Frequent Miler

A couple of weeks ago Hilton kicked off their integration of Small Luxury Hotels (SLH) properties with the addition of three properties – Teranka Formentera (one of the Balearic Islands), Nobu Hotel Marbella in Spain and Flemings Mayfair in London. That list has now been expanded to a total...

Hilton has added more than a dozen more SLH properties

During our team’s 2024 last-minute-travel challenge, Flying by the Seat of our Points, each of the contestants found excellent award flights. In this post, I’ve described step by step (to the best of my memory) how I found each award. Hopefully this will prove helpful for your award searches in the future, regardless of whether you’re booking last-minute or well in advance.

How I found awesome awards for our last minute travel challenge

Stephen and I have been acting as judges for the ongoing Flying by the seat of our Points Challenge! If you’d like a refresher of how we scored Stage 1, check out this post. You can check out the information below for more general details about this challenge, but in this post, we’ll talk all about how our contestants scored for their second stage: the international divergence to Croatia, Switzerland, and Morocco!

Judging Stage 2 of the Flying by the Seat of our Points Challenge

Spend $200 via the Alaska Airlines shopping portal & earn 500 bonus Mileage Plan miles. During the “Summer Bonus” offer, which runs from 6/5/2024 through 6/14/2024 at 11:59:59 pm ET (the “Bonus Period”), Member will receive a one-time bonus of 500 Mileage Plan bonus miles on qualifying purchases made through the Mileage Plan Shopping mall or from purchases made through Mileage Plan Shopping in-store offers.

Alaska Airlines shopping portal promo: Spend $200 & earn 500 bonus miles

Yesterday Hilton announced that AutoCamp properties were now bookable through Hilton for both cash and points stays. To celebrate that launch, they’re also offering 1,000 bonus points per AutoCamp stay through August 12. The Deal. Earn 1,000 bonus Hilton Honors points when booking AutoCamp stays. Direct link to offer...

Earn 1,000 bonus Hilton Honors points on AutoCamp stays through 8/12/24

There are improved, limited-time welcome offers available on the Chase United Airlines Explorer Gateway, Quest and Club Infinite cards. The Club Infinite has the biggest offer with 90,000 miles earned after $5,000 in spend. If you value the United Club access that comes with it, that’s a decent deal. If not, the 70,000 mile offer on the United Quest card with $275 less in annual fee may be more appealing.

Chase United Airlines Cards: Increased welcome offers of up to 90K miles

In April, when Mr & Mrs Smith properties went live within World of Hyatt, the details didn’t exactly impress us. There’s not much in the way of guaranteed benefits and the properties (overall) are a poor value when booked as awards. Now, there’s at least some incentive to...

World of Hyatt credit card now earns 4x at Mr & Mrs Smith properties

I’ve flown Qatar Airways several times now and have found that service seems to range from fine to extraordinary. On my recent flight from Zagreb to Doha I experienced truly extraordinary service. The great service combined with excellent food and comfortable seats made this daytime flight one of my favorite flights ever.

Qatar A320 Business Class Review (Phenomenal!)

Shopping portal Rakuten is featuring increased rates for Dell purchases today, with 10% / 10x Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on laptops and desktops or 12% / 12x Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on Accessories, Servers, and Monitors. If you have a card with semi-annual Dell credits, today could be a good day to make use of any remaining credits for the first half of 2024. Alternatively, there are numerous card-linked offers available for Dell that could stack nicely with increased payouts.

Up to 12x Dell via Rakuten today (stack with card-linked offers & credits)

Following on from the start of an Alaska Airlines shopping portal promo last week, three other airline portals are now offering bonus miles/points when hitting spending thresholds with them. The Deals. United shopping portal. Spend $200 & get 500 bonus miles. Spend $400 & get 1,000 bonus miles. Direct link...

American, United & Southwest portal promos: Earn up to 2,500 bonus miles/points

VanillaGift is back with another promotion waiving purchase fees on Vanilla Visa gift cards. This time you can use promo code VGDADS24 to save 100% on those fees. Get 100% off purchase fees when buying Vanilla Visa gift cards from VanillaGift.com and using promo code VGDADS24. Direct link to offer.

