A Collection of the Most Useful and Interesting MilesBuzz Threads
 

I thought I would put together a list of some of the most useful or interesting MilesBuzz threads. I welcome additions and thoughts.

Useful tips

The Status Match Master Thread - a discussion of which airlines comp status based on existing elite credentials with a competing carrier, along with carrier-specific instructions on how to submit a status match request.

The Hotel Status Match Master Thread.

The "What Credit Card Should I Choose?" Master Thread

Online Banking for Miles - a discussion of different banking institutions that provide miles as a checking account incentive. This is distinguished from investment accounts like Fidelity, Ameritrade, etc. which also may provide miles for opening accounts. See also Miles for Banking.

Does CO-->Amtrak-->UA Really Work?, a discussing of laundering points out of Continental and into United without any devaluation. <Dead> It's no longer possible to transfer Amtrak points to United.

Handling Miles in a Divorce

Miles for Insurance Policies

Lifetime Status

Cell Phones and Miles

Best Current Long Distance Deals/Bonuses for Miles


Buzz-worthy Discussions

The Best Awards/Rewards of All Time

Anyone acutally been caught by airline selling/bartering/trading an award?

The Coming Devaluation of Frequent Flyer Miles

What's the Best Airline Award Remaining?. See also What is the world's worst FF award?

Why Frequent Flyer Programs Make Sense -- And Gutting Benefits Does Not

Best/Worst Big 6 Programs for Low Yield Flyers

Best Credit Cards

• The real cost of "free" credit-card-obtained miles
• Randy picks the best credit card plans to offer air miles cheaply
• Best Miles Credit Card
• What is the Best Airline Credit Card Deal?
• Narrowed it down to 4 credit cards

Classic Offers (No Longer Active, But Worth Preserving)

Pudding Guy's extreme success with the Healthy Choice-American Airlines promotion not only earned him over a million miles, it also brought him fame beyond that of any other frequent flyer. Not only was he all over the news, but he was immortalized in film. It was so improbable that it warranted verification from Snopes.com. Some discussions of the offer itself can be found here, here, and here.

I haven't yet found the classic post Forget Latin Pass - lets have a BAHT PASS run. Become a UA "1K" for $750 in 10 days! but a search of Google finds several of the pages of the thread, and you read the contents of the threads via Google's cache of each page.

The Goldpoints/Valumags offer allowed the purchase of unlimited miles in a variety of airline programs for less than one cent apiece. See goldpoints - fly the concorde for $1111 for a representative sample of discussion.

The KLM Match: offered to match not just elite status but account balances as well.

Test Drive a Jaguar, Fly to Europe

In the Spring of 2002, Randy was offering some amazing bonuses for subscribing to Inside Flyer magazine. Some savvy Flyertalkers realized that it was an opportunity to Fly the concorde JFK-LHR for $1259 courtesy of Randy.

LatinPass, 1,000,000 bonus miles (An offer Dr. Evil could not resist! One meelyun miles!) and LatinPass: Who's Really Going?

Don't forget the infamous November 2002 $20-plus-tax roundtrip airfares on BA:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=274376

As the lucky buyer of SEA-HEL-SEA and SEA-CDG-SEA for two people, at a total cost of less than $400, that's something I'll never forget!

Wonderful reference .. some great and concentrated reminders of some wonderful threads - and a lot of work from gleff for compiling it.

Thanks ^

Indeed. I was listing only MilesBuzz threads. If we were to open it up, we'd definitely have to include BA $20, $55+tax PVR runs in MX C, the Mexican Hat Dance...

Great work.

Thanks a lot,

Robert

This is definitely worth a sticky!

Oops, you're quite right, the BA $20 fares never made it onto MilesBuzz and I seem to recall there was some controversy over that! As Emily Littela used to say, "Never mind!"

Thanks for a great thread... very useful links and a nice trip down memory lane, too.

The ValuMags deal was 450 airline points per dollar spent.

