United Offers 500-Mile Booking Bonus to Infrequent Travelers

In an effort to bring in new business and increase bookings on their website, United Airlines is awarding 500 bonus miles to customers who have not purchased tickets from united.com within the past 12 months. According to the terms, the bonus is available for one-way or round-trip tickets purchased at united.com between August 14 and October 31, 2009.

Continental Offers 500 Miles for Online Reservations

Following the lead of Delta and Northwest Airlines last week, Continental Airlines announced they to will award 500 bonus miles for round-trip flights booked through it's website, continental.com. 

Registration is not required; simply book and purchase your tickets by May 31, 2009 to qualify. 

Delta Airlines Offers 500 Bonus Miles for Online Reservations

Delta Airlines is offering its frequent flyer members 500 bonus miles when booking a round-trip airline reservation at delta.com between April 28 and May 31, 2009. Delta began offering online booking bonuses in the 1990's as a way to encourage Internet bookings, but ended the incentive in 2007.

Delta 1,000 Mile Online Booking Bonus Promo

A (temporary) return to the online booking bonus!
Delta Airlines is offering a 1,000 mile SkyMiles Bonus when booking your next round-trip ticket at Delta.com, and pay with your American Express card.

The promotion runs now through December 31st, and you must register before booking travel in order to earn the bonus miles. Click here for more information and to register.

Handy Mileage Award Calculator

With recent capacity cuts from the airlines, trying to find available seats when redeeming frequent flyer miles can be a daunting task. Seats for two people - painful. One piece of advice is to book tickets far in advance. So if you are trying to plan a trip to Europe for early next summer, and you want to redeem your miles, now is the time to start looking.

Booking tickets far in advance means finding award availability before it is picked through by the masses. So how far in advance can you book award tickets? Most airlines permit bookings up to 330 days into the future - a bit shy of a year. This simple tool allows you to determine how far out 330 days is, eliminating the need for human calculation (or in my case, human error) so you can focus on the more important task - namely, where in Europe you want those frequent flyer miles to take you.

Orbitz Offers Flight Ticket Reimbursement Plan

In an effort to gain marketshare over other online competitors, Orbitz announced it will reimburse customers who buy airline tickets if the price of those seats fall. Orbitz will reportably track the price of the ticket from the day it was purchased until the day of the flight and will issue cash refunds of $5 to $250 per traveler according to its website. Read more from Reuters.

Online booking bonus goes into the history books

By Mike Grasso

American Airlines announced it will discontinue a promotion in which passengers earned up to 500 miles for booking flights directly from the American Airlines website. According to the AA website, the final day to earn the bonus is March 31st.

But we shall not point thumbs down to our fine feathered friends at American. A time, not so long ago, most of the big carriers offered online booking bonuses. American, United, Delta, US Air, Continental and Northwest all offered up to 1000 miles per reservation just for booking tickets on their website. That bonus lessened over the years, and eventually most carriers phased it out all together. American is simply the last of the big carriers offering the bonus.

Because most airlines charge fees for booking on the phone with a representative, and some booking sites charge a service fee for airline tickets, the airlines figure you will book directly on their website anyway- why bother enticing folks with a few hundred miles.

So, write it into the books - it was good while in lasted.

JetBlue has announced today it has begun selling tickets on online travel sites, such as Orbitz, Travelocity and Priceline.com. The deals mean JetBlue can expand its customer base and step up competition on the US domestic market. Until today, travelers had to purchase tickets directly from JetBlue.

Priceline Eliminates Airline Ticket Booking Fees
This month, Priceline began eliminating airline ticket booking fees on all published domestic and international fares. The change does not apply to Priceline's Name Your Own Price airline ticketing service, which offers already discounted tickets.

There are many pro's and con's to using Priceline and other travel sites such as Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity. A con has historically been the added service charge for airline tickets, though often only $5-$15 per ticket. This policy change at Priceline may be a wake up call to the other travel sites to reexamine their fees, while at the same time making such travel sites a more attractive option to consumers.

The Rise & Fall of the 'online booking bonus'

By Mike Grasso

So sad. Delta Airlines has discontinued its online booking bonus of 500 miles.
Airlines which historically have offered online booking bonuses initially did so to lure people to book tickets through their computer, rather than a travel agent or on the phone. Back in the day, many reservations booked online at the airlines website scored you upwards of 1000 added frequent flyer miles.

Since then, airlines have initiated service fees for booking reservations with an agent - ranging from $10-$40 bucks. Some airlines have also trimmed, cut, and slashed travel agent commissions on booking air-only reservations. Finally, online travel sites such as Expedia and Travelocity often charge a service fee, albeit it minimal, for booking air tickets. All of this has worked to the airlines advantage, to the point where online booking bonuses are rarely necessary to get folks to travel with the mouse directly to the airlines website.

Delta joins Northwest in discontinuing online booking bonuses, while United, Continental and U.S Air only offer 500 miles, and American now down to 250 bonus miles.