I'm an infrequent US Airways flier (though an AA EXP), so when I stumbled into http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum51/HTML/000694-13.html (thirteen pages at this instant, etc.), I was a bit of a loss as to what bonuses would best help me for some upcoming flights on US Airways. I'm still uncertain that I've got them all, but in the course of browsing those messages, I produced a quick program & some results that I thought might be helpful.
Last month, FT contributor baccarat0809 posted a list of some ~150 four-digit bonus codes that he found to be valid on the phone. I found it easy enough to try to register for these bonuses via URLs like http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/8524.htm . But with ~150 such URLs to go through, most of which yield "Sorry, page not found," it seemed like I was in for some real time in this process so as to make sure I didn't miss any bonuses.
There's got to be a better way, I thought, so I whipped up a few lines of code that retrieved page text from the list of URLs resulting from baccarat's listing of codes. That yields a whole bunch of "sorry" pages plus some genuinely helpful results. See specific details in my next message in this thread.
I'll be interested to hear whether this is actually helpful, or whether folks somehow already knew about all these bonuses already.
Ben Edelman
(See also my other travel-related resources on the web -- http://travel.edelman.org )
[This message has been edited by bedelman (edited 03-12-2002).]
bedelman
Mar 12, 02, 1:58 am
OK, here are the results that I got (via my program) when I attempted to retrieve the registration form for each of the bonus codes baccarat suggested.
A further thought on this -- it's easy enough to iterate through the integers numbered 0000 through 9999 and see which return valid web pages (not errors). I've got my program doing exactly that as I write, in fact. It's gone through the first 1379 four-digit numbers without a single success (no valid current bonus codes, just error pages). But perhaps it will find something later on, i.e. in the 5000's where most of the action seems to be.
I'm going to sleep but will post results in the morning!
bedelman
Mar 12, 02, 2:30 am
Program turned up one so far (among the first 6000) that baccarat hadn't already reported --
http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/5391.htm
Earn Triple Miles
Earn triple miles on every US Airways® flight flown in First Class, Envoy Class® - US Airways award-winning transatlantic business class - or full-fare Coach Class (Y or B fare classes) plus earn double miles on other Coach Class fares through April 30, 2002.
Too bad that it's just one. But, on the other hand, this reflects quite favorably on baccarat's skills!
bedelman
Mar 12, 02, 2:47 am
Looks like the system came through with some more. Again, these are only the bonuses above and beyon what I found in baccarat's initial listing in the thread linked above.
6293 Double Miles on Swissair http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/6293.htm
6325 Double Miles between Elmira and Pittsburgh http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/6325.htm
7018 Online Survey Panel http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/7018.htm
7327 Fly to Europe in Envoy Class and Earn 20,000 Bonus Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/7327.htm
7417 Earn Double Miles with Dividend Miles Partners Worldwide http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/7417.htm
8923 Earn Up to 25,000 Bonus Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/8923.htm
bedelman
Mar 12, 02, 3:19 am
Last message before I really go to sleep! --
Note a related thread on the United board, where I use similar methods to discover what I think are ~10 new current bonuses for United.
Thanks very much for your work, and for posting the results. I will definetely check out your travel pages as well. I do think that US may have some bonuses which it does not have web information/sign up forms. I.e. some DM bonuses may exist but might not have an URL associated with the 4 digit number. I will confirm and post an example of this later. Still I think your program could be useful in data mining for various types of undocumented promotion codes, etc.
hscottm
Mar 12, 02, 1:15 pm
One other unfortunate note - not all bonus offers advertised by mail (with phone-in number) get web URLs. So some of those 'page not found' errors actually are bonuses but you cant sign up on the web.
jetsetter
Mar 12, 02, 2:19 pm
Does anyone who works in an e-commerce environment know if a company would be likely to notice say if one ip address kept hitting the web site, as in a case like this where you have a robot searching for things? When I manually try to search for promotion codes, etc., I have never gotten any kind of error or notification, but manually I would only hit the web site say under 30 times. But if an IP address hits the site 1,000 times in a night is that anything they notice, care about, do anything about, pay attention too, etc? It would also likely depend on what kind of syslog server they run, and what monitoring tools they use, etc. Anybody from the .com world that could comment on this?
chexfan
Mar 12, 02, 2:23 pm
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jetsetter:
Does anyone who works in an e-commerce environment know if a company would be likely to notice say if one ip address kept hitting the web site, as in a case like this where you have a robot searching for things? </font>sure it is possible. Does US do this? I highly doubt it, especially plus it's just frequent flyer miles. I mean come on, this is the compnay that has "a website programmer" http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif
[This message has been edited by chexfan (edited 03-12-2002).]
GregLeg
Mar 12, 02, 3:22 pm
Definitely possible. I notice when my personal homepage is spider'ed. (Of course, my personal homepage doesn't get the volume USAir's page gets, so looking at the access logs is a lot simpler)
CutStyle
Mar 12, 02, 4:11 pm
Thanks for helping out the US people. Unfortunately, many of these aren't actually valid, because they've expired.
