The Juggle Zone: Bargain Blog

Airlines have it good. They whine, they complain, they file for bankruptcy (then remain in business for years to follow). But in the end, most do fine.

However, they compete, a little, with each other. While there is no question in my mind that in general they are in cahoots with each other, there is a bit of competition that takes place every once in while. Each airline is always looking for a way to get ahead, cut costs, attract more passengers, etc.

And it was to this end that the various Frequent Flier programs were born. Once an airline got you to fly once or twice, you'd want to continue flying that airline, to accrue enough miles for a free ticket.

But over time, ticket costs decreased, flying increased, and accrued miles increased as well. So many free tickets were being redeemed that airlines were losing money, so they changed the rules. They instituted rules that govern the maximum number of seats per flight available for free tickets and increased the number of miles required to obtain a free ticket (20,000 -> 25,000 for domestic in most cases).

Nonetheless, deals remain.

Having never flown British Air, I had 0 miles on the airline until recently. However, our two trips to Europe, combined with 10,000 miles each from a Jaguar test drive promotion brought our household* account up to 49,366, just shy of 2 domestic tickets. I've since been looking for easy ways to earn a few more miles.

We once stayed in a Sheraton Hotel, for which I earned 250 Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints. Later, I took a Starpoints survey, and earned another 250 points. As I began to research transferring points, I discovered that Starpoints can be converted to British Air miles, but given that I a) still don't have enough Starwood points to hit the 50,000 mile mark, and b) can't convert less than a certain minimum number of Starwood points (2,500 for ordinary folk), that didn't help.

So I've been working on ways of earning a few more, without going to any great expense (one can buy miles from British, but it's $27.50 for 1,000, plus a $25 transaction fee, which is entirely too much.

During my investigation, I discovered that you can have your Starwood account set to automatically transfer newly earned Starwood points to British Air, and signed up for the service. (Since the service only transfers points as they're earned, it didn't move my existing 500 points.)

Then I did nothing for quite a while, until I was sent to a conference in DC, and chose the Sheraton hotel over another hotel because of these points (these loyalty programs do work). I earned 300 points for my one night stay.

Just yesterday I got an email regarding my latest Starwood statement being available, and went to check it. By now I had completely forgotten about the points transfer service, so when I saw 300 points earned, and 300 points deducted by British Air, I was confused. I called Starwood to find out what happened, and the CSR explained the transfer agreement to me, which refreshed my memory, and I was satisfied. But entirely of the CSR's own accord, he offered 500 points to make up for the confusion, which I readily accepted. (He also asked if I wanted to maintain the points transfer service!) It will be a few days before they're credited, but if they auto-transfer to BA, I'll be all set! If not, I'll still have a few hundred miles to go.

*British Air has a nice feature that allows up to 4 people in the same house to combine their miles towards redemption.