December 23, 2014

500 FREE Virgin America Elevate Points

Virgin America is offering 500 free points as a way to say thank you to its loyal customers this holiday season. All you need to do is click on the link above and enter your name, email and Elevate number. Click submit and in a few weeks, 500 bonus points will be posted to your account. This could not be simpler.

VirginAmerica500

Even if you think you will never fly Virgin America, their points do have some great redemptions on partner airlines including flights on Hawaiian Airlines for Interisland flights for only 3,000 points. This offer gets you 1/6 of the way there! This is worth the 10 seconds of your time to click the link and fill out the form.

December 18, 2014

Refer a Friend Offer Now Available for the Barclays US Airways MasterCard with 50,000 Mile Bonus!

Barclays is really going all out to acquire new cardholders before it can no longer issue the US Airways MasterCard as they have not only raised the signup bonus on the card to 50,000 miles and will give you $25 to switch to paperless statements but they are now allowing existing cardholders to refer others to the card for either a 5,000 mile or 10,000 mile bonus! I have never heard of a refer a friend program from Barclays before so this is great news for cardholders. This offer does appear targeted as I got a 10k refer a friend offer but a follower of mine only reported a 5k refer a friend offer. Check your email for your offer!

BarclaysReferaFriend

Per the terms of the promotion, here is what you need to know:

  • You will receive either 5,000 or 10,000 miles per every approved account up to 50,000 bonus miles.
  • Your friend will receive the offer for 50,000 miles after first purchase. There is no 10,000 anniversary bonus on this offer. See this post for that link with the 50k + 10k offer which is meant for Preferred members but will work even if you don’t have Preferred status and are instantly approved.
  • Your friend must apply and be approved by January 18th.

This is the second best offer on the card now behind the 50k + 10k which is aimed at Preferred members. I recommend going for that offer before this one as the 10k anniversary bonus is worth it. However, I have heard reports that if Barclays does not automatically approve you and you have to call the reconsideration line, they may not approve you if they see you are in fact not a Preferred member. If you are risk-adverse, I recommend going just for this 50k offer since it is open to anyone and you can call reconsideration if not automatically approved and still have a good chance to get approved.

Feel free to email me at ralph@pointscentric for a referral or leave a comment and I will send you an email. Again, only apply for this if you are not a Preferred member and are risk-adverse!

Also I am giving away my 20% off award flights code on Southwest – click this post for details!

Thanks for the heads up to my Twitter Follower @4321ka!

December 18, 2014

40% Bonus on American Express Membership Rewards Transfers to British Airways

American Express has announced a 40% transfer bonus on Membership Rewards transfers to British Airways through January 31, 2015. This is without a doubt one of the best transfer bonuses this year, if not the best, and the second highest ever transfer bonus to British Airways with the highest being 50% in May 2012.

AmexBATransferBonus

British Airways Avios are great for short to medium length, non-stop flights as the cost in miles is significantly less than other airlines. I’ve discussed using Avios here, here and here.  As a reminder, here is what their award chart looks like.

British Airways Chart

I’ve discussed in the past how valuable flexible points/miles are as you are never truly committed to one program and it allows you to keep a wide range of options open for award travel for your next trip. With this transfer bonus, this might be one of the few times I would transfer some points to British Airways to take advantage of this bonus, even if I don’t have an immediate need for them. Obviously, doing this removes the greatest perk of MR points which is the flexibility but I think this offer is too strong to pass up if it syncs up with your travel goals.

You really need to evaluate this offer based on your home airport, travel habits and travel goals. For example, my home airports are JFK or LGA so that is a plus since American has a large presence at each. For short to medium length flights, I don’t mind flying coach so that’s another plus. Lastly, being on the East Coast, the Caribbean is pretty close and I’ll never say no to a nice beach vacation. Sum that all up and I know I can/will redeem these points for travel on American Airlines to either the Caribbean or somewhere domestically.

Kenny, over at Miles4More, has put together an awesome series of flights that are cheap with Avios. Here is the link to the East Coast series but he has listings of flights from other areas of the country as well on his site – it’s worth a read.

Not to steal the thunder from his articles but here are some great redemptions with Avios:

  • JFK to Miami – 7,500 Avios each way (Only ~5,400 American Express Membership Rewards points each way with bonus)
  • JFK to Antigua (or the Caribbean in general)- 10,000 Avios each way (Only ~7,200 MR points each way with bonus)
  • LAX (or the West Coast in general) to Hawaii – 12,500 Avios each way (Only ~9,000 MR points each way with bonus)
  • BOS to Dublin – 12,500 Avios each way (Only ~9,000 MR points each way with bonus). Or double this for business class – that is a steal!

And I could go on. This bonus transfer is good through 1/31/15 so you have time to figure out your future travel plans and if using BA Avios makes sense. Remember a good way to stockpile your American Express MR points is with the recent hack I discovered for the 75k Business Gold as well as a 100k Platinum offer.

December 17, 2014

Save 20% When Redeeming Points on Southwest!

Southwest just sent me an email with a unique promo code offering me the opportunity to use 20% fewer points when redeeming them for a Southwest award flight. This might be targeted but make sure to check your inbox (and junk folders in case) for an email for your code.

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Reading the terms and conditions, here are the key details:

1. Flights must be booked by December 22, 2014.

2. Valid for roundtrip travel only from January 6th to February 12th. There are blackout dates around MLK weekend from January 16-19.

3. The 20% point savings is only valid for Wanna Getaway Fares purchased 7 days in advance (aka the cheapest level of fares).

4. Valid only on domestic flights and flights to Puerto Rico. No international flights included.

This promotion should work with those using the companion pass as well as I don’t see anything in the terms of conditions preventing that. I’m not in front of a computer to test this but I wonder if it is possible to get the discount on one flight if one falls outside the range (i.e depart Feb 11 but return Feb 13 after travel window is over).

Share your experience if you got an email with a code. I don’t think I’ll use mine so I’ll raffle it off to anyone to who comments by Friday night the 19th, 11:59pm EST. There is no guarantee this code will work if used outside my account (basically I don’t know if the codes are linked to a specific account and will only work for points used in that account) but if it does, someone will get my code.