Lots of excitement in points and miles world this week (almost as exciting as my January birchbox that I received today), and it’s only Monday! Here’s what’s going on:
- You can get one free night from Airbnb (up to $300) if you’re a new user – how cool is that?
- SPG has a new “Spin to Win” game that you can play daily up until February 7, 2014. Last time they had a similar game,
IMr. Points Traveler won a great prize  (and Starwood’s social media team proceeded to wow me). - I’ve given up on the La Quinta game. I learned the hard way that my time is worth more than winning 100 LQ points in the span of 2 hours.
- Speaking of La Quinta – here’s an easier way to earn 300 free and instant points.
- Check your junk mail – some people are getting some fantastic emails from American Airlines offering them a free Platinum status trial and free 500-mile upgrades. I got the “Platinum surprise” a few months ago.
- There’s also an amazing public US Airways MasterCard offer that has sign-up bonus of 40,000 miles after your first purchase (no minimum spend!). The $89 annual fee is not waived, but this offer is wayyy better than the 30,000- mile affiliate link offer that many bloggers are “pimping”.
- Despite hearing more bad news about the American Express Platinum cards losing some lounge benefits (first, the free-access benefits to Admirals Clubs and US Airways Clubs go bye-bye in March, now we learn that Delta SkyClubs won’t allow card-member guests in for free), I still am holding on to (and paying the $450 fee for) my American Express Business Platinum card because I certainly have mastered maximizing the card’s benefits (FYI: my $200 airline credits have already posted for this year). What’s even better is this: I just learned that the card comes with an awesome roadside assistance program… bye bye AAA membership!
- Target is offering a free year of credit-monitoring as a way to “make good” to the millions of people who were affected by the security breach.
- You can now earn a 50% bonus on miles when you credit your American Airlines miles to US Airways and vice-versa!
- Don’t forget to register for Hyatt’s Endless Possibilities promo; remember, you can pick between free nights or bonus points. I personally selected the option earn a free night after every 5 nights.
- You can get 15% off Kimpton stays with promo code KPET
Any other deals worth mentioning? How was your week in points?
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“Target is offering a free year of credit monitoring.” My guess, with no hard facts to back it up, is that this costs Target nothing. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the credit-monitoring companies actually paid Target to provide this service to its customers.
If a credit-monitoring company can get millions of scared new customers from Target, it probably will be able to retain many of them a year from now as paying customers.
@Miles: +1 – now that I think about it, you’re probably 100% right.
Thanks for the reminder about Hyatt. You doing any mattress running to complete your Diamond challenge or is that already over? I’m thinking of going for it…
I actually wrote a complaint email to La Quinta and I was surprised that they wrote back – I wrote a new post with the full details but basically (no surprise) they budgeted a certain number of points to give out and the game was more successful than they anticipated, so a few days ago they drastically reduced the probability of winning (and the amounts you could win)
Disappointing….
@stacey: I actually didn’t have time to complete the challenge, sadly!! :( Will try to achieve Diamond some other time, I guess… book
@points with a crew: I also noticed the changes in the game – barely any wins and the 5/10 point lame category. Oh well, I am happy to have topped off with enough free points for a night or 2.