Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
| Sorry, this deal is no longer available. Do you want to be alerted about new deals as they’re published? Click here to subscribe to Frequent Miler's Instant Posts by email. |
A reader posted a great tip in our Frequent Mile Insiders Facebook group last month and I had missed it in the 3 Cards 3 Continents aftermath, but it still appears to work: you can get a bonus 5,000 airline miles on many Rocketmiles bookings by starting at Pointshound.com (through your choice of many different airline programs). This deal will mostly be useful for single night stays and can apparently only be used once per account. Note that bookings through a third-party online travel agency like this typically do not earn hotel points, elite night credit, or qualify for elite benefits. Still, if you don’t care about those things for a one-night stay, this could represent an excellent return.
If you go to Pointshound.com, you’ll see the message above indicating that Rocketmiles apparently acquired Pointshound at some point. You’ll automatically be redirected to Rocketmiles.com. When that happens, some hotels will show an increased payout that includes 5,000 bonus miles at some properties.
For instance, before going to Pointshound, I price-checked this property for a stay this coming Monday in Chicago, IL. If I choose to earn American Airlines miles, I could earn 5,000 American Airlines miles at The Chicago Hotel Collection Wrigleyville.
If I start at Pointshound.com and wait to be redirected to Rocketmiles and then choose American Airlines as my preferred earning partner, I see messaging indicating 5,000 bonus miles at this property.
My understanding is that only base miles count as Loyalty points, not bonuses. I would therefore expect that the booking above would earn 10,000 redeemable American Airlines miles and only 5,000 base miles / Loyalty Points. Sill, an extra 5,000 miles is nice.
Earnings rates can vary by partner. For instance, if you choose to earn Turkish Miles & Smiles miles, the same property would earn a total of 12,000 redeemable miles after the bonus — nearly enough for a one-way domestic business class award on United (if United would ever open any saver availability).
If you’re just looking to effectively buy miles, you can do better than the above. For example, here is a hotel selling for $209 (before taxes and fees) that comes with 11,000 Turkish miles.
That’s still not a price where I would mattress run this promotion, but it’s probably not the best deal available.
Note that the 5,000 bonus miles do not get added to all properties (and in some cities I don’t see any properties qualifying for the bonus). The reader who posted this speculated that it’s only properties offering at least 5,000-7,000 miles that get the bonus 5K. I haven’t seen a property cheaper than the $209 Hilton shown above that include the bonus 5K miles, but neither have I searched extensively by any stretch.
There don’t appear to be extensive terms, but it looks like this deal is valid for bookings through 12/31/22 (I assume this means stays completed by that date) and it is apparently only valid one time per account (not specified in the terms but reported to work that way).
H/T: Benjamin in Frequent Miler Insiders
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
[…] Bonus 5,000 miles on some Rocketmiles bookings by FM. […]
Does the base miles count towards miles to book flights? For example if I have 55,000 AA miles (yes sadly), can a Rocketmile booking that earns 5000 base miles allow me to book a 60,000 AA miles flight?
This is disappointing. Rocketmiles calls it “+5000 AAdvantage Base Miles”, which one would think awards loyalty points.
Nick,
I booked a Hyatt hotel through bookaahotels.com an 2 night stay and I earned 5,000 points and the all posted as Loyalty Points. I had to change my flight and stay an extra night and I again booked it through bookaahotels.com for the same Hyatt that I was already at and earned 3,000 Loyalty Points for one night. I can send screenshots to prove if u tell me where to send it. So I got a total of 8,000 Loyalty Points and for the first time ever I’m only 584 Loyalty Points from Gold with AA.
Ok. But what does that have to do with this deal?
Well I was just letting you know if readers are looking to earn Loyalty Points, then they might want to book their hotel stays from bookaahotels.com. I didn’t read the entire post yet but saw the subject and just wanted to share.
Points posted today, the 5000 bonus are not loyalty points. Highly disappointed.
Worked for me on a 7000 mile property, netting 12000 miles. Thanks for the heads up!
Hey nick, I found some properties in Panama for $25 dollars offering 5.500 AA miles including bonus, this there are some gems out there. just have to play around
Hotel 2 Mares: Panama City, Panama (rocketmiles.com)
I just completed a booking for a business trip and it looks like the bonus 5000 miles will count as loyalty points.The final confirmation page states :
Base miles earned, +7000 AA base miles
Promo miles earned, +5000 AA base miles
Total miles earned, +12000 AA base miles
The Rocketmiles bonus miles I earned this year did not count as AA LPs. However, sometime this year Rocketmiles changed their policy regarding those optional extra bonus miles purchased at check-out. Got an email from them about it. I even got retro-credit for all of them (nice). I forget the price (maybe around 2 cents/LP).
PointsHound has been offering 5X points but I’ve never got those credited. I went from Cashback Monitor’s Points Hound link directly to the Rocketmiles site (as early as Feb 2022).
I’m on a rocketmiles / LP tear in Finland at the moment and will try this out when I move on to Sweden this week.
Interesting and certainly worth doing for business stays that are expensed out if you can. I’m going out on a limb and will say that the increased points will qualify for “Loyalty Points” at AA. I’m not sure they have enough IT between these programs to separate it out but then again AA has managed to do this with their 2x (1xLP & 1x bonus) on gas with the platinum AA card through Citi so I could be wrong.
Did a reservation yesterday and the checkout page clearly puts the +5000 as loyalty points.