Some of the IHG promos from about ten years back when you’d get a list of different criteria to meet, most of the criteria could be stacked, and if you met all (or sometimes almost all) of the criteria you got an additional bonus. So the game was figuring out how to hit the bonus with the minimum amount of cash outlay, and you’d end up with like 120K points for staying three nights (criteria #1) at an Even hotel (criteria #2) in New Jersey (criteria #3) or something like that and could then turn around and spend some of those points on 5K per night point break properties in somewhat decent locations.

TWA was a wealth of gamification as the 40k miles for one FC UPG and a free FC ticket.

I think of AA's 20th anniversary of AAdvantage 20/20 promo back in I think 2001, that awarded a bunch of miles if you earned from 20 distinct partners. That one was fun, had a bunch of us donating a dollar to something called the Erin Go Bragh Foundation, and buying $3 spools of fishing line from Orvis.

Ah, the memories of flying TWA.

I took my grandmother to London/Paris from LAX on TWA in 1990 with a FC award ticket. She actually helped me earn miles as she flew a couple times in 1988 when all the airlines had triple miles. That was back when earning FFB miles meant peeling a sticker off from one of the sheets they sent you and affix it to the back of the paper ticket. If you ran out of stickers or forgot them from home--no worries, GAs were happy to give you blank stickers to hand write your name/FFB number on, peel off and slap on the back of the ticket. My grandmother had no idea she technically was breaking the rules putting her first initial/last name on the sticker--which was the same as my first initial last name. I was just a undergrad student at the time and never would have flown enough for the TWA European FC award for *2*. For 90K miles, not only did you get 2 FC RT tickets to any European city, but it also came with certificates good for 5 nights stay at any Hilton and 5 days of car rental from Hertz. Nowadays I've seen single domestic transcon flights run more than 90K. Those were the days!

Wow - I had no idea that FF miles were credited in such a manner. I never flew TWA (to my knowledge) and definitely wasn't a member in their FF program, but I don't remember such a mechanism on any other carrier from the early 90's when I first started participating in such programs on other carriers.

I did a deep dive thru some records some of my family have and it seems HA had something rudimentary like that (at least to start). This was from the early 90's (and might have been my first Frequent Traveler program).

Who remembers the Latin Pass Million Mile run back in 2000?

Actually - how does one get those?

My spreadsheet is still called FFB.

I recall the 50K awards I redeemed in the late 80s - FC anywhere, plus an FC upgrade anywhere, plus 7 nights of hotel, plus 7 days rental car.

More than once Hilton Honors ran a 5/10/15/20 promo. First stay 5K bonus points, then 10K then 15K then 20K - so four stays netted 50K extra points.

This was also at the time where you could get a six-night stay at a Hawaii resort (Oahu or Waikoloa) for 100K points all in. We scored this one twice back in the day!

Those were the days. in 2000, I took my new wife from STL-LGW on TWA F on award tix. The hard product was nothing compared to today, but wow, the food and service back then on long haul!

Some personal favorites were the IHG Priceless Surprises. I was in India at the time and was able to fill out postcards to do the max # of entries for about $27. I netted $150 of VGCs and about 200k points if I recall correctly. A couple months before that there was a different IHG promo, I stayed 2 weeks in Wakkanai Japan at $7 a night and ended up with 70k points.

And of course Eurobonus millionaire! I can say this now, I just got my mil today. Really fun promo!!

I had no idea this was even a thing, I will have to look into this more. I just thought we earned points and miles and redeemed the, and now you're telling me we can make a game out of it? That's some genius marketing there who ever came up with that idea.