THANKS FREQUENT MILER!: Some kind words and free PR for PFD! Inside Flyer recently interviewed several boardingarea.com bloggers, and Greg, aka Frequent Miler, was kind enough to mention your humble blogger:

Greg says he reads a great many travel blogs but a new blog called Personal Finance Digest has caught his attention. It isn’t a travel blog, but it covers travel deals as well as many non-travel financial opportunities.

Thanks to Frequent Miler for the shout-out, and thanks to Travel Blogger Buzz for letting me know about it!

And while we’re talking about FM, he scientifically proved after exhaustive research that CashBackMonitor is the best rebate portal finder.

HOW A MISTAKE LED TO FREE $2,000 LIFETIME FAIRMONT PLATINUM STATUS: And speaking of TravelBloggerBuzz, a recent post made passing reference to a story I hadn’t heard about, the story of how TBB earned lifetime platinum status with Fairmont Hotels:

On the coupon website Living Social last week, Fairmont’s landmark San Francisco hotel on Nob Hill offered a package that included a stay in a luxurious suite and an extraordinarily attractive bonus: perk-rich lifetime VIP status with the entire Fairmont chain. The cost: Either $2,000 or $10,000.

People who understood the significance of the bonus started snapping up the deal, salivating at the chance to be treated like royalty every time they step into a Fairmont hotel for the rest of their life for as little as $2,000.

But within hours after approximately 117 people bought the Living Social package, Fairmont mysteriously pulled the deal even though it was supposed to have been sold through next Tuesday, March 1.

The lifetime platinum part of the deal was a mistake, but to Fairmont’s credit they honored it. Perks include an annual free night, several free upgrades each year, and an annual $100 dining/spa certificate. Well done! It’s good to know what the heck you’re doing so that you can pounce on deals like this when they present themselves.

(EDIT: An earlier version of this article used the word “free” in the intro headline. A subsequent investigation confirmed that $2,000 is not, in fact, free. We regret the error.)

VIRGIN ATLANTIC 65,000 FOLLOW-UP: Thanks to commenters rick b and Paul  for doing some legwork on my Virgin Atlantic 65000-mile credit card offer post. Paul dug up this One Mile at a Time post on redeeming Virgin Atlantic points on Virgin America flights and pointed out that you can also parlay the miles via Hilton into a free night at a $1,000-per-night resort. Rick noted that the miles can also go for cross-country flights on Virgin Australia and for Air New Zealand as well. Thanks guys!

EARN $15,000 VIA EBATES REFERRALS: If you don’t already have an ebates account, you can get a free $10 gift card to the retailer of your choice by signing up here. Note that this is a referral link for me, but this is open to the public so you can set up your own referral link if you want to. In either case, once you’re signed up–or if you already are signed up–there’s some potentially lucrative referral action you can get in on.

As per their referral chart, you get $5 per referral (but only if that referral makes a $25 purchase via ebates within one year of being referred) AND you also get some lucrative bonuses. If you can refer just two people who purchase $50 worth of stuff, that’s a $50 bonus, so your $50 worth of stuff is effectively free. The same free stuff ratio scales all the way up through the first 100 people.

Two thoughts on this: first, I hope somebody reading this is in college so he can sign up his entire dorm and earn $2,500 (or whatever) for a kick-ass party. Second, while looking at the T&C’s for loopholes, I saw this: “The following activities are not permitted and will disqualify you from earning a referral bonus: (i) self-referral…” In other words, you can’t keep referring yourself. But what if Person A refers Person B, and then Person B refers Person A, and so forth–does that count as self-referral? I have no idea. Anyone?

NETSPEND IS HIRING: Can one of my readers please take this job and carve out a friendly space at NetSpend for points & miles aficionados?

The Manager, Predictive Analytics and Modeling designs, develops, and executes key quantitative / modeling projects within Marketing Analytics team to drive decisions, maximize contribution margin, and continuously increase acquisition, retention, and winback efficiency & effectiveness. This position is located in San Mateo, CA.

It’s in Marketing, and not Risk/Fraud, so you wouldn’t actually be setting policy for churners, but you might at least be able to talk some sense into those who are.  I’d do it myself for the good of my readers, but as you may or may not recall I have a strict policy against living in high-cost areas. Anyone willing to step up?