Reviewing Easy Ways to Earn Free Miles: Topguest & JetBlue GoPlaces

Labor day weekend is quickly approaching, and I think it’s time to review two easy and completely free ways to earn some miles and points.

Topguest
The Topguest program (topguest.com) awards you loyalty miles/points for checking in with Foursquare to participating locations. They currently feature Hilton HHonors, Virgin America Elevate, M Life, Clubhotel, Priority Club Rewards, and Voila Hotel Rewards.

For Hilton HHonors and Priority Club Rewards, you receive 50 points per check-in to one of their hotels (i.e. Doubletree for Hilton HHonors or Holiday Inn for Priority Club) (Limit 1 check-in every 24 hours). For Virgin America, you receive 25 miles for every check-in to a Virgin America location, such as their Virgin America Lounges, check-in desks, airport terminals, etc.

That might not be a lot of miles or points, but if you do this every day for a year, you can theoretically earn 18,250 points annually (50pts/day * 365 days/year) for Hilton HHonors and Priority Club Rewards, and 9,125 miles annually for Virgin America Elevate. That’s more than enough to top off your accounts to get you those free hotel nights or on your way to a flight somewhere. If you don’t have a smartphone, you can also access foursquare.com’s mobile site via any device with internet and a browser in order to check into the locations.

To take advantage of this program, make sure you start by registering at topguest.com and then syncing your Foursquare account. Note that you’ll have to register with each loyalty program individually on Topguest.

So if you ever wonder why I stop by on Foursquare to these locations, now you know.

JetBlue GoPlaces
JetBlue GoPlaces (https://apps.facebook.com/jbgoplaces/) is a Facebook App (requires a Facebook account) that rewards you JetBlue TrueBlue miles for checking into JetBlue airport terminals. This particular app actually requires you to be within 100 feet of a JetBlue terminal before it will let you check in and receive the 100 miles. Since you can redeem JetBlue TrueBlue miles for flights starting as low as 8,000 one-way, these miles have a higher value in my opinion and getting 100 each time is a great deal. Theoretically if you were at an airport terminal every day, you could check in and receive 36,500 TrueBlue points annually—that’s enough for a roundtrip ticket from SFO to JFK or just about anywhere in the continental U.S.!

But unless you work at the airport (or you shuttle folks to the airport), chances are you are not going to be able to utilize this points-earning method on a daily basis to rack up the 36.5k points. That’s okay though. Even if you just check in once a week (just make a drive by to the airport), that should still get you 5,200 TrueBlue Points in one year–which may not be enough for a flight, but will definitely help top off your account.

Enjoy the free miles. 🙂

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• Stack up Priority Club promotions for up to 8,000 to 19,500 bonus Priority Club points on your next stay