Earning Miles For Buying Food Aboard Airplanes

On my recent Air Canada trip, I noticed an offer to earn Areoplan Miles for buying food on board.

The offer good through April 30, 2014 gives your 25 miles for spending between $10 and $19.99 (exclusive of taxes) in one purchase. Spend more than $20 and earn 50 miles. To earn the credit, you must give your Areoplan number to the flight attendant at purchase. That's the major downside of this promotion. Asking to the flight attendant's to enter the number seems cumbersome and must slow down service.

I think this promotion is a smart idea. US-based carriers should consider this type of promotion, as it might increase on-board purchases. For instance, the guy sitting next to me spent $9 on his meal and quipped to the FA that he should have spent a $1 more to get the 25 miles.

Yes, I know if you use the airlines credit card that you are flying, you can earn extra miles. However, why not extra bonus miles for spending XXX dollars. It might justify the parent in economy buying his three kid snacks on the plane. Or give a points addict, like me, a reason to spend more.

Just a though....



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Earn Miles Through Your Electricity Bill?

Are you a resident of Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas?? There might be an opportunity for you to earn some United miles by switching your electricity provider.

United has a partnership with Energy Plus for residents of CT, IL, MD, MA, NJ, NY, PA, OH and TX to earn miles for switching their electricity provide.

Customers that switch their provide earn 5,000 miles after their second month as a customer. In addition, customers earn 2 miles for every $1 spent on the suppy side of your electricity bill. MileagePlus card members earn 3 miles for every $1 spent.

I am confused about two parts of this. First, I am not completely sure that the extra mile earn for being a MileagePlus card member isn't the 1 mile per $1 earn with the card anyway.  Second, the landing page for this offer states that "as a special offer, MileagePlus credit card embers automatically earn an additional bonus," but it doesn't finish the sentence. One can only assume its 7,500 miles as the graphic next to it says, "up to 7,500 Award Miles." Take a screen shot of the offer page if you decide to participate in this offer.

To further complicate things, according to this flyertalk page, residents in some states might be able to earn even more bonus miles for signing up.

Residents in Texas have a second option to earn miles: Reliant.

The offer for Reliant members is 15,000 miles for signing up and then an additional 500 miles per month for 24 months for a total of 27,000 miles.

I don't pay for electricity (love paying a flat fee each month, reason why my bedroom is always at 60 degrees), so I don't have a way to test this offer out. In the FlyerTalk thread above there has been mixed reaction to the cost of switching providers. Some say the cost is the same or less than their current providers. Others have indicated massive, 200 or 300% increases in the costs. A quick search online shows similar results. All I can say is that participating in this promotion is a gamble, but sometimes you win at gambling and other times you lose....


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