MileMaven Shortcuts

Here are two convenient MileMaven shortcuts that will enable direct access to MileMaven's database. Just type the following in your browser "address" field.

• To access promotions for a specific airline, just go to www.milemaven.com/XX, where XX is the airline code. Thus, to see all promotions by United Airlines, go to www.milemaven.com/UA (you can also use lowercase letters).
• To access promotions for a specific route, just go to www.milemaven.com/XXX/YYY, where XXX and YYY are the "from" and "to" airport (or city) codes. So if you are looking for promotions from Newark to London, just go to www.milemaven.com/EWR/LON (again, use lowercase if that makes life easier).

Enjoy the weekend!

PointBreaks on PointMaven

If you're a member of Priority Club Rewards, check out our PointBreaks map feature at www.pointmaven.com/pointbreaks. While it usually takes anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 points to reserve a single night at an IHG property, PointBreaks hotels are available for only 5,000 points/night. This is incredible value, especially for the higher-end brands.

The list of PointBreaks changes frequently, so if you're looking for a PointBreak in a specific destination - check back often.

PointMaven Performance Improvement

We've upgraded our software, and searching for hotel promotions on PointMaven is now MUCH faster.
It used to take up to 60 seconds to search for promotions in hotel-rich cities, such as New York, Los Angeles or London. Now, the query time has been reduced to a few seconds. Enjoy!

Double Miles to the Grand Canyon

Flying Horizon Air from Los Angeles to Flagstaff will earn you double Mileage Plan miles between June 23, and August 31, 2008. Registration is required, but will only be available in a couple of months.

Apropos Alaska Air's program: Some non-West Coast folks use Mileage Plan as their main program, as it partners with American Airlines, Continental, Delta, and Northwest, thus avoiding the need to scatter miles across multiple programs. Mileage Plan also used to have a 36-month expiration limit, as opposed to the 18/24-month deadline imposed by most major airlines. However, this was recently truncated to 24-month. In addition, upcoming airline mergers means that the idea of using Alaska as a bank for miles needs serious re-evaluation.

Spring goldpoints plus Offer

Recently added to PointMaven: goldpoints plus is offering double points at EMEA locations until May 31, 2008. Valid at the following Carlson brands: Radisson SAS, Country Inns, Regent, Radisson Edwardian and Park Plaza. More details here.

American and United follow Delta's Promo

It is common to see one frequent flyer program responding to a promotion by another program by offering a similar - and sometimes identical - promotion. So once the Delta SkyMiles programs started offering double status-qualifying miles for a limited time (ends June 30), it was only a matter of time until American followed with a similar promotion (ends June 15), and now United is also offering twice as many elite-qualifying miles (ends June 15).

In the good old times, you actually had to fly 25,000 miles to be an elite member. There were no shortcuts, and "frequent flyer" meant that you are flying frequently. Now, you'll only need to spend 12,500 miles in the seat, or even less if you combine one of the credit cards that provides EQMs. Is this the beginning of the end of elite status as we knew it, or just a one-time glitch?

Lonely Planet Exposed

Thomas Kohnstam used to work for Lonely Planet, the Australian travel guide publisher, writing and updating Latin America guides. In "Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?", a zesty new book that will be released this Tuesday and is creating quite a stir in this industry, Mr. Kohnstam reveals some of his - and the trade's - dirty secrets.

Share Travel Stories, Earn Miles

Here at MileMaven we love to collaborate with other travel sites. MileMaven's newest partner is the TheTripDoor, a nifty new website (dare I say Web 2.0?) that allows you to create web pages about your favorite places, share them with friends, and earn frequent flyer miles in return. TheTripDoor is still in beta, but which website isn't these days?

Naturally, once you get enough miles, you can travel to more places, write about them, get more miles, use them to travel again, write again, get even more miles, etc ... isn't life wonderful?

PointMaven adds element

As of today, PointMaven covers element, the Westin extended-stay offshoot. element hotels - or rather, hotel, as only the element Lexington is open - are part of the Starwood Preferred Guest program. The PointMaven database includes the Lexington as well as all other "to be opened" properties.

And here's a PointMaven tip: To quickly search Starwood offers in PointMaven, just go to www.pointmaven.com/spg/xyz, where xyz is the 3-letter airport or metro code, such as SFO or NYC (you may also use lower-case letters for the 3-letter code).

For example, to locate the element Las Vegas Summerlin, which is scheduled to open in December, just go to www.pointmaven.com/spg/las.

"Perhaps tomorrow, we'll be on the plane"

This spring it will be much easier to escape Casablanca with Royal Air Maroc Safar Flyer's double miles promotion, running in May, June and July to various destinations in Europe and Africa.

Safar Flyer is a small program. Its only airline partner, other than Air Maroc, is Spain-based Iberia.

