50 cent US Air flights?
 

I read US Airways is advertising 50 cent fares starting Feb. 1st as part of their new Mastercard promo. Does anyone know anything about this? It seems too good to be true. For instance, will they offer one flight per day that's snatched up at 12:00:01?

You can check
www.50centflights.com for more info. But it does look like it'll be hard to get. You have to first sign up for the card. Then, you have to be among the first clicksters on the site at certain designated times on certain days to catch one of the fares.

The offer is being announced in banner advertising at the top of some FT webpages. It is for a card with the new player in the HP/US credit card game, Barclays through Juno Bank. They are moving in on the old player, BofA, which previously had an exclusive agreement with US before HP and US merged.

The 50 cent fares sound like they will be true longshots to get. The card, however, unlike the BofA one, will carry no annual fee for the first two years.

I had no problem getting several $2 fares on US last summer :p

OK, I bit. I signed up for the card. Needed the 15k to reach a desired award level to begin with, but I gotta admit the FT banner ad is what piqued my interest. I give US Air and their interactive agency some credit: it's a unique campaign and I imagine it'll be fairly successful as these things go.

My guess is that the 50-cent flights will be sort of like the whole Amex My Life thing. There will be some less-attractive offers that are reasonably easy to obtain, and then they'll give away a few seats on a sexy route (Europe, Mexico, Central America, etc.) to drive some buzz, but it'll be close to impossible to actually get a seat. I just grabbed the card for the free miles. ^

I got the new card as well. No fee for two years, 50% bonus for the first year on all purchases and a spend of 25k gets 10k counted toward status. All discussed in the USAir forum.

50 cents! That's about what it is worth. I felt ripped off on the $20 FC ART fares. Especially the breakfast flights. A cold ham and cheese sandwich (from the same box meal that they sell in coach.)

And 3 miles/$ on US Airways purchases. :)

I will still be using my Amex as a primary spend card - I'd rather have 1 SPG than 1.5 US - but I applaud them for putting together a compelling offer with some real value-add vs. most other cards in the category.

the flight has to be under $500

What "flight" are you referring to? And that flight has "to be under $500" for what to happen? Please explain.

if i read the terms correctly, it says that your ticket can not exceed $500

maybe i am wrong though

Can you be specific - exactly what terms are you referring to, and what does/doesn't happen if your ticket costs >$500? How do your posts pertain to the prospect of 50 cent tickets to somewhere for a few and/or the credit card tied to the promo?

Are we sure they'll offer round trips at 50 cents each way? I remember Spirit Air had a similar promotion a few month ago, cheapo fares going out one way, regular fares returning.

As you'd expect, this is all laid out in the Terms and Conditions available on their site.

I'm sure that it'll be round trip and I'm sure that it'll be incredibly hard to score one. Just think lucky thoughts.

peace,
~Ben~

the fact that the chances of getting one of these seats, as it says in the T&C is 1:2000 is laughable...I suppose they can't give out too many though...

There's really two promotions going on. One is the scratch cards contest, which will be issused at hub airports or via SASE. Out of 100,000 cards, 50 will be winners of free flights up to $500. Winners are responsible for taxes and fees. Although you're supposed to include a 50c check with your winning claim, "$.50 (50 cents) will be reimbursed to the winners once they have been verified as a winner." This contest is open to anyone.

The other promotion is the website contest, where flights to designated destinations will be available for 50 cents. There's no restriction on the retail value of these tickets, and they haven't said what destinations or how many will be available yet. This contest is only open to holders of the Juniper US card.

wow!
lucky you!

Wow...sounds like you have to be right there at the right time and want to fly where they have for sale!

At the appointed sale time, Purchaser may click on the appropriate link on 50centflights.com. The first responders will be asked to provide their e-mail address, first 6 digits of their account number and other security details to confirm their identity. Upon verification of your identity and status as a US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard Accountholder, we will send you an email with instructions on how to book your travel. Travel must be booked within 72 hours of the sending of the confirmation email. Each promotional ticket is a single ticket and must be paid for with the US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard. The promotional ticket may be booked in anyone's name, but once booked no changes to the itinerary will be permitted. Additional restrictions or terms and conditions of a particular promotional ticket will be disclosed at the time the promotional ticket is posted on 50centflights.com.

i am not getting the link
 

can someone post the link for me? thanks

Look to the post above.

I will see what it says there, but I expect the tickets won't be there just for the asking no matter the number of respondents. (Is it to be like radio show promos where the 10th caller gets the prize? How does one learn the appointed sale time?)

If one does bag one of their 50 cent tickets, is it clear whether they will earn US Dividend Miles for the travel? FF miles would certainly add value beyond that of an effectively free ticket to wherever it may prove to be.

As the terms say, one week before the first sale they'll announce the first destination and sales time. It's "while supplies last", and I really doubt they'll offer more than 5 or 10 for each destination. I also seriously doubt they earn DM or elite miles. Contest prize tickets (and that's really what these are) don't.

I hope they've thought this through. Amex's My Card My Life contest had a lot of technical glitches. Their web server overloaded at the appointed time, as you might expect.