Actually IIRC it was 450 Goldpoints per dollar spent, which translated (at the then current 4:1 ratio) to 112.5 miles per dollar.

Unless there was a better deal that I missed out on! :eek:

What a great, great, great idea this thread is-- so many new people come to FT and this thread can probably answer about 50% of "first posts" from them. Will reduce clutter and ameliorate some of the inevitable grouchiness of the "use the search, stupid" posters.

Great work ^^

I came home today and dreaded having to dig through all the various forums to get the info I needed on a status match.

Your post was exactly what I was looking for! ^ ^

Thanks gleff! This is a big help to newbies like me.

Recent 1 800 Flowers DL promo
 

Don't forget this more recent Valuemags-like bonanza. It worked out quite well for most of us.

Great thread! I hope other moderators will follow gleff's lead to gather some of the best of their forums into one concise sticky ^

Another keeper
 

People spent hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars buying Inside Flyer subscriptions in the Summer of 2002. :cool:

See Are there any current bonus mile deals for buying multiple InsideFlyer subscriptions?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9475

If I might also suggest a number of additional threads of possible interest, either as valuable tips, or revealing discussions, or perhaps as potential classics:

The Best Awards/Rewards Of All Time?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...?t=9459&page=1

Thai Airlines LHR-BKK for £0! (Take #2!)
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...?t=8710&page=1

Thai Airlines LHR - BKK for £0! (Take THREE!)
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...?t=8256&page=1

Who wants to earn a million miles? More with Pudding Guy on NBC
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...?t=2325&page=1

M I L E S P Y
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...7&page=1&pp=15

Frequent Barriers to Frequent Fliers
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...?t=4426&page=1

Take Advantage of Airport Amenities
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...3&page=1&pp=15

FlyerTalker makes front page (with photo) of USA Today
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ge=1&highlight

END FREQUENCY-REWARD PROGRAMS
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...8&page=1&pp=15

Mexican Hat Dance????
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...?t=7050&page=1

The Top Ten Problems Members Have With Frequent Flyer Programs
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...?t=8666&page=1

post or not, share or not: (secret?) tips
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...9&page=1&pp=15

Just IMHO, of course! :)

-Mark

Wonderful thread, thank you gleff, doc and all other contributors. @:-)

AA Miles Offer from Kelloggs Cereal
 

There is a current miles program going on currently with AA and Kelloggs Cereal.

To obtain the certificates, look for the appropriate boxes of cereal. The types are not the sweet kids stuff, but cereal geared toward adults. Simply collect 5 100 mile certificates, fill them out and send them in for a 500 mile AA Certificate.

As far as I know there is no limit as to the number of miles you can accumulate in the program. Typically I buy boxes of the appropriate cereal for less than $2.00 per box at a discount store that goes by the name of Big Lots.

That means for 500 miles it costs me about $10.00 US. It is a lot more expensive compared to the infamous 'Pudding Guy', but I usually donate the cereal to the local men's and women's shelters where I live, so all of the money it actually costs me is written off each year.

The offer has been going on for more than a year now and I have since been awarded about 50000 miles.

So if you are looking for another way to get miles, there it is. Unfortunately, it is ONLY open to United States Residents.

Have fun, and don't forget eat your Bran Flakes!

Help needed with site
 

I just joined flyertalk and have looked through the tabs trying to find how to post a new topic. However, can't seem to find an answer other than posting a reply to someone elses post.

I am trying to figure out how to "read" the site that lists airfare availability. I put in airport codes, dates, which gives me the airlines and flights but do not know how to read across the page. When it shows "F9" does that mean that there are 9 first class seats still available. And as you continue across, it lists letters with numbers. Is that the number of seats available in a specific booking class?

How do I find the lowest airfare too? I can use all the other travel sites and airline sites, but was wondering how I can get the lowest possible flight for a specific date(s).

Thanks for everyone's assistance. Hopefully, I will learn how to use this site and will be as proficient as the rest of you shortly!

