 It's shopping season again and some of the major airline affiliated shopping portals are offering tiered bonus miles for spending money at various advertised merchants. Below are the current mileage bonus promotions from various airlines shopping portals. Delta Airlines: Earn up to 1,000 bonus Delta Skymiles for shopping from 11/05/2018 to 11/18/2018.
 Earn up to 1,000 miles for shopping through Delta Skymiles shopping portal American Airlines: Earn up to 4,000 American Airlines miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.
 Earn up to 4,000 bonus miles through American Airlines shopping portal United Airlines: Earn up to 5,000 United miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.
 Earn up to 5,000 miles through United Airlines shopping portal Southwest Airlines: Earn up to 3,000 Southwest Airlines miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.
 Earn up to 3,000 miles through Southwest Airlines shopping portal Alaska Airlines: Earn up to 1,500 Alaska Airlines miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.
 Earn up to 1,500 miles through Alaska Airlines shopping portal Each one of you would values miles from specific airlines differently. So, based on your preference as well as amount you are looking to spend you might want to lean towards specific airlines shopping portal. Enjoy the bonus miles on items which might be discounted earlier then the Thanksgiving!
Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.
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 All of mileage programs have various mileage expiration policies with few exception programs where your miles never expire. Some of the programs expire your miles after a certain period of time (usually 3 years) regardless of earning or redeeming miles activity while certain others have expiration from ranging from 1 to 3 years with extension of miles possible with earning or redeeming miles. What if you have miles in programs which allow for extensions with either earn or redeem option and you have no plans of flying them or redeeming their miles? Few of popular ways of saving your big chunk of miles balance is either by transferring from either American Express membership rewards or Citi ThankYou rewards or Chase Ultimate rewards. You will need a Membership Points earning American Express card or the premium version of Citi and Chase cards to allow for mileage transfer. Other options include hotel points to miles transfer or for the least cost you can use shopping portals for various airlines to make a small purchase at any popular merchants through them. MILESLIFE as a free miles earning option? MILESLIFE is an Android / Apple Iphone app which is primarily targeted for folks staying in Singapore and Mainland China. It allows for earning miles by spending money on the linked card at dining and other partners. It also has a unique feature for earning "up to 100 miles" for checking in consecutively for 7 days in their app. You can link your airline mileage account number in the app and select the airline with which you want to earn the miles. Below are the listed airline partners at the time of publishing this post:  MILESLIFE Airline partners for earning miles As you can see from the list their are few of the mileage programs which have 1 to 3 years of mileage expiration policy and which can be extended to another 1 to 3 years by earning and/or redeeming the miles. I have listed few of them below:
So the next time you have your miles expiring with one of the participating airlines above you can bank on MILESLIFE. Japan Domestic Travel? Use United Airlines Miles (on ANA) or British Airways Avios (on JAL)1/14/2018 There are certain sweet spots on various award charts and if you are taking domestic flights in Japan then you might want to surely check these sweet spot award redemption for flying on ANA Airlines using United Airlines miles or Japan Airlines (JAL) using British Airways Avios. Using United Airlines Miles: United Airlines charges only 5,000 miles for an award flight for a distance of 800 miles or less when travelling solely within Japan. For more than distance of 800 miles it charges only 8,000 miles. Also the pricing is based on distance between source and destination on not "segment" based. This is a steal if there is award availability. ANA Airlines also charges 5,000 miles for one way award for a distance of 600 miles or less but it's distance calculation is based on segments and thus may not be as useful as United Airlines redemption. Also ANA pricing varies based on the season where as United has a fixed pricing. See the sample availability for Osaka (ITM) to Haneda (HND) airport and you will see amazing price of just 5k miles for the award although the cash price might be upwards of $100+. Also it is easy to book the flights online on United Airlines website and taxes are $0+.  5k miles for redemption of flight distance up to 800 miles in Japan Using British Airways Avios: British Airways Avios charges only 4,500 miles for distance of 650 miles or less and there is minimal taxes and fees (~$2-$3) when booking flights on Japan Airlines (JAL). For distance of 651 miles to 1150 miles it charges 7,500 miles. Japan Airlines has zone based redemption for domestic travel as well. Here is the award chart. Also the redemption starts at 5,000 miles (during promotion period) and is based on zone of travel. British Airways Avios is much easier to accumulate through multiple transfer partners such as Chase Ultimate Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards, SPG, Citi ThankYou Points and Diner's club where as Japan Airlines only transfer partner in USA is SPG. You can see the sample availability for Osaka (ITM) to Haneda (HND) airport which you can book for just 4,500 British Airways Avios. Also it is easy to book the flights online and taxes are ~$2+.  4500 Avios can get you from Osaka to Haneda in Japan So if you are travelling to Japan make sure you use this options to get around Japan rather then spending $100+ for short haul flights.
Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  United recently updated the award chart redemption values for travel to various destination. One of upside of that "devaluation" was introduction of short distance award redemption on partners for just 8,000 united miles. Although the new redemption value is not applicable in North America (U.S.A and Canada) you can get good value out of it for the places where the short distance flights are really expensive. Below are the requirements for getting the redemption for 8,000 united miles:
As long as the partner flights you are looking at meet above rules you can get your flight reward for just 8,000 miles. An interesting use of this is to travel to tourist destination by travelling from near by non-tourist destination. Below are few examples of where this can be useful. Bangalore (BLR), India to Male (MLE), Maldives on Air India: Air India has non-stop flight from Bangalore, India to Male, Maldives which is a distance of ~682 miles. You can fly this route for just 8,000 United Miles + taxes which otherwise would cost $150+.  BLR to MLE for 8,000 United Miles Cairo (CAI), Egypt to Amman (AMM), Jordan: Cairo in Egypt and Petra in Jordan are tourist places of interest although due to recent conflicts in the region they might not be in everyone's list of to-go places. Still they are at a distance of just ~294 miles they might still set you back by $150+ each way. Getting between them for 8,000 United miles + taxes would give a good redemption value.  Cairo to Amman for 8,000 United miles Above are just two example but there are many more to be had and a good value if you are looking for short distance redemption less than 800 miles.
Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website. The first 5000 bonus miles: United MileagePlus has a promotion where you can earn up to 5000 miles for tier spent through MileagePlus shopping portal between 10/30/17 to 11/19/2017. Here is the link for the promotion. Below is the tier earning details:
The next 500 miles: Apart from that United Airlines has sent out mailers (link here) where you can earn bonus 500 miles by doing activity as shown below.  Earn 500 bonus award miles by completing any of the listed earning activity The last 1,000 bonus miles (YMMV):
If you are United MileagePlus Credit card member and shop using that card then you are in luck for another 1,000 bonus miles although the terms are not clear if this bonus is only for new members of MileagePlus Shopping or it applies to existing members as well. Here is the link for the promotion banner. So, if you are looking to shop within the next 2 weeks you can take advantage of this promotion. As always do not forget to compare the earning rates for various merchants through aggregation sites such as Ca$hback Monitor. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  Groupon recently announced loyalty program partnership where you can earn Airlines miles or Hotel points with participating airlines and hotels by using a airline/hotel specific promo code. The current earning for Airlines and Hotels are as below: Airlines
 Participating Airlines and Hotels When you click the link here you need to login and select the partner program in which you need to earn miles/points as and enter your membership number on the screen as shown below:  If you want to earn Alaska Airlines Miles, you will need to enter your Mileage Plan number above. After confirming your membership number you will be given the airline/hotel specific promo code. For e.g. below is what you would see for Alaska Airlines.  Specific promo code for Alaska Airlines While on the surface the program looks interesting you might be better off getting discount using frequently provided Groupon promotions for 10% to 20% off using a promotion code. Also you can earn miles or cashback today by going through various cashback site. Using the special promo code for airline miles/hotel points would potentially invalidate the cashback earning through cashback sites. Still at times it might be useful to earn valuable miles with Alaska Airlines or American Airlines by using the promo code with this new Groupon feature.
So, remember this additional feature when you are looking to bank on useful miles and there are no other handy promotions available at that time. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  United Airlines has sent out offers to their MileagePlus members where you can earn bonus miles apart from the regular miles (5 miles/$ for base members) you earn on flying united flights and crediting to United Airlines. The offers vary from member to member but it requires you to register before Nov 1st, 2017 and fly by Nov 15th, 2017. Only tickets purchased after registering for the offer count for the bonus miles offer. Here is the link to check your offer. Below are the few variants of offer available:
 United MileagePlus sample offer snapshot to earn total of 8,000 miles Below are the complete terms as per United Promotion webpage:
For this promotion, rewards will be awarded for each spending threshold that has been met, subject to the terms and conditions. Threshold bonuses may be earned only once. Partial bonuses will not be awarded for members who don't reach a certain threshold. All calculations made in connection with this offer will be made by MileagePlus in its discretion and considered final.
