It’s been a quiet week, with the exception of all the mileage purchase promotions going on from Alaska, US Airways, Starwood, and now American Airlines (again). Here’s the other stuff.
Virgin Atlantic released some sweeteners for their frequent flyers given their departure from the Australian market
With Virgin Atlantic leaving the Sydney – Hong Kong route, they will have no presence in Australia. While there’s probably a limited number of Flying Club members in Australia, they have still thrown out a couple of offers, with…
Reward flight offer
How about spending your Flying Club miles on a return domestic flight with Virgin Australia? Book by 31 May 2014 and instead of the usual 12,000 miles, you can fly from Sydney to Brisbane or Melbourne for only 10,000 miles!*
Except that I don’t get this pricing, as it differs significantly from the prices on their own site…
Velocity membership
Our partner, Velocity Frequent Flyer, Virgin Australia’s loyalty programme has got a great membership offer for you. Join Velocity between 3 May and 11 May 2014, and enter the promotional code 14045, to receive double Status Credits when you fly on eligible flights with Virgin Australia between 13 May and 30 June 2014.
This could be interesting for any Velocity members with no account, or an account with no balance that they would want to trash, who have a few upcoming flights. But otherwise – meh.
American Airlines are offering a 30% bonus on purchased miles
It’s the month of mileage bonus promotions, with American Airlines back and offering some tiered bonuses for mileage purchases through to mid June. At the top end, there’s an 18,000 mile bonus for a purchase of 60,000 miles. I’ll update the American Airlines miles purchasing guide over the weekend.
Ben from One Mile at a Time is running a Kickstarter to fly and review the new ‘Etihad Residences’
Ben – I salute you. This is the best idea I’ve seen all month. Consider it paying a $1 or 2 for some entertainment, and it’s an easy decision.
Well – I have a cool 158,000 miles with Virgin Atlantic expiring in 2016 and I need to find the best way to burn them…. the Virgin Atlantic domestic flights offer is a bit underwhelming, I checked partner airlines and the only decent option I could find was 150k miles with Delta in Business/First “From USA to South West Pacific”….
Does it mean I need to fly out from the USA or would I be able to fly say SYD/JFK/SYD? If that’s the case it seems to be a good use of my miles…
Appreciate any other suggestions from folks out there (probably quite a few in my same situation…)
It should be vice versa. The Virgin Australia international redemption costs don’t look to bad for Sydney – LA as well. http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en/flying-club/flying-club-partners/airlines/virgin-australia.html
Is it just me or do AMEX Referral links no longer work?
Out of action since Monday. I’ve been told they will be back up imminently…
Keith, I wonder if you have an opinion on Lifemiles? They are also having a 100% bonus promotion at the moment, and I have to say I am tempted to purchase enough for my wife’s birthday next year. Business class return SYD-HKT (or similar) for USD1440. Any thoughts? Or gotchas?
Sorry for the late reply. My opinion on Lifemiles is that it’s a little too inflexible and risky for me, personally, to take advantage of. Not that anyone else shouldn’t jump on that deal if they want to take advantage of it, but their cancellation process and booking conditions too me are just too opaque to want to buy miles. I also haven’t had a trip needing them so haven’t delved into the mechanics in great detail – it does seem like you can get great value though. I will write up one day but time is tight the next few weeks.