US Airways Already Getting Sneaky on the Holiday Bonus Promotion

by Gary Leff

The US Airways Holiday Shopping Promo is incredibly generous. You can buy miles at 7/10ths of a penny apiece.

But US Airways is already getting a bit sneaky. Per Flyertalk’s yvsean, they’ve changed the terms of the Bose offer, they now say that they award miles related to this promo only on QC15 headphones. So if you purchased a $3.99 item as I did they say no miles.

First, it’s only $3.99 down the drain. I’m just going to make sure I have another merchant. Some folks have reported Bose miles posting for earlier purchases prior to this change in the terms and conditions. But why take a chance?

Second, it’s always worth taking screen shots of everything on really lucrative promos, just in case…

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Gary,

    After pulling the trigger on a massive TrackItBack purchase yesterday, I’m getting very nervous about the order of posting and the tiered bonuses. How confident are you that 5 or more purchases will garner the 250% bonus on ALL purchases, as opposed to a 50% bonus on the first purchase, a 100% bonus on the second purchase, etc.?

    Furthermore, you previously stated that you did not expect all 4 of your throwaway purchases to post before December 30. Aren’t the T&C clear that the transactions must POST between 11/23 and 12/30, regardless of the purchase date?

    — Gene.

  2. @Gene, don’t worry about when the points post, they need to have a transaction date by December 30 but can post as late as February 28.

    “Transactions must have a posting date between November 23, 2009 and December 30, 2009 to qualify for the offer.”

    This means the date associated with the transaction, i.e. I buy something today it shows up with a posting date perhaps today or perhaps the date the item ships, or is delivered in the case of flowers.

    That’s not the date that the transaction shows up in your account, which is why the rules ALSO SAY

    ‘”The last date activity from a participating partner can be received by US Airways for bonus miles consideration is February 28, 2010, regardless of the eligible activity date. ”

    So your item that ships and posts with a transaction date of December 29 is fine as long as it shows up in your account by February 28.

    As for why US Airways is obligated to provide a 250% bonus on each and every purchase during the promotion period, up to 10 purchases, provided that you qualify? Here’s what they say pretty plainly:

    “We’ll add your final big bonus to every purchase you make throughout the entire promotion period, up to 10 individual purchases.”

    Your final big bonus is 250% if you have 5 qualifying transactions with 5 different partners. That 250% bonus will be applied “to every purchase you make through the entire promotion period, up to 10 individual purchases.”

    And they don’t post the bonus all along the way, the wait until March 1 they say to post the bonus. Why? The reason that makes the most sense is so they know what bonus amount to apply to each purchase.

    Be careful of course not to have 11 transactions, as if the 11th posts before the 10th and the 10th is TrackItBack, you’ll have difficulty!

    And DO TAKE A SCREEN SHOT OF THE OFFER PAGE. There’s too much at stake here not to be cautious.

    But they seem pretty clear about how this will all be handled.

    Look, I do not trust US Airways. Their IT systems are poor. In my experience their customer service isn’t especially good. When things don’t go quite right it takes effort to fix them.

    But this should work out just fine, still trust but verify (and prepare with documentation).

  4. @Gene, I fully understand why you’d be nervious. It’s a great offer, but not nearly as straightforward as their 100% bonus on purchased miles which post instantly. There are complicated steps, and we have to wait for the miles to know everything has gone off without a hitch.

    And in fact, the terms and conditions ALSO say, “Bonus amounts will be assigned in order of posting date(s) for qualified transactions. ”

    That scared me at first. But since they VERY CLEARLY say “We’ll add your final big bonus to every purchase you make throughout the entire promotion period”

    The order of posting dates matters only for when you go over 10 transactions, meaning that theyd post the bonus to the first 10 based on posting dates, and not to 11. Hence my advice to be very careful not to hit transaction #11.

  5. Gary,

    Do you feel that there are any benefits to having the TrackitBack post as, say, transaction #7 & #8. that way in case a few earlier purchases don’t show up, one would still get miles?

    Or do you feel that the Trackitback purchase has to be ONE purchase?

  7. Gary,

    You saw the award chart changes of US Air (effective 6 January 2010)?

    Kudos to Lucky over at onemileatatime.net…

    Ham

  9. Gary,

    I’m starting to feel doubtful about this promotion. The language mentions “You’ll get extra Dividend Miles and additional bonuses, up to 250% for every dollar you spend. ”

    I think US air means that we will get a 250% bonus on the dollar amount we spend, NOT on the base miles that the transaction earns. So $4000 in TrackitBack yields only an additional 10, 000 miles instead of 400,000 miles.

    Is that how you interpret it as well?

  10. All – what, exactly, does $570 in TrackItBack purchases buy you? I’m all for the extra bonus miles, but would like to get at least a bit of utility out of my purchase…

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