Category Archives: Mile and Point Resources

Chicago Seminars & Frequent Traveler University

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If you’ve been collecting miles and points for more than a few years, I wouldn’t attend a miles & points conference solely to learn something new (you might learn a new trick or two), but to meet other folks who won’t roll their eyes when you talk miles and points (and share something new with you).  In my experience, the connections and conversations together with the presentations are what makes miles and points seminars great!

Wonder What's Going On Here?

Wonder What’s Going On Here?

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Points Envy Delivers 2013 State of the Points World Address

Note: This post is satire and you shouldn’t follow any of Points Envy’s suggestions, nor should you break the law.  Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.

Also note: The following is a transcript of Points Envy’s 2013 State of the Points World Address, delivered February 14 at our local JPMorgan Chase branch.

Mr. Morgan-Chase, Mrs. Teller, fellow points fiends and miles junkies:

More than forty years ago, a man employed by Western Direct Marketing, a small advertising firm looking for a way to build customer loyalty for its client United Airlines, had a vision that would forever change the world of travel.  Relying on his G-d-given creativity and breakfast whiskeys, he had the revolutionary idea of rewarding customers in direct proportion to the number of miles they flew.

Over time this idea spread to other airlines and even to hotels.  As customers started building accounts with the new rewards they received for traveling, banks saw an opportunity to reward their customers with the same luscious non-currency in return for the customer accumulating debt.  And so reward credit cards were born, working with modern loyalty programs to comprise what we righteous points fiends refer to endearingly as “The Game.” Continue reading

Points Envy: Travel Hacking Goes to Business School

Note: This post is satire and you shouldn’t follow any of Points Envy’s suggestions, nor should you break the law.  Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.

We all know that business travelers comprise a large portion of the general population of miles and points junkies, and that FlyerTalk is littered with rubbish MBAs.  This week at Billion Mile Secrets we head to the forefront of elite American education to lend our expertise to a revolutionary new curriculum designed for tomorrow’s foremost business professionals.

The connection between business schools and frequent travel is incredibly strong, resulting largely from MBA programs breeding consultants and other professionals who regularly fly around the world spouting knowledge for a hefty fee, all the while racking up points and miles on their companies’ dimes.  Hell, we even occasionally get consulting gigs just for the points earnings, as we’re usually able to take about eight to ten free trips before getting fired.

Of course, we all know that business school is, like business class, a huge joke.  History clearly demonstrates that either you are born rich or you will never understand business.  That is, until now. Continue reading

Points Envy’s Unconventional, but Lucrative Ways to Earn Points

Note: This post is satire and you shouldn’t follow any of Points Envy’s suggestions, nor should you break the law.  Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.

In the past, we at Points Envy have broken the news on some of the most creative ways to earn points, and this week’s Billion Mile Secrets post is no exception.  Below we outline some brand new, tried-and-true, experimental, traditional, revolutionary ways to generate the points you need.

Method #1: Sleep Your Way to the Top
The key to this method is to first familiarize yourself with the personal lives of employees of numerous loyalty programs.  For legal reasons, we can’t reveal any specifics, but our general method is to identify an acceptably good-looking employee, follow them to their place of residence, seduce them, get them addicted to our love, and convince them to augment our account with extra points.  If the employee is already in a relationship, that’s even better, as you only need one night and a camera to get all the points and status you need.

Method #2: Complain About Everything
This is borderline conventional, but sometimes people overlook the little things that only a refined traveler can appreciate.  For example, on our most recent Asiana flight, one of the flight attendants failed to refer to us as “sir” the eighth time she refilled our champagne. Continue reading

Lord of the Points

Note:  This post is satire and you shouldn’t follow any of Points Envy’s suggestions, nor should you break the law.  Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.

If we learned anything from our recently-deceased Uncle Ryan, it was not to discuss religion in company.  That, and not to drink too much (which, by the way, is why we generally stick to champagne).  At the risk of violating this wisdom, we at Points Envy got ourselves high school drunk before authoring this week’s Billion Mile Secrets column, which details how some of that ol’ time religion can potentially raise your points balances to the high heavens.

Several months ago, while en route to Frankfurt, a polite young man knocked on the door of our Singapore Airlines Suite and asked if we were interested in living life to the fullest.  Naturally, we assumed he was selling high-quality drugs, but instead he told us about a man-god named Zubard.  As it turns out, Zubard possesses a unique ability to communicate with Earth’s long-lost ancestors from the planet Zubard. Continue reading

Billion Mile Secrets Lands, Gives You Free Stuff

Update 12-26: Thank you to everyone who entered our contest. Congratulations to commenter Cat, who won a free United Club pass, and to Fred Sobotka, whose tweet won the $50 Amex gift card!

Apologies to folks who saw this post earlier – it was posted earlier than intended!

Note:  Billion Mile Secrets is satire and you shouldn’t follow any of Points Envy’s suggestions, nor should you break the law.  Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.
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Greetings Million Mile Secrets readers and future Points Envy stalkers! Christmas comes early this year, as we are thrilled to announce the arrival of Billion Mile Secrets, an exciting new weekly column here at Million Mile Secrets written by the award-winning bloggers at Points Envy.  Think of us as hired guns, paid in points and alcohol to protect your points balances from the inferior earning and redemption strategies of other points blogs.

Points Envy hardly needs an introduction, but just in case you have been on an extended bender (with or without us), we are currently the third and a half biggest travel blog in the world, and we will almost certainly occupy the top spot in the near future.  Our website regularly features timely coverage of the biggest stories in the points world, the airline world, and the world world.  For good measure, we also sprinkle in riveting flight reviews and the occasional human interest piece. Continue reading

Fast-Track Your Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus With Amazon Payments

 

I love Amazon.com because I am lazy busy and like doing my shopping online!

But did you know that using Amazon Payments is one of the quickest and easiest ways to meet the minimum spend requirement to get that large sign-up bonus on your new credit cards? Continue reading

How One Easy Everyday Change Can Earn You More Miles & Points

 

If you’re like me, you probably make lots of purchases on the internet.

You probably also use your favorite mile or point card to make those purchases so that you earn miles on those purchases.

So far, so good!

But did you know that you could earn even MORE miles by making your purchase through airline or hotel shopping portals? Continue reading

Why The Media Is Wrong About Miles & Points

 

You, dear reader, know that collecting miles and points can get you aspirational  rewards in international First Class flights and suites in luxurious hotels.

But the Mainstream Media does not yet know that!

*Shhhh*

Let’s keep it that way! Continue reading

Mile and Point Resources

 

Flyertalk and Milepoint are great resources to learn more about miles and points and how to use them to travel for free.  However,  I would sometimes get frustrated because I could not easily find links to award booking tools or airline award charts easily.

I’ve created a Mile and Point Resources tab at Million Mile Secrets to help you find ALL the information that you will need to sign-up for airline and hotel programs and to earn and spend your miles and points.

  • Earn Miles and Points
  • Spend Miles and Points
  • Manage Your Miles & Points
  • Tools to Redeem Your Miles
  • Screen Capture Tools

I’ll be updating this section, over the next few weeks, with tools on earning, managing, and, spending miles.  In short, all the tools you need to have Big Travel with Small Money.

Why don’t you give the Mile and Point Resources a spin and let me know what you think?