Linney

Hotel status match
 

Is there a thread on hotel status match?

I think the Icelandair deal should make this thread also.

Wow, I just took a good look at the list (have glanced over it before) and realized that I made it. Man that feels good.

I guess I'd add the thread in the AA forum about Expertflyer.com...seems like an availability tool that's helpful for many. (possible honorable mention for the accompanying thread regarding people now being able to read airline employee comments in PNR's thru ExpertFlyer.com :D)

Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card
 

As my first post, I would like to contribute to this wonderful site. 10K bonus w/ first purchase and no annual fee for the first year. Upon activation, AmEx gave me another 2,500 miles just for adding another person to the card.

https://www66.americanexpress.com/ca...5062054389/0/n

Ajlee7: welcome to the board.
Hope you think this is funny and interesting: as I was reading your post a pop up came on the screen offering 15,000 miles AE Delta Card.

Sorry - Deleted

Where are the deals?
 

I think it's telling that there has been no activity in this thread since March.

I remember when I first logged onto FT back in 2001, we had a ton of deals nearly every day - ValueMags, traveler's cheques, gift cards, etc. etc. Now, the good deals are few and far between. The only 'blockbuster' deal this year seemed to be the Wachovia/Chase mortgage scheme.

Seems that a lot of the mileage-granters out there have either closed the loopholes or aren't offering big-mile deals. any hypotheses? with the continuing devaluation of miles, it would seem that offering big-mile deals would be a cheap promotion for marketers out there, as miles don't cost as much any more. Plus, the airlines could use miles as an easy way to generate revenue...

From one Bruin to another, it's mostly, probably, that I haven't updated the thread...

Don't confuse devaluation of award charts with being less expensive for merchants to purchase miles. AFAIK airlines haven't reduced the price they sell miles at.

There haven't been a ton of exciting promos, it's true, though the occasional deal here and there. I guess it's even been a year since Delta's Dash to the Gate!

Lots of good credit card signup bonuses, in fact those have really never been more generous. But no Valumags, lots of old standbys (eg Charter One gift cards) have gotten shut down.... Randy's been busy paying off the Inside Flyer Concorde Offer® ....

Not sure I have a theory.

Official Corporate Loyalty Programs Thread

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=518863

Bravo!

I've recently had the same luck even trying to book from GRR to RST in the dead of winter nowhere near a holiday. What the heck is up with that!

In fact, the only way I was able to use miles of late came as a result of the airline booking my wife and I departing on separate days, on the same flight, to HNL by mistake! The suddenly found a couple of first class seats for us.

Amazing anymore...

Definitive List of US Carriers' Mileage Expiration Policies
 

Definitive List of US Carriers' Mileage Expiration Policies:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=591686

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...00&postcount=7
how to get missing credit, pretty good post ^

more on baht run >

Does this work as a mileage run? (1 page)
http://web.archive.org/web/200109101...ML/000243.html

Make 1K in a few days for total cost of $750! (2 pages)
http://web.archive.org/web/200109101...ML/003326.html

Forget Latin Pass - lets have a BAHT PASS run. Become a UA "1K" for $750 in 10 days! (22 pages)
http://web.archive.org/web/200402270...ML/003577.html

im surprised this doesnt have a sticky itself >
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=593589
definitive FFP expiry thread

The Status Match Master Thread linked in the OP of this thread is now obsolete and replaced with this one:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...er-thread.html

Can someone update? It has confused me a couple times looking for the latest info...

thanks for this great compilation. it makes newbies life easier! kudos!

I didn't see a link to http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...rehensive.html in the compilation. If I'm right that it's not there, consider this a suggestion that it be added.

Time to update this post!
 

Much of it is from over 5 years ago and completely outdated.

gleff:
I hope the legacy of http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ting-cars.html is worth including in the updated list.

Do we have a thread which says which airline miles expire and how long after last activity?