Next week I’m heading back to New York City for a blogger conference and a visit with family. I’m excited to meet like-minded bloggers and to learn ways to improve my blog so I can bring you even more compelling content :) I’m also super excited to be attending the US Open for the first time and to be getting quality time with my parents who are based on the East Coast. That being said, I wouldn’t be able to travel as much as I do or share in experiences like these, if I wasn’t strategic about my travel planning and point/mile accumulation.

The truth is, you don’t have to travel a ton for business in order to earn free travel. In fact, you don’t have to travel at all. Airlines and hotels have partnerships with many brands outside the travel industry as part of their marketing strategy. You can earn miles when you sign up for a Netflix account, purchase gas, grocery shop or deposit funds into an investment account. The key is to stay informed of promotions that fit into your lifestyle (things you would do or spend money on already) and require little or no effort or money, but have a high reward.

The most common way people earn a large number of miles without traveling is through credit card churning (signing up for numerous credit cards every three months in order to secure large mileage bonuses.) Credit card churning is not for everyone. If done incorrectly, it can have a negative effect on your credit score, but in most cases your score can remain high (and in rare cases even go up) if you follow the strict cycle. While I have strategically applied for and secured cards with very large, 100,000 mile bonuses (yes they do exist and I will alert you when they become available, usually once a year), I am not churning credit cards because I plan to apply for another mortgage within two years (a general rule of thumb that I recommend following even though churning doesn’t have a huge impact on your credit score when done correctly.)

If you want to start churning or following other mileage promotions I would recommend that you read this great beginner’s guide by Mommy Points. You absolutely must sign-up for AwardWallet or you will drive yourself crazy trying to keep track of all your loyalty program passwords, points and promotions. Boarding Area, a compilation of travel blogs, is the best place to research programs and promotions. I recommend following your favorite blogs via Facebook, Twitter or email and just glancing at the announcements quickly each day because some of the best promos go fast. I will also keep you up to date on the best promotions through my travel posts, tweets and Best of this Week summaries. I will only focus on high value (free companion passes, 100,000 mile cards, 40% bonus transfer rates, etc.), so if you want to cut through the clutter stick with me.

Here is your first tip: The US Airways Grand Slam (miles can be used on United) may be coming. Last year participants were given the opportunity to earn up to 110,000 miles without flying. It sounds like it could be a bit tedious, but you can always pick and choose what you do. You have to be a member of their loyalty program, Dividend Miles, before it goes live so if you think you might want to participate, sign-up (it costs nothing) if you aren’t already a member. Mommy Points also has another great post about how to prep if you want to get really serious about the Grand Slam. Again we aren’t 100% sure it is happening, but they have been doing it for many years now.

Stay tuned for more travel tips! Check out my past posts on Cool Travel Gadgets and Booking Flights with Miles to learn more or read about my trips to Hong Kong, Seoul  and the Wild West.

The poster of this Tolkien quote is available on Etsy in the Paper Sparrow shop.

If you read through the comments, you’ll find the following from Mickie:

No worries if my husband is crazy or not. He’ll be well rewarded for his thoughtfulness. Wait until he sees my eyes light up when I get a romantic night without the kids in NY. Now, that’s priceless! 

I can’t wait!

Hilton is giving away 1 Million HHonors points every day for the next few weeks, along with other smaller prizes.  No purchase necessary, you just have to like them on Facebook and then check back periodically to see if you’re a winner.  I’m sure there will be lots of entries, but it’s a pretty low-effort process for a chance at a million points.

Anyway, SPG has had this thing for a while now called SPG Moments. Essentially, you redeem your points auction-style for once-in-a-lifetime experiences.  When they first announced it (I can’t recall when) I had very little interest.  Like most things in life, I guess it takes something that interests you to get your attention.

Rewind to what I consider the heyday for tennis during my life.  The best days of Connors and McEnroe were a bit before I got into tennis, but I still remember some great highlights there.  What I remember from my early interest is Pete Sampras crushing the competition.  And then, Andre Agassi started to get better.  And better.  I became a huge Agassi fan, and still am to this day.

Fast forward to a recent auction.  Essentially, the winner got a one-hour semi-private tennis clinic with Andre (total of ten winners).  Each winner got to bring a spectator.  After the clinic there are photos and autographs with Andre.  Then, you get to sit in the SPG suite and watch the Men’s semifinal matches at the US Open.

So, what’s that worth to you?  Well, to me, it was worth 133,600 Starpoints.  If I’m putting my money where my mouth is, that’s about $2600 (2 cents a point).

Is that crazy?

I don’t think it is.  A big part of the reason why I don’t is because I use almost every opportunity to accrue points and miles.  Most of my fellow “miles junkies” like to “earn and burn”.  I don’t generally subscribe to that theory, though I support all those who do.  I’d generally like to have a pile of points for anything big that came up or a change in my travel patterns.  My wife is probably sick of me always reminding her to use a shopping portal, or the revolving door of credit cards in her wallet.

But, she probably won’t be sick of it anymore.  She’s had a pretty good track run of fun trips in comfy seats and great hotels.  But, her eyes lit up when I told her that she would be the one taking the lesson with Andre and I would be the spectator.  If I ever believed I spent too much time stockpiling miles and points, the light in her eyes ended that thought.

