For Miles and Points Junkies: Triple-Dipping is the New Deal
In the beginning there were simple airline miles. American Airlines introduced them sometime in the '80s. You flew on American Airlines and you received points allowing you to redeem them for air travel.
Simple airline points soon evolved into double-dipping when American Airlines teamed up with Citibank to offer the American Airlines Card. You could now earn American Airline miles when you flew American Airlines, when you bought the ticket on the American Airline/Citibank Card --- that was the double-dip --- and when you bought anything else on the card. This double dipping soon spread to every airline.
Double dipping soon evolved into double-dipping with choice. American Express offered Membership Rewards (originally Membership Miles) allowing you to earn reward points whenever you spent, and, in a moment of brilliance, unlocking those points from a single airline, allowing you to decide at a later time, when you knew where you wanted to travel, which airline to allocate the points to. This soon spread to other cards, but never at the benefit level provided by American Express.
In the latest evolution, we now have triple-dipping. And if you haven't discovered this you should.
Today I found a site called www.overwhelmingoffers.com which allows you to use whatever your favorite card is today, get additional points for buying through their site, and a little like Groupon, get significant "Overwhelming Offers" with amazing low prices every day, and major discounts from a pretty broad group of national merchants in travel, apparel, electronics, etc. It is simple to sign on to, and because they give multiple points for some purchases, they mount up quickly.
I used the overwhelmingoffers.com Priceline powered travel capability to buy a ticket on Continental for $681.00 using my American Express Card. Dip #1: I will get points from Continental; dip #2: I will get 681 points from American Express; dip #3 I will get 5 X 681 WOW points from overwhelmingoffers.com or 3405 WOW points.
Pretty cool.