Monthly Archives: August 2011

Another Marriott Promo

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Chris

Loyalty Traveler reports another Marriott promotion for the fall, running not quite concurrently with their MegaBonus promotion.  Earning is limited to United, Delta, British Airways, Lufthansa, GOL/Varig, and LAN. The first stay earns a base of 2 miles per dollar. … Continue reading →

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Boarding Processes

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Chris

There’s plenty of anecotal views on how to best board an airplane.  A new paper showed up in the arXiv last week with experimental results (albeit with limited sample size) for different strategies.  Randomized boarding beat back-to-front and the block-based … Continue reading →

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Fall Hotel Promotions

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Chris

Starwood announced its Triple Up promotion.  For stays involving a Thursday or Sunday night, there is a triple SPG point bonus; for all other stays, there is a double SPG point bonus.  There’s a few nonparticipating hotels as well. Registration … Continue reading →

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This Quarter’s Hyatt Promotion

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Chris

Hyatt announced their newest promotion on FlyerTalk: Every 3k eligible nights earns a 5k point bonus up to a total of 30k bonus points.  Registration opens on September 15. For reference, the Hyatt award chart starts at 5k points per … Continue reading →

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Denied Boarding Statistics

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Chris

I’ve been voluntarily denied boarding (VDB) four times this year on United, netting me a total of $1,800 in United travel vouchers.  Earlier in the year, I also turned down a $400 offer because the reroute involved a layover at … Continue reading →

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Continental Mile Auctions

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Chris

I got an email this afternoon from Continental, advertising an auction for a 32GB iPad 2 and a Callaway Golf RAZR Hawk Driver.  Uninterested in either product (if I was, I would have bought one already), I ignored it.  Seth … Continue reading →

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AA eShopping Error

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Chris

I, like many others, jumped in on the AAdvantage eShopping advertisement for 83,871 miles with a rather small purchase from the Verizon website.   Since then, there’s been a massive thread on FlyerTalk (now 212 pages). I finally got my consolation … Continue reading →

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US Airways Grand Slam

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Chris

Registration is now open.  The promotion runs from September 14th through November 14th. The 40th tier requires having elite status on US Airways.  While it’s possible to buy a 90-day trial of the lowest tier  for $200 (plus 7.5% in … Continue reading →

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AA Million Miler Changes

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Chris

I’m a bit late to the party, but American announced the official changes to their million miler policy. Currently, all redeemable miles with American count towards the million mile thresholds.  This is inclusive of credit card bonuses, elite bonuses, and … Continue reading →

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Amex Bonus Bumping

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Chris

As discussed last week, I applied for (and received) the Amex Premier Rewards Gold card with a rather paltry bonus for $1k of spending.  I sent a secure message last night to apply promotion 6661 (75k points for $1k of … Continue reading →

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