DIRECTV

My mom has DIRECTV at her home and every time I go home I curse it. I think it is slow and the quality is questionable. However, my mom LOVES it. Since she is paying the bill that's what matter.

Yesterday, I received an email offering 30,000 miles for those who switch to DIRECTV and sign-up for a 24 month contract of the Entertainment Package or higher. 

The offer states, "MilagePlus and DIRECTV have joined together to bring you an exciting new way to earn award miles. Now when you switch to DIRECRV, you'll earn 25,000 award miles, plus 5,000 bonus miles just for being a MilagePlus Cardmember."

The offer page does not mention that you need the MileagePlus credit card. It does mention that you need a credit card to apply except in PA or MA. So, I don't know which one is correct. If you apply for this offer, take snap shots of the landing page and the terms and conditions.

If you didn't get the offer via email, you can get 25,000 miles with the offer found here.

If you are fed-up with your cable company, this may be a good time to switch to DIRECTV.

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Recap of 31 Days of Earning United Miles (Posts So Far)

Since we are 3/4 of the way through July, here is a recap of all the posts so far. 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

Day 19: eRewards

Day 20: Transfer from Hotels

Day 21: Gilt

Day 22: RocketMiles (PointsHound broke up with United...no longer a way to earn)

Day 23: Investments

Day 24: Thanks Again

Day 25: Send Flowers

Day 26: Points.com

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

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Earn Miles By Transferring from Points.com

This is again one of those "I don't know if this is the best value for your miles, please do your research, have your goal and see if this is the best way to earn miles" posts. Points.com is a website that helps track your point balances in your frequent flyer accounts.

The service is free and has helped me keep track of my account numbers for airline and hotel loyalty programs. One of the most unique features of Points.com is the ability to trade or swap points between two different loyalty programs. I will discuss both options below:

Trade Points

Points.com allows you the opportunity to trade your points in one particular loyalty program with someone else's points in another loyalty program. The trade could be 1:1 or another amount.  Here are some examples of trades that were offered to me:

To complete the trade you will have to pay a fee. As you can see, the fee gets more expensive as the amount miles being trade increases. Is this a good deal? It depends on the offer and your need at the moment.

Swap Points

The other options is to swap points from one loyalty program to another. The transfer rates depend upon the program. For instance, here is what you would need to trade to earn 1,000 United Mileage Plus miles:

None of the transfer rates are particularly attractive. If you have orphan points in a loyalty account transferring to another program might be a good idea. However, transferring points just to earn more Mileage Plus miles is a terrible idea.

Below is a list of loyalty programs participating with Points.com:

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I Got Punk'd By United and Chase

I came home today from work to a mailer from Chase:

My Chase United anniversary package came. Inside was a nice letter thanking me for my loyalty ...

 And a nice brochure with pretty pictures:

  When I opened up the brochure, I found this:

 "Be our guest....twice. Enjoy these passes when you travel," but there was no passes attached. I saw the sticky glue thingy, but nothing attached. How am I suppose to be your guest without passes?

I called Chase and spoke with a representative. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I received my anniversary package today, but the club passes were missing.

Chase: Did you check the entire package?

Me: Yes, I see the glue, but nothing was attached. I checked the empty envelope and nothing was in it.

Chase: Did you check the brochure?

Me: Yes, the glue is there, but nothing is attached.

Chase: Hmmm...Silence for close to a minute.

Me: Is there someone else I should speak to?

Chase: No, I don't know how to handle this. I have noted your account and asked for this to be escalated.

Me: Ok

Chase: You will receive a letter with our determination in about a week.

Me: Will I get new passes?

Chase: Yes, in 3-6 weeks.

Me: Thank you???

3 to 6 weeks to receive replacement passes seems excessive. I can wait, I don't really need the passes anytime soon. However, punking someone in a letter thanking for my loyalty is not good customer service practice. 

All I can do is wait . . . 

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Send Flowers and Earn Miles

Do you need to send flowers to that special someone in your life or just one of your family and friends that you feel would appreciate a good bouquet of flowers or gift basket? If you do and are considering using FTD flowers, you might also consider earning some United miles in the process.

Currently, FTD and United are offering you 25 points per $1 spent on flowers and gifts purchased through FTD.

FTD places the number of miles you will earn under each product. For instance, this bouquet earns 1,000 miles:

It is important for me to point out that you may be paying a premium for earning miles for with your purchase. For instance, the same flower arrangement above is only $34.99 when going through FTD.com directly, not through United's link.

In this case, $5 extra for 1000 miles might be worth it. Here is another example, the opening page of FTD shows an offer for roses at $19.99:

Here is the bouquet for $19.99, very nice.

