"Delightfully nerdy"

PointMaven was recently recommended in an article in Budget Travel magazine's March issue discussing hotel loyalty programs: "A great resource for finding these bonuses is the delightfully nerdy new website PointMaven.com, which has a database of thousands of offers across the country, color-coded to show the best deals". Click here for the article.

Starwood's Night After Night Promotion

Starting Feb 18, Starwood Preferred Guest members can earn 500 bonus points per night at all properties, and an addition 5,000 point after the 10th night (click here to register).

However, at a selected list of properties (about 300), you earn 1,000 bonus points per night. The list of properties is available here.

PointMaven makes it easy to stay at those selected properties. After searching, just click on a property and look for the "Extra 500 Bonus Points" promotion to earn the 1,000 Bonus Points.

MileCalc Reflects Minimum Mileage Rules

With the exception of Delta SkyMiles and Northwest WorkPerks (to be merged soon), all major U.S.-based programs have changed their minimum earning rules. Elite members will still earn at least 500 miles per flight, but base-level members earn only actual miles (AA and CO will start enforcing the new policy in 2009).

MileCalc - the mileage calculator for frequent flyers - now supports these new earning rules. Just select the Airline, then your elite level, and MileCalc will automatically fill in the correct "Minimum Mileage per Leg" option. And remember - you can save those options for your next calculation.

30% More Points at Selected Days Inns

Days Inn are promoting their new "Business Place" rooms by offering 30% bonus points with the parent loyalty program, Wyndham Rewards.

There are currently 233 locations that offer the new style of room (out of about 1,800 properties).

With PointMaven, it is easy to spot these locations and get the extra points. Just enter the destination, select "Wyndham Rewards", and hit "Find Promotions". The properties with the additional bonus points will appear in a darker shade.
For example, here are the results for Pittsburgh. Only one of 7 Days Inn properties offer the new room type!

Continental Promotions on International Routes

Continental has recently launched a series of bonus miles promotions on various international routes.
In the following list, you must have a mailing address in the originating country to qualify for the bonus miles. Registration is required. In addition, note the valid booking classes as mentioned in the offer details.

India - US, Double Miles, through May 2009.
Italy - US, Double Miles, through March 2009.
Portugal - U.S., Double Miles, through March 2009.
Switzerland - U.S., Double Miles, through March 2009.
U.S. - China and Hong Kong, 2,500 to 10,000 Miles, through February 2009.
U.S. - Japan, 2,500 to 10,000 Miles, through February 2009.

A complete list of all Continental flight promotions is available at the MileMaven Continental page.

15,000 Bonus Priority Club Points at Two Caribbean Resorts

From now until mid-December, the Holiday Inn Sunspree resorts at Montago and Aruba offer a fat 15,000 points bonus, in addition to a 40-60% discount.

Registration to the promotion is not required, but the points are not rewarded automatically. You will need to mention code 140-P at check-in, or bring along a printout of the promotion page. In addition, booking must be made directly with the hotel or with the IHG reservation center (either by phone or using the website). Points will be rewarded via a voucher.

See the relevant property pages on PointMaven for more information about the promotion.

Aruba
Montego

Redeem Four Nights for Half the Points

An interesting promotion from goldpoints plus: Members who will complete 3 individual stays (a stay: one or more consecutive nights) between October 1 and December 31 will be able to redeem their points for up to four nights at half the rate during 2009.

Since this promotion effectively doubles the value of your points, taking advantage of this offer will be especially appealing for members with large amounts of points. Say you had enough points for two nights at Radisson Aruba (166,500). Stay 3 individual nights at any Country Inn and Suites (around $66/night, for a total of $200), and you will be able to redeem these same points for four nights. Given that Aruba nightly rates hover around $500, you effectively earn (or save, depending on your point-of-view) around $800. Nice!

Will Frequent Flyer Miles save Ehud Olmert?

As if Ehud Olmert didn't have enough on his plate, the Israeli prime minister is now suspected of double-billing his trips, and using the surplus money for family vacations. Olmert claims he used frequent flyer miles. See full story here.

400 Starwood Points in Chicago, Registration Required

Starwood is offering a complementary upgrade and 400 Starwood points at all its Westin properties in Chicago - but registration is required. You'll also enter a draw for a Heavely Bed pacakge. Check out the details here

Options for new Diamond Club members

It all started in January, when bmi offered 9,000 miles just for joining its frequent flyer program, Diamond Club. That's enough for a return flight within Europe. Although those days are over, bmi is still very aggressively trying to recruit new members. There are at least 4 active offers for new members; two that require a flight, two that don't. Check them out here.

Competing for Filipino Members

1,500 Bonus Miles are offered to new members of Cathay Pacific Asia Miles after their first flight from Manila, providing their address is in the Philippines. And Philippines Airlines is offering 50% bonus miles on their new route between Manila and Macau.

