The Extra Mile

'Tis the Season for Gifts and Frequent Flyer Miles

Give and ye shall receive

November 30, 2005 - For frequent flyer program members looking for a year-end windfall to their mileage accounts, this holiday shopping season could be an especially rewarding one. And they won't have to leave home to earn those miles.

Having expanded well beyond their original travel-defined boundaries, airline loyalty programs can now be used to earn miles when purchasing goods and services which have nothing whatever to do with flights or hotel stays. In fact, there are very few purchases which cannot be made to generate frequent flyer miles for the buyer.

As an example, American, the world's largest airline, boasts that its AAdvantage program permits members to earn miles when doing business at 1,500 partner companies, the great majority of which fall outside the realm of travel. In particular, AAdvantage members can earn miles when shopping at the AAdvantage eShopping mall, a network of more than 100 online retailers including such major names as Barnes & Noble, Dell, Gap, Land's End, Nordstrom and Staples.

Program members earn between one and five miles per dollar spent at most retailers. But through Dec. 31, 25 eShopping mall retailers are offering double miles for purchases charged to a MasterCard. And if the MasterCard is a Citibank AAdvantage World MasterCard, shoppers can pocket an additional 1,000-mile bonus for spending $500 or more at one or more of the same 25 companies.

Similar "virtual mileage malls" are now standard features of all the major airlines' frequent flyer programs. Special holiday shopping bonuses are widespread as well, with bonus miles currently on offer from participating retailers at Delta's SkyMiles Shopping network, Northwest's WorldPerks Mall, and United's Mileage Plus Mall.

(When patronizing mileage malls, it's important to follow the links from the airlines' own websites to insure that the shopper's frequent flyer number is linked to any subsequent purchases and the miles properly credited.)

More award choices

Earning miles for just about anything is well and good. But with all those miles and points in circulation -- and with the widespread perception that airline award seats are few and far between -- many consumers are left wondering whether they represent an empty promise.

There has been some movement among airlines to redress their programs' over-concentration on earning miles, at the expense of redeeming them. As we've reported in past columns, American and United last spring added free hotel nights to their programs. And more recently, Frontier launched the More Store, a catalog of non-travel program awards.

The latest: members of United's program can now bid their miles for "innovative travel experiences and big-ticket items" on the Mileage Plus Auction site. Among the awards up for auction are private cooking lessons, a spa treatment, a helicopter ride, a shark diving experience, and a Chrysler Crossfire coupe. (At press time, the high bid on the Crossfire was a daunting 1.2 million miles.)

But most of the initiatives on the awards front have been taken by travel rewards programs linked to hotels and credit cards. That's ironic since those programs always had more robust award catalogs than the airlines', and in any case never suffered from the negative P.R. afflicting the airline programs.

For example, TripRewards, the frequent stay program for the Cendant hotels, recently introduced the TripRewards Marketplace, an online reward catalog with 200 new merchandise award options for members cashing in their points, from iPods to Godiva chocolates.

Beginning last month, Marriott Rewards expanded the award side of its program to include free stays at Orient-Express hotels and travel packages from Abercrombie & Kent.

Since July, members of InterContinental's Priority Club Rewards program have been able to redeem their points for debit cards which in turn can be used to pay for stays at any hotel which accepts American Express cards. (Amex issues the debit card, which explains the condition.)

In effect, the new option makes available free nights at more than 500,000 hotels worldwide -- a quantum increase from the 3,500 hotels in InterContinental's own network.

And in August, American Express began allowing members of its Membership Rewards program to redeem their points to cover all or part of the cost of airline tickets, hotel rooms and cruises booked at americanexpress.com/travel. To take an award, the member chooses whether to use points for all or a part of the cost and then pays for the booking using an American Express card. Based on the number of points redeemed, all or a portion of the charge is then credited back to the member's account.

In a none-too-subtle swipe at the airlines' own award restrictions, American Express stressed that since the points are in lieu of a cash purchase, Membership Rewards members have no irksome capacity controls to navigate.

Which brings us back full circle to the question: when will the airlines get their awards house in order? For partisans of the airlines' programs, that would be the best Christmas gift of all.

Earning miles for just about anything is well and good. But with all those miles and points in circulation -- and with the widespread perception that airline award seats are few and far between -- many consumers are left wondering whether they represent an empty promise.

There has been some movement among airlines to redress their programs' over-concentration on earning miles, at the expense of redeeming them. As we've reported in past columns, American and United last spring added free hotel nights to their programs. And more recently, Frontier launched the More Store, a catalog of non-travel program awards.

The latest: members of United's program can now bid their miles for "innovative travel experiences and big-ticket items" on the Mileage Plus Auction site. Among the awards up for auction are private cooking lessons, a spa treatment, a helicopter ride, a shark diving experience, and a Chrysler Crossfire coupe. (At press time, the high bid on the Crossfire was a daunting 1.2 million miles.)

But most of the initiatives on the awards front have been taken by travel rewards programs linked to hotels and credit cards. That's ironic since those programs always had more robust award catalogs than the airlines', and in any case never suffered from the negative P.R. afflicting the airline programs.

For example, TripRewards, the frequent stay program for the Cendant hotels, recently introduced the TripRewards Marketplace, an online reward catalog with 200 new merchandise award options for members cashing in their points, from iPods to Godiva chocolates.

Beginning last month, Marriott Rewards expanded the award side of its program to include free stays at Orient-Express hotels and travel packages from Abercrombie & Kent.

Since July, members of InterContinental's Priority Club Rewards program have been able to redeem their points for debit cards which in turn can be used to pay for stays at any hotel which accepts American Express cards. (Amex issues the debit card, which explains the condition.)

In effect, the new option makes available free nights at more than 500,000 hotels worldwide -- a quantum increase from the 3,500 hotels in InterContinental's own network.

And in August, American Express began allowing members of its Membership Rewards program to redeem their points to cover all or part of the cost of airline tickets, hotel rooms and cruises booked at americanexpress.com/travel. To take an award, the member chooses whether to use points for all or a part of the cost and then pays for the booking using an American Express card. Based on the number of points redeemed, all or a portion of the charge is then credited back to the member's account.

In a none-too-subtle swipe at the airlines' own award restrictions, American Express stressed that since the points are in lieu of a cash purchase, Membership Rewards members have no irksome capacity controls to navigate.

Which brings us back full circle to the question: when will the airlines get their awards house in order? For partisans of the airlines' programs, that would be the best Christmas gift of all.