I agree. This offer does not have nearly the potential return as the ValuMags offer, butthen again you can actually use the money/GCs to buy something of value at LLBean (whereas the magazines really had no "value"). And sorry, I read your initial post too quickly, which led to my comment in the other thread about churning GCs.

what items are there for $1.25?

Go fishing - you'll find a lot below $2 in there.
Please do not post items codes here, we'll cause run on some items and LL Beans could shut down deal prematurely - there're hundreds of cheap items to fish out.
I'm still waiting a confirmation of free shipping from someone with LL Bean card.

After buying three separate GC's yesterday, LL Bean called me to verify that I was purchasing them.

I will send them an e-mail today giving them a heads up that I will be making multiple fishing related purchases, and that they may ship them in one box rather than several.

If anyone's interested in a very nice Radisson, the hotel in Aruba is more than worthy as a vacation destination...

Convert your Gold Points into Diners Club Rewards Points. Redeem 6,250 Gold Points for 1,000 Club Rewards Points by contacting the Gold Points Rewards Contact Center at 1-800-508-9000

This means that for about 3x1.25$ you would get 1000 DC points which would be 1000 BA points which is even a better deal then Inside Flyer promotion. 1000BA miles for under 4$ is a pretty good deal.

Wait, it gets better..

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/009131.html

Only 150K is needed for First Class with BA from anywhere in the US to Europe. This means 150*4=600$, when did you fly FIRST Class for that price? How many miles is needed for concorde and do they have any award seats left?

[This message has been edited by kempis (edited 08-15-2003).]

How long are your GoldPoints from LLBean transactions taking to post?

I'm not very familiar with the Goldpoints site but the portal from Goldpoints to LL Bean doesn't seem to be working. Am I doing something wrong?

When you click on the green L.L.Bean icon on the GP page, it opens a new browser window with a blue "Start Shopping!" link on it. When you click on that, that window is replaced with a new window that has a Goldpoints frame on top and an L.L.Bean frame below. Perhaps your browser is set to prevent web sites from opening new windows. I just went through the process using Netscape 7.0, and it worked fine.

Here's an improved strategy:
1. Buy $5 emailable Gift certicate
2. Buy fishing items using the gift certificate
from step 1 until it used up.
3. Return to step 1.

All this requires the free shipping. Ones who have LL Bean credit card are covered already.
I think I've found one, I will test and publish it later today.
For now I'd stock up gift certificate, they deliver them only in about 10 hours.
And, please, please - don't buy the same item all over and don't publish item# here. If on Monday they'll find that they have 50,000 orders for the item, and only 500 in stock, the whole thing will crumble.

is it right goldpoints can only be transferred into delta, nwa and us airways miles at 5,000 gp to 500 miles?

i know there is diners, but i don't have a us diners club card.

my calculations come out at

US$5 = 2,000 gold points
5,000 gold points = US$12.50
500 nwa miles = US$12.50 (or US$0.025c per mile...)

This means a flight from CNS-GUM-JFK on CO is US$2,000 (80,000 x US$0.025c). Not that good a deal?

Certificates can be used in store - if so... maybe i might get some new clothes??... $2,000 worth to be exact! Still... is it such a great deal if u dont have an LL Bean credit card?

Alternatively, you could do SYD-SFO (or LAX)-JFK (or anywhere in the US on the UA network) using US Airways miles for 60,000 miles. This equates to an expense of US$1,500 (or 300 x US$5 purchases on LLBean). This seems a little more reasonable - it is only US$2,250 in Biz class from SYD-US on UA...

Can you use the US$5 gift voucher to perpetually buy further US$5 gift vouchers at the online store and qualify??


[This message has been edited by kawoh (edited 08-16-2003).]

Be sure to sign up for Goldpoints via Radisson rather than directly with Goldpoints. Then you get to redeem with plenty of other airlines and you get 8:1 redemption into miles.

Goldpoints is both the Radisson loyalty program and a more general mass market loyalty program (and in particular, TGI Friday's) and the two offer different redemption rates. They key is how you sign up. (Although IIRC you can sign up through Goldpoints and request to be switched later.)

But you'll want to search the archives for all this... fleshed out in some detail ~ December 2001...

gleff, thanks, so this revises my current calculation for non LL Bean credit card holders, I suspect getting a gift cert and redeeming it for another cert would be limited, can anyone confirm?

2,000 gold points = US$5
2,000 gold points = 250 miles (8 gold points = 1 airline mile on DL, NW or US)

effective cost US$0.02c per mile.

awards available (ie redemption on US Airways or UA MP):

Economy: SYD-SFO or LAX-JFK (or anywhere in US on UA network) 60,000 miles = US$1,200 (and US$1,200 worth of LL bean clothes)

Business: SYD-SFO or LAX-JFK (or anywhere in US on UA network) 90,000 miles = US$1,800 (and US$1,800 worth of LL bean clothes)

Starting to look a little more reasonable? If I could get it down to US$0.01c per mile I think it's a definite goer gleff? except the concerns re meeting what they promise?

[This message has been edited by kawoh (edited 08-16-2003).]

Consider transfers to AA, b/c even though their US-SYD redemption costs are a little higher you get somewhat closer to lifetime elite...

Also note that I think (or at least recall) that Goldpoints has implemented a limit of 1 million Goldpoints transferred out per year (125,000 FF miles at 8:1).

And at least for this you're not running up against a deadline of 8/31 for posting and transfers to Diners. So this is better.

Don't even think of buying miles @ 2 cents, though, for the purpose of a Y award to SYD. You can generally buy a revenue (and mileage earning) ticket for the same price.

Also, you can buy UA miles @ 2 cents/apiece from Randy and at less risk, IMHO. (Though there's a maximum of 20k miles to be earned this way.) (The maximum AA miles earned is 35k/yr. There is apparently no limit to the number of Continental miles you can pick up this way, but CO miles aren't worth anything. Although you could launder your CO miles through Amtrak to United with no devaluation, and rack up more UA miles than the stated limit.)

Gary

[This message has been edited by gleff (edited 08-16-2003).]

But when you buy from Randy (or with hte airline), you get just the miles. If you do it through Bean, goldpoints, or whatever, you get the stuff you buy in addition to the miles.