MileMaven on WNBC

MileMaven was mentioned yesterday on "Sree Advice", a weekly tech segment that airs on Mondays and Thursdays on WNBC 4 News in New York. Other sites that were recommended are FlyerTalk, WebFlyer and Placely.

Anyway... we got lots of traffic and our service crashed for a few hours. Apologies if you got an error message! We've now tweaked our servers to handle more requests. This is the kind of problem that we enjoy solving...

2,500 Starwood Points for Submitting an Enquiry

So is it inquiry or enquiry? I got used to the latter - too much time spent in the U.K. and India, I guess - but Firefox wants me to use the former. Anyway, enough with that.

After blogging about PointMaven's newest addition - support for meeting offers - I realized that I forgot to mention the most interesting offer out there, which probably deserves a post of its own: 2,500 Bonus Starpoints when submitting a meeting RFP. You don't actually need to book a meeting - just submit a request for proposal. Here's the offer page.

PointMaven now Lists Bonuses for Meeting Planners

Many hotel programs offer incredible amounts of points to meeting and event planners. Starwood, Marriott and IHG's Priority Club all offer points for event-dollars in their hotel guest plans. Since events can run thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, we're talking lots of points. For example, a $12,000 event will earn you 4,000 Starwood points and 36,000 with Marriott or Priority Club. Given that you're usually not the one paying for the event, that's pretty nice.

But wait. It gets better. These programs often run promotions for event planners. And hey - we're not talking your run-of-the-mill "1,000 bonus points" promotion that we earthlings are usually very happy with. We're talking thousands, tens-of-thousands, and sometimes hundreds-of-thousands of points.

And now, PointMaven includes all these meetings promotions, so if it's points you're after - search PointMaven before you book! How do you find these promotions? Easy. Search as usual, and then look for a greenish "MEETINGS" designation next to the offer name. For example, here are the results for Marriott Rewards hotels in Atlanta. Tip: Deeper marker color means more promotions.

More information:
Starwood Preferred Planner
Priority Club Meeting Rewards
Marriott Rewards for Meeting Planners

Here's a sample PointMaven screenshot. Notice the MEETINGS near the offer name.

Complimentary Premier Executive Status, Take 2

United is again running targeted offers for free, 90-day Premier and Executive Premier status. Registration is needed by July 31, 2008. Since it may up take up to two weeks for the new elite status to show up online, the following strategy is suggested: Register for Executive Premier. Wait two weeks. Check your account to see if you got lucky. If not, register for Premier. Since this is a targeted offer, YMMV.

Good luck, and please remember: No expectations, no disappointments!

See milemaven.com/UA for links and offer details.

Blame Frequent Flyer Programs for "Hub Premium"

Or at least a portion of it. Prof. Lara Lederman, a researcher at the Rotman School of Business, estimates that "FFPs account for between 25% and 37% of the fare premium that hub carriers receive.'". Her research methodology examined the relationship between frequent flyer partnerships and fares in order to isolate the FFP component of the hub premium: If a non-hub carrier becomes a frequent flyer partner of the hub carrier, can it now charge a premium since it is more lucrative, FFP-wise? The short answer is yes. For the long story, read the recently published paper. The research is based on rather old data - remember when US Airways and American Airlines were still partners? - so it would certainly be fascinating to try and figure out if, and how, things have changed since then.

Bonus Miles, New York to Paris

American Airlines is offering bonus miles from JFK to CDG, but only in its more expensive fare classes: Double Miles in full fare economy (Y/B), and triple in business (J/D/I). Register by August 25th, fly by September 1st.

If I got the numbers right, then an Executive Platinum flying in business will earn 30898 miles for the round trip - enough for a domestic award.

Complete details on MileMaven's AA page.

MileCalc Shows Full Airport Names

A fan of MileCalc.com requested that the Itermized Mileage Calculation table will display, in addition to the 3-letter airport code, also the full airport name. Done!

BusyPoints.com alerts when 500 Bonus Points Offer is Available

Starwood Preferred Guest has this ingenious incentive to encourage customers to hang up the phone and book online when the call centers are collapsing under extreme load: A recorded message refers callers to an online site that awards 500 bonus points when booking online. But this booking bonus is only available during those very specific, and highly unpredictable, busy times.

Since it's impossible to predict the offer's availability, a reasonable booking strategy would be to book as usual, and later rebook if - and when - the offer becomes available, provided that the room rate did not increase.

But how would you know when to (re)book if you fancy those 500 points? A new website, still in beta, seems to take care of that. Called BusyPoints.com, it offers an RSS feed that will alert you as soon as the bonus status changes.

Italian Airline Offers Double Miles on US-based Programs

Air One, an independent Italian airline, is offering double US Airways Dividend Miles on its new transatlantic route between Milan and Boston. And if the latest Dividend Miles "improvements" encouraged you to switch to United Airlines' program, you can also earn double Mileage Plus miles when flying Air One domestically in Europe. Complete details on the Air One page.