Curious to hear people’s thoughts.  Based on the price of tickets on Stubhub (cheapest seat right now is $180, going up to over $6K) for the Men’s semifinal, I feel like this was a pretty good deal.  But, some may still think me crazy (or, at least a new reason to think I’m crazy).

Members will receive double Starpoints on stays of 1 or 2 nights and triple Starpoints on stays of 3 or more nights.

There’s also an interesting booking bonus.  250 points for each stay if booked using their Blackberry app and 500 points for using the iPhone app (probably a bit more relevant given RIM’s failure at transitioning their brand to touchscreen).

So, is this better than Hyatt’s promo?  Well, first of all, I don’t think either promo is worth switching stays from a chain where you’re still trying to re-qualify for status.  Points are great, but top-tier status is where it’s at for both of these programs, with noticeably better benefits as a Hyatt Diamond or SPG Platinum.

Let’s look at someone who stays a total of 10 nights in the time period. In the case of SPG, let’s further assume the best case scenario where these stays were all at least 3 nights, and let’s use $250 as an average room rate.  For those ten nights (at triple points), the SPG promo would yield an extra 5,000 points (500 points extra per night X 10 nights).  Then, add on 1,500 points for using the iPhone app and you’ve got 6,500 extra SPG points for your 10 nights.

10 extra nights at Hyatt would yield you 15,000 bonus points, plus an extra 3,000 points if you hold the Hyatt credit card (total 18,000 points).

I definitely value SPG points at a higher number than Hyatt, but nowhere near 3:1.  I value at Starpoint at 2 cents, and a Hyatt Gold Passport point at something around 1.7 or 1.8 cents.

Finally, as View From the Wing points out, a whole slew of SPG properties are NOT participating in this promo.  I absolutely hate when properties are allowed to opt out of standard promos.  I think it’s very confusing for customers who just assume (rightfully so) that all properties are participating because, well, they are a Starwood property.

While I reserve the right to have screwed up the math somewhere, I don’t think it’s as close between the Hyatt and Starwood promos as Gary does, but I think the SPG promo is better than the Marriott promo (plus SPG points are a much better currency).

I also ran a comparison at 5 nights, where Hyatt is not as generous.  5 nights at SPG all booked as single stays would earn double points each night (250 points per night using my earlier example).  That’s 1,250 points for the 5 nights.  Plus, 5 single night stays would earn 2,500 points if all booked through the iPhone, for a total of 3,750.  Hyatt’s 5 nights would earn you 5,000 points plus 1,000 points if you had the credit card, or 6,000 total.  In this example, I do think it’s pretty close between Hyatt and SPG.

Obviously, these represent my two “average” scenarios.  Based on the variables in the SPG promo, I think you’ll find it’s worth sitting down and doing the math if you have a choice between Starwood and Hyatt this fall.

So far, the comments look generally positive on Milepoint about SPG’s promo.  I suspect we’ll start to see some people thinking it’s less generous as time goes on.

Either way, it’s worth it to register for all 3 promos even if you’re not sure you’ll have a stay.  SPG even has an option to send you a text when registration is open, so there’s no excuse to miss out on bonus points!

It takes 30 seconds to register and it’s free.  So, click above and sign up.

I learned the hard way a long time ago when I didn’t sign up for a promo I thought I wouldn’t use.

I wrote about the promo a couple of weeks ago, then I wrote about it again.

But, just in case you missed it, here’s the Cliff notes version.  Earn bonus points for the number of nights you stay between September 1 and November 30th:

5 nights= Earn 5,000 Bonus Points

10 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 15,000

15 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 25,000

20 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 35,000

25 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 45,000

30 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 55,000

35 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 65,000

You’ll also earn 20% more points if you have the Hyatt Visa Card.

The travel industry has been flooded with products and resources that can dramatically improve your travel experience. I average one round trip flight a month and my husband takes as many as six, so we put a lot of time and effort into researching the industry’s next big thing. I’m starting a new series to chronicle all our finds and the first week will focus on booking using miles. Read on and feel all* your travel frustrations slowly evaporating.

The biggest gripe about airline loyalty programs is that it’s hard to use your miles once you secure them. This is definitely true in many instances, but if you know some of the shortcuts it becomes much easier. First, you should know the ideal booking time for your airline of choice. Most airlines open their schedules 330 days to one year out. At this time some, but usually not all, reward seats become available. Airlines don’t want to give away too many tickets that they could end up selling, so most release a few here and there after the initial release depending on availability. You can read more about the best time to book (generally 6 to 9 months out) in this article from Boarding Area (a great resource for travel tips).

The second thing you should be concerned with are the number of miles needed and the taxes and fees that are levied when you book a trip, which vary dramatically by airline and destination. Not all miles are created equal and you want to make sure you take steps to maximize their value. If you are a frequent traveler it helps to have miles on more than one airline to maximize the number of destinations you can reach and minimize the fees and taxes you have to pay. Ideally, the airlines should be part of the same alliance, such as OneWorld, for upgrade purposes. Here is an example of the differences you could see by airline and route: British Airlines (and Iberia which is owned by the same company and shares the same type of miles, Avios) ironically offers the best value per mile for US domestic travel that we have found. I’m flying direct to New York City from Chicago this month at good times for only 7,000 miles each way and $2.50 in taxes and fees. Other airlines may require three times the miles and ten times the fees. Conversely, it makes no sense at all to use British Airlines miles to fly from the US to London because there are taxes on this reward flight itinerary that go as high as $800. Counterintuitive? Definitely! But who has the time to do all this research? The answer is you don’t have to. There are now aggregator sites that tell you what the best reward, point, dollar combo is for your ideal itinerary. Two top resources are MileWise.com and MileValue.com.

