket, but this miles don’t appear out of thin air. Yes, one can get a pile of bonus miles from Lending Tree without setting foot in the airport, but one needs to get a mortgage (and at what rate?). Similarly, one can earn 90k miles from applying for multiple Citibank credit cards, but that requires multiple credit cards, purchases and subsequent cancellations.

Most frustratingly, almost all of this information is publicly available. At the end of the document, Guillebeau openly lists Flyertalk as a resource for further reading, and it’s true: the patient reader can find almost everything in the above 39 pages among those Flyertalk threads.

What Frequent Flyer Master really serves is a pinpoint demographic, a host of readers who only need a shortcut to a compiled list of best deals and strategies for the frequent flyer — all without sifting through sheafs of threads out on the web. Admittedly, to a novice traveler this $49 is a decent investment.

For the patient, ardent, frugal traveler who’s looking to get started in the frequent flyer mile game, an alternative recommended investment would be a trip over to Flyertalk.com.