Up To 25% Off United Award Tickets To Europe And Africa

United Mileage Plus is offering a 10-day award sale right now, reducing the amount of miles needed to book an award ticket from the continental United States (including Alaska) to Europe or Central/Southern Africa. Book your tickets by January 16, 2012 for travel between January 27 and March 22, 2012, and you can save 20% on peak travel days (Thursday-Sunday) or 25% on off-peak travel days (Monday-Wednesday).

This promotion is only valid for round-trip travel on economy saver awards, but you can combine peak and off-peak tickets on one round-trip itinerary. Stopovers are not permitted, but an open jaw is allowed within the same region. In addition, a Saturday stay and 21-day advance purchase is required.

Reduced mileage award apply only to travel on United and United Express-operated flights, and not on flights operated by other airlines. However, this sale also applies to Continental and Continental Express flights, as long as you use miles from your OnePass account. Miles can be transferred between your Mileage Plus and OnePass accounts here.

As an example, if you are traveling from Washington Dulles to Accra, Ghana, the typical mileage requirement is 80,000 in economy. If you take advantage of this sale on off-peak days, however, you will only need 60,000 miles round-trip. Similarly, if you travel from Los Angeles to London, you will only now need 45,000 miles instead of 60,000 when traveling on off-peak days. Click here to see the full United award chart. This is a great sale to take advantage of if you have short-term plans to travel to Europe or Central/Southern Africa!

Join Gilt Groupe And Earn 1,500 Mileage Plus/OnePass Miles After Your First Purchase

Not a terribly exciting promotion, but if you were thinking about purchasing something off of Gilt and haven't yet become a member, sign up now and you'll receive 1,500 Mileage Plus or OnePass miles after your first purchase. In addition, you'll earn 5 miles per dollar spent on Gilt Groupe within the first 6 months of registration. Your miles should be credited within 6-8 weeks after the first purchase. There is no fee for registering or becoming a member.

Gilt Groupe consists of a number of different portals, including the original Gilt website that features limited-time offers on designer clothing. They've also expanded to include Gilt City, which mimics what Groupon does for local deals, Jetsetter, which offers travel deals, and Gilt Taste, featuring fine wines and high-end foods.

You may have to do some digging on the website, but there are often times fairly inexpensive items for sale. The cheapest item I've found so far is a sushi mat for only $2.95 plus $5.95 shipping, which comes to a total of $8.90. Just go to the Gilt Taste section, under the "Equipment" tab, select "Accessories". Then just sort by price and it should be the first item listed.

EDIT 4/11/2012: I noticed today that this offer has been updated with a new requirement that the initial purchase must be at least $50, exclusive of taxes and shipping. This makes it slightly less worthwhile. But if you are already planning on signing up for Gilt and making a purchase over $50, then it makes sense to take advantage of this offer.

Reduced Mileage Awards With Citi AAdvantage Card

If you have a Citi AAdvantage card (and who doesn't nowadays), you can book round-trip American Airlines award flights with reduced mileage requirements from now through December 31, 2011, for travel between October 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011. Every quarter, Citi releases a list of select destinations within the 48 contiguous United States and Canada for reduced mileage awards. They break down the list according to the specific Citi AAdvantage card type you have, but judging from what I have seen, it appears the destinations are identical for every card. The only difference is that some card types offer a discount of 7,500 miles, while others only offer 5,000 miles. You must call the AAdvantage award reservations desk at 1-800-882-8880 in order to book your reduced mileage tickets. Unfortunately, the $20 phone reservation fee will apply.

The list of destinations is somewhat disappointing, as they feature mostly smaller obscure markets that typically aren't very popular with travelers. However, there are a couple of larger destinations that might be interesting, especially to Canada. For example, I see Vancouver, Toronto, as well as Montreal listed for only 17,500 miles round-trip if you have the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select Visa or MasterCard, or the Citi AAdvantage Select American Express. I also see Atlanta, New Orleans, and Memphis for the same number of miles as well. Take a look at the list; there may be some good deals to be had if you are planning on visiting those destinations anyways.

Also don't forget that tomorrow, September 19, 2011 is the last day to take advantage of the SaverPass reduced mileage awards on Continental and United Airlines. Unlike the Citi offer, this is actually a very good deal, with plenty of popular destinations offered for reduced miles. See my previous post for more details.

SaverPass Reward Sale On Continental/United

For a limited time, Continental and United have reduced the amount of miles needed to book a SaverPass award flight by up to 20% for select markets. You must book your award flight by September 19, 2011 and your travel must occur between October 10, 2011 and December 15, 2011. A couple of blackout dates apply, including November 18, 23, and 26-28. In addition, a Saturday night stay is required and sale only applies to round-trip economy travel.

Other than those restrictions, there are actually quite a large number of popular select markets on sale. For example, departing from SFO, you would only need 20,000 miles to fly to EWR, DFW, and YVR. It's only 16,000 miles to fly to SAN, LAX, and PHX. And to fly to SJD, it will only cost 28,000 miles instead of the regular 35,000 miles. 

Some other interesting routes I found include IAD to EZE for 48,000 miles instead of 60,000 miles, and EWR to CUR, SJO, PVR, and MEX for only 28,000 miles instead of 35,000 miles. Typically for these mileage reward sales, only very few obscure markets are actually on sale, but it's surprising Continental and United have reduced their rewards on some of their most popular routes, and availability actually seems pretty good for a couple that I checked. See the full list here.

Book as soon as possible to take advantage of this sale!