Why I Joined Best Buy's Reward Zone

Yesterday, I signed up for a new loyalty program: Best Buy's Reward Zone.

I have never had a Reward Zone account, weird because I shop at Best Buy often. I think that the reason why I never got an account was that it once had a cost to be part of it. I don't know when they stopped charging for Reward Zone, but ever since the program has had a bad taste.

Something changed yesterday. I don't what, but I now have a loyalty program that I am earning points for.

The main point of the Reward Zone program is to give rewards for loyal customers. For every 250 points, one earns a $5 gift certificate to use at Best Buy. One earns 1 point for $1 spent at Best Buy or BestBuy.com.

To join, go here.

Now one can earn points by completing activities or answering polls on the Reward Zone Facebook page. In addition, one can earn Reward Zone points by answering Audience Reward questions. Weekly, one can earn 12 points by answering 6 questions right (2pts per correct answer).

What really got me to sign-up is their current offer, spent $10 or more in-store or online, earn 500 points: enough for a $10 reward coupon. All one has to do is to complete a purchase over $10 (after discounts), by March 23, in store or online and provide your Reward Zone Number. 500 Reward Zone points will be deposited into your account shortly thereafter. Of course, one should use this promotion online and go through a shopping portal to earn extra points.

Why am I writing about Reward Zone on a travel points blog, first free money is free money and simple free money is a no brainer. Second, Reward Zone points can be transferred into airline points through Points.com.

1,000 Reward Zone Points (as of 3/16/13) can be traded into:

170 Areoplan Miles
131 AAdvantage Miles
255 Asia Miles
139 Frontier Miles
255 Priority Club Points
131 United Mileage Plus Miles
237 US Airway Miles
124 Alaskan Airways Miles
200 Amtrak Miles
107 Virgin Atlantic Miles

While transferring Reward Zone points into miles won't earn you a ton of miles directly. Many times airlines have promotions that give you bonus miles when you complete partner activities ie US Airways GrandSlam RIP, Delta's New Member Bonus, or United's 25% Bonus.

Since Best Buy's Reward Zone is free, it can't hurt to sign up. Worst case, I transfer all the miles to an airline through Points.com.





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Delta takes 49% Stake in Virgin Atlantic

As we have previously mentioned Delta has been in talks with Singapore Airlines and Virgin Atlantic to buy out Singapore's 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic. The move allows Delta more space at Heathrow and the option to increase flights to London, great news for those heading to the other side of the pond.

The New York Times confirms this morning that Delta will indeed take over Singapore's stake at a cool $360 million. That is a huge discount from the 2000 purchasing price for Singapore which was at $966 million.

Delta will be applying for antitrust protection from the US and the EU to allow for schedule coordination which will hopefully see an expanded schedule from more destinations for US-LHR flights.

Delta Interested in Singapore's 49 Percent Stake in Virgin Atlantic?

In this morning's Wall Street Journal is an interesting report that Delta is currently in talks with Singapore Airlines to buy their 49 percent stake in Virgin Atlantic. Singapore first purchased their stake in Virgin Atlantic in 1999 and the investment has failed to pan out for their bottom line, so it's not really a surprise that they are trying to get rid of it.

What is surprising is that Delta is the other airline that is interested in purchasing the stake. Analysts believe that the  reason Delta is angling to invest in Virgin Atlantic is to increase their gate options at London Heathrow so they can offer more flights to LHR and use Virgin Atlantic gates as a parking spot.

UPDATE: A more in-depth article is over at Marketplace that explains why Delta can only buy 49 percent, but European based Air France-KLM could take a controlling stake.

UPDATE 2 Tuesday Dec. 4: In this mornings WSJ was a great article on how more slots for Delta at Heathrow would fill a hole for the airline.