So you say that this all sounds great, but you don’t fly frequently enough to earn enough miles to actually book a reward flight? This is a topic of a future article, but I can tell you that you can earn a million miles in a year without even flying due to the all the promotional mileage programs airlines run with their partners. Stay tuned!

*I have no control over the toddler kicking your seat, the chatty person sitting next to you or the unhelpful gate agent.

I took the above photo through the plane window on a flight to LA earlier this year.

Every mile expert I know was an amateur at one point or another.  We’ve all made plenty of mistakes and learned a lotof lessons the hard way.  Back before bulletin boards like Milepoint were popular, there really weren’t a whole lot of ways to share information.  That’s what makes FTU so great.  You get two days of learning from the experts for $99.  There’s no question it’s easy to get $99 in value from experts like:
Gary Leff (author of View From the Wing)

Steve Belkin (aka beaubo)

Brett Snyder (author of Cranky Flyer)

Seth Miller (the Wandering Aramean)

Registration for the event can be found here.

The discussion thread on Milepoint is here.

Hope to see you there!

Milepoint is now offering a premium membership that I think is a pretty darn good value.  Yes, I’m biased, but I still think it’s a pretty impressive list of benefits.  If you just take the benefits of Platinum status with Hyatt, that includes free internet, a 2pm late checkout and a 15% bonus on points earned during your stays.  You could easily cover the entire cost just with this.  Here’s the full list of benefits:

• 2,000 United MileagePlus miles
• Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status through Feb. 2014 or 2,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points
• One year of ad-free viewing on Milepoint.com
• Free 1-year subscription to InsideFlyer.com
• One Free Gogo Inflight Internet 24-hour pass
• Free 3-month trial of Clear
• Free upgrade to AwardWallet Plus account and a free AwardWallet OneCard
• Free upgrade to UsingMiles Premier Membership
• Free upgrade to National Car Rental Emerald Club Executive Status
• 40% discount on “Decoding Air Travel” books
• 25% discount on “Frequent Flyer Master” e-book
• 20% discount on “Decoding Air Travel” seminars/webinars
• 20% discount on ExpertFlyer.com
• 20% discount on BookYourAward.com
• 20% discount at SCOTTEVEST
• 10% discount on KVS Tool

There’s a lot more info here on the Milepoint website.

Early sales are going quite briskly.  So, if you’re considering it, you may want to think quickly!

Not quite as lucrative as the offer I wrote about last week for AVIS and Budget, but this essentially extends a 1,000 mile bonus per day up to a 10-day rental.

It doesn’t really pay to use this offer until you get to a 6-day rental.  And, at that rate, you’d be better off renting 2 separate cars for 3 days at a time on the 5,000 mile code from last week.  But, if you have a family vacation planned and Budget is competitive, getting 1,000 miles a day for a weeklong or longer rental is a pretty decent spiff.

New Itinerary

First, I decided to add on a trip to Bangkok after Tokyo. I changed my flight itinerary from Newark (EWR)-Tokyo (NRT)-Newark (EWR) to the following: Newark-Tokyo, Bangkok-Newark. Thus rather than having a “stopover” in Tokyo, I now have an open jaw (I am not departing from Tokyo on this ticket). Next it was time to add my free one way. The free one way (if after your original trip) must depart from your origin city, for me that would be Newark. I was at first hoping to use this one way for a trip to Honolulu (HNL), alas this loophole is not completely unrestricted. United does prevent you from flying over a certain maximum distance in one itinerary. Having my heart set on HNL, I decided to use the one-way to fly to Los Angeles (LAX), knowing I could book one way tickets to HNL for only 12.5k Avios points (see my post about Avios points here). So now, my new total itinerary is EWR-NRT, Bangkok (BKK)-EWR, and EWR-LAX, for a total of 62.5k united miles (unfortunately that’s coach and not business, but oh well). Not bad considering that my original round trip flight to Tokyo was the same. Like I said, read through Mile Value’s description because he provides a brilliant breakdown of how this works.

Changing a United Rewards Flight with No Penalty

I do not have any elite status so according to United’s website there is a $75 fee to change rewards flight if you are keeping the same origin, which I was. If I wanted to cancel the award flight and have the miles re-deposited in my account (why wouldn’t I?) it would be $150!!. Needless to say I was a little bummed out about this. But a $75 fee was worth it considering, first I really wanted to add on the Bangkok leg and second, I was getting the free one way to LAX, which costs around $275.

So I decided to bite the bullet and call to change around my flights. My first call went well, I told the lady what I wanted, gave her the exact flights (this is always recommended because it makes their job easier and they will be much more accommodating), and then she tells me it will be an additional $5 in taxes/fees for this routing. Not thinking about it, I asked about the $75 change fee, she replied oh I forgot about that let me find out. She came back on the line and said I would also have to pay the change fee. Realizing my mistake, I hung up.