How will they make that announcement? (I don't feel especially "lucky," so asking mostly out of curiosity and laziness where T&C on stuff like this concerned.)

Will some computer-savvy types figure how to position themselves at the head of the queue, entering themselves a mere nanosecond after the window goes up? (I am anything but computer-savvy myself.)

If no Dividend Miles in the picture, still a prize, but less valuable.

They'll announce it on the www.50centflights.com website the last week of January.

Their TCs are kinda weird... "the odds of winning are 1:2000"... but more importantly, will these tickets earn miles?

As I mentioned above, there are two contests. One is the scratch tickets, which have a 1:2000 chance of winning. These are good for up to $500 off a US Airways ticket and is open to anyone.

The other is the website sale.

I doubt either will earn miles.

"Departure cities will vary by destination and will consist of some or all of the following airports: PHL, PIT, CLT, LAS, PHX, LAX, BOS, LGA, FLL, DCA"

Does that mean that if one lives in ... oh, say ... Seattle ... that this promotion is compeltely worthless (as opposed to nearly worthless)?

Yeah...I'm thinking the same thing coming from MCI.

FLL, LAS, and PHX can, from time to time, be cheap cities to get to from MCI thanks to the WN effect. So if Mexico, Hawaii, or the Caribbean turns up, then it could still be about a $250 R/T including the taxes on the 50-center.

But what are the odds that (a) they're really going to give away the Caribbean or Hawaii for 50 cents + tax, and (b) that I'd really get one to begin with?

I live in MFR and that is clearly not one of their major departure cities for this promotion (or any other promotion that I've ever heard of). However, for a 50 cent ticket to Rome, I could afford to drive to LAX or even hop a cheap flight to PHX.

keith

Funny you should mention Rome ... seems to be the first offering :D

Click thru the destinations for the countdown clock -- be front & center at high-noon on Wednesday!!
/.

Up North, WestJet did this as a promotion to show to consumers how ridiculous the taxing is for flights.

Calgary to Edmonton for $1 each way!
Airfare = $2
NAVCan, GST, AIF, CATSA, among other taxes = $148.

Did anyone manage to get a flight to Rome? Their site is absolutely locked up for me.

Tsk. This is a classic problem for these sorts of promotions -- the web site gets overloaded.

What a lame-... error message.

Lazy programmers! :mad:

Lame.

Kind of what I figured.

Not that I'm too bummed about it...in the end, it's just a sorta-cheap ticket to Rome, not a free ticket to Rome.

When you say, "...it's just a sorta-cheap ticket to Rome, not a free ticket to Rome," are you alluding to the 50 cent fare or to taxes/fees over and above the $.50? When I look at Europe for purposes of quick, cheap MRs, the fares themselves may do (e.g., IAD-LHR), but those taxes/fee can add so substantially that those itineraries lose interest as potential MRs.

(BTW, if you should land a 50 cent US ticket to Rome and it is transferrable, I will give you $1 for it, so you will have a 100% ROI, which is pretty spectacular. :D )

I tried, but I received the following errors:

At 12:04 pm EST - Parse error: parse error, unexpected '&' in /var/www/50centflights.com/includes/db/database.mysql.inc on line 12

At 12:05 pm EST - Warning: mysql_connect() [function:mysql-connect]: Too many connections in /var/www/50centflights.com/includes/db/database.mysql.inc on line 12
Too many connections

At 12:34 pm EST - The page cannot be displayed

At 12:42 pm EST - Sorry!
This destination is no longer available.

I took screenshots that'll come handy in case there is a class action lawsuit against these guys in the future.

Two things work against me: (1) Kansas City isn't on the list of starting points for the free flights. So I gotta buy a ticket to get to my starting point, and since several of them are US or HP fortress hubs, those tickets aren't cheap. (2) I don't know anyone currently living in Rome, so realistically, I'm buying a 2nd (published-fare) ticket to go along with the freebie.

I look at it like this: if I want to go to Rome, it's about $1200 all-in for two of us. $600 per ticket, no really great promos to Rome right now. If I win the contest, I get to Rome for $600 + $200 + $100 = $900. If I'm lucky and can find both a $200 all-in ticket to the hub and can buy a $600 paid MCI-hub-Rome fare on the same flight at the 50-center. Considering that I am theoretically supposed to pay income taxes on the flight value (since it's a sweepstakes win) and I don't earn miles on the 50-center, it might be better, more convenient, and cheaper for me to just book 2 tickets to Rome on AA right now!

(Note: the language in Marden Kane's rules about a $500 "value" on the prize seems to indicate that they won't actually 1099 you. $600 is the level at which they are required to do that, IIRC. But by not reporting the win as income, you are theoretically evading income taxes. And no, just like the "white envelope" doesn't hold up legally, neither will "I paid fifty cents" hold up legally.)

Obviously Rome is a worst case scenario. There are a whole bunch of domestic-U.S. cities where I'd grab my running shoes and a duffel bag and hop on a plane by myself for a 1-2 day visit if the cost was only $25. But there's still that whole issue of getting to a US/HP hub to start the trip.