Thanks to Christopher B. entry number 260! You won the 25k Delta SkyMiles!

Thank you to the more than 350 individuals who entered the giveaway over the past 2 weeks! I plan on offering more giveaways in the near future so be sure to check the Facebook page, Google Plus, or Twitter page for any announcements.

Since The Points Guide has over 550,000 airline miles, I thought I would offer up some free miles to help one lucky person pay for part or all of their Holiday plane ticket! I know how important family is and sometimes getting a flight on Thanksgiving or Christmas cost too much! While using as little as 25,000 airline miles you can save a few hundred dollars. Maybe you have some miles, but this would put you over the amount needed for First Class!

To enter the raffle, all you need to do is fill out the form below. Follow each step to get more than 1 entry. The more times you enter the better your chances of winning. Please keep in mind that one entry can be done once a day, adding to your total entries.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you register for all entries, you can have 12 total entries plus have 1 extra entry per day that you tweet our message for a total of 23 entries. The more you have the better your chances of winning!

After you have entered the raffle let us know in the comments! I love to hear from those who visit my website!

Some Travel Bloggers & other companies supporting this giveaway. Check them out!

For more ways of earning free airline miles, not just for Delta check out our website!

How many entries can you get

You can have a maximum of 23 entries in this raffle.

*This raffle is not endorsed by any company or affiliate. I am not endorsing Delta, nor are they sponsoring this giveaway. This giveaway is being done by the owner of The Points Guide and the winner will have to provide their full name, email address and Delta SkyMiles number in order to receive the miles. A phone number and other contact information may also be needed. If you do not agree to these terms, do not enter.

I just started another business but since I know I would not be able to meet the minimum spending requirement within the first 4 months I’ll have to wait until the next offer, (seems to be a couple of times a year).

I got in on this offer back in May and received the 75,000 AMEX points, which are still in my account.

This offer is for today only!

What makes this offer so great is the number of membership rewards points you can earn in such a short period of time. If you take those point and leverage them, you can really add up the number of airline miles you have in either Delta or British Airways.

American Express and Delta have not offered a transfer bonus in almost a year, although British Airways had a 50% transfer bonus back in May.

If you had 75,000 membership rewards points and took advantage of that transfer bonus, you could have added 112,500 Avios to your BA account; (75,000 MR points + 37,500 additional 50% bonus points). The same bonus can happen with Delta. Delta has offered between 20%-50% transfer bonuses in the past.

How many plane tickets would 112,500 SkyMiles give you? If you were able to find tickets as low as 25,000 SkyMiles, you could have 4 free domestic plane tickets just from this offer. Even at their higher economy class ticket prices, 40,000 SkyMiles would give you almost 3 free tickets. Most of the time I find economy class tickets with Delta at 25,000 – 32,500 SkyMiles and First Class from 50,000 – 62,500 SkyMiles. -It all depends on where you are flying to and when you are flying.

Here are the detail you need to know:

Be sure to note that their terms of service state “Welcome bonus offer not available to applicants who have had this product or any Business Gold, Green or Platinum Card account within the last 12 months.” Technically I would not qualify for this offer since I applied for it in May. I am not sure if they would see a completely different business under the same light, doesn’t hurt to try. Or you could have your spouse apply for the card if you both run a business together.

Since they state ‘business‘ cards, if you have their personal cards you should be able to qualify for this offer. All business cards are pulled from your personal SSN, so technically anyone can apply for a business card as long as you have filed for a sole proprietorship in your state. If you get declined be sure to call American Express’s reconsideration line at 866-314-0237.

With the end of the year comes the scrambling of mile earners as they either need to reach a specific amount of miles to keep their status or to push them over into the next level up. Since we are almost at 60 days before the end of the year, time is rapidly running out. This post is based on Delta and their rewards program.

I’m thinking about opening a Delta Amex card. Do you have any opinion on the best time to do this?

If you remember, last year Delta/AMEX offered a credit card that gave 25,000 MQMs as a sign up bonus. That one sign up bonus made a lot of people happy! Not only was it enough to push anyone over a status threshold but it allowed for many people to advance to the next status level. Delta has 4 different rewards statuses starting from:

You can learn more about the benefits of each Delta status here. 25,000 MQMs (the miles that actually count for statuses) would instantly give you a status with Delta.

