Triangle Trip

In order to stay competitive with American, United and Delta’s double elite qualifying (EQM) miles offers, USAir is offering a super fast track to Preferred status. All you need to do is fly 7,500 miles (or 10 segments) between October 1 and December 25, 2009 to get Silver Preferred status. The normal way to qualify for Silver Preferred is the airline industry standard 25,000 flight miles or 30 segments.

This USAir promotion is the best fast track program out there! Assuming you haven’t flown a single mile in 2009, all the Double EQM programs require you to fly 12,500 miles to get Silver (vs. USAir’s 7,500). FYI, here are links to the other three promotions:

*  American’s Double Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM)

*  Delta’s Double Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQM) + Delta MQM Rollover

*  United’s Double Elite Qualifying Miles or Elite Qualifying Segments

This is USAir’s way of saying: “we screwed you and thank you for being loyal all year round” to its most loyal customers like the Coach who has been flying on USAir all year. To soften the blow, this is what USAir posted on their website:

Don’t worry, the miles you fly will also count towards the total miles you flew for the year – you’ll be awarded the highest status between the two. So if you fly 55,000 Preferred miles for the year but only end up flying 8,000 Preferred miles during the promotion period, you’ll still earn Gold status for the year.

The Coach definitely has enough actual miles or segments to qualify for Platinum Preferred in 2010 but probably won’t have enough flight miles between October 1 to December 25, 2009 to get 30,000 miles to qualify for Chairman. The end result:  Coach won’t benefit from this promotion but someone else may trump him and get Chairman Preferred status with much lesser flight miles. Coach will probably have 92,000 flight miles at the end of the year and 23,000 flight miles during the promotion period which means he’ll be stuck at Platinum.  I should take six (6) coast to coast round trips and make Chairman just to piss off the Coach.

Here’s how the rest of the fast track to Preferred status promotion works:

• Fly 7,500 miles or 10 segments and earn Silver Preferred status
• Fly 15,000 miles or 20 segments and earn Gold Preferred status
• Fly 22,500 miles or 30 segments and earn Platinum Preferred status
• Fly 30,000 miles or 40 segments and earn Chairman’s Preferred status

FYI, below is a chart showing the USAir Preferred status benefits:

Here’s a tip that can save you at least $40 a day on your next car rentals in New York City! If you live or work in NYC ((Manhattan or even one of the other four other boroughs) and want to rent a car for the weekend or a day, you would normally pick up the car in the city because it’s the most convenient location. Picking up a car from Manhattan generally comes with a price. Renting from one of the major car rental companies such as Hertz, Avis or National will cost you $90 to $120 per day if you choose to pick up the car from a Manhattan location.

To save up to $40 per day (and sometimes even more if you shop on Hotwire or Priceline), choose LaGuardia Airport (LGA) or JFK Airport as your pick up location and pick any NYC location as your return. Cars rented from JFK and LGA generally cost $50 to $85 a day, depending on availability.

Concerned about one way rental drop off fees? You won’t need to worry. All major car rental companies treat their NYC locations, including Manhattan, as one return location. Most car rental companies actually want you to bring cars from the airport into the city because the NYC rental car locations are usually parking lots, too small to hold enough cars during busy times like weekends. Some car rental companies, like Avis, also reward you for bringing cars back to the airport (see my previous post about one way rentals from/to Newark).

In summary, reserve your rental car to be picked up at LGA or JFK and set the return location to be somewhere in NYC. Hop on a train from Manhattan after work, and head to LGA or JFK to pick up a rental car; drop it off at NYC after you’re done. Here’s one of my previous posts on: How to take public transit to/from JFK.

For a 40 minute train to bus ride, you can save an extra $40 a day to pay for gas! You can mail me a check with a thank you note (actually leaving a comment on this post is fine).

Following up from my post on August 18, 2009, Prediction: SPG Rollover Nights is on the way…, Starwood sent emails to its 2009 Platinum members to register for what they called their “Nights Advance” promotion — “An opportunity to get started on Platinum re-qualification for 2010.” With the nights advance promotion, all the nights AND stays from October 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009 will count toward SPG elite status for 2010. Furthermore, stays and nights earned during the promotional period will count towards Platinum level re-qualification for 2009 and 2010. Make sure you register by November 30, 2009 (here’s the link).

For more information, here’s a link to SPG’s FAQ which is extremely helpful. According to the FAQ, you will see the “rollover nights” show up by January 31, 2010.

This is a great move by SPG to keep its current and future Platinum members happy and loyal to SPG properties. Personally, this new rollover nights promotion is a huge incentive for me to continue booking at SPG properties; I was actually contemplating on switching to Hilton for the rest of the year before the announcement.

Additionally, SPG has not taken away the 500 bonus points reward option; Platinum members that have reached status for the next year can still enjoy extra points, complimentary drink, or a movie when they check in. Lets hope the hotels continue to give us the free water every night.