I can surf for miles and miles…
December 14, 2009Jon Brooks Comments OffSo here’s something I just learned. Frequent flyers and miles’ junkies have their own online community, consisting of web sites littered with ticket-buying lingo. If earning frequent flyer points or scoring the absolute best deal from the airlines lifts your inner 747, then click yourself on over to forums like FlyerTalk, FlyerGuide.com, and View From the Wing, written by Gary Leff, a university chief financial officer with a “miles and points obsession.”
Here’s an article from the LA Times about the U.S. Mint putting in place a safeguard against a scheme that spread in the FF community. The Mint sells dollar coins with the likenesses of presidents on them, at no cost to the purchaser. Some enterprising air travelers bought huge amounts to rack up frequent flyer points on their credit cards, then simply deposited the coins in the bank.
Here’s an example of the type of deal you can find out about online before the rest of the world gets in on it. View From the Wing first tipped frequent flyers off to the recent and now-ended British Airways Visa promotion, later reported in the New York Times Bucks blog. Leff wrote:
The signup bonus on the Chase co-branded British Airways Visa is going to be 100,000 miles: 50,000 BA Miles after first purchase, and 50,000 more miles after spending $2,000 on the card within three months. Wow.
Spend 30,000 miles on the card and you’ll go from zero to 137,500 BA miles and have a free companion redemption voucher good for a second person traveling in the same class of service. That’s just incredible. I genuinely don’t remember the last time I was blown away by a credit card offer.
And he also forewarned of the imminent end of the promotion:
It’s an incredible promo, which I’ve described how to leverage (family accounts, two cards and $32k in spend, will get you 480,000 miles worth of travel.)
But if you’ve been on the fence, ACT NOW before the offer disappears.
Now, I’m hoping that the link stays around for awhile. Sometimes even after offers ‘expire’ they still ‘work’. But if you’ve even considered getting the card you really should act today, though I hope my source turns out to be wrong (though there’s no reason why he should be).
Update:: Most of the links are dead. This application still shows the bonus (thanks, Flyertalk!). If you apply, be sure to print out the page showing the bonus in case you have to followup to get the points.
To take advantage of some of these bargains, though, you’ll need to immerse yourself in the arcane airline arts. Part of a thread involving about 10 people on FlyerTalk, about a cheap flight from Seattle to Honk Kong:
-SEA-HKG $558.92 ai (S& L class)
-it’s $10 more from LAX, i just cant seem to find the booking class, do you know what it is?
-Found on cheapoair for $578.66 RT AI LAX-HKG – nice deal for vacation – ends up being 3.8cpm… routing LAX-YVR-HGK
-Be careful…this might be an invalid mileage earning fare class since it is a consolidator…
-it comes down to $537.45 from LAX on some dates…is there is anyway way i can find out if this fare earns miles on UA?
-just called STA right now and they said that the booking class for the flights were S or L, according to UA, these AC booking classes do earn 100% EQMs on MP, what do you guys thing? is this legit?
advice please!!!
-The AC 190′s are actually pretty good. Still an RJ, but not nearly as bad as what you would think. DId you manage to get EQM for the trip?
-You can also get $15 off cheapoair.com by entering code NY15, and $7 off statravel.com by entering code NOFEE.
-this deal has been selling quick, I managed to grab
-Also available on DL.. about 650 a.i. from SEA to HKG, try mid-April. In the past this would have been great but now, who wants to be DL PM.
-In AC parlance. S & L fare buckets are Tango+. T+ earn 100% status miles.
You can probably learn how to fly the plane quicker than you could figure all that out. But not every post or article is that cryptic. In times such as these, you need every advantage you can get, and these sites certainly offer a leg and a wing up. Check ‘em out.
