Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
There are quite a few minor news items that, for a change, are all good news for points & miles collectors…
Marriott enhances rewards program a wee bit
Marriott has announced a few new benefits for their members:
- Experiences Marketplace: A number of programs allow you to use points for “experiences”. Marriott has joined the club.
- Elite concierge service: Yawn. No word yet on who will get this benefit.
- Guaranteed late checkout: About time.
One Mile at a Time points out that the late checkout is guaranteed, but they remain elusive about how late. Whether this proves to be a useful benefit depends upon how individual properties interpret the clause that says “which could be as late as 4pm”.
Amex adds Etihad as a Membership Rewards transfer partner
View from the Wing has the scoop here. Etihad was already a transfer partner of SPG and Citi ThankYou Rewards. Now, with the addition of Amex Membership Rewards, Etihad joins a small group of promiscuous airline programs that are available through 3 or more of the big transferable points programs (Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest).
Now, the following programs are available from 3 out of the 4 transferable points programs:
- Air France
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Etihad Airways
And two airline programs are available through all 4 transferable points programs:
- Singapore Airlines
- Virgin Atlantic
You can find full details of what transfers to where in my Transfer Partner Master List.
Citi Improves Card Benefits
If you are a Citibank cardholder, you’ve probably received emails titled “Important information about your card’s protection benefits.” Most credit cards offer some forms of travel and purchase protections. Citi already had pretty good benefits, but now in many cases they’re even better. Most notably, the benefits are now more broadly applied: More people are protected, purchases made with ThankYou points are more often protected, and purchases made partially with your credit card are protected (up to the amount charged to the card). Doctor of Credit has a good overview here.
Amex is back with awesome Amex Offers
OK, one awesome offer isn’t enough to get too excited about, but it is a great one. Hopefully you were targeted. And, hopefully this is a sign of more to come. Read more here: Targeted Amex Offer – $25 off $100+ at Staples.com.
1800Flowers stackable offers are back
Stack a bunch of deals to buy miles cheaply. Notably:
- Enroll in the Amex Offer: Spend $50, get $15
- Use promo code RR94 to get 1750 Southwest points per order ($29.95 and up). Hat tip: Reddit.
- TopCashBack is offering 20% cash back.
Full details of how to stack these deals can be found here: 1800Flowers Extreme Stacking promo codes, portals, gift cards, and more.
Caution: The last time Southwest offered 1750 points per order, some people (but not all) were denied points when they applied a gift card along with the 1750 point per order code. The weird thing about that is that there are no terms excluding the use of gift cards, so I don’t know why that happened.
| Name / Link | Offer | Frequent Miler Notes: |
|---|---|---|
| TopCashBack | Bonus rates vary. | TopCashBack is one of our two favorite portals because it almost always offers the best cash back rates. Our other favorite is Rakuten. |
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Hopefully Chase gets added to the Etihad partnership. It would be nice to see all 4 programs have access to them.
[…] Using a gift card on the purchase should be eligible for the 1750 Southwest promo, but, last time, some people were denied when doing so. […]
I wonder if 1800flowers ship to Hawaii?
Yup, I used a gift card and was denited the SW points on the last 1-800 flowers promotion.
I hate Cartera’s customer service. They don’t listen to you or really investigate. They just told me sorry the merchant ‘coded’ my order not to get the points so there was nothing they could do.
Juno, the 1750 points is given by 1800Flowers (when you enter the promo code), not by Cartera.
Used a gift card with the RR94 code with no issues. Did have overage, so a portion was put on a credit card, but still worked fine.
Promiscuous is good!