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We’ve been very fortunate with opportunities to earn frequent flyer points and miles with great promotions. Trips and free travel isn’t handed to us on a silver platter; sometimes it requires a bit of effort, but the rewards can be worth thousands of dollars of travel. Here are some of the deals we’ve seen in the past few years. They don’t come around every day so we must all be on the watch for them:
8000 miles for a single car rental
The Summer of 2008 brought upon a promotion where for a single car rental day could reward you with 8000 Delta SkyMiles. Reserve an SUV or Hybrid at your local Budget and depending on the price (some were paying $30) you could score 8030 miles (8000 + 30 for the rental). At well below half a penny, some people rented multiple cars in a single day securing enough miles for a round-trip domestic coach ticket for just about $100.
25,000 miles for signing up for a checking account (additional reference links)
In 2009 and 2010 Delta and SunTrust Bank were running a promotion where for $55 you could open a business checking account and be awarded 25,000 SkyMiles, or 15,000 SkyMiles for a personal account. Many people signed up for one for each of their family members; the business checking account allowed you to add up to 3 additional people for $55 each and accrue another 25,000 for each of them. Best of all, the miles all could go to a single account.
Perhaps the biggest point generator of recent time was the US Mint.
The US Mint operates a program mandated by congress where they direct ship circulation grade native American and presidential dollar coins to consumers. The goal is to inject the coins into circulation, and diminish the use of the paper US Dollar. Coins have a much longer life than their paper counterpart. Orders over $250 included free shipping and the price of the coins was there face value. Someone could order $1,000 in coins (with their point earning credit card) for $1,000 and have them shipped for free to their house. Transactions were reported as purchases and not cash advances. People were then taking the coins to the bank, depositing them, into their account, and then paying off their credit card bill. Rinse and repeat. Some got hundreds, some thousands, tens of thousands, and a few got millions. The only cost was the time to take them to the bank. The program was terminated in 2011 due to abuse of the program; the only way to order these coins in bulk at face value now is through check / money order; credit cards are no longer accepted.
The best deal recently to rack up over 100,000 US Airways miles at a minimal financial cost … but some time and effort is required. This program has been run the past few years and we hope to see it again in 2012, whereby you accumulate “hits” by performing tasks, and you receive mileage bonuses depending on the number of hits you achieve.
These deals don’t come around all the time; but when they do, they offer us an amazing chance to score thousands of points and miles for a fraction of what it would usually take us to get.
In addition to these deals, one of my techniques for accumulating hundreds of thousands and millions of miles, is receiving points and miles through credit cards. Read more about how Credit Cards can take you places you’d never imagine … at prices you can afford.
If you’d like to get started now send me an email.
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