Jaunted

Airline Miles / Frequent Flyer Miles / Finnair / United / Delta / → All Tags

Have Extra Miles? Use Them on Cosmetic Surgery or Other Crazy Rewards

Whenever we rack up airline miles, we put them toward more travel rather than a kitchen mixer. But it looks like airlines are tempting frequent flyers to use their miles on crazy stuff like facelifts.

Yep, those bags under your eyes from frequent air travel can get nip-tucked away with your miles. The Wall Street Journal reported that Finnair will give you a facelift for 4.6 million miles. Or if you are feeling self-conscious about other physical characteristics, you can cash in 3.2 million of its Plus points to get a hair transplantation or breast augmentation.

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Airline News / British Airways / Iberia / Airline Mergers / Travel News / Airlines / Airline Industry / American Airlines / Airline Miles / Frequent Fliers / Mileage Programs / Frequent Flyer Programs / → All Tags

British Airways Prepares for American with New Rewards and Upgraded Lounges

We always get suspicious when airlines start talking about giving customers "more control" and "more choice," since that usually means downgrading reward tiers and charging for things that used to come for free. Getting to choose whether to have food on a long flight or pay for checked baggage has never left us feeling particularly empowered. Nowadays pretty much any airline policy change is enough to get us nervous, and that's particularly true whenever they start to tinker with loyalty programs and elite status.

So naturally we've been anticipating with dread the details of how the American Airlines/British Airways/Iberia merger will affect their frequent flyer programs. So far so good, with the announcement coming out over the weekend that BA is increasing the miles that you get for Discount Economy tickets, from 25% to 100%. BA miles are also now good for AA upgrades, and vice versa. And the airline is even promising to upgrade some of their Executive Lounges.

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Burn Your United Miles On More Than Just Free Flights

United Airlines is all about being in the news lately. Earlier in the week they got our attention with their unlimited baggage fee—too bad we’re still not totally sure if it’s worth it. If you are a diehard United fan then you’ve probably accumulated your share of frequent flyer miles with the airline, and with availability getting more and more limited everyday, you probably need a way to burn some. If that award ticket to Tahiti just isn’t happening, you might want to consider using them for a car or hotel.

United’s Mileage Plus members can now use their hard earned miles to book a rental car or a hotel stay. They’ve launched a new booking engine for each service, so you can easily find out how much damage that “free” hotel stay will do to your account. If you’re looking to relax in New York City next weekend you can crash at the Hilton New York on Saturday night for 48,250 miles. Unfortunately, you could get yourself to Hawaii with that many miles, so we say it’s totally not worth it. However, it’s an option, and we do appreciate a choice.

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Frequent Flyer Programs / Airline Miles / United / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags

United's New 'Fly Like A VIP' Elite Status Offer Triggers Criticism, Confusion

There's a bit of a dustup going on at travel blog The Cranky Flier, where a post on United's new "buy Elite Status for a day" program is drawing strong comments from all sides. The debate revolves around whether it's fair—and, more importantly, whether it's smart—for the airline to allow regular passengers to purchase Elite perks like Economy Plus seats, early boarding, Red Carpet Club Access, and so on.

The arguments are clear. On on hand, it's fair as airlines need to diversify their revenue streams otherwise they'll go out of business and we'll all lose. If people are willing to pay then let them pay. On the other hand, letting passengers purchase Elite status now means devaluing the miles that loyal customers banked earlier, since the assumption back then was that status equaled exclusive perks. If nothing else, the gamble risks encouraging United fliers to rack up miles and status elsewhere, secure in the knowledge that they can purchase Elite status on a per-flight basis.

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Southwest Hopes To Fill Seats By Offering Double Rewards Credits

We all know that airline travel has been down due to the economic situation, and when you combine that with the fall travel season things become very slow. That’s why a few airlines have searched through their marketing box and have pulled out the double frequent flyer miles promotion. American Airlines and United have announced that they’ll be providing double elite-qualifying miles through the middle of December. Those are the miles that get you airline status, and fancy upgrades, but won’t help you add to your frequent flier piggy bank for that dream vacation.

Southwest Airlines usually isn’t a follower of such trends as they kind of pride themselves on going their own way, but they too are now offering a fall travel rewards promotion. It's not a true double Rapid Rewards bonus, because their business select passengers won’t get the full bonus. However, we never spring for business anyway, so we’ll be happy enjoying one bonus credit for one-way trips and two bonus credits for round-trip flights.

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American Now Allows AAdvantage Miles for One-Way Trips

American Airlines has just introduced One-Way Flex Rewards to their AAdvantage rewards program which will allow fliers to trade in miles for one-way trips.

Maybe you're planning to fly one way and drive the other. Or you just don't have a return date in mind. Whatever your reasons, now you can save miles by using a One-Way Flex Award starting at just 12,500 miles for travel within the continental U.S.

The AAdvantage program is also allowing its members to combine their MileSAAver rewards and their AAnytime rewards to fly First Class to their destination and Economy for the return. Or however, you want to mix it up.

Like most mileage programs, the rules are confusing and we're always skeptical of such new changes. However, American has revamped their website to make it easier to book rewards travel and you can see a demo of that here. So far, we're intrigued but it always seems as if we never have enough miles to book the trips that we really want. Sigh. We'll keep waiting.

Related Stories:
· American introduces one-way mileage award [Travel Weekly]

Airline Miles / Frequent Fliers / Chris Guillebeau / Travel Blog Stars / → All Tags

Why We Want This Guy On Our Next Flight

Chris Guillebeau is the founder of artofnonconformity.com, a social media Web site and he was recently profiled in the NY Times about his quest to visit every single country before he turns 35. (He's 30 now.)

He's already visited 100 countries as part of an earlier quest and he's working his way through the rest of the world using his own expenses. He has no sponsorships (yet) and he's not depending on the kindness of Twitterers.

As you can imagine he's racked up a boatload of airline miles (also applying for 13 credit cards with mileage incentives helped him along) and here's why we hope he is on the next domestic flight that we take.

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