Much to the probable annoyance of Jaguar dealerships across the US, I thought I’d bring a very good recent offer from British Airways to this broader audience. It’s certainly the easiest miles I’ve earned in 2003 thus far.

The offer: Test drive a Jaguar X-Type and receive 10,000 Executive Club miles. The promotion was apparently sent out to via e-mail to all North American Executive Club members on February 5, and was quickly posted in the British Airways forum by Pacha. See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum15/HTML/003177.html

This was not a targeted promotion, so all North American Executive Club members should be eligible.

The step-by-step:

1. Sign up for a British Airways Executive Club account (if you don’t already have one). Here’s the link: http://www.britishairways.com/travel/enrol/public/en_us

2. Print out the Jaguar test-drive forms found at: http://www.keycast.com/keycast/jagua...a/frameset.htm

3. Find your nearest Jaguar dealer, forms completed except for the dealer info. Explain your intentions to the salesperson. This might save both of you some time and avoid the test drive, if you’re not in the market for a new X-Type. Some have been required to take a test drive before the dealer would complete the form. In other cases, this wasn’t necessary and the whole process took less than 5 minutes. YMMV.

4. Mail in the form and wait for your miles to post.

What can you do with 10,000 EC miles? Not too much, if you don’t already have EC miles or plan to be an active participant. However, a nice feature of the EC program may help. British Airways has provisions for “household” accounts, wherein accounts from up to 4 persons at the same address can share miles for claiming awards. The application for joining accounts can be found at: http://www.britishairways.com/travel...s/public/en_us

Thus, the promotion can yield 40,000 miles for a single award in a single household if all are EC members who can take a test drive. And 40,000 miles is sufficient for a free ticket from the US to Europe, among other awards. Given another special offer in the same newsletter, 20,000 miles is currently enough for a free roundtrip in the states on Alaska Airlines. The miles will supposedly post 6-8 weeks after March 31, which would be some time between May 12 and 26.

Bottom line: Drive a jag, fly to Europe for free.

Let the FlyerTalk cycle of elation, abuse, worrying, gloating, paranoia, moralizing, pain, and pleasure begin!

[This message has been edited by Pudding Guy (edited 02-10-2003).]