So, check your offer and register for this promotion if you are planning to buy and fly United Airlines before Nov 15th, 2017. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  There is a targeted promotion valid till 06/25/2017 for earning easy 1500 United Airlines and/or American Airlines miles by participating in the dining program offered by these programs. Check your email to see if you are targeted with the offer. The promotion gives 500 miles for each restaurant visit up to 3 visits. So you can earn 1500 miles in total. Below are the actual terms of the promotion for those who are targeted.: Before June 25, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, you must dine at any participating restaurant, bar, or club and spend a minimum of $1. Limit one bonus-qualifying visit per restaurant per day. The interesting part is that there is an identical offer for both American Airlines and United Airlines. As you can see the offer requires only spending $1+ on each visit and so you can easily earn 1500 miles for minimal spend out of pocket on dining.  Earn up to 1500 miles with United Airlines MileagePlus Dining  Earn up to 1500 miles with American Airlines AAdvantage Dining Unfortunately as I mentioned this seems to be a targeted offer so check your email to see if you have received this offer. But If you are not a member of any of these dining programs there is still a nice sign up offer for both of them.
Earn up to 4000 United Airlines MileagePlus miles: MileagePlus Dining has offer where you can earn up to 4000 miles for dining by joining on or before June 30th 2017 and dining within the first 30 days. The earning bonus are as below:
Earn up to 2000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles: American Airlines dining has offer where you can earn up to 2000 miles for dining by joining before July 31st 2017 and dining within the first 30 days. The earning bonus are as below:
So, check your email and get going for easy American Airlines AAdvantage or United MileagePlus miles.  There is currently an offer available for new members of Mileage Plus Dining where you could earn 6k United miles if you are MileagePlus member or 7k United miles if you are MileagePlus Premier member. Let's dissect the offer to see what it really means. Below is what is stated for the offer:
Now here is one of the way (Thank You Amex!) using which you can maximize this without dining and minimum out of pocket cost. There is an American Express Sync offer for dining place called "Buca Di Beppo" where you get $10 statement credit for spend of $50. The Amex sync offer expires on 09/16/2015. This restaurant is a participant on United Mileage Plan dining and other Reward Network Dining Program at lot of locations. (You will need to check for your location, but below is a snap shot in Bay Area). The interesting thing is that they sell gift cards for dining with them in their restaurant locations and buying those gift cards would still trigger the cash back and bonus for United Miles. Also these gift cards have "re-sale" value of ~70% at the time of this writing.  Buca di Beppo locations in Bay Area So here is the gist of the deal:
As you can see if you spend ~$550 (spend needed to earn full promotion bonus) you would earn 6k or 7k United miles (plus any additional 5 miles/$ spend for your dining). Thus for an out of pocket spend of $55 you can earn 6k or 7k miles. Of-course there are better ways to maximize this deal. As a teaser by going after just the initial sign up bonus for multiple family member accounts you can earn 1k/2k miles for net cost of $5 only!  Having a high level status with airline could be beneficial in many aspect. Also once you reach a high elite status in one airline you could use airline status match as one of the easy ways to acquire status benefits in different airline, partner or alliance. The benefits could vary from airline to airline but some of these benefits include:
The biggest benefit of airline status match is you could leverage a high level status acquired on one airline to other airlines for various benefits. You could even extend the status beyond the usual 1 year by doing status match towards the end of the benefit year. The best part is you could used status on Airline-A to match with Airline-B. Once the match is approved you can turn around and match the status on Airline-B with Airline-C. These could very well extend you having Elite status for much more than initial 1 year. Some of the airlines will only match status during certain period and with certain airlines while others may choose to match status year around while yet some airlines will allow for "Status Challenge" rather then status match where you need to fly certain amount of miles with the airline in certain period of time to keep the status. Also most of the airlines which are part of one alliance might not status match with any of the airlines belonging to the same alliance. With that in mind listed below are various airlines that will match status.
Apart from above, some airlines will status match folks residing in specific country or region so as to get more business in those regions. As of this writing Etihad Airways and Qantas Airways (Only for New Zealand residents) are running status matches. You could look up this flyertalk thread or check this status matcher website to know about latest status matches which worked or failed. |
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