I called back again an hour later, and went through the same process of telling a new rep my flight information. Got to the booking point and the same thing happened, I was told it would be an additional $5, but this time I kept my mouth shut. The agent didn’t mention any fee, the ticket was confirmed, and I saved myself $150 (I changed my gf’s ticket as well)!! I was also not charged any telephone booking fee. So if you are booking one of these free one ways, and you are worried about a $25 booking fee, it may be worth trying booking a normal flight online and calling to change. This might not be worth the risk of having to pay the $75 change fee, but I leave that up to you.

So this is one of those great instances where, they have rules in place but the agents are either unaware of them or just don’t care enough to remember. Either way it worked out great in my favor.

Have questions about how this works? I’d be glad to help. Email me at TheFlyingLawyer@gmail.com or post a comment!

However, I consider Starwood Preferred Guest to be a vastly better program than Marriott Rewards.  That being said, SPG’s summer promo is still chugging away on it’s summer promo so there’s nothing to compare for the fall yet.

I was reading MommyPoints post about the Hyatt and Marriott promos, and figured I would run some quick math to compare.  Again, I have no intention of staying at any Marriott properties, but I know a bunch of people that swear by the program.  So, let’s look at the math.

As is normally the case, Marriott is offering different promos to different members  One of the Marriott examples has you earning a total of 50,000 points for 25 nights.  Comparatively, those same nights at Hyatt would earn you 45,000 points.  Without really doing any research at all, if you were to grab the Hyatt credit card you’d earn an extra 9,000 points for this promo.  54,000>50,000.  Win, Hyatt.

But, let’s say you don’t have the Hyatt credit card.  What’s the relative value of a Hyatt point vs. a Marriott point?  Starpoints are really the Cadillac of hotel points, IMO.  The flexibility to move them to most airlines with a 25% bonus is pretty attractive and Starwood has some pretty aspirational properties outside the US.

I value a Starpoint at around 2 cents.  I’d say I probably view a Hyatt point at a bit less (say 1.8 cents).  Marriott fits into my view closer to 1 cent.  I may have a slightly more negative opinion than some, so let’s use 1.5 cents just for giggles, even though I can’t fathom a way Marriott Rewards points could consistently be worth 1.5 cents.  Spot redemptions in excess of that?  Sure.  As with any program, Marriott has some properties where point redemptions can yield significantly higher than the median.

At 1.5 cents a point using the above example, 50,000 Marriott Rewards points would be worth $750.  45,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points would be worth $810 (at 1.8 cents a piece).  So, even using a very generous value on Marriott Rewards points (and excluding the ability to earn more with Hyatt by having their branded card), Hyatt still comes out ahead.

One of the arguments made by Marriott advocates is that Marriott has so many properties it’s a lot easier to earn points.  While Marriott still has a clear lead, Hyatt has added Hyatt House and Hyatt Place properties in many US markets that I believe are superior to the Marriott limited service products, especially considering a good number of them are significantly newer.

Everyone has their own perfect fit for points, but if you’re a diehard Marriott fan it might be worth taking a look at what Hyatt has to offer.  You might be surprised.

I got done spending the required amount on the card and the points from the most recent statement posted to my account about 3 weeks ago.  I wasn’t sure how long it would take to post but was pleased to see my EQMs increase by 10K a couple of days ago.  There’s no actual notation in my account for those waiting for a visible indication of posting.  But they did post, and in a pretty reasonable timeframe.

5 nights= Earn 5,000 Bonus Points

10 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 15,000

15 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 25,000

20 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 35,000

25 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 45,000

30 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 55,000

35 nights=Earn 10,000 Bonus Points, Total 65,000

As with a promotion earlier this year, Hyatt is again offering a 20% bonus for holders of their Hyatt credit card. This is fairly unique amongst the major hotel chains. I don’t recall seeing promos where it was required to have their co-branded card to maximize the promo.

For me, I don’t think my travel patterns will allow me to max out this promo. I’ll likely stay 25 nights, which would yield 45,000 bonus points from the promo plus 9,000 extra for being a Hyatt credit card holder. If I value Hyatt points at 2 cents for easy math (and I think I’d probably value them slightly less), then these points are worth about $180 to me (say $150 to be conservative).

Put another way, those extra 9,000 points are enough for a category 2 free night (8,000 points) such as Hyatt Regency Cancun or Hyatt Regency Toronto. 54,000 points is enough for 3 free nights at a category 5 property like Hyatt Regency Waikiki, Park Hyatt Buenos Aires, AVIA Napa, or Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress (a decent launching point for a Disney World vacation).

No doubt this promo is not as exploitable as the Faster Free Nights(FFN) promotions Hyatt has run in the past. Previous iterations had people earning a free night at most Hyatt properties after two paid stays. Hyatt hasn’t done a stay-based promo in a while, and these are generally more popular amongst hardcore mileage earners, hence the reason people aren’t thrilled in the Milepoint thread that announces the promo.

There was a time when I could switch hotels every night when I traveled for business. Heck, I could still do it now. But, I’m traveling too much right now to really want to change rooms every night to accrue more free nights. Plus, I actually prefer extra points I can use when I want. FFNs normally had a fairly short shelf life.