I would not wait or hedge my bet that Delta would offer that kind of incentive this late into the season.

If you are a few thousand miles (MQMs) short of a status or from holding onto your status the following year, you still have time to get miles, either by travel or credit card signups.

I know this can get confusing so I am going to try to lay this out as simple as possible. There are 4 different American Express Delta credit cards that currently give you miles (possibly more), they are:

Offer 1

Offer 2

Offer 3

Offer 4

Other than signing up for a credit card that offers MQMs, you would have to either fly to earn those miles or find another offer that gives MQMs. Right now Hertz is offering 250 MQMs for booking a car rental through them.

You can also get 250 Delta MQMs by registering and staying at a Hilton hotel from now until December 15th. Register for this deal here.

With about two months left of the year, don’t wait until the last few weeks to scramble to keep your status. People who have been a few hundred miles short of keeping their status have successfully called Delta and asked for ‘those’ miles. Let that be your last ditch effort, but don’t wait. Start planning now in order to keep your medallion status with Delta.

If you know of other ways to earn MQMs, please share! Offers come and go so these offers may be out of date.

This might come in handy if you are looking to get away this winter. Hawaii is a great place to go!

FlipKey Travel Trends: Hawaii by vacation rentals site FlipKey.com

This offer is worth mentioning because normally you never find a deal like this.

To get miles that actually count towards a rank advancement you must either fly on a paid ticket or spend a lot on a credit card that is offering those miles, usually the airline’s own credit card, such as the American Express Delta Credit Card.

(My wife and I were both able to earn 25,000 MQMs from a credit card offer with American Express last October).

Hertz is offering two different deals for Delta SkyMiles. Your personal situation will depend on which offer works best for you.

Offer 1

Offer 2

Now until the end of November you can earn 250 Delta MQM miles from hertz, plus an additional 250 regular miles. MQM miles are the miles that actually count towards a rank advancement. Meaning that if you have 24,500 MQMs for the year and its almost the end of December, if you do not reach the next threshold, you will lose your airline status.

With Delta these are the status qualification levels:

If you are close to a rank advancement then the 250 MQM deal is probably right for you. Towards the end of the year its always best to keep track on how far you are for either keeping your status or if you are close to a rank advancement.

For instance, if you have earned 49,500 qualifying miles with Delta, then renting a car right about now should be on your agenda. You would be 500 miles away from earning the next status with Delta.. Gold.

But if you know you won’t be close to earning the next level or close to a rank advancement, then go for the 3,400 airline miles.

Be sure you research each deal fully as Hertz will give you more miles for renting for longer periods of time.

If you know of any other great deals for earning free miles please let me know!

You can also follow me on Twitter or Facebook or why not signup to receive new blog post via email or in RSS reader

Offer 1 Terms – This offer is valid on any vehicle with a completed rental of 3 days or more at a participating airport location in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

This bonus is only for new dining members, so if you already have an account this won’t work for you. You can however have your wife or husband open their own account, register for this bonus and earn the 2,000 free Delta SkyMiles.

Delta seems to offer the highest bonuses with their dining program. Every airline has their own dining program to earn miles so if you aren’t registered with your airlines dining program then you are missing out on free miles!

To register for this offer, click here.

Currently there are 4 ways of earning free rewards points, I will show you 3 ways here:

First Earn 500 Hilton HHonors Points For First Hotel Stay

I recently joined their rewards program because my wife and I were staying at the Singer Island, FL Hilton and whenever I travel I try to capture all of the rewards points possible.

Currently you can register for a new Hilton HHonors account and receive 500 free rewards points on your first stay. Right after booking my first hotel with Hilton I was offered 500 bonus points for listening to their offers. I thought I could spare a few minutes to listen to whatever offers they had, knowing I would not spend extra money on what offers they had.

Earn 1,000 Hilton HHonor Points For Registering With Hilton Worldwide

You can also receive 1,000 more Hilton HHonors points by signing up for their 5,000 Skywards Miles.

