Yearly Archives

Diners Club is ending the current Restaurant Savings Programs. They used to have their own program, the past few years it’s been outsourced to iDine aka Rewards Network. In short, the Diners Club card has come with iDine Prime which offered 20% cash rebates on participating restaurans (but for the past year just 10%, and some restaurants only 5%).The cashback iDine program otherwise comes with a fee, Diners Club covers that, although it also means that you can’t get iDine miles for dining purchases made with the card. Of course, if you use iDine linked to a mileage program 10 or more times in a year you earn 10 miles per dollar — which isn’t as good as a 20% rebate, but is better than a 10% rebate. And that’s free. So it may be…

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Tim Harford explains in Slate why you shouldn’t opt to pay for rental car insurance. And that’s without even seeming to realize that most credit card products bundle rental car insurance at no marginal cost. My Diners Club card offers primary insurance. Almost any premium Visa, Mastercard, or American Express will at least cover the costs your insurance company does not, such as the $900 deductible Harford references in the article. Several cards whose coverage is generally secondary provide primary coverage when the driver is not otherwise insured. Check the fine print or call your credit card company to find out. People aren’t just paying too much for something. They’re paying too much to buy something they already have. (Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.)

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A reader wrote to me today, asking whether I’ve changed my focus on this blog. He explained his view as this: that I used to write advice for travelers, and lately I’ve been writing more about my own travel. The thought hadn’t occurred to me, but it’s probably a valid concern. I didn’t used to write about my own travels at all — or at least extremely rarely! I just assumed that no one would be interested in the view I had from XYZ suite. But I’ve been busy with work and haven’t paid as much attention to systematic treatment of issues as I used to. At the same time, some of my travel stories have prompted specific questions or requests for advice, and I’ve answered these emails when I could. It probably would have…

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I have an upcoming stay booked at the Bellagio. It’s a real cheapie rate over a long weekend, but it was booked through American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts so in theory I’m entitled to an upgrade of some kind at checkin subject to availability. I’m used to having a little more juice, but the places I have status don’t give me many options on the Strip. So I’ll be walking into the Bellagio, I’m not a high roller, and I’ve booked the lowest category room. I can try my schmooze at checkin or I can try the $20 trick (though at the Bellagio perhaps it’s the $50 trick — or more). The morals of it are questionable. Most of us wouldn’t agree if a grocery store clerk offered not to charge us for groceries…

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I spent this past weekend at the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco in a Terrace Suite. Concierge.com offers, Splurge on a Terrace Suite to enjoy the ultimate perch above the city and feel like a railroad tycoon. The room sells online for $1500 a night, but I received it as a Royal Ambassador upgrade. The hotel played host to a gathering of Flyertalk moderators, so I figured I might as well stay there. I have a tinge of jealousy over the Flyertalkers upgraded to Astor Suites at the St. Regis San Francisco, but my upgrade was secured at booking and not having to play the upgrade lottery was reason enough to choose this hotel. I queried the hotel about what room I’d receive if I booked their lowest category offering. Their usual policy is that…

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At the moderator gathering in San Francisco I sat with Randy Petersen at dinner Saturday night. He raised some real alarm bells for me. Up until now I haven’t made mention of the new United Choices program. United has introduced new award redemption options for Mileage Plus Visa cardholders. It’s a complex Rube Goldberg scheme where you can only redeem miles earned from the credit card for specific awards on offer through the program. It will probably, eventually, be rolled out more broadly. United already reduced the value of its regular award chart. Now they’ve introduced new awards that have a rough value of 1 cent a mile or less, though of course not subject to capacity controls. I hadn’t mentioned the program because, to me, it wasn’t worth mention. I have a hard time…

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This past weekend I was in San Francisco for a meeting of Flyertalk.com moderators. The event was held at the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco, and I had a nice stay there. I’ll post photos of my Terrace Suite and a more complete review a bit later. But just as interesting as the conversations and meetings — which were excellent — was my multi-tasking. Sure, I issued a couple of warnings to new Flyertalk members looking to sell their miles and I had to delete a couple of posts (all while everyone else was being more productive than I). But the real joy came from a reader of this blog who emailed a question about award travel. He was taking his mother on a trip to Bangkok and wanted to use United miles for the…

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A week and a half ago I posted that Starwood is apparently considering increasing the number of points required for most awards, roughly speaking a 25% devaluation of its program. Sure, hotel prices have been rising, and that pushes up Starwood Preferred Guests’ costs since that means the program has to pay each property more for award nights. But that’s also why Starwood re-evaluates the category that each hotel is in at the end of each year. Starwood award categories aren’t tied to a property’s quality or demand (occupancy rate) but to its average daily room rate in the prior year. And when the rate goes up Starwood bumps it up a category (or two) — requiring more points for a room night and paying the property more for that same night. So it didn’t…

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