6293
"Double Miles on Swissair
Fly on Swissair nonstop or direct, transatlantic flights in Business Class or Economy Class between November 14 and December 31, 2001 and earn double Dividend Miles. "
6325
Double Miles between Elmira and Pittsburgh
"Earn double miles on nonstop US Airways Express regional jet flights, operated by Mesa Airlines, Inc., between Elmira, NY and Pittsburgh from September 9, 2001 - January 31, 2002."
7018
"Registration required by 2/12/02. Only recipients of the Online Panel Survey email (BR#7018) are eligible to participate."
8923
"This offer is valid from January 1 through February 28, 2002 and valid for travel on US Airways, the US Airways Express carriers and US Airways Shuttle. "
dingo
Mar 12, 02, 9:18 pm
bedelman can I make a request? Anyway to post all the successful hits in one post (edit a response and add the new ones)? That would make it easier to make sure all are noticed. I saw your post in the UA forum as well...sounds like you're a pretty darned good coder/cat herder!
bedelman
Mar 12, 02, 10:36 pm
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by dingo:
Anyway to post all the successful hits in one post (edit a response and add the new ones)? That would make it easier to make sure all are noticed.</font>
Great idea. (The series of posts from last night reflects only the order in which I found the promos -- nothing more.) Here goes:
4242 Double miles to the Caribbean and Mexico on US Airways flights http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/4242.htm
4743 Fly Between North America and Europe This Spring Earn 60,000 Bonus Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/4743.htm
5391 Earn Triple Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/5391.htm
5397 Earn Double Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/5397.htm
5401 Earn up to 20,000 bonus miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/5401.htm
5407 Earn up to 20,000 bonus miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/5407.htm
5411 Earn Double Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/5411.htm
5417 Earn Double Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/5417.htm
5421 Earn Double Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/5421.htm
5427 Earn Double Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/5427.htm
6293 Double Miles on Swissair http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/6293.htm
6325 Double Miles between Elmira and Pittsburgh http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/6325.htm
7018 Online Survey Panel http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/7018.htm
7327 Fly to Europe in Envoy Class and Earn 20,000 Bonus Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/7327.htm
7417 Earn Double Miles with Dividend Miles Partners Worldwide http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/7417.htm
7653 Time Flies on US Airways Shuttle http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/7653.htm
8145 Celebrate 2002 with Double Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/8145.htm
8261 Triple Miles for Columbus, OH Residents http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/8261.htm
8524 Purchase Online for the First Time - Earn up to 10,000 Bonus Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/8524.htm
8923 Earn Up to 25,000 Bonus Miles http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/8923.htm
bedelman
Mar 12, 02, 10:37 pm
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by hscottm:
One other unfortunate note - not all bonus offers advertised by mail (with phone-in number) get web URLs. So some of those 'page not found' errors actually are bonuses but you cant sign up on the web.</font>
Absolutely agreed. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any obvious way to automate processing of this information -- as I don't know how I'd get the US Airways web server to tell me this.
baccarat0809
Mar 13, 02, 4:19 pm
Bedelman,
Thanks for the great work you did in adding codes and doing the programming. My work was simple enough - just called the 800# and kept putting in 4 digits codes. Started at 2000, and worked my way up to 6500. Lots of time spent, but I thought it might be worth it. As I told other people in my post, some of the bonus had "expired", but how are we to know if they decide to re-use a 4 digit code, and have a very select list of people that get notified of the bonus - and for some reason those people don't read f/t, and/or don't share - thus some of those codes that the system took might actually be valid. The phone system took them for some reason, didn't it - and while the reason is probably lack of followup on US Air's end to disable those #s, the fact is the system did ultimately take the #'s. When I signed my sister and nieces up for flights they took earlier in the month, they haven't gotten any promotions, even the ones that are definatley currently going on. I just took a few US flights over the weekend, and no bonuses at all have registered, not even the ones that I know are ongoing (2x miles, etc). I did get my gold double mileage, but no more Miles for Magazines, or 6c, or any other goodies. I will wait the 10 days or so it may take for the bonuses to post before I call the service center to ask about it, and I'll post my answer as a followup.
chexfan
Mar 13, 02, 4:31 pm
I just wonder how many of these promos are canceled out by another one? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/confused.gif
bedelman
Mar 13, 02, 5:24 pm
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by chexfan:
I just wonder how many of these promos are canceled out by another one?</font>
Is this a serious risk? (Or are you being sarcastic?...)
(I'm not a frequent reader of this forum, so I'm not familiar with whatever you all have learned on this point. But I have never heard of one promo "canceling out" another!)
TribeFlyer
Mar 14, 02, 8:00 am
Yes, it's true, the cancel-out factor may come into play, especially when registering for challenges.
I registered for a Gold Challenge last July, and when I questioned the CSR in September (after the promotion ended) why the status wasn't yet appearing onscreen, she put me on hold, talked to a supervisor, and came back saying I had also registered for a Silver promotion (inadvertently, along with other random numbers I had punched) which invalidated the Gold. She put me on hold again, as I held my breath. When she came back, she said they would change my record and honor it This Time. (I can only guess they were bending the rules due to post-9/11 customer service changes.)
Moral: Never again have I entered numbers for bonuses without knowing what they were ahead of time, in case they scrutinize the record and freeze my account or take my miles away.