If you are a new Hilton HHonors member you can register for this deal and receive the 1,000 bonus points for doing nothing but registering. You do have to enter your account number and pin number in order to register for the deal.

Link To 1,000 Hilton HHonors Points By Register With Hilton Worldwide

Earn 500 Hilton HHonors Points For Linking Facebook Account

You can earn a quick 500 bonus points by linking your Hilton account to Facebook. This was one of the easier ways of earning 500 points but they will take 6 to 8 weeks to be deposited into my account. They have also limited this offer to the first 40,000 members to link their accounts to Facebook.

Link To 500 Hilton HHonors Points By Linking Facebook

Most rewards start at 7,500 for a category 1 hotel and go up to as high as 80,000 points.

Be sure to check out my post on how to get 500 Free Hilton HHonor points for watching a video on their facebook page, this offer ends soon

Here are the terms of the 5000 Skywards Miles offer:

To participate, you must register at http://www.hiltonhhonors.com/skywards5000. Offer is valid for eligible stays completed after registration, at participating hotels between October 1 2012 and December 31 2012.

HHonors members choosing Fixed miles award will earn 500 base Skywards Miles for each of the first and second stays, plus 4,000 bonus Skywards Miles after their second stay only. HHonors members choosing Variable Miles award, will earn one Skywards Mile per one USD spent for the first and second stays, plus 4,000 bonus Skywards Miles after their second stay only.

Customers must be an HHonors member to earn bonus miles. Customers that are not HHonors members and who subsquently enroll in the programme will receive an additional 1,000 Hilton HHonors bonus points upon registration via this promotion only.

There is no mileage collection eligible for Hampton by Hilton and Home2Suites hotels. Hilton HHonors members must have their earning preference set to ‘Points & Miles’ and must have ‘Skywards’ as the preferred airline partner.

Skywards Miles accrued and awards issued are subject to Skywards Terms and Conditions. Hilton HHonors membership, earning of Points & Miles, and redemption of points are subject to HHonors Terms and Conditions.

If you close the ‘share’ screen it will take you to the register screen for registering for the 500 free Hilton HHonor points. This is a quick way to get 500 free points without ever paying for any stay.

Here are the terms of this offer:
Open 9:00 a.m. PST on 09/12/12 until 11:59 p.m. PST on 09/25/12 or until promotion is closed by sponsor to HHonors members who are legal residents of the U.S. (including D.C. and PR) or Canada (except Quebec). HHonors membership is free; go here to register. Not open to employees, officers or directors (or to members of the immediate family or household of any employees, officers, or directors) of Hilton HHonors Worldwide L.L.C., Hampton by Hilton, or any of their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, dealers, retailers, resellers, or any advertising or promotion agencies involved in this promotion. To participate, go to the Hamptonality Moments tab on the Hampton Page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/hampton and watch and/or share the video posted under the title “Winning Team.” Then complete the entry form and click “submit” to submit your entry. Once your participation and valid HHonors membership is confirmed, 500 HHonors Bonus Points will be credited to your HHonors account. Please allow 6-8 weeks for points to appear in your HHonors account. You may watch and share the video as often as you like, but each HHonors member will receive 500 HHonors Bonus Points only one time. Void in Quebec and where prohibited. Sponsor may terminate or suspend program or individual participation at any time without notice. Bonus Points do not count toward tier status. Hilton HHonors membership, earning of Points & Miles and redemption of points are subject to HHonors Terms and Conditions.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

With the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, they give you a 20% discount when purchasing travel through their online portal. For instance a flight that cost $500 it would normally take 50,000 rewards points would now just take 40,000 rewards points.

*For me this is too expensive for a flight! Why not take your rewards points and transfer them to the airline of your choice, then your rewards would go much further. I do this all of the time with American Express and their travel partners. I can transfer that same 50,000 rewards points into my Delta Airlines account and get 2 free flights, each at 25,000 miles vs. one flight with Chase’s points.

Chase Freedom Card

This card is for those who are looking for cash back on every purchase. This is a card for the every day use and for the consumer who may not travel much or care about building up airline miles or travel rewards.

