News You Can Use – 1,500 Free Priority Club Points, American Express Transfer Bonuses, Barclays Virgin America 20,000 Point Credit Card & Triple Hertz Car Rental Points
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1. 1,500 Free Priority Club Points. Just Another Points Traveler reports that you can earn 1,000 free Priority Club points by answering a survey called “1,000 points for your thoughts.” The survey was loading extremely slowly last night, but perhaps it will be better this morning.This is a targeted promotion and the terms say that only folks who received an email with the survey will get the 1,000 points, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
Loyalty Lobby writes that signing up for the Priority Club shopping toolbar should get you another 500 points. 2. American Express British Airways Transfer Bonuses. View From the Wing reports that American Express is offering a 40% point bonus when you transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to British Airways through September 27, 2012.This isn’t as good as the previous transfer bonus of 50%, but it is good enough if you want to make a transfer. British Airways Avios are great for using on short distance flights within the US on American Airlines and for flights to South American on American Airlines or LAN with no or low surcharges.
For example, it is only 4,500 Avios points (or 3,215 Membership Rewards points with a 40% transfer bonus) from Kansas City to Chicago, which would otherwise cost me ~$125+ each way.
Here’s a link to the Avios Calculator to see how many points you need for a trip.
If you don’t mind paying fuel surcharges (~$400 per long haul segment), you’d need only 85,715 Membership Rewards Points with the 40% transfer bonus for 120,000 British Airways Avios to get a return First Class ticket from Chicago to London.
But flying on British Airways to London isn’t worth it in coach, since you’d pay approximately the same amount in fuel surcharges.
3. Barclays Virgin America Credit Card and Transfer Bonus. The usual sign-up bonus on the Barclays Virgin America credit card is 10,000 points.But you can get up to 20,000 points after your first purchase if you apply by August 31,2012 (yes, that’s my referral link). 20,000 Virgin America points should get you ~$350 to $450 worth of tickets on Virgin America.
I’m not applying for the card because Virgin America doesn’t fly to Kansas City and because I’d rather save my Barclays application for their US Air credit card. But the card could be useful for some folks who don’t have many Barclays’ inquiries and fly on Virgin America.
The Points Guy writes about a 30% transfer bonus when you transfer Membership Rewards points to Virgin America points, up to September 2, 2012. This could make sense in certain situations, but I wouldn’t transfer all my American Express Membership Rewards to Virgin America, unless I did the math to see if it made sense for my travel goals. 4. Triple Points on Hertz Car Rentals. Via The #Hustle Blog, Hertz is offering triple points per $1 spent on car rentals up to December 15, 2012.Only rentals after registering for the promotion count.
Interestingly, you get triple points on the base rental points and on the Presidents Circle and Five Star elite member bonuses. You only need 500 Hertz points for a 1-day weekend rental, so this promotion could make more sense for folks looking to earn free rental days as opposed to earning frequent flyer miles.
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