Via Frugal Travel Guy, the Millenium Resort Scottsdale is offering a $100 rate with $100 daily food and beverage credit. This isn’t a mistake rate, it’s a TravelZoo deal, and a pretty good one. Valid for stays from June 21st through September 17th, and book by June 4. There’s tax and a resort fee on top of this, and the food and beverage credit will be on the base food price only, and can’t be used towards tip. But it still makes the room almost free if you’d plan to spend your time on property anyway. No doubt the hotel expects to be slow — first because this is true off-season for Arizona, and second because they’re apparently finishing up a major renovation so no doubt bookings haven’t been flowing in the meantime. The TripAdvisor…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for May 2008.
How United Upgrades Work
One Mile at a Time offers an introduction to United upgrades — the different instruments, how they work, and their waitlist priority. Good for the new United elite, or for those who would like to be.
Memorial Weekend Open Thread
What’s on your mind? A free for all in the comments, but please keep it civil (and clean). Let me know what questions you have and I’ll try to answer. What are the biggest challenges you face with travel or miles and points? Are you having trouble accumulating the miles you need, or booking the award you want, perhaps I can help… I’m not traveling this weekend, just playing with my new barbecue and relaxing by the pool (and working). I tend to hate ‘amateur day’ at the airport, Memorial Weekend isn’t quite as bad as Thanksgiving though, but if I can get my breaks in when the rest of the world isn’t around so much the better…
The Worst Airline Lounges
The Flying Critic says avoid the KLM lounge in Houston. And if it’s as bad as he says, why not? Use the nice Air France lounge that is less than a minute away. Between the SkyTeam lounge sharing rules and the fact that both KLM and Air France are wholly owned subsidiaries of Air France-KLM it makes no sense why this KLM lounge is still open. I recently posted on the very best airline lounges. But which ones are the absolute worst? Surely the Alitalia Boticalli Lounge in Milan has to be up there, and far worse than KLM’s Houston offering. I say that even though the Milan lounge has showers. Ahh… But will it have towels? Luckily it did when I was there last year. Unfortunately, there was no hot water and the drain…
Fee Increases Get Even More Creative
Via Online Travel Review, Frontier has come up with a new fee increase, to my knowledge unmatched by any other carrier — they’re raising the cost to transport antlers from $75 to $100. The end is neigh.
Northwest Miles To Go Promo
Northwest, always good for the complex-yet-fun promos, has pushed out Miles To Go. (registration required) Not already a Northwest member? (Members who haven’t already signed up can take advantage for some of these…) Enrolling in the program, opting into their emails, and then enrolling in e-miles.. E-rewards.. and Thanks Again.. Is enough to earn 1500 bonus miles from the program. Other ‘free’ activities, if you arne’t an e-miles or e-rewards member through another frequent flyer program, include taking surveys from each of those two partners. Plus you can take a spin at their instant win sweepstakes for points in the program. Plus, new members can earn substantial flight bonuses, and those flights will earn points in the Miles To Go promo as well. My only concern, though, is that registering for this offer could conflict…
Accounting Rules Catching Up to Frequent Flyer Programs
Accounting for frequent flyer programs on corporate balance sheets is getting tricky. There’s some pressure