Good luck with Alaska Airlines. Made the mistake of getting this card a few years ago and find it almost impossible to use the Alaska Airmiles Points. Number of points needed for a flight that flys on anything approaching a reasonable schedule are normally way higher than other airlines, no matter how far out you book. The standard point trips generally force you to layover for hours between flights. YMMV (hopefully).
Totally agree. Want to go to Denver. 25,000 level not available for June, July AND August....the entire months...and that's just to Denver!!
__________________ Hyatt excels in customer service
I'm trying to keep on top of getting my points before Feb 28.
My wife is also most of the way to $30K of spending but it isn't a sure thing. I'm trying to figure out what I can "buy" to get her over the top before Feb 28 and get that final 5K point bonus. Once that date approaches and I know how much short she is the plan currently is to pay a few months ahead on Rogers bills, and buy gift cards for our grocery store, Shoppers Drug Mart, Home Depot and other places we know we'll be spending money at in the coming months. Then use the gift cards to make purchases we actually want.
This SPG card has turned me into a real points chaser!
Thought of another way to put $ on my card with Gift Cards: You can buy Costco GC's online with Mastercard.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)
Being on the East Coast, Alaska is the next best thing to useless for me. My quick-hit, in and out plan is:
- Get the 25K MBNA bonus.
- do the 25K PDX promo.
- Top up as needed.
- Redeem for two AA tix somewhere warm in Winter 2011.
- Close the account.
You do know that the 25K PDX promo is only for residents of Oregon and parts of Washington State?
Totally agree. Want to go to Denver. 25,000 level not available for June, July AND August....the entire months...and that's just to Denver!!
The nice thing about Alaska is you can see award tickets on other carriers. I did some random searches and see there are several dates where you can get 25K tickets on Delta. Be sure to NOT click the 'My Dates are Flexible" box as doing so only pulls Alaska/Horizon flights.
Enrollment Bonus Offer is valid only for permanent residents of Oregon, or select counties in Southwest Washington (Wahkiakum, Cowlitz, Clark, Skamania Klickitat) who open a Mileage Plan account for the first time between January 15, 2010, and April 1, 2010 ("Qualification Period"). Addresses subject to verification. Offer not valid for individuals holding Mileage Plan accounts opened outside the Qualification Period. 20,000 Bonus Miles will be earned once per Mileage Plan Member on completion of a qualifying, paid round-trip flight taken between February 15, 2010, and April 1, 2010. Bonus Miles will not be earned for flights booked in G or T class (Hot Deals). Bonus Miles cannot be transferred between multiple Mileage Plan accounts held in the same person's name. Alaska and Horizon reserve the right to debit Bonus Miles and/or cancel award tickets obtained with Bonus Miles earned through fraud, misrepresentation, or other illegal activity. Flight miles must be credited to your new Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account in order to earn Bonus Miles. All travel must be completed by April 1, 2010. Offer not valid on free, industry reduced rate, miles and money, or award travel. Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air employees are not eligible to participate in this promotion. Bonus Miles do not count toward MVP or MVP Gold status. Please allow four to six weeks for flown miles and Bonus Miles to be credited. All terms and conditions of the Mileage Plan program apply. Passenger traveling on an award ticket is responsible for taxes, fees and other applicable charges. Offer subject to change without notice.
But I feel MBNA Customer Service seem to be more arrogant and hard with SPG Cardholders especially toward bonus points one month before the termination of the program.
I am on hold for 30 minutes so they can think out how they changed their term and conditions in the last 3 days to forbid us to get what they promised us.
Any toughts fellow FTers?
Perhaps you should explain what they are alleged to have changed?
5k bonus point is based on the spending made during a year set down from aniversary to aniversary as I previously had it when I spent 10k, whenever when.
Programs: TalkBoard: We discuss / ad nauseum things that mean / so very little
Posts: 10,158
Quote:
Originally Posted by matt_in_yul
5k bonus point is based on the spending made during a year set down from aniversary to aniversary as I previously had it when I spent 10k, whenever when.
Programs: AC*E, SPG Plat, HH Silver and dropping (ex Gold)
Posts: 4,588
Quote:
Originally Posted by matt_in_yul
5k bonus point is based on the spending made during a year set down from aniversary to aniversary as I previously had it when I spent 10k, whenever when.
Don't know why you think that. Certainly wasn't the case for me and I had to create my own spreadsheet to track my spends. And I've had it since it was first offered.
Programs: AC Elite, HH Diamond, MR Gold, SPG Platinum, Avis PC, National EE
Posts: 67
Quote:
Originally Posted by Braindrain
Don't know why you think that. Certainly wasn't the case for me and I had to create my own spreadsheet to track my spends. And I've had it since it was first offered.
I think what he's saying is that the bonuses are based on your spending in a year, which is based on your anniversary, not a calendar year. So if you first got the card in July then it's based on a July-June year.
5k bonus point is based on the spending made during a year set down from aniversary to aniversary as I previously had it when I spent 10k, whenever when.
Just had to chase MBNA and SPG for missing 5K bonus threshold from Dec. No regular spend points for Dec had posted either-strangely Jan spend points did post. A total of 3 phone calls but they just posted today. I'll hit the final threshold later this month, hoping I don't have to do it all over again. I wondered if it was part of how MBNA and SPG are going their separate ways. I'd be interested to know if others have had problems with bonus points posting recently.
In December, I charged almost $19K to my MBNA card which was reflected on my December statement date of the 25th. In addition to my previous card charges, I qualified concurrently for the $10K and $20K bonus. Two (2) 5K SPG bonuses were posted to my account on January 1st, without prompting. Historically, I had to call to get this posted. Go figure.
Just had to chase MBNA and SPG for missing 5K bonus threshold from Dec. No regular spend points for Dec had posted either-strangely Jan spend points did post. A total of 3 phone calls but they just posted today. I'll hit the final threshold later this month, hoping I don't have to do it all over again. I wondered if it was part of how MBNA and SPG are going their separate ways. I'd be interested to know if others have had problems with bonus points posting recently.
I think MBNA, the supervisor (Karen) told me that they let our 'affinity group' go away. Her feelings were not very kind about 'us' and made me feel 'they gave us too much'...
Another reason to switch to whatever else is on the market.... We don't belong there anymore...
Hyatt excels in customer service
