Jump on it!

That feeling on your last day of vacation, realizing you won't be served breakfast in the beach-side cabana tomorrow (pictured above). Worse yet, dreading opening that inbox that you have neglected to the point that it almost disappeared. Just like your vacations, miles deals begin and end quickly, especially the lucrative ones. Recently, there was one deal that lasted less then 24 hours for a AMEX Platinum card that I failed to jump on. Read more about lessons learned on this deal!

Southwest Valentines Day Sale!

 


For those brave few in a long distance relationship, or those who just want to get the hell away from a certain someone, Southwest is having a valentines day sale! Valid only on non-stop flights and only on Feb. 14th(Valentines day for those unromantic ones). Maybe you can surprise that special someone! Deal ends Saturday Januaray 12th 11:59.

 Link below:

Southwest Valentines sale

Redeeming Your Points (Part 2): Partner and Alliance Networks

In Part 1 of my Redeeming Your Points post, I talked about putting your points to use and how straightforward it can be to redeem them (some more so than others, of course). But here's an important thing to know when you want to redeem your miles: you're not limited strictly to that airline.

Let's say you have racked up an envious amount of Avios points (the reward points for British Airways) and you want to fly from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. It doesn't mean you HAVE to fly British Airways (BA). If you were to fly strictly BA, you would first have to fly east to London before continuing onto Hong Kong. Two precious days of your vacation time will be devoted completely to traveling—one way.

But luckily for all of us, most airlines aren't this guy:

Learn more about Partner and Alliance networks and how it's getting easier to use them after the jump.

When Does a Mile Not Equal a Mile?

The biggest misnomer we'd like to clear up is the term "mile" or "point". It's forgivable if you believe that when you earn a 50,000 mile bonus, you're able to fly that many miles. Unfortunately this is not the case. (If that was true, you could fly around the world twice with that single sign-up bonus.)

The terms "mile" and "point" are interchangeable and it just depends on which reward program you're talking about. The key to understanding the term is to think of miles/points as a currency, and not distance. If miles/points are a currency, how much are they worth?

Vanilla Cards - A Hard to Find Treasure

Vanilla Reload Network cards are part of the Vanilla Ink Bold strategy. These are sometimes tricky to find due to a couple reasons:

• In larger cities you have competition of other people trying to buy them out.
• Some of the stores will have them but will only allow a cash transaction

Redeeming Your Points (Part 1): Introduction and Southwest Airlines

You've signed up for a credit card, completed the promo to earn the bonus and you are now ready to unleash the point beast to do your bidding and spirit you to faraway lands.

Whether that point beast is a demure little thing that makes it easy for you to plan your trip or a too-high of a level Pokémon that ignores you when you need it most (I'm looking at you, Charizard!), is completely dependent on the program from which you are redeeming.

Some are fantastically user-friendly and easy to redeem while some are notorious for their limited seats/schedule.

This is the first of a multi-part series on point redemption; this post will focus specifically on my experiences with Southwest Airlines.

What's More Luxurious Than Showering On A Plane?

How about that shower having heated floors?

One Mile at a Time is a blog I check at least twice a day. He just flew to Dubai in suite class on Emirates. No, not business class. And no, not even first class. Suite class.

I need to get myself into one of these. Check it out now, since he's updating his blog right now. On the plane. While staring at a reflection of his smug face on a built in vanity mirror.