This San Francisco Chronicle piece details changes to the Hertz #1 Club Gold contract that took effect on January 1. Customers didn’t used to be responsible for damage to cars in the case of force majeur events, now they are. Hertz also reserves the right to place a hold on a customer’s credit card for $200 above the anticipated rental charges. Not included in the artcile is that Hertz’s ‘grace period’ of an hour for computing rental charges has been scaled back to 30 minutes. This last item is a big deal for me. Hertz has otherwise been the best rental company in my view. I prefer not to do business with Cendant companies like Avis though I find I do rent from them most often, and probably will do so more in the future.
Yearly Archives
Yearly Archives for 2006.
Will Strip for Airfare
Jared Blank reports that a 22-year old Lithuanian woman ran out of cash in Cancun and decided to strip in the airport to get money for a ticket. He says she was high at the time, but I just assume she thought Spring Break came early this year. I’m surprised, though, that she was permitted into the country without a return ticket. I’m not familiar with Mexico’s rules for anyone but U.S. citizens, so I don’t claim to be an expert, but I would have expected she would be required to have return flights booked before being permitted through immigration. Not that I’m generally asked to provide proof even when it is in fact a requirement.
Hooters Hotel Set to Open
Via HotelChatter, the former San Remo set to become Hooters Hotel in Las Vegas will open next month. The hotel even has a blog. As for me, I’ll stick to the Bellagio (which is a huge hotel, please don’t confuse it with luxury).
Northwest Discounts Award Prices to Australia
Jan
13
2006
Northwest is offering discounted award redemption from North America to Sydney for travel between February 1 and April 30, 2006. The offer is a 20,000 mile reduction in cost for coach travel (reduced from 100,000 to 80,000 miles) and a 30,000 mile reduction for business class (reduced from 150,000 to 120,000 miles) and applies to travel on Air Tahiti Nui one-stop flights from either New York-JFK or Los Angeles via Papeete. This still is an expensive award relative to competitors. United’s regular coach award to Australia is 60,000 miles and business class is 90,000 miles — 10,000 less than the usual Northwest coach award and only 10,000 more than the discounted coach award! But for folks stuck in the Worldperks program this is a good deal, and in my experience Air Tahiti Nui offers excellent…
Bonuses for Paying Taxes by Credit Card Resurface
Once again you can earn double Starwood points for paying your taxes by credit card (up to $5,000). The bonus applies to payments made between March 15 and April 17 and the bonus should post sometime between June 10 and July 8. I fully expect that all of the usual suspect double miles for tax payment offers will resurface again this year. Double miles are necessary to make this a somewhat attractive offer because paying by credit card incurs a 2.49% “convenience fee.” Alas, lucrative offers from the past like 5000 bonus miles for making any tax payment with the United Visa (I paid $5 online in 2003 and paid the rest by check) are probably not in the cards.
New USAToday Hotel Blog
USA Today‘s Megg Mueller who writes the “Hotel Hotsheet” column now has a blog by the same name. She’s generally pretty good, but since it’s part of the McPaper I expect it to remain pretty non-controversial. Still worth checking out, though. I’ve already added the RSS feed to my blogreader.
Underwater Hotel Set to Begin Construction
Dubai’s Hydropolis underwater hotel project is set to begin construction next month. Financing remains a bit of a questionmark with banks “so far .. very reluctant.” The shallow water hotel will be shaped as a bowl and will be positioned on the sea ground, according to Hohmann. The deep water version is floating in the sea with anchors on the ground. The bowl will be constructed externally and then positioned on the location. It will then be emptied of the water and equipped with huge aquariums as an attraction for the guests. “At the shallow water hotel, guests are exposed to big fish tanks that contain controlled water and fish, since shallow water is muddy and not transparent. At the deep water hotel, visitors are looking directly into the sea,” he said. The construction of…
So how many miles do YOU have?
Jan
11
2006
Randy Petersen reported some fascinating pieces of data about Delta frequent flyers: The largest current SkyMiles balance is 21,846,145 miles. …Most transoceanic segments in 2005: 61 Most miles flowm: 519,676 I have miles in my accounts. And I’m known to fly occasionally. But I’m a nobody. Nothing. A gnat. No, not even a gnat. Gnats have wings and can fly.
New United Visa Offer
Jan
11
2006
Chase is offering the United Visa free the first year with a 20,000 mile signup bonus and an additional 5000 bonus miles when you fly a paid United roundtrip by March 15. Certainly the first purchase bonus will post for everyone, and the fee will be waived for anyone using the link. The 5000 mile bonus for a paid roundtrip is something of a question mark — since the fine print of the offer indicates a United promotion code (MPGJ15) it may be only for members whose Mileage Plus accounts have been pre-registered. So your mileage may vary on this piece. (Hat tip to Don.)
Quik Trak Bonus
Amtrak is offering 250 Guest Rewards points for picking up a ticket at a QuikTrak machine by March 31. Log into your Amtrak Guest Rewards account and then register for the promo using code 11906.Alas the bonus is limited to one per member. Update: The promo didn’t say anything about being targeted, but a reader emails a response that it’s in invalid offer so it might just be targeted. You’d think that Guest Rewards would say that if it is, but the folks running this program are among the worst in the industry so nothing surprises me at all.
