Earn elite status on US Airways for 7,500 miles

by Grant Martin on

The jockeying for elite passenger revenue continues. Earlier this year, most of the major carriers announced double “elite qualifying mile” promotions, specials that drastically reduced the number of airline miles that one needed to fly to enjoy special perks. Usually, one needs to fly at least 25k miles to start earning low level perks such as bonus miles, preferred seats and upgrades.

With those promotions over in the spring, everyone reveled in their fortune of finding a shortcut to elite status this year — until this month, when American Airlines and United Airlines relaunched their promotions. Now, scrappy passengers (myself included) are racing to top off their frequent flyer accounts to reach even higher levels of status, a fall season full of mileage runs, lost sleep and airports.

The latest in a spate of elite promotions comes from US Airways. The Arizona based carrier just announced massive reductions in earnings tiers, now requiring only 7,500 flown miles to reach low level elite status. That’s only 30% of what you would normally have to fly. Their top tier of status, Chairman Elite, can be reached with only 30k miles.

Why the race to lock in elite passengers this year? Business travelers are one of the most reliable, return customers for airlines, and the better that they can be catered to (via elite status,) the more likely they’ll stay with an airline. In today’s global recession, they’re an important demographic to hold on to.

Check out US Airways’ page for more details on the promotion.

[Thanks to moody75 for the tip]

Five great ways to use your frequent flyer miles

by Grant Martin on

As the economy shrinks and belts begin to tighten, mileage programs are playing a larger and large role in the everyday consumer travel lanscape. Many travelers are turning to their caches of miles for use in lieu of spending their hard-saved money on a ticket. Similarly, airlines are also paying attention to our mileage accounts, changing many programs to restrict the number of awards that they permit and making our free flights few and far in between.

Let not these pressures cause you to spend your miles unwisely, however. Like any good investment, miles should be managed, earned and used efficiently. Wasting a wealth of miles on an inexpensive ticket is not only a shame, but also a poor return for your time invested in earning these very valuable rewards.

Not sure where to start? Here are five great ways to use your current stash of miles.

High season tickets: We all know that its more expensive to get to Cancun or Europe during the summer months when the kids are out of school. Mileage rewards don’t reflect this swing however – it costs the same number of miles to fly to London in February as it does in July. They are restricted in volume, however, as demand for those high season tickets will be greater. That’s why you need to book your tickets early. Check with your favorite carrier to see when availability opens, but as a rough estimate, you’ll need to think at least 8 months in advance.
Upgrades: Our good friend (and fellow blogger!) George Hobica from Airfare Watchdog wrote an excellent article on using your miles to upgrade your coach ticket the other day. It’s true that not all fares and itineraries are upgradeable, but if you find the right combination of paid coach fares frequent flyer miles, you can score a business class ticket for pennies on the dollar of a normal business fare.

Alaska: The Arctic circle is as close as Albany as far as most miles are concerned. Consider spending your miles on a longer haul, expensive flight instead of a short haul jaunt upstate.

Last minute flights: Anyone who has tried to fly at the last minute can tell you that airfare prices skyrocket as the departure drops below 14 and 7 days respectively. Conversely, more award availability often opens up. The one caveat to this availability, however, is that fees often incur in kind. Those with elite status can often get around this atrocity, but those with no perks may have to cough up a little cash.

Friends and Family: Don’t keep your 100k miles to yourself – as long as you book the ticket, you can put anyone’s name on the reservation. This is a great way to surprise your girlfriend or parents with a trip overseas or to come see you, all without spending more than a few dollars on tax. Those with fewer scruples can even venture into selling their miles on Craigslist or to a friend, although those transactions are usually “illegal.”

Charity: Almost all mileage programs have charity partners. If you and your friends are all traveled out, why not donate the miles to the Red Cross? It’s better than letting them expire.

Alaska Airlines offers double miles for frequent flyers

by Grant Martin on

It’s never too late to jump on the bandwagon. Behind nearly every other carrier in the airline industry, Alaska Airlines recently announced that frequent flyers can now earn double elite miles on all non-promo fares.

This now means that you only need to earn 10K or 20K miles to achieve MVP or MVP Gold status respectively. Codeshare partners only need 12.5K or 25K. That’s a pretty fine deal.

Tickets must be booked after registration and flights must take place between this Wednesday, the 6th of May and June 30th. Still, that gives you almost two months to (re)qualify for status. Sneak a couple of mileage runs in over Memorial Day weekend and you’ll be rolling in the perks in no time.

Sign up at Alaska Airlines promotion page here and get your flying pants on.

American Airlines passengers: Get double elite miles

by Grant Martin on

Now that the economy is low and demand is tapering off, airlines are doing whatever they can to encourage passengers to return to flying the friendly skies. Sure, oil has come down from it’s all time high of $5000/barrel, but without passengers to fill airplanes, some equipment has to be shelved, and that’s never good for profit.

What to do? Incentivize. A deluge of fare sales including dirt cheap tickets to Barcelona, Tokyo and Moscow have all hit the charts this past week, and the few of us with the travel bug have been booking tickets like madmen.

Other promotions include American Airlines recent Double Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) bonanza. You might remember that Elite miles/points, the nifty little jobbers that get you points towards Elite status are fairly hard to come by, and those that maintain status often have to do Mileage Runs to keep up their quota. But with this promotion, passengers can earn double elite points through June 15, effectively reducing the number of miles to earn Gold, Platinum and Executive Platinum to 12.5, 25 and 50K respectively. Heck, I might even take a gander at that.

You can sign up for the DEQM promotion here using the code DBEQM. Check out American’s elite info here.

Your paltry Delta miles aren’t accepted here

by Grant Martin on

If Delta Skymiles could be equated to a currency, they would be Zimbabwean Dollars.

Over the past several months, numerous changes at the Atlanta based company have brought significant detriment to the joint Delta and Northwest frequent flyer program. These modifications range from an increase in mileage fee for economy tickets (tickets to Europe, for example, went from 50K to 60K miles,) application of fees for award bookings (up to $150,) and the reduction of benefits such as free miles redeposits and system wide upgrades.

There are plenty of small annoyances, but what all of these program changes boil down to is a change in the model in which award tickets are exchanged. Formerly, supply of award miles was lower, availability was higher and the top few passengers who earned numerous miles could spend them fairly easily.

Now, supply is higher, availability is lower and the masses all generally have access to a few scrappy seats. The very few extra that are booked are done so at excruciating costs. So as a result, the airline loses less money on award bookings and gives passengers the false sense of reward with useless miles.
No passenger is in a better perspective to observe the change than he who was a Northwest Worldperks member. Over the last six months, that customer watched his counterparts at Delta reap the benefits of numerous mileage bonus offers, virtually dumping miles into the pockets of passengers and severely diluting the mileage pool.

Meanwhile, program changes continue to cut Worldperks down to the level of Skymiles and defectors leave in droves. At a poll on the frequent flyer website Flyertalk, nearly 30% of passengers queried are leaving the conglomerate to join another airline program, another 20% are leaving at year’s end and 20% are too distraught to know what to do.

Out on the underground mileage exchanges, Delta/Northwest miles have lost their value. Most don’t even bother trying to trade, and one passenger trying to exchange Delta miles for an equal number of competitor miles was laughed at. The best offer so far? A few beverage certificates.

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