I think the more important observation is that Hyatt and other major hotel chains generally appear to be moving away from the more lucrative promos we saw a few years ago. They have most likely seen occupancy and rate increases which lead them to believe that things are getting better in the hotel industry so they have less reason to incent customers. And, they’re probably right, though that doesn’t make me stop wishing for better promos.

All in all, I think I would ultimately get more value out of another FFN promo if the terms were the same as previous ones. Since I think a current iteration of FFN would be less generous, this promo should end up fitting me fine.

The offer is only good until the end of August.  A 1-day rental yields 3000 miles.  Considering that those miles are worth about $60 (at a value of 2 cents a piece), this is one of the better deals I’ve seen in quite some time for car rentals.

If you could find a cheap daily car rental for, say, $25, and rented 6 cars (for a total of $150), you’d have 24,000 miles which is essentially a free ticket anywhere in the domestic US.  Not a bad deal.  I won’t be renting cars speculatively to accumulate miles, but I know some people who will.

There’s also an offer for 5,000 miles on rentals of 3 days or more.  Not quite as good a value, but still much better than anything else in the marketplace right now.

I’ve got a one-day rental coming up on Monday that I’ll switch to AVIS, so this is definitely influencing my travel habits for the next month.

For the longest time, I credited my rentals to Southwest.  Under the old Southwest program, they used to perpetually offer double credits and sometimes as much as quadruple credits for rental.  At quadruple, it didn’t take long to accrue free tickets (8 rentals, iirc).

At some point in the past X months, Hertz started to focus on their rewards program although they’re doing a pretty crummy job promoting it, IMO.  I only started paying moderate attention to it after reading this post from Mommy Points a few months ago.  Back in the day when I carried an AMEX Membership Rewards card I used to redeem some points for car rentals.  And WAAAY back in the day, my father used to get awards from the airlines that included a hotel and rental car certificate with them.  Those were the days.

There are two schools of thought about Gold Plus Rewards, IMO.  First is the “free vacation” theory.  There’s something to be said for going on a completely free vacation.  You’ve got points for airline tickets and points for hotels, why not collect some points for rental cars?  Then, you don’t feel guilty going to an expensive restaurant or buying a cool souvenir.  In the case of people traveling on a budget, I’m a big advocate of making your trip free so you can enjoy it.

For the slightly more advanced thinkers, the question is whether you can get better value crediting your Hertz rentals to an airline.  AA has one of the better offers I’ve seen in a while right now, with quadruple miles.  For the purposes of this comparison, let’s just assume that the rates using this discount code are the same as without it (frequently, the bonus miles offers are attached to discount codes that don’t yield the best rates).  And, for giggles, let’s assume you’ve spent $4000 dollars on base car rental charges.  The program is supposed to award points just for the rental fee and any other ancillary fee like NeverLost, but my early experiences have yielded higher numbers than that.

Under the AA offer, you’d earn 16,000 miles.  Again, this is one of the more lucrative offer.  There’s a couple of ways to compute what this is worth.  I’ll use two.  First, if you value AA miles at 2 cents a piece, this is worth $320.  Second, if you assume that the average domestic ticket (25,000 miles) would cost $400 to purchase, then these miles are worth about $250.

For purposes of this example, let’s take the higher number of $320.  For that 4,000 points, I can get any specialty vehicle for a week from Hertz.  This is where I think the value for families is.  Minivans are generally wickedly expensive compared to regular cars.  On a recent rental I priced for a vacation, a full size car was under $300 for the week while the minivan was almost $900.  This is a bit of an extreme example, but I had another recently where the minivan was $700+.  At $900, I’m getting over 2 cents a point.  More importantly, since I have lots of airline miles, I’m making a $900 bill disappear.

For a weekly full-size rental, the math is not quite as good.  2500 points gets you the weekly rental, worth about $300 on the high side.  Crediting those rentals to AA using the quadruple miles offer would yield you $200 in value where you might get as much as $300 in value out of the rental car.  It wouldn’t take much variation here to make it a zero-sum game.  And, if you redeem miles for overseas travel in premium classes, you can probably get significantly more than 2 cents in value for those points.

Moral of the story for me is that I’m going to keep a chunk of Gold Plus Rewards points laying around since I normally rent specialty vehicles like SUVs and minivans.  If I wasn’t a Platinum, this would be a sure-fire best bet for me, as I can sometimes convince a Hertz location to give me an SUV or minivan at the full-size price.

I think it makes good sense for people to hold onto some rental car points if they’re renting frequently with Hertz.  I don’t think it’s a huge deal either way, but someone earning a decent amount of points on a yearly basis can benefit from the diversity here.

1. BUMPED

2. FREQUENT FLIER MILES

3. GET THERE EARLY

4. DON’T USE A THREAT

5. TRAVEL SOLO

SMOKE TO UPGRADE’S..

OFFICIAL DALLAS CIGAR NATION BLOG

I’m not a coupon cutter, and I’m pretty much awful at taking advantage of bargains. For more than a year, offers from Saveur have been piling up in my “to do” file. One of these days, I’ll subscribe and get that great deal on a subscription. (And win that KitchenAid mixer they keep promising me.) I think that being a marketer, myself, makes me stubbornly immune to the offers promoted by my industry. Even if it’s to my detriment.

