Mileage and Point Reward Status (August 2011)

This is my monthly recap where I look at what reward programs we were able to add miles or points to over the previous period. Unfortunately, I was not to inspired by any of the current offers out there to open new credit cards this past month. As I mentioned previously, unless some really amazing deal comes along, I am holding out to see if I can find a great Continental Airlines offer prior to the merge. Earnings were small this month, but I am looking forward to the next month or two to see if we can rack up some hefty miles from the US Airways Grand Slam promotion. Stay tuned for future details of our progress.

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The following is a brief summary of the things we have done in the past month to build up our accounts.

Delta SkyMiles– Audience Rewards trivia questions in all three of our accounts.

United Mileage Plus- No change. My wife was invited to earn 1,000 miles for every two transactions with United Months of Miles promo. That has potential for some big runs on miles using the dining program. However, we order pictures through the United Shopping portal via Walgreens, and I have yet to receive any notification from the shopping portal on the purchase. Tracking down miles can be so frustrating. It should be a crime when these companies do not pay the miles they say they will when the customer follows the correct procedures. It has only been about two weeks though since our order, so I will follow-up with United to check on our miles.

Continental OnePass- No change, but I finally figured out where those mystery 1,000 miles came from in our accounts. A Mileathon Bonus back in April showed up. I do not remember what we did to get them, but I will take it.

US Airways Dividend Miles– Toolbar use and Audience Rewards trivia in both of our accounts. Also, I received 32 miles from what I assume is creating a Baby to Bee account via the US Airways shopping mall thanks to a tip from Million Mile Secrets. The offer showed 31 miles, but I can not figure out any other reason the miles were in my account from the shopping portal.

American Airlines AAdvantage– Like many, many other people, I took a gamble last month with the Verizon Wireless 83,000+ mile gamble for the $5 chargers. I never posted about the offer because I knew it was too good to be true, and by the time I acted, it was later in the day and every other blogger had mentioned it. Plus I figured the offer would be pulled at any moment.

The only notification I ever received from the American Airlines shopping portal was about two 500 mile new member bonuses on my wife and both my sons accounts. My account never received the new member bonus miles. As it’s been discussed all over the internet, American Airlines does not actually run their shopping mall, and neither does any other airline. It is a complete pull the wool over the consumers eyes moment. I stayed quiet on the matter and did not write about it until the dust really settled. Except, I never heard a single word from the company, Cartera Commerce, who actually runs the website. Since our purchases still never showed in our accounts, I decided to reach out to Cartera to see when the purchase will show in my account. This week I received a message that they would give us 2,500 miles for our trouble as it was an error, which everyone knew from the beginning.

I will take the 2,500 miles for our gamble, although I do not completely agree with how the situation is being handled, specifically that Cartera Commerce never bothered to notify anyone unless they specifically reached out to them. Very poor business practice, and I now second guess every purchase through these shopping portals because I seem to always have to track down where my miles are, as they never show in my account like they were supposed too.

The 2,500 bonus miles did not posted to any of our accounts in August, so look for them to show up in our September summary.

Hilton HHonors– No change.

Priority Club Rewards- No change.

Starwood Preferred Guest– We have slowly been building SPG points via the Audience Rewards broadway show trivia questions posted weekly.

Note, we also have reward accounts with AirTran, Southwest, Frontier, Choice Hotels, and Wyndham Rewards, but since we do not really use them, there is little advantage in including them in this list. I debated about including Southwest Airlines, since we do have some of the old credits from the previous Rapid Rewards program; however, after looking at what we would need to earn in the new point system to receive an award before they expire (old points still appear to expire), makes it unlikely that we will ever get anything out of the system.

What I am really trying to get at is every little bit of miles/points counts. I am surprised myself that since opening AAdvantage accounts for all of us in Feb. 2011, we have amassed 9,500 + 10,000 (future Cartera miles discussed above) miles with never setting foot on a plane. Let me know your success stories.