Mileage deals

Traveling for the holidays is usually a headache, but what makes it worse is paying a lot for the privilege.  Next year, travel free with miles from a handful of good deals that likely won't last very long:

• 100,000 or 75,000 AAdvantage miles: A small step down from last year's slightly more generous offers, Citi is still giving away up to 100,000 miles for signing up for a credit card (no annual fee for the first year). The offers are 1) 75,000 miles after spending $4,000 within 6 months and 2) 50,000 miles after spending $2,500 in 6 months, 25,000 after $10,000 in your first year, and 25,000 after $10,000 in your second year.  This deal expires February 28, 2011.
• 30,000 Continental OnePass miles (+$50 statement credit): The Continental OnePass card from Chase is a pretty good offer.  It's not as attractive as the American offer, but the big reason to do it now is that typically you can only get one mileage bonus per program (the AAdvantage card above is an exception).  And since Continental OnePass will be merged into United Mileage Plus at the end of 2011, this is your last chance to pick up 30,000 Continental miles for very little effort.
• 10,000 United miles: Chase also has a checking account offer that you can usually churn (i.e. close your account and repeat) reliably.

United Airlines sale on award travel

(expires July 24)

Redeem your United mileage for award travel in the next week and a half, and you'll give up 20% fewer miles for those hard-to-find seats.  Don't worry about United's notorious Starnet blocking (where they tell customers seats on Star Alliance flights are available even though they are), because this promotion applies only to United flights.  It's true they bumped up the mileage requirements just recently, but some rates are the lowest in several years (especially Hawaii!)

Just start your booking from this page, and you're good to go!

• Hawaii for 30,000 miles (vs. 40,000)


• Central America & Caribbean for 25,000 miles (vs. 35,000)


• Europe for 44,000 miles (vs. 55,000)