There are, however, two loyalty programs that will keep me forever…loyal: Fuelperks (I’ve got to buy toilet paper, and I’ve got to buy gas; I may was well join the masses at the big box stores) and frequent flier miles. I’ve been collecting miles (mainly though Delta/Northwest Airlines) since I could drive. I’ve remained a fan through good and bad (and many a free travel voucher for late and overbooked flights.) And it’s paid off: my flight to the Philippines was entirely paid for by miles.

I’ve recently signed up for a program that rewards me with Delta Skymiles (up to 5 per $1 spent) by doing what I do best: relying on restaurants for the majority of my sustenance. When my friend Jenny told me about Skymiles Dining, I didn’t trust it. (No one should ever trust marketing.) I figured that I’d only get extra miles from eating at Applebees, Wendy’s, California Pizza Kitchen. Turns out that it’s better, though. I can actually get miles by eating at local favorites such as The Top (pictured above), Basi Italia, Surly Girl Saloon and Black Creek Bistro. I’ve done the math. All I’ve got to do is spend $200.00 on my own debit card at these places and I’ll have enough miles for a free trip to Brazil. Not bad.

So. It worked.

Another e-mail address given out, another password created — one more big company  knows everything I’m doing. It’s a small price to pay, I guess. (Google and Facebook, take note: I expect to see custom ads for San Paulo pop up on my screen by Friday.)

You’ll definitely want to have a BusinessExtrAA account, since you get 300 free points if you send in a video.  I’m scheduled to write a post on BusinessExtrAA next week, which is just a nice small free nugget for frequent travelers.

Hawaiian continues to improve as a travel option, especially with their recent announcement of service to New Zealand.

I haven’t been to Australia or New Zealand, and they’re both definitely on my list.  While there are better options for premium travel (business or first class), I’m always happy to see more redemption options.

Note to Michelle when you read this:  This is NOT an excuse to spend more with Amazon.

Well last night a United rep posted on the MilePoint and FlyerTalk forums the following message:

Hi Everyone, over the weekend, we discovered a united.com programming error that allowed customers to obtain Mileage Plus travel awards to and from Hong Kong for as little as four miles roundtrip per person, substantially below published levels, which we disclose to customers. We have since corrected the error and will be in contact with customers who have tickets issued at the incorrect award amounts. Customers will be given the choice to redeem at the correct mileage amount or re-deposit their award with all fees waived. We regret any inconvenience this has caused you, and appreciate your understanding.

Needless to say, it was rather disappointing. If you are following the forums you will see people are still holding out hope that this is just their “opening offer” and there may be some other compensation. You will also see a lot of people referring to DOT regs and other laws. Being a lawyer, I know that I do not know enough in this area (yet) to speculate with any confidence on what the outcome will be. I’m not going to pontificate like other lawyers and non-lawyers on the forum on what I “know” the result is, will be, or shoudl be, when clearly this is a case of first impression for a lot of reasons. Thus I am fascinated to see how it all plays out.

With that being said, here is how I think United should have handled it without any consideration for what the law may or may not require them to do. I think they could have used this opportunity to make some major gains with their customer base. They didn’t need to honor the ticket in full, although that would have been nice, but throwing a bone to the people who booked would have been a nice good will gesture. Unlike what some people are saying I don’t think this would have incentivized people in the future to jump on mistakes any more than they would normally. In no way do I feel I am owed something for my time and trouble (since there wasn’t much), but I just feel United missed another great opportunity to build some customer loyalty. It’s a shame and I don’t think it’s over, but who knows.

That is just my two cents on the subject. I’ll keep you updated on what is going on.

I’ve been able to catch quite a few mistake fares and other quirky sale options from the airlines and hotel chains over the years.  Due to work travel I’ve also had to let a bunch go by as well.  But, it’s always good to know what to be prepared for and what your rights are in different situations.

As a whole, airlines generally honor mistake fares.  It’s bad PR when they don’t.  Even so, they may attempt to deny these offers from time to time.

Gary chronicles a recent United website snafu that was honoring tickets to Hong Kong or connecting through Hong Kong for ONLY 4 MILES.

There’s an informative blow-by-blow update on View From the Wing to follow along.

UDPATE:  Gary has a second post about United’s public reply on these awards.

Note: all of the photos in this post are from my recent visit to Yosemite. Over the course of two days, I had written a tremendous, witty, picture-studded account of the Yosemite trip, but apparently hadn’t checked that I was still logged into WordPress. So.. I lost everything. Out of frustration, I wrote this piece instead, but rest assured, there are plenty of other Yosemite photos to be had when I rewrite that post.

How are you doing this?

I get this question a lot. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that I have an accurate answer. Considering I haven’t even left yet, there’s very little concrete advice I can give in terms of realistically actualizing one’s plans. But I have two college degrees in bullshitting (plus a lifetime of travel, I guess), so I have fortified myself on the potentially false belief that I know what I’m talking about. My first piece of (take-with-a-grain-of-salt) advice would be,

1. If you want to make it happen, it’ll happen.

In other words: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” -  a motto I’ve found myself repeating ad nauseum recently. Of course, I don’t know if this will prove to be exactly true over the course of my trip (will I be able to survive on only $7,000 for more than a year? Unlikely, though it appears I’m going to try), but a history of moderate success and a practical sense of what’s feasible have made me think that this isn’t such a bad perspective to take.

