Promotion Offers Up to One Million Bonus Miles, Plus Elite Status and Bose Headphones
Occasionally we see a unique offer that has some hidden value for the right member—this is one of those.

A new crowdfunding resource called Wall&Main is soon to launch with a promotion to crowdfund itself to help all sorts of business and entrepreneurs raise capital for those ideas that are both BIG and small. To fund the venture, they are offering—what else—frequent flyer miles and appear to be the first ever to do so.

This is one of those times where if you know how to manage your award redemption, you can do pretty good at acquiring huge numbers of miles for use later on. For instance, the top offer (Platinum) to help fund the venture includes a bonus of one million United MileagePlus miles for a package costing $30,000; a smaller package (Bronze) is $4,500 which includes 150,000 bonus miles. We like this for a few reasons: it gives those who have the interest and skill to leverage miles for premium seats on United (and partners) to have almost an unlimited resource to do so. No more massive mileage runs that don’t account for the travel cost or time, no more fancy credit card app-o-rama’s to spin your world, but an identifiable and reliable avenue for those who do know how to manage their miles and other purchases. SO, while 3 cents a mile might be on the high end of mileage accumulation cost, it apparently does not have any limits to buy which most other if not all other offers have. But obviously if you are considering anything like this, make sure you have a value plan. Here’s an example, one of our fellow road warriors took advantage of an early “friends and family” offer and knew how to leverage these sorts of offers and “invested” $15,000 for 500,000 bonus miles and promptly turned just 240,000 of those miles into two round trip tickets on MileagePlus partner US Airways to Beijing in premium cabins which when priced out would have cost the road warrior $18,704. This person obviously knows how to leverage the miles and while they likely could have waited for specific mega mileage runs and credit card offers to earn those same miles at a lesser rate, most people simply do not have that time nor interest and this is a viable alternative for those that can figure out how to make this value work. In the actual example above, the person got their “investment” back right away and still had 260,000 miles left to leverage. We certainly would not advise this for many of our members, but when the timing and value is right, these offers can be used to your advantage.

This should appeal to the crowd that knows how to get 4-13 cents per mile out of redemption. Milepoint’s interest is in the long view and that is seeing this new program succeed so that the crowdfunding platform helps those ideas that will make our lives so much better in the future. But remember, value is in the eye of the individual beholder.

We contacted Wall&Main when first hearing of this idea and potential mileage offer and have been able to convince them to make available two very special offers for our members. For the first 300 packages purchased by 10pm (Pacific Time) today (Tuesday, July 16th), a matching MileagePlus Premier status for the 2014 program year will be included in the package. For example:
- Purchase a W&M Platinum package, receive MileagePlus Premier Platinum status
- Purchase a W&M Gold package, receive MileagePlus Premier Gold status
- Purchase a W&M Silver or Bronze package, receive MileagePlus Silver status

They are only able to make 300 of these Premier Elite statuses available to us.

AND, the second offer is for ALL of our members who buy a package by the 10pm (Pacific Time) today deadline. Wall&Main is including a set of Bose QC-15 noise canceling headphones at no extra charge. Hey, we know what Milepoint members like ...

Just visit www.wallandmain.com. The elite memberships are very limited, so act quickly since the special offers end tonight at 10pm Pacific time. Members who purchase any package will receive an email confirmation of their status and their elite and/or headphone bonuses from Wall&Main.

More info, click HERE.


**Note: Milepoint has no business interest in or with Wall&Main.

“These packages are a 'must buy' for any savvy traveler.”
– Randy Petersen
Founder of FlyerTalk and MilePoint

So to sum up, Milepoint is suggesting that give $30,000 to a company that you have never heard of so that the company can have enough money to launch. I am sure that Milepoint spent some time looking into the folks at Wall & Main, but that certainly doesn’t make them any more likely to launch a successful business. In fact, who knows if they will raise enough for their launch. Maybe they will go bankrupt before they even get you the miles you thought you bought.

This, like all the “best” offers, is only available today. There is no way that they could give you enough time to actually think about the decision you are making. If they did, you would never put out the $30,000 that they want you to spend. But, really, this is a great deal. You don’t need to think about spending $30k. Just do it (sarcasm – don’t really do it). While you are at it, I have a few timeshare properties that I want to sell you. They are really good deals too…I promise….

All that being said though, I do have to give Milepoint some credit. The email does start out by saying that occasionally they see a unique offer that has some hidden value for the right member. They got part of that right. The value in this offer sure is hidden. In fact, it is hidden so well that I can’t even find it. As far as it being valuable for the “right member”, well, I’m just not sure who that would be.

I am fine with Milepoint trying to make money and I am fine with them supporting new businesses, but please don’t try to pass something off as a good deal when it really isn’t. To add insult to injury, a similar email came out from The Freddie Awards just a few hours later. Although it has been stated that there is no business relationship between the two organizations, I can’t help but wonder why this is being pushed as a good deal.

That’s a bit below what United sells miles for normally, it’s 3 cents a mile all-in, but it’s a lot of cash and not worth it just for buying miles alone and without any interest in what Wall & Main is doing.

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It’s a lot of money so it’s a big decision, but the miles can be worth a large portion of the purchase price. Being able to straight-up buy Platinum status or even Gold can be really valuable as well. This is obviously only a deal/option for folks who have significant liquidity available, but it’s a quick boost to a mileage balance and for folks who might otherwise buy premium cabin award tickets likely worthwhile (even redeeming at the ‘standard’ award level).

Wall & Main is likely of interest to a narrow subset of readers, but to them of great interest.