Tagging Miles

United MileagePlus Shopping adds Button

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If you’ve followed the blog over the past few years, you know I’m a huge fan of Shopping Portals I use them when I buy anything, whether it is to resell or for personal consumption. Using United MileagePlus Shopping is a great way to increase your United MileagePlus balance without even stepping onto a plan.

United MileagePlus Shopping adds a Button

Normally, news like this isn’t, well, news. But, shopping portals in general are all competing for your pass through business, so they want to make this easier for you to go through their portal rather than a competitors. To that end, United MileagePlus Shopping has created a plug-in for Chrome, whereby you get a fancy little button, rather than having to go through MileagePlus Shopping to get the cookie to go to the store you want to buy something from.

United MileagePlus Shopping Button

Again, they want to make it easy for you. They also want it to be a competition among stores–who ultimately compensate them for the pass through–rather than a competition among shopping portals. Take a look at their marketing below:

United MileagePlus Shopping Button

A Word of Warning

I personally will not be installing this button for a couple of reasons, the largest of which is that United is not the only portal I go through. I go through a particular process when I go through a shopping portal, I always go to an incognito window, because I’m concerned of cookies. Some cookies can stay with you for minutes, hours, some longer. Some cookies can persist as long as you keep your web browser open. 

Why does this matter? Primarily because you already have so much risk of the portal not tracking properly, as Frequent Miler describes in his Myth 6 of Shopping Portals. I like to reduce risk wherever I can, and in this case, I try to reduce my risk by not installing buttons for shopping portals.

Wrapping Up

If you’re a United loyalist, then the MileagePlus Shopping button will be a ready improvement so you can be sure to earn all the miles you can from your online shopping. If you have a family member that doesn’t always remember to go through a portal when they buy stuff online, this could also be very beneficial feature. But if you’re the type of travel hacker that goes through the best shopping portal based on the multiplier / payout, then this is probably not for you.

Will you be installing the MileagePlus Shopping button on your Chrome browser?

Earn 10,000 United Miles per night with PointsHound

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In what is perhaps a blast from the past, I received an e-mail earlier today with an offer from PointsHound – Earn up to 10,000 United Miles per night.

PointsHound back working with United?

The last I could find of United and PointsHound working together was back in 2013, when they announced that they were no longer working with United. Quite honestly, I lost track of them after that. I had always been concerned about whether or not I’d get elite qualifying nights, and so I never jumped at the bonus offers.

The current offer is pretty enticing, but I’m still not sure that I’ll bite, check it out below:

PointsHound and United

If you’re interested, here is a link.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of it, but doing a quick search for this weekend in Washington, DC turned out no results even close to the 10,000 miles per night.

PointsHound and United

In fact, looking at the various miles earned compared to room rates, I can’t make heads or tails of the multiplier, period. 

Looking at San Francisco in August, similar prognosis.

PointsHound and United

Final Thoughts on PointsHound

When I look a little further on their site – it looks like they haven’t had meaningful news in two years.

PointsHound

All that leads me to think that this there’s a fair amount of risk here. Either PointsHound is reinvigorating and making a comeback, or something else is up. 

What do you think>

What is left In North America post-British Airways 4,500 avios award?

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roadstocompanionpass

Last week, I asserted that British Airways taking award the 4,500 Avios point award in North America was not the end of the world.

I may have been shortsighted. For my  personal travel patterns, this change sucks, but it isn’t the end of the world for me. But, my travel patterns aren’t yours.

Reader Jessica rightly stated that for some, this can be a big hit. I still personally believe that no award chart change or devaluation should be the end of the world, as, your mileage account is not your retirement account (believe me the past few months have seen the market issue big hits in that regard!). That said, Jessica makes a very valid point, in that this change will hurt some-perhaps many-more than others.

So what alternatives exist?

For those who can and do Manufacture Spend, hopefully you weren’t hurt by the demise of RedBird, but as long as you can still MS, then you just scale up (unless of course your chosen method can’t scale further), then you need to open the aperture. The Saverocity Forums level 2 have great options here.

