As a newbie this is my first ever grandslam, and I've learned quite a lot not only about this promotion but the whole entire frequent flyer system:

- Have as many hotel rewards point memberships as possible. In this promotion you could have made 9 contributing hits (one per program), so that's 9 hits!

- Make Erewards a 365 day a year activity, why? Because not only do they count for 1 hit, but also you can earn points for the various hotel programs and then transfer points from hotel accounts into U.S. airways.

- Yes, erewards is time consuming, but if you do it for the hotel points, focus on programs that don't allow you to buy, and then earn hotel enough points to where you are comfortable paying for them. So maybe the first 4k are free, but you spend 11 dollars for the last 1000. ERewards, seems like its the key to this whole thing.

- Another key, car rentals. If you're like beltway, then you know DCA is metro accessible, and once you got down the routine, you can get a hit during lunch break. Also, plan ahead for car rentals, buy the cheapest rentals, during the promotion time. I got in on 2, but could have gotten 4 more at roughly 25 dollars a hit.

- Sometimes its a matter of luck, companies might take certain items off, while bloggers might expose some loopholes.

- Chase Sapphire, I wish I had this card so I can transfer all of my Ultimate Rewards from my Freedom card into hotel rewards programs.

- I was able to pull off 35k miles for $158. But had I used Erewards all year long or rented out more cards, this could have easily been 8 more hits, and overall 60k hits.