US Airways Grand Slam Promotion

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available.

US Airways recently announced their new Grand Slam Promotion, which encourages members to earn points on all non-flight related activity, such as hotel stays and rental cars. This is a way for US Airways to generate revenue, because every time you choose to earn frequent flyer miles with a hotel, rental car or other partner, they have to pay US for the miles.

The promotion is based on "hits" and the more you get, the more points you earn when you hit the next threshold.
Hits/ Bonus Miles earned
4/ 4,000
8/ 8,000
12/ 14,000 (and 3,000 Elite Qualifying Miles)
16/ 20,000 (and 6,000 Elite Qualifying Miles)
20/ 30,000
24/ 40,000
28/ 60,000
32/ 80,000
36/100,000
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I originally started out thinking I'd go for an easy 16 or 20 hits, but then I asked myself "What kind of Points Guy would I be to only go half way"? So with that, I resolved to get to the 36 hit threshold which will earn me a 100,000 point bonus. As a competitive person, now that I've framed this as a challenge, I will be damned if I don't get to 36 hits! Oh yeah, and knowing that I will be able to use the points for two business class tickets to Europe helps sweeten the deal. US has off-peak award tickets to Europe, so for 60,000 you can get a ticket on most days in January/ February. This works out well, because I'm obsessed with Europe and my best friend lives in Madrid. Almost two free business class tickets to Europe for a couple hours of time and a couple hundred bucks? Sign me up!

As with any complex airline promotion, the best thing to do is analyze the fine print so you perfectly understand the rules of the game. The airline website is a good start, but often leaves many open questions. That's why I always head to flyertalk.com to get the scoop from people who have been taking advantage of these promotions for years.
Link to promo on US website
Link to Flyertalk thread (note its now over 1,800 posts long, so I'll save you the time and try to summarize as best as I can below)

Per the chart below, you earn hits by: staying at US Air car and hotel partners, transferring partner points to US, buying and sharing US points, using US points for magazines and shopping at partners. The good thing is that I already have 6 hotel stays and 6 car stays that will get me to an easy 12 hits. While I normally bank my Hertz points to my Hertz #1 account and my hotel stays to my respective hotel accounts, getting the US hits is worth it to temporarily credit my activity to my US Dividend Miles account. I also have several hotel point balances that I can transfer to US, thus bringing my hits up. I made a chart to show the number of hits you can possibly get for each type of activity and how many I plan to get. The goal is to spend as little as possible, so for example, to get a hit for Dividend Miles Wireless, you don't have to actually sign up for a new account. You can spend $9 and buy cell phone screen wipes. The thing to understand is that you just need miles to post to your Dividend Miles account from each vendor.

Here are my 10 tips to maximizing this promotion. I will report back as hit my hit thresholds and explained how I got them. I'll also write back after I take my business class trips to Europe :-)

1) Set a goal and stick to it. I won't lie- this promotion takes times and determination. Analyze the low-hanging fruit and then do the cost-benefit analysis of hitting the next level.
2) Read the flyertalk.com thread for the cheapest ways to get hits.
3) Memorize your US Airways number. You will need to use it a lot, so commit it to memory!
4) Make sure you ALWAYS provide your Dividend Miles number with a partner. When renting a car, make sure the check-in agent has it down (same for hotel). It is very hard to get miles after your activity has happened, so try to make sure its included on the front end (such as at check-out for the online partners)
5) Keep all receipts and email confirmations. Partners are sometimes reluctant to award your hard earned miles, so you should always have proof. If your miles don't show up within two weeks, send an email to confirm they are en route. If US doesn't receive the hit by Feb 25, 2011, you won't get credit for it.
6) Make an excel spreadsheet and track all of your hits. Add in notes as well, like "Make sure to cancel Netflix account after the points hit my account". Especially if you go for a lot of hits, it can get very confusing.
7) Make sure you know when the hits will hit your account. For example, Netflix is offering one month free. That means they won't bill you the first $9 until after your trial. So if you sign up for Netflix on November 1 and they don't bill you until December 1- that won't count as a hit, because all hits need to happen by November 14.
8) Make your hits as soon as possible. Some partners are notoriously slow at posting miles. You don't want to be down to the wire and begging them to post. The more timeyou have, the better chance of a hit coming through.
9) For your online purchases, try to order something you will actually use. For example, if you are going to a wedding and are going to purchase items from Bloomingdales, do it through Dividend Miles Shopping portal. You'll earn a hit for something you were going to buy anyway.
10) If you don't already have a Dividend Miles account, sign up for one using their new member promo. You'll receive 1,500 miles right away- a nice start to a generous promotion!

I know this is overwhelming at first, but the bonus is so good, it is worth it (at least for me) to take advantage. US also runs this every year, so the time you invest now will pay off in the future.