Outrageous schemes, Amex benefits, and a Kimpton Suite

This week at Frequent Miler, we presented three outrageous schemes that just.. might… work…  We also covered a number of Amex things ranging from previously unknown perks for all cardholders to new cards with their own new signup bonuses and perks.  Read on for all that and more in this Frequent Miler week in review.

How To Stay At A Hilton Hotel For Free Until April 30th

Guest author John Klukas showed us how it’s possible to stay at Hilton hotels for free for the next few months.  Is there a catch? Yes, you have to start with at least a small stash of Hilton points.  Is it practical?  Not at all!  You’d have to somehow find category 1 Hilton hotels with rooms available for this period and be ready to check in and out every day.  This can only be done with one night stays and would require a partner-in-crime if you want to stay at the same hotel every night.  Still, I find this incredibly fun to think about.  It’s also worth checking out the comments where readers debated whether or not this would really work on award stays.  Then our own Stephen Pepper chimed in with his personal experience which seems to prove not only that it can work, but that it may be possible to do better than free!

As an aside: If Travel is Free or the makers of AwardMapper are reading this, please update your maps!  Finding 5K Hilton hotels these days is really tough.

My married million miler mileage run

My wife and I are each getting close to million miler status with Delta.  How cool would it be if we both reached million miler status on the same international flight and on Delta’s new Airbus A350?  It was fun, but not easy, to develop a plan to make that happen.  Why bother?  Because I love challenges!  Read this post for the details of the challenge, and stay tuned for future updates.

Earn 6,000 Virgin Atlantic Miles With A 2-Day Avis Car Rental

We don’t usually include Quick Deals in our Week In Review, but this one is different.  In this post Stephen Pepper pointed out that one could earn enough miles with this deal for four round-trip first class ANA flights.  Talk about a crazy scheme!  I didn’t think that Stephen was really suggesting doing this, but based on comments, some readers seem to be considering it.  If you do, keep this in mind: even if you can rent a car for just $30 per day all-in, this would amount to paying 1 cent per point for Virgin Atlantic miles.  That’s a good price if you need the miles for a specific high value award, but I’d never recommend paying that much just-in-case.  And it doesn’t take into account your time and effort in renting these cars.  Now, if you could find a way to rent the cards for about $10 per day, then maybe it’s worth pursuing…

Can you get the Hilton Ascend bonus if you’ve had the Surpass?

The new Amex Hilton cards have appeared with shiny new 100K offers on three of them.  The terms on the Ascend card really surprised me in that they don’t answer the question that many of us want need to know: Can you get the bonus if you’ve had the Hilton Surpass card?  In my opinion, the lack of clarity suggests an answer…

$100 travel benefit per year for free, and other perks from PenFed

Four new Hilton cards were not the only Amex cards released this week.  We also saw the introduction of a new Amex card from PenFed.  The thing that makes this no-annual-fee card special is that it offers $100 in travel fee reimbursements every year.  Did I mention it’s free?  And, unlike the extremely similar FNBO TravElite card, this one is available for everyone.

Dining perks from Amex: Taste from American Express Invites

Bet You Didn’t Know: Amex offers dining perks (in some cities) to all cardmembers.  I haven’t used this perk yet, but I’m looking forward to reader reports.  I expect those reports to be at least as amusing as the fictional conversation I posted.

R.I.P. – Amex Offers Sync With Facebook & Twitter Has Died

We used to sign up for Amex Offers by syncing our cards with Twitter and then tweeting certain hashtags.  It wasn’t as intuitive as logging into your Amex account to find offers and clicking on them, but it had a few huge advantages: it was possible to load all Twitter offers to all Amex cards, and it was possible to fully automate the process.  But, now it’s gone.  On the plus side, we can stop maintaining dozens of separate Twitter accounts…

Kimpton IHG Platinum experience redeeming free nights at the Kimpton Muse

Now that IHG has brought Kimpton fully into the fold, you might wonder what it is like staying at a Kimpton hotel as an IHG elite while using free night certificates.  I have the answer, at least at one hotel.  In short, I was very pleasantly surprised.

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