A Crowne Plaza Stay Earn Me 22,917 Points

The other weekend, I did a mattress run to the Crowne Plaza DCA (National Airport) to complete 1 night for IHG's The Big Win Promotion. The cost of the night was $79 and I got breakfast and a drink out of it.
(Hotel Review to Follow).

A week after my stay, I checked my account to see if the stay credit and I was a little shocked:

I earned 22,917 points for one stay...say what?

I understood 945 points, as I bought dinner at the hotel, but could not figure out the other bonus points. Why did I get these points? Then it hit me! A few weeks early, View from the Wing wrote about stacking IHG promo codes and I must have load the promo codes into my account. 

What Are Promo Codes?

Promo Codes are the secret weapons to earn a lot of miles on stays. Each promo code is different, but overall they offer you xxxx points after stay xxxx amount of times. Most of the time you earn bonus points with one stay, as m account shows. View From the Wing's post has an excellent list of the promo codes, but also check out this Flyertalk Thread.

If you have a stay at an IHG brand hotel coming up, you would be silly not to load them to your account.

My one word of caution is to be careful about which ones you load. Don't load similar ones like Elite Bonus twice, as it will only work once. Save the second code for a later date.

Oh btw, I also earn 1,000 points for my first stay of The Big Win -

This one $79 stay almost earned me enough points for stay at the Intercontinental Buenos Aires.

On to the next stay.....

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Sometimes Leaving Points On The Table Is Ok!!!

I received an email from Southwest offering me 500 Bonus Points if I buy or gift Rapid Reward points:

Most of the time, I would jump at 500 points, but not this offer.

According to the terms and conditions, to earn the 500 points you have to buy or gift at least 1,000 points.
The cost to purchase or gift 1,000 points is $27.50

I have no need to buy or gift points. If I participated in this deal, in essence I would spending $27.50 for 1500 points or $0.01833 per point. Most bloggers agree that 1 Rapid Reward point is only worth $0.0163.
Therefore, I would be overpaying to earn 500 points.

Its ok to sometimes leave points on the table!

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Earn 1,000 US Airways Dividend Miles For Every $100 Best Western Gift Card

Best Western and US Airways have hooked up to offer an interesting offer.

The offer is very similar to the United & Marriott offer that ended last month. Buy a $100 Best Western Gift Card and earn 1,000 US Airways miles. According to the terms and condition, there is no limit on the amount of miles you can earn. The offer is good until November 30, 2013.

Unlike the United/Marriott offer, you need to register for Best Western Reward program & switch your earning preference to earn US Airways Dividend Miles. If you don't switch your earning preference on the Best Western account, you won't earn the bonus points for purchasing gift cards.

If you have stays at Best Western coming up, buying gift cards now is a great idea!

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Recap: Ways to Earn United Miles

Since we are past the half way point of our month long series on earning United miles, I though a post summarizing the ways discussed already was in order. The links below take you to that day's article.

Day 1: Flying

Day 2: Insurance

Day 3: e-Miles

Day 4: Buy / Transfer Miles

Day 5: Exchange Gift Cards

Day 6: Shopping Portals

Day 7: Tickets to Shows

Day 8:  Social Media

Day 9:  Credit Cards

Day 10: Mortgages

Day 11: Hotel Stays

Day 12: Super Shuttle

Day 13: Buy Wine

Day 14: Amtrak

Day 15: Renting Cars

Day 16: Peapod

Day 17: Eating Out

Day 18: Electricity Bills

I hope this series has helped you to see that there are many ways to earn United/Airline miles.

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 Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com

US Airways Grand Slam Lite - My Plan

US Airways bummed many of us by not renewing Grand Slam, last year. In its place, US Airways has offered various bonuses for buying and trading miles, but no real replacement to Grand Slam. That is until last week.

As reported here, here, here, here and many other places, one can earn bonus points by making purchases through US Airways Partners. The amount of bonus points one earns is determined by the number of purchases completed:

Number of purchases	Bonus miles
1 - 3	25%
4 - 6	50%
7 - 9	75%
10 - 12	100%

Let's call each purchase a "hit," because I like to bring up old memories. One can get a "hit" for shopping at the following merchants from April 22, 2013 to June 23, 2013:

• 1800Flowers (25 miles per $1)
• FTD       (25 miles per $1)
• FedEx    (1 mile per $1)
• Teleflora (15 miles per $1)
• Vinesse (2000 miles, when you order 6 bottles of wine)
• Wine Insiders (1000 miles, when you order 12 bottles of wine)
• Dividend Miles StoreFront (varies - must spend $50 to count for hit)
• SkyMall (10 miles per $1)
• DM Dining (varies)

One important part of the deal is that for a Storefront purchase to count towards this promotion it must be a minimum of $50. There are no minimums, at the moment, for the other partners, but that might change. 

My Plan

I have spent the past week thinking about my plan to get to 12 hits. Here is my road map for this promotion:

Hits 1-6 - Dining Rewards

Hit 7 - SkyMall

Hit 8 & 9- FTD/1800 Flowers - Mother's Day Gifts

Hit 10 - Wine Insiders

Hit 11 - Dividend Storefront (Best Buy)

Hit 12 - Dividend Storefront (Kiehl's)

Things might changed on who I use for Dividend Storefront based upon changes to the amount of points per dollar merchants offer. However, I need items from Kiehl's and Best Buy; therefore, it would be wasted money.

My plan is to only spend $100 on wasted items ie things I don't need. We will see if I am able to get 12 hits with only $100 wasted...

Important Steps to Do Now!

First, register for the promotion, here. 

Second, register most of my credit cards for US Airways Dining Rewards.

Finally, create a Google Spreadsheet to track hits.

I will blog about my progress in the next few months .  . .

Happy Batting!!!!

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