Story time! Over a year ago, my best friend Nusha and I were in my kitchen, looking at a Doctors Without Borders map that I had adhered to the wall in hopes that my hideous geography skills would be improved/ actually manifest after repeated casual glances in that general direction (that’s how osmosis works, right?). After a ten-year-old schooled me in international capitals, I had developed a crippling fear of maps, political discussion, and intelligent people overall – a problem when you’re a political science major at Berkeley, home to one of the top political science departments in the world (fun fact: Berkeley’s graduate PS program is #6 in the nation!). We poured over the map for some time, pointing out places we’d like to visit, and soon had created a list of about 30 countries that the two of us vowed we would explore together.

About two months later, Nusha dropped out of this plan in favor of a “real job” (pfft). Undeterred, I deepened my gypsy desires. That summer, I set off to Cambridge, which served as my European travel hub. I visited six countries, four of which were completely new to me (Scotland, Poland, Norway, and the Netherlands). I realized that traveling doesn’t have to be stressful, difficult, or meticulously planned out – a strict contrast to my experience with past family-organized vacations. You just have to decide where you want to go and figure out how to get there.

2. There’s really not much to it, once you know where to look.

All you really need is a friend (or a CouchSurfing host or reputable hostel), a bag of some sort, and a plane/train/automobile ticket. For some countries, you also need visas and travel immunizations, but even those aren’t a headache to receive if you plan enough in advance. Kayak, SkyScanner, and Momondo make researching and booking cheap plane tickets simple, and an independent bank account (plus a job to funnel money into it beforehand) makes evaluating one’s financial health a snap.

Yes, it can be expensive, but time is money – instead of lurking some sexy (wo)man meat on Facebook, spend a few hours each week researching a place or region you’d like to visit, and take note of inexpensive alternatives for transport, food, and shelter. The time you spent doing this will save hundreds, even thousands, down the line. If you’re like me, travel research can become addicting, fueling the fire to get out and explore (ironically, because I spend so much time on the computer, I have become quite a homebody – but being out and about in this area for four years grants me a modicum of leniency, right?). If you’re looking for a volunteer/teach/intern/study abroad program in any country in the world, I recommend checking out Go Overseas. If you’re less defined about your plans, but want information on a ton of travel-related subjects, check out Boots’n'All. In fact, Boots’n'All has a RTW (Round-the-World) travel section, so if you’re interested in trips like mine, that’d be a good place to find more information. Matador Network is another big name that covers broader topics regarding international culture and travel, and Lonely Planet is the revered cornerstone of the legitimate travel authority movement.

3. Figure out what you need and what you need to do.

I overplan. As a rule. It’s a facet of my personality and it’s something I don’t really mind, particularly as I’ve spent a majority of this summer doing absolutely nothing else that I told myself I’d do (exercise every day, read a hundred books, learn how to code, leave my house without external motivation…). But you don’t need to overplan to be intelligent about preparing for a RTW trip (or any trip, for that matter).

Here are a few things that I’ve done to get ready:

• Made a Google Doc with multiple tabs: one for the itinerary, one for a checklist of things to do before leaving, one for things to pack (loosely separated by climate/region, also includes links to other people’s packing lists for reference), one for expenses (to answer questions of “how are you affording this?” in retrospect), and one for miscellaneous important information (including flight details, frequent flier numbers, contact information for embassies and friends, etc). I’m a huge fan of Google Docs because information saves automatically and is accessible from any computer.
• Within the itinerary, filled out the following for each country on the list: Country / Tentative Dates / Continent / Cities / Imagined Route / Method / Estimated Transportation Cost / Notes / People for Reference / Companions / Contact Information / Days Spent (Approx.) / Visas? (If so, received?) /  Immunizations? (If so, received?) / Currency / Exchange Rate / Seasonal Information / Things to Do / Travel Warnings / Program Information (if necessary) / Estimated Budget.
• Checked with friends to see when they’re in town and when they’re free to host me. Explored alternatives, like HelpX, in countries where I don’t know anyone and would prefer a cultural immersion (and a free meal and place to stay) to staying in hostels and partying all the time (presumably – though knowing me, I’d be more likely to spend the mornings trying and failing to galvanize hungover dorm-mates into action).
• Broke the trip into regions – Europe (part 1), Morocco, South India, South East Asia, North India/ Nepal/ Bhutan, Middle East, South Africa, Europe (part 2). Determined how long to spend in one region and when during the year would be best (balancing weather concerns with avoiding peak tourist seasons)
• Talked to other travelers.

4. Check early and check often.

I researched my bag for months, so I knew the average size, cost, and quality of an ideal pack, especially one for a petite woman with a history of backpack-inflicted back pain. I finally splurged a few weeks ago when I saw the Gregory Deva on Eastern Mountain Sports for $255, a beautiful $65 reduction that capitalized on two overlapping sales and free shipping. I also had a list of other items that I needed to buy – a travel towel, a rain cover, a money belt (just to be safe), a sterilizing pen (jury’s still out on this) – and kept my eye on various stores’ summer sales to compare prices. I also basically live in REI, so it helps get a feel for quality products and necessary items.