For those that don’t MS as much

Credit card sign ups, I don’t often advocate them, but right now the Chase British Airways card has a 50k offer after $2k spend, and if you can do more, $20k spend will get you a total of 100k Avios points. That’s a lot of spending, but it is even more points. Even at 7,500 points per award, that at least extends your options.

Look at other programs

American Airlines AAdvantage saver awards, I think are 12.5k for contiguous North America.

Southwest, as reader Horace commented, could be an option. You can also get 2 Chase Southwest cards for 106k points after meeting minimum spend and spending another $4k doesn’t seem all that hard for organic spend. Just make sure you don’t earn the bonuses until January, then you get 2 years with a Companion Pass.

As an aside, last year, I got a Southwest Companion Pass without a single credit card application, but that isn’t for everyone.

You could open the aperture even more, let’s say you like Ultimate Rewards Points (and don’t we all love getting 5x points!), well they transfer to United Airlines Mileage Plus for 10-12.5k Saver in the contiguous North America. Or transfer to Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer, for again 12.5k saver awards.

Wrapping Up

So while British Airways takes away a great award, there a handful of other “cheap” options, none as inexpensive as the 4,500 avios point award. That doesn’t take away the sting of British Airways’s decision to remove the 4,500 avios point award. But hopefully these alternatives at least show where the proverbial goal posts now stand.

Double dip on United Flights with United PerksPlus

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Like any mile and point junkie, I’m always looking at ways to double, triple, quadruple dip. When I fly, I am no different. I’ll put my flight on a credit card that gives me at least 2 miles/points per dollar, although its usually 3 miles/points per dollar. I also have made it a point to enroll in Airlines’ Small Business Programs (because, after all, I am a small business, what with reselling and such – besides, I have an Ink Plus!). There are a variety of Small Business Travel Programs out there, today I’ll cover United, and try to get through the major ones by this time next week.

United PerksPlus Landing Page

About the United PerksPlus Program

United’s PerksPlus is designed, for lack of a better way to say it, to entice small businesses to book the majority of their business with United and partners Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and Swiss International Air Lines.

Earning Points

You earn points based on each dollar in Qualifying Revenue which is defined as actual flown revenue, multiplied by each multiple in the chart below. Qualifying Revenue is murky, just like the Mileage Plus Program, in that it excludes taxes, fees, surcharges, and refunds. Here’s your multipliers, remember, you multiply this per qualifying dollar spent, not per mile flown.

Earning United PerksPlus Points

Earning United PerksPlus Points (Click to expand)

The distinction of hub or non-hub is clearly a recognition that while they have a sizeable network, it might not be the most advantageous to fly United (or partners) if you have to fly from a non-hub to a hub to make it anywhere. Of course for those of you in airports served by limited airlines, this is an extra bonus.

I completely realize in writing this, that unless you work for yourself or a business that chooses not to have their own program, it may take years for you to earn enough points to be meaningful, but, hey, every point helps.

Redeeming Points

Ok, now that you’ve got your points, here’s what you can get:

  • United MileagePlus Premier Gold and Silver Memberships
  • United Club Annual Membership
  • Book of One-Time Passes to United Clubs
  • Award Travel Certificates

You can check out the full reward chart here, but I’ve summarized things below:

First – the travel awards – here I’ve just summarized the cheapest for each Economy and Business awards.

United PerksPlus Redemptions - Award Flights

United PerksPlus Redemptions – Award Flights

Note: Even though the booking class is shown, United reports that travelers won’t earn miles, but still attach a frequent flier number to the reservation just in case!

Second – Elite Status and other non-award redemption options.

United PerksPlus Redemptions - Other Awards

United PerksPlus Redemptions – Other Awards

For larger small businesses, this is a great opportunity for employers to gift employees with status, United Club Membership, etc. For the rest of us, these might be nice gestures of goodwill for those who put up with our mile and point obsession.

Qualifying and Signing Up

So now that I’ve gotten you excited for it, here are the breaks. The company needs to have at least 5 employees (for some harder than others), but they need to reach eligible revenues of $25,000 on United, United Express, or Lufthansa within a 12-month period, however, you can start redeeming points after the company has had $5,000 per month for three consecutive months (e.g. $15,000).

Ok, that part may make this one more difficult, but some of the other programs that I’ll cover are a bit more attainable.

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