Chase Ink Cards

Chase offers a few different Ink cards to choose from. These credit cards are good for business owners.

These cards are good for those who run businesses that use certain services such as office supplies or gas. The Chase Ink cards are also good to add onto your reward cards portfolio.

Why You Would Want To Skip The Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card

There seems to be a lot of buzz around the internet about the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card and rightfully so. As of this writing they are offering 50,000 bonus points for those who can spend $3,000 within the first 3 months of having the card.

Chase is offering one of the higher bonuses right now, but is the value they offer really that great?

As I have said before, it all depends on your situation. What works best for me, living in Alaska might not work as great for you living somewhere else.

If you fly with one of their travel partners (Southwest Airlines, United, British Airways and Korean Air), then using their rewards for travel might work for you.

I find more value with transferring rewards points to my airline of choice and then using those airline miles to purchase my ticket. Chase says you can buy a $500 airline ticket for 40,000 Ultimate Rewards points, but I can also buy that same ticket through my airline of choice for 25,000 miles. I’ll pay a small transfer fee and a $10 fee to the airline, but I will also save more points.

If you were to earn 1 point per dollar spent, you would need to spend $40,000 in order to earn a free flight with Chase. If I were to earn 1 point per dollar spent with American Express, I would need to spend a minimum of $25,000 in order to earn a free airline ticket.

With the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, as soon as you pay the $95 yearly fee, you will lose all value of owning their card. In order to come out ahead, you would need to spend over $100k in any given year to make back enough rewards points to pay for the fee. Since Chase gives you a 7% dividend, this could possibly offset the fee.

One thing that I did not mention is that if you buy an airline ticket using rewards points, when you fly that route, you will earn miles. When purchasing a ticket with miles, you earn nothing from the flight.

*I currently have the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card and will be canceling it before my one year is up. My wife and I received 90,000 bonus points when we applied for the cards and have used the points on hotel stays.

What credit cards do you have in your portfolio?

What airlines can you fly with American Express Points

What I love about American Express are the number of airlines they offer for transferring rewards points. Most start off at 1,000 rewards points and not all airlines have the same exchange rates. You can transfer 1,000 AMEX points to Delta and receive 1,000 SkyMiles.

During promotional times, you can also see certain airlines offering a transfer bonus of between 20% and 50% more miles. British Airways seems to offer the most transfer bonuses as of late.

The current list of airlines you can transfer rewards points into miles are:

• AeroMexico
• Aeroplan – Air Canada
• Alitalia Airlines
• All Nippon Airways
• Asia Miles
• British Airways
• Delta Air Lines
• El Al Israel Airlines
• Flying Blue
• Frontier Airlines
• Hawaiian Airlines
• Iberia Plus
• JetBlue Airways
• Singapore Airlines
• Swiss
• Virgin America
• Virgin Atlantic Airways

American Express also offers travel deals with some airlines such as the following:

• Purchasing of round trip tickets to Australia on Qantas
• Purchasing of round trip tickets to South Africa on South African Airways
• Purchasing of round trip tickets from Los Angeles or San Francisco to Europe on Swiss

You can also purchase tickets using rewards points through the American Express travel portal. It would be like going to Expedia.com and booking a flight through their website, but with American Express you have the options of using your rewards points as your currency.

The best ‘deals’ happen when you transfer your rewards points to your choice of airline. By purchasing tickets with air miles you can save a great deal of money just from the cost of the ticket. I find the best values with using my miles for First Class tickets.

Depending on where you live and what airlines you use the most, will determine which deals work the best for you. Since I live in Alaska, flying anywhere is usually $250+ more than if I lived in the lower 48 states. I find a better value with flying First Class than flying economy class.

My wife and I are flying to Tampa Florida, which is 8 hours of flying! I can handle economy class for 3-5 hours but 8 hours in 1 day gets difficult.

Here is a great example of transferring rewards points into miles and how it can save you a lot of money:

• Daraius of MillionMileSecrets writes about planning for a trip with his wife, read his post here.

Are you using American Express cards to build up rewards? If so please share your experiences. Where have you traveled for free?