I probably don’t need to remind anyone to be vigilant when buying plane tickets. Though the ideal time to purchase a ticket – be it plane, bus, ferry, or Eurail – fluctuates based on the locations, the season, and the frequency of travel between the two points, I find that plane tickets are best bought two months in advance. This reduces the headache of juggling several sites and options in the month before departure, especially since I don’t know that the Tuesday afternoon (“cheapest tickets”) method works anymore and there’s no tried and true guarantee that prices will dip in the future.

For instance, I just bought my ticket from Seattle to New York for September 7. Like an idiot, I arrive in the middle of the night, so I’m hoping my friend will come meet me at the airport – or better yet, that someone in New York actually owns a car and would like to pick me up. (Generally, I’d advise arriving during the day, both for safety and for the increased likelihood that public transport will be available.) I’m planning on purchasing my New York to London ticket for the following week, but I’ve waited, since repeated observation has shown that the entire week has stayed at a low $399 for quite some time. Of course, I don’t want to tempt fate too much. But I’m gambling that I might be able to find an Icelandair ticket that either gives me a short layover closer to my intended departure, or a longer layover later in the day such that I could visit the Blue Lagoon for more than three hours (the first is more likely).

5. Learn things about Frequent Flier Miles.

…Eh, I have no advice in this regard. I too am quite confused as to what is the perfect hacker method for racking up frequent flier miles. However, I recommend (when possible) booking flights through airlines that are in one of the three major alliances – Star Alliance, OneWorld, and SkyTeam. RyanAir and WizzAir might get you somewhere cheaply (though possibly not on time, and possibly with a nose bleed, and possibly without your things), but oftentimes you can find competitively priced tickets with small airlines that belong to a major alliance, which might be nominally more expensive but will save you money by way of redeemable points in the future.

My ticket to New York is with JetBlue, whose only partners include American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and Emirates. Admittedly, it’s a bit of a wash, though my thinking at the time was that Emirates might come in handy later when I fly around the Middle East and India, and that the cheaper US Airways ticket didn’t seem worth the bad airline reviews. If I did it again, I might have sprung for a $10-more-expensive American Airlines, Delta, or United ticket.. but you live and you learn and you pass these lessons onto other people via a blog that no one reads so the secret stays hidden forever.

Cool. Well. Thanks for reading this far, guys! I hope that these tips have helped motivate you to travel, or at least have demystified the aura that this voyage is a lot crazier than it (to a certain extent) is. I’ll continue to add more as I learn more myself, but if you have any questions or suggestions, I’d love to answer and incorporate them into the next edition of this post.

AA is offering bonus miles for roundtrips during the fall travel season.  It doesn’t kick in until September and runs through November.  Unfortunately for me, you have to book all your travel by the middle of September.  I generally can’t book that far in advance.

I skipped by all the video stuff and just went right to the register link at the bottom with no issues.  The first two flight bonuses aren’t all that great (1,000 and 3,000 miles respectively) but the 3rd through 5th are pretty nice (6K, 9K and 11K for a total of 30K miles).

Bottom line is it probably isn’t worth moving business for one flight but if you have a bunch of travel scheduled there’s enough miles for a free ticket if you can complete 5 round-trips.

As Gary notes, some of the cheapest fares are excluded.  I do run into “N” fares from time-to time, so this is a consideration when booking.

The personal card, as well as the business card, has a steep annual fee of $450 but the personal card is definitely worth it at least for the first year and here is why. With the personal card you get a $200 airline credit per year, free GOES entry ($100 value), and the 50k points after the minimum spend (at minimum $500 value). Furthermore you get gold Starwood Preferred Guest Status. But my favorite perk is the access to the airline lounges. If you travel a lot this can be a great bonus. Between the general Amex platinum access and the free enrollment in Priority Pass Select, I have yet to be in an airport where I couldn’t access a lounge.

As for the business card, here are the identified features:

So as you can see a lot of the benefits of the personal card are present. It’s a moderate minimum spend of $5k in 3 months which is definitely doable (check out my post on meeting minimum spends). You still get the $200 airline credit and access to lounges with the Platinum card and Priority Pass Select. It doesn’t appear to have the SPG gold status nor does it have the free GOES (but that lasts for five years, so if you got it through the personal its not a big deal).

So even without the GOES this card still makes sense for me to get for at least the signup bonus. I plan to cancel my personal platinum and AMEX will refund the pro rated share of this years annual fee (about half for me). Then I will apply for this card. If you plan on applying for this card make sure you get this offer, if they won’t give it to you then it’s not worth applying. The Bonus ID for this offer is  Bonus ID A2RY. Also worth mentioning that the TOS state that you must apply for this offer prior to the offer expiring (obviously) but no later than 8/5/12 so that is the definite deadline but it may end earlier. I will keep you updated.

As a sidenote, I recently posted about the AMEX Gold for Business which had a 75k point bonus for a $10k minimum spend in 4 months. This offer has expired as far as I’ve seen, but you may still try calling and getting it, it can’t hurt. If that’s possible the 75k bonus may be a better deal for you if you can’t do both.

As always, questions, comments, suggestions are welcome.