Now here is the opening page through the United FTD link:

And that same bouquet of colored roses is now $39.99:

Is paying $20 more for 1,000 miles worth it? That's a personal choice.  

As you can see, you need to comparison shop when receiving an incentive from flower companies online. In addition, I believe these products are quite more expensive than just the flowers at the store down the street or with your local florist. I have found that the delivery charges are also quite steep. But, if you are doing some comparison shopping of the different vendors and what you are comfortable spending...you might as well check out the options!

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Earn Points at Airports: Thanks Again

I love earning points, when I have to do little to nothing to get them. Swipe my credit cards (earn points!), dine out at certain restaurants (earn additional points!!), grab a bottle of water, magazine and snack at the airport (earn bonus points!!!).

How many of you know that you can earn points at major airports by registering your card?

Up until last year’s US Airways Grandslam, I didn’t.

There is a program called “Thanks Again,” that allows you to earn points by shopping at vendors located in major airports. Thanks You is very similar to Dining Rewards: one has to sign-up (free) with a points earning program and register your credit cards with that program. Unlike, Dining Rewards, you don’t have to complete surveys about your experience.

Thanks You currently has programs with US Airways, United, American Airlines, Delta. Again, you can only earn miles with the program that you are registered with. Most vendors at the airports earn you 1 mile for $1 spent. However, every once and a while a vendor might offer 2 miles per $1 spent.

According to their website, Thanks Again has afflictions with over 150 airports. However, their "affiliation" is sometimes only a car service and/or an entertainment store as in the case of LAX, MCO, SAN. You can use this search engine to see what merchants participate at particular airports:

How can you tell if a merchant is participating? My experience, at Dulles (IAD), was that merchants had signs up indicating they were a member. The type of vendors participating was numerous: from sit-down restaurants to kiosks selling jewelry. According to their website, Dulles has only 3 vendors: CNBC, Brooks Brothers and DC Express. However, my points earning statement says I have earned points (in the past month) from Gordon Biersch and Subway, so the search engaging might not be updated.

In addition to earning points at airports, Thanks Again allows you to earn points at local (non-airport) vendors. Most of the local vendors ares restaurants and require you to buy Restaurant.com gift certificates, earning you 3 points per $1 spent on the certificate. This is not a great rate, as the United Airlines shopping portal earns you 10 miles per $1 spent. Other local merchants include spas, storage units, and golf courses.  As I have previously mentioned, my former dry cleaners was apart of Thanks Again earning me 1 points per $1 spent.

Thanks Again has bonuses based upon the amount of money who spend in 90 consecutive days:

Earn 500 bonus miles/points when you spend $250 or more (2 miles/points per dollar spent)

Earn 1,500 bonus miles/points when you spend $500 or more (3 miles/points per dollar spent)

Earn 4,000 bonus miles/points when you spend $1,000 or more (4 miles/points per dollar spent)

Earn 25,000 bonus miles/points when you spend $5,000 or more (5 miles/points per dollar spent)

All it takes to earn points from Thanks Again is signing up and registering your credit cards.

Will you earn a ton of points by joining "Thanks Again," probably not!

Can you earn points for simplying registering your credit cards and using it at airports? Yes!

Will you? I think it would be unwise not to!!!!

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Investments

United Airlines has partnerships with Fidelity and ShareBuilder that allows MileagePlus customers the opportunity to earn miles for signing-up and investing money with these companies. The amount of miles you can earn is determined by the amount of money you have to invest. The good new is between the two companies there is an option for people at all investment levels.

For those who have $25,000+ to invest, Fidelity's offer is better.

Fidelity currently offers MilagePlus customers the opportunity to earn up to 50,000 Mileage. The current offer is tiered with those investing $25,000 to $49,999.99 earning 15,000 miles, $50,000 to $99,999.99 earning 25,000 miles and $100,000+ earning 50,000 miles.

The terms and conditions state that you must open a new non-retirement account or add new money to an existing brokerage account. Those opening a new account have 60 days to transfer the funds to earn money; while those adding new money to an existing account have 30 days to make the transfer to qualify for the miles.

For those with significantly less money to invest, like me, Sharebuilder is the offer to look at.

The current offer from ShareBuilder is 2,000 miles after opening a new account and making your first trade.

The offer does not have restrictions on the type of account, other than it being an investment/brokerage. You can open up general investment, retirement or custodial accounts.

Also, unlike the Fidelity offer, there is no minimum investment required. However, you will need enough money to complete your first trade; therefore, you could call that the minimum investment.

I would be remiss not to give a warning here. Investing money comes at a cost. Each of the companies charges to make trades on your behalf. Please look at the cost sheet before making the decision to sign-up for either promotion. If, like me, you are in the market to start investing money, these are good (not great - I have seen better) offers to use.

Happy Investing!


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