Monthly Archives: September 2014

Now I Understand

This weekend I traveled to Europe.  In the past, I’d read other bloggers moaning and groaning about London’s Heathrow Airport.  I never understood this as my one experience there had been fine.  Now I know that’s because my flight terminated here and I wasn’t transiting.

This weekend I transited for the first time and man, what a terrible experience!  Just so many ways this experience could be better organized.  I hope to cover that in more detail in a future post but suffice it to say that now I understand why everyone is so unhappy!

Categories: British Airways | Leave a comment

Win 200K AAdvantage Miles

2014-09-07 AA Sweepstakes

American Airlines has a new sweepstakes that starts today and runs through the end of the month.  Enter and you could win 200,000 AAdvantage miles.  You can enter once a day and if you choose to receive certain emails from American you can get up to 5 extra entries.  Click HERE for the AAdvantage shopping portal where you can sign up.

Categories: American Airlines, Contests | Leave a comment

US Airways Dividend Miles on sale

2014-09-06 US Airways Miles Sale

US Airways is well-known for selling miles at a discount. Now through September 30, 2014 they’re offering a tiered bonus when purchasing Dividend Miles. This can be a great way to top off your account if you’re just a little short of an award. Or if you want a business class ticket, you can buy 50,000 miles with a bonus of another 50,000 and, voila, you’ve got enough for that ticket. Just be sure that you can’t otherwise get the business class seat for less than the $1750 + tax price for those 100K miles!

To get the bonus, go to the US Airways website and click on the Buy Miles link. From there you’ll be prompted to log into your US Airways Dividend Miles account.

Categories: US Airways | Leave a comment

Avianca LifeMiles on sale – Before Price Increase & Devaluation

2014-09-05 LifeMiles Sale

Avianca’s LifeMiles are an unusual currency. They can often be purchased cheaply and used for flights on Star Alliance carriers. But they come with at least one noteable restriction: all your flights must be in the same cabin. If a particular cabin is not offered on a give route, that doesn’t matter, you can’t downgrade, you’re just out of luck. In my case that’s a big impediment because United, the only Star Alliance carrier in my city, only flies 1-cabin regional jets to my airport. Therefore, if I wanted to use LifeMiles for an international trip in a premium cabin, I’d have to position myself to another airport first. Also, I’ve read that if you’re trying to book something more than a simple trip and have to call in that the call center is (not surprisingly) mostly Spanish speakers and it can be hard to find someone to help. For these reasons I’ve never gotten into LifeMiles.

Right now Avianca is offering LifeMiles at 2-for-1 pricing. Miles are available in blocks of 1000 miles for $30 USD + taxes. A maximum of 150,000 LifeMiles may be purchased during a calendar year.

This sale is good until September 30, 2014. Beginning October 1st, the cost of purchased LifeMiles will increase. At the same time Avianca announced this price increase, they also announced an award chart devaluation effective for flights on October 15th and beyond. That means it’ll take more LifeMiles on that date than it will today.

Here’s the updated award chart for Star Alliance flights using LifeMiles

If you want to compare the old and new charts, Lucky has provided that in this post

Categories: Avianca | Leave a comment

Marriott eBreaks for Next Weekend

2014-09-01 Marriott eBreaks

Want to get away next weekend?  Marriott has certain properties on sale this Thursday through Sunday (Sept 4-7).  Not all properties are included but if you can sneak away on a whim, now’s the time!  Check HERE to see if the property you’re interested in is featured.

Categories: Hotel Promos, Marriott | Leave a comment

Discover Q4 Bonus Registration Now Open

2014-09-01 Discover Q4 Registration

Each quarter the Discover Card offers bonus categories in which you can get 5% cash back. Registration is now available for 4th Quarter shopping in October, November and December. This quarter’s bonus categories are online shopping and department stores. So if you’re planning to load up for Christmas, wait until October to do it!

Log into your account on the Discover website to sign up.

Categories: Discover | Leave a comment

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