Saturday Recap: 50% Bonus On Purchased JetBlue Points, Alaska Airlines Revamps In-Flight Meals, Earn 1,000 Miles/Points With PointsHound

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

Here's a recap of the interesting points and miles news from this week:

Enter To Win This Week’s 25,000 Southwest Points Thursday Giveaway: This week’s Thursday Giveaway is for 25,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points. I just reached 25,000 Twitter followers – so thank you to all of you who already follow me – and to celebrate, I’m going to give away 25,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points. To enter, you have to be following me on Twitter and send me a tweet telling me whom you’d bring along on your Companion Pass and why. Be sure to include the hashtag #TPG25KGiveaway. Make it fun, make it interesting, and above all, make it brief – just 140 characters or less! You have until 5pm ET on Monday, September 30, to enter and we’ll announce the winner next week. Good luck!

50% Bonus On Purchased JetBlue Points: Now through October 16, 2013, JetBlue is offering a 50% bonus on purchased TrueBlue points. You'll receive a 50% bonus for increments of 5,000 points up to 30,000 points. To participate in this offer, you must login into your TrueBlue account, and click on the option of either Buy Points or Gift Points. The bonus is hardcoded, so there is no need to register, and you’ll see the offer appear automatically when trying to purchase points. Through this offer if you were to purchase 30,000 points for $886.88, you would be receiving 45,000 points, bringing the per-point cost to about 1.97 cents per point, which is not a great deal since you only get about a 1.3 cents per point value when you redeem. Ordinarily I'd suggest staying away from this promo, but if you need to top up your account for a specific redemption, it's something to consider.

Chase Continues Sponsorship Of Epcot International Food & Wine Festival Exclusive Access For Cardholders: Chase announced this week that it will once again sponsor the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival from September 27-November 11, 2013, which means that Chase debit and credit cardholders, including Disney Visa cardmembers, will have exclusive access to the Chase Lounge at the event on the third floor of the American Adventure Pavilion within the Epcot World Showcase. Perks will include complimentary beverages, cell phone charging stations and other amenities, and the lounge will be open from 11 am until when the park closes. The annual 46-day festival cooks up authentic cuisine from six continents at over 25 marketplaces, serving wine, beer and new cocktails, with entertainment from “Eat to the Beat” concerts each night. For more information on the event, click here.

Etihad BusinessConnect 20,000 Mile Sign Up Bonus: Earn 10,000 extra miles for both you Etihad personal and a business account when you sign up for a new business account and connect your Etihad Guest number to it. To earn the bonus, sign your business up for BusinessConnect through whoever books your company travel, then connect your Etihad Guest number and one other business traveler’s number to the Etihad BusinessConnect account via the website and e-mail your account and name information to businessconnectoffer@etihad.ae. You and your company will then earn 10,000 free bonus miles per account, adding up to 20,000 miles. In addition, when you sign up to BusinessConnect, your company will receive 5,000 miles as a welcome to the program. For full terms and conditions, click here.

Earn 1,000 Bonus Hyatt Points: In addition to Hyatt's Fall Promotion where you can earn up to 50,000 bonus points after staying 20 nights with them, they are offering a targeted bonus to select members. The targeted offer allows those members the opportunity to earn 1,000 bonus points by staying now through November 30. Most likely if you were targeted, you would have received an email so double check your messages to make sure it didn't slip by. There is no registration link, however you can view the terms and conditions here.

Earn 1,000 Miles/Points With PointsHound By Referrals Booked Before October 4: Refer someone to PointsHound.com and if they book travel before October 4, 2013 (although travel can be after that date), both you and they will earn 1,000 airline miles or hotel points. The bonus will appear on your account after the travel is completed. PointsHound is a hotel booking engine that offers travelers bonus airline miles on hotel reservations – usually averaging about 3-4 miles per dollar spent. When you create an account and log in, you can choose your destination, dates and which airline or other program to earn bonus miles with on your reservations. PointsHound currently partners with over 150,000 hotels worldwide and 10 different loyalty programs including American Airlines AAdvantage, Delta SkyMiles, HawaiianMiles, US Airways Dividend Miles, Virgin America Elevate, Aeromexico Club Premier, Baltic Miles, Etihad Guest, and Best Buy Reward Zone.

Alaska Airlines Revamps In-Flight Meals: Alaska Airlines sent out an email to their MileagePlan members this week informing them of some new premium, artisan-quality food and beverages in the main cabin. You can also view all the new offerings on the Food & Beverage Service section of their website. Some of the menu items include traditional French Toast, Hungarian Beef Goulash, Texas-Style BBQ Pork Sandwich, Korean Chicken Bowl, and a Beecher's Cheese & Chicken Cobb Salad Shaker. These items sell between $6-$7 in the economy cabin. For Alaska flyers who wish to try these out but don't want to pay, the American Express Platinum Card does offer a $200 airline fee credit which applies to snacks and meals on-board, so that is something to keep in mind.

Delta SkyMiles Award Levels Renamed: Per this Flyertalk post, Delta is renaming all of their award levels. Previously the levels were classified as Low, Medium and High, and now they will be called Saver, Standard and Peak. Delta claims that the change of names for the award levels does not indicate changes with the program rules or mileage redemption at this time.
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