Earning a free trip with a triple
The baseball playoffs are upon us. After a wild Wednesday night, I’m excited to settle in and watch Sabathia and Verlander go head-to-head in game 1. Before the game starts, however, it’s time to take a few swings of our own as we earn our next trip with the US Airways Grand Slam promotion. 
As we previously discussed, this a great opportunity to earn some big time mileage. If you haven’t registered yet, you’re out of luck. But if you have registered, it’s time to get a few hits.
Hitting a double
I got started this past week as I was driving across South Dakota and falling asleep. I wanted to make it all the way home but couldn’t, so I was looking to stop at a cheap hotel for a few hours of sleep. As I pulled into Mitchell, SD, I saw a number of hotels and immediately thought: I can get a hit!
A look through the list of hotel partners made my choices pretty easy. With 9 hotel group partners comprising almost 50 hotels, any time you stay anywhere you should have a great chance for at least one hit.
I stopped at the Days Inn and checked in and went upstairs. I then realized I didn’t have a Days Inn rewards account. I logged into their website, created an account and selected “Send my points to Dividend Miles.” This last step is important. Make sure that whenever offered the choice that you choose to convert your points to Dividend Miles.
Upon check-out I made sure my new rewards number was on the reservation.
Thus I got my first hit for the hotel stay and then was able to convert my Wyndham points into miles for hit number two. A double!
Hotels are obviously more expensive and at retail price may not be worth it just for the hit, but since I needed to stay somewhere anyways, I might as well get credit. With that in mind, it’s great to prepare. You can get a triple by signing up with Starwood Preferred Guest, meaning you’ll get triple points with any stay before December 18th. After you sign up for SPG, make sure that you register for 2000 free points after your first stay. That way if you happen to stay at a Sheriton, Westin, W hotel and others, you will get one hit for the stay, plus 2000 points that you can convert to miles which will give you another hit. We’ll have tips on staying cheap at an SPG hotel soon.
A free hit
My final hit was much easier. A quick download of the US Airways search bar and three searches later I’m on third. That’s it.
There are more hits to come, especially with trading and sharing points on points.com. To start, get the freebies and make sure you’re ready when your daily activities (flowers, Netflix, hotels, etc.) can lead to hits and miles.
Photo courtesy of ExpressMonorail