VanillaGift.com: Get 100% off purchase fees on Visa gift cards with promo code VGDADS24

The Sonesta World Mastercard is out with a new offer that could be quite valuable for Sonesta fans: now earn 120,000 points after just $2,000 in purchases in the first 90 days, an additional 5,000 points after adding an authorized user within the first 90 days, and score an automatic upgrade to Sonesta Travel Pass Gold status upon approval (which is their “free breakfast” status). While Sonesta doesn’t draw much attention in the hotel space, this could nonetheless be a really good deal for someone interested in the program.

Now 125K points + Gold status with new Sonesta World Mastercard offer

This week, Greg, Tim, and I have been crisscrossing the planet on our 2024 Frequent Miler team challenge. If you haven’t been following on Instagram, see the post below about how to follow. Read on for more updates from our week on the road and find easy links in the table of contents below if you’re after the podcasts or more from this week at Frequent Miler.

Around the world in a flash: catching up on a wild week [Week in Review]

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Do you believe in genuine friendship? Finding a loyal and reliable friend is tricky nowadays. Many people are two-faced and like using their loved ones’ weaknesses to attack them.

5 Zodiac Signs That Make The Best Friends

Earn 1,000 Hilton Honors bonus points per one-way premium cabin flight on Delta (up to a maximum of 6,000 Hilton Honors points) Applies to Comfort+, Premium Select, First Class, or Delta One flights completed by September 19, 2024. Must book through Delta for the promo to apply. Registration prior to...

Earn 1,000 Hilton Honors points when flying Delta premium cabins

During our Flying by the Seat of our Points challenge, my journal became quiet after the first couple of days. The truth was that I didn’t have a ton of stuff to share as my bookings went slowly and frustratingly for those first couple of days. That was largely circumstantial: if I had a few more hours or as much as a day beyond our arbitrary check-in times, options broadened considerably. However, they say that necessity is the mother of invention, and getting to the places I did within the necessary time frames did indeed necessitate a few creative tricks that can be more broadly useful the next time you can’t find the availability you need.

A couple of Nick’s booking tricks uncovered during Flying by the Seat of our Points challenge

There are two new, targeted Amex offers that gives 4,000 or 5,000 Membership Rewards (MR) points back on a $400 or $500 purchase of Delta gift cards. The MR bonus is “worth” $44-55 if cashed out via a Schwab American Express card or ~$60-75 if using our Reasonable Redemption Values. The fact that this is specifically aimed at gift card purchases makes the offer extremely easy to redeem.

Delta Amex Offers: 10x Membership Rewards on $400+ gift card purchases (targeted)

Choice Privileges isn’t a program that gets a ton of digital ink in the points and miles blogosphere. At FM, we’ve primarily been interested in it because of its partnership with Preferred Hotels and Resorts, something that Greg the Frequent Miler has taken advantage of several times. A...

Choice Privileges removes 35K cap from award redemptions

Several shopping portals are offering increased rates for purchases at GiftCards.com that yield between 2 and 4 points per dollar spent. Better yet, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines both have site-wide shopping portal bonuses ending today and tomorrow that would stack nicely to make for a great return on spend.

2-4x at GiftCards.com, stack with airline portal promos

From 6/15/24 to 7/31/24, Chase Ultimate Rewards is offering a 20% transfer bonus for eligible cardholders when converting points to Air Canada Aeroplan. This is stackable with the existing 10% points bonus available to Chase Aeroplan cardmembers when those cardmembers transfer 50,000 or more Chase Ultimate Rewards points in a single transaction to Aeroplan points (up to a maximum 25,000 Aeroplan bonus points per calendar year).

Stackable: 20% transfer bonus to Air Canada Aeroplan from Chase (stack w/ cardholder bonus)

NewsBreak

Hilton starts “test phase” with SLH partnership, adds three hotels

Hilton has begun a “test phase” of its partnership with Small Luxury Hotels (SLH) by adding three properties that are now available for booking and that...

Hilton starts “test phase” with SLH partnership, adds three hotels

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