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.

Easy 250 Virgin America Points

This doesn't look like a targeted promotion, so anyone can get the free points. Sign up for a new Gilt City and Jetsetter account and receive 250 Virgin America points.

Granted, Virgin America's Elevate is one of the least rewarding frequent flyer programs out there, but with one-way award flights starting at 2,500 points, 250 points will get you started or top off your account nonetheless. If you make a purchase at Gilt City, you can receive another 250 points... and an additional purchase at Jetsetter nets you another 500 points for a total of 1000 points. Quickly browsing through their websites, it doesn't look like there are any "cheap buys" per se, so the additional 750 points may not be worth the effort (EDIT: On Gilt City, if you change the location to New York near the top of the page, you can find 2 ice cream sandwiches on sale for $5, and that will net you the extra 250 points :)).

VA's product is arguably the best in the domestic skies, but Elevate is truly a pathetic program. And it was only last year that they finally joined virtually every other FFP out there and eliminated the hard expiration date on points earned even with activity! All VA points have a fixed rate for redemption tied to the cost of the actual flight, so it's really impossible to redeem for more high-value awards like you can with legacy programs. Hence, even though I love the in-flight experience at VA, I still tend to stick with AA or UA, unless VA is quite a bit cheaper (and that doesn't happen too much anymore).