Velocity game

Virgin Blue, Australia's second biggest airline, was launched in 2000. Its points-based program, Velocity Rewards, which was started in 2005, has roughly 1.5 million members. In an effort to a sign up more members and hopefully start becoming a "profit centre" (it is currently losing money), Velocity is running a new game which encourages member referrals.

The first prize includes an around-the-world vacation for two, with flights on various Virgin carriers (Virgin Atlantic, V Australia, Virgin Blue), 6-day stopovers in London and Los Angeles with accomodations in Hiltons, and AUD$15,000 in spending money.

You can only participate if you have an Australian address, and you are only allowed to register once, but you can gain more entries by referring friends. To play the game, you will need to answer 5 questions about the program. Hint: All the answers begin with a "Y". Ends on May 31, 2008.

Once again, United bonus miles when flying bmi

This one seems to become a United Airlines Mileage Plus "staple offer": You fly bmi from London to various destinations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and you double your Mileage Plus miles. This promotion has been offered a few times in the past.

There are two versions of the current promo, MPE078 and MPE088. The first is for members who reside in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico or USVI, and requires travelling from the U.S. to London first. The second version is for all other members, and does not require travelling to London. Both versions do not require registration - but make sure the reservation has your MP number. Travel dates are May 1st to June 30, 2008.

The following destinations are included in the promo: "Addis Ababa (ADD), Aleppo (ALP), Almaty (ALA), Amman (AMM), Ankara (ANK), Baku (GYD), Beirut (BEY), Bishkek (FRU), Cairo (CAI), Damascus (DAM), Ekaterinburg (SVX), Freetown (QFN), Khartoum (KRT), Tbilisi (TBS), Tehran (THR), or Yerevan (EVN). And including Aberdeen (ABZ), Belfast (BHD), Durham Tees Valley (MME), Edinburgh (EDI), Glasgow (GLA), Leeds Bradford (LBA), Manchester (MAN), Jersey (JER), Amsterdam (AMS), Brussels (BRU), Dublin (DUB), Hanover (HAJ), Naples (NAP), Palma de Mallorca (PMI), Venice (VCE), Jeddah (JED), Riyadh (RUH), Dammam (DMM), Moscow (DME) and Tel Aviv (TLV)".

Cedars and Phoenixes

MileMaven covers more than a hundred programs in all continents - some of them pretty esoteric - and one can always learn a bit of cultural trivia from researching the names of frequent flyer programs.

Case in point: Until a few months ago Air China's program was titled Companion - rather bland name. Then someone with inspiration decided to boldly rename the program to "Phoenix Miles", after the mythological Chinese bird.

Lebanon's national flag-carrier, Middle East Airlines, has named its program - Cedar Miles - after Lebanon's national emblem. This spring, by the way, you can earn up to double (cedar!) miles when you fly MEA to any of its destination.

Northwest extends its "Any Domestic Carrier" promo

Imagine earning 500 bonus miles with your favorite program (say, Northwest WorldPerks) whenever you take a domestic flight with any airline (say, JetBlue or American Airlines). Sounds like a dream?

Well, if you live in Japan, that's exactly what Northwest Airlines is offering: take a domestic flight in Japan with ANA, JAL, Skymark, or any other carrier, and earn 500 WorldPerks miles by filling up this form. Naturally, if you are a member of ANA Mileage Club or JAL Mileage Bank, it's a double bonanza.

This promotion is running for a few years now, and has recently been extended through the end of March, 2009. MileMaven has been updated to reflect the new dates. WorldPerks Elite members can earn up to 20,000 miles (40 flights) with this promo. Base members are limited to 10 flights.

What's behind Northwest's promo? Collecting information about the travel habits of WorldPerks members is one possibility. Attracting local Japan residents to the program is another.

Extend your miles for $0.99+tax

Remember the good old days (read: a year or two ago), when miles would expire after a forgiving 36 months period?

Well, many North American airlines are now down to 18 or 24 months, so these hard-earned miles might vanish in a silent poof before you know it. The good news: any kind of mileage activity within the account will extend all the miles.

Popular and cheap activities are annual magazine subscriptions (starting at around 400 miles) and donation of miles to charity.

Most airlines also allow you to earn a few miles per dollar by shopping via their virtual mall, but spending $100 on an FTD.com bouquet might not be your cup of tea. Luckily, Apple's iTunes is now a member of many of these malls. Buying a single song for $0.99+tax will earn you a mile or two on most programs, which is just what you need. Just make sure you spend more than $1 (or $2 with Delta). The only caveat: it may take 4-8 weeks until the miles are posted, so plan ahead.

The following programs currently offer iTunes as part of their shopping mall:

American Airlines AAdvantage (2 miles/$1)
Delta SkyMiles (3 miles/$2) - must buy at least two songs to get miles!
Northwest WorldPerks (2 miles/1$)
United Mileage Plus (2 miles/$1)
US Airways Dividend Miles (2 miles/$1)