It was a bit of a roller coaster ride yesterday morning in the Pointing world.  The miles and points collecting blogosphere lit up when Ben at One Mile at a Time first reported (see this post) that the American Airlines AAdvantage program would start imposing fuel surcharges on all international award redemptions. Such a move would mean that additional fees of a few hundred to a thousand dollars or more would be added to the cost of redeeming your miles.  Gary at View from the Wing provides more detail on fuel surcharges in this post. A few hours later, everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief when American announced that it was all a “mistake” as Ben later outlined here. If this change had actually occurred, the effect would have been a quite substantial devaluation of the AAdvantage mileage program.

Although we may have dodged a bullet that morning, it’s important to remember that devaluations of reward loyalty programs have occurred in the past and WILL occur again in the future. For example, in one of my earlier blog entries I discussed how I was all Hot for Hilton and how the HHonors program would be a cornerstone of my Pointing activities. That plan all changed on March 28 when Hilton announced a MAJOR devaluation of its loyalty program as outlined here by The Points Guy.  All of sudden my aspirational award goal of a stay at the Conrad Koh Samui went from 50,000 points a night to as much as 95,000 points per night.  Of course, I’ve experienced devaluations before. Early on in my Pointing I remember redeeming only 90,000 miles for a roundtrip business class flight to Sydney.  Today, that same trip would costs 135,000 miles.

There are a couple of lessons to be learned from what happened yesterday. First of all, it pays to DIVERSIFY.  As I discussed in my post Feeding the Points Kitty, diversifying your Pointing sources can help you achieve a variety of award goals.  However, the added benefit is that if a major devaluation occurs then you won’t end up with “all your eggs in one basket.”

More importantly, you should always remember that your miles and points are meant to be USED.  A program devaluation can happen at any time. Although it may take a few years to save for the amount you need to redeem a “dream award” you shouldn’t accumulate huge balances with the intent of using your points “in retirement” since it’s inevitable that your stash will decline in value over time. I tend to redeem for “big awards” every two or three years.  My diversification strategy also means that as I deplete one account I usually have another one waiting in the wings for my next redemption.

That said, it certainly was a real nail biter for me yesterday morning. You see, I just signed up for one of the Citi AAdvantage credit cards with a 50,000 mile bonus.  Once I hit my spend requirement I’ll have more than enough miles to redeem for 2 First Class tickets to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific which is part of the Oneworld alliance along with American Airlines.  Yes, my plans for my next “Big Trip” are well underway. Devaluations may come and go … but the Pointing always goes on …

United Airlines recently announced a campaign to donate 10 million MileagePlus award miles to a variety of worthy causes.

United will be donating a minimum of 25,000 miles each to 38 different worthy causes. Visitors to the airline’s 10 Million Charity Miles website, will be able to vote daily for their favorite charity.  The more votes a charity receives, the greater a percentage of the 10 million miles it will be awarded.  The current Top 5 Charities are as follows:

Voting started on December 6 and will remain open until 11:59 pm on December 25. During this period you may vote once per day. The charities will receive their donated miles by January 31, 2013. Enrollment in the MileagePlus program is not required.

There are some great organizations on this list that could certainly benefit from all of those miles. During this season of giving, United’s 10 Million Miles Giveaway program is a great way to channel your mouse clicks toward doing some good.

An easy Pointing opportunity has nudged me into expanding my social media footprint. Prompted by a marketing email I received late yesterday afternoon from United’s Mileage Plus program, I finally added Twitter and Foursquare to my list of “places on the internet where I waste my time.” MileagePlus has partnered with social media marketing platform BCKSTGR to offer 1000 miles for simply registering (400 points) and linking your Facebook (200 points), Twitter (200 points) and Foursquare (200 points) accounts.  This offer is valid through December 15.

BCKSTGR is a startup company that offers it members the opportunity to earn frequent flyer miles for logging their social media activities (e.g., Checking in and taking a snapshot of your drink at the Old Town Pour House).  At the current time, earning opportunities in the Chicago area are pretty limited.  Therefore, the real attraction of this deal is the ability to gain a “quick and easy” hit of 1000 miles.

In addition, by turning yourself into a free advertising vehicle for BCKSTGR, you can earn another quick 150 miles by “Liking, Tweeting and Posting” of your love of your newly discovered Pointing vehicle.

As you can see, there is the ability to earn points on a daily basis by following a “wash, rinse, repeat” approach to a couple of these offers.  Of course, by taking such action you do run the risk of sparking an “Anti-Farmville-like” backlash among your Facebook friends.

This opportunity has proved to be very popular among the Pointing community. As a result, there have been widespread reports of error messages (e.g., “Your MileagePlus Number and PIN are incorrect”) and site crashes.  For example, I attempted to register three times late last night before my details were accepted.

Nevertheless, miles earned through this program post immediately in BCKSTGR and appear within an hour or so in your MileagePlus account.  This adds to the “instant gratification appeal” of the offer (if you can get your registration accepted). Now that some time has passed, hopefully these glitches have been sorted out.  BCKSTGR, in fact, is now reporting on its Facebook page that their systems have speeded up.

Tip of the hat to Just Another Points Traveler who was one of the first travel bloggers to write about this opportunity.

Today American Airlines announced an offer for 500 free AAdvantage miles for completing a short survey on Facebook.

The survey consists of only a few questions and will take you 2-3 minutes to complete.

You should receive your miles in 6-8 weeks.

It has been reported that this offer will be open until December 17 or until 200,000 people complete the survey.  This is a great opportunity to earn 500 free miles for a minimum investment of your time.

Tip of the hat to Lucky at One Mile at A Time who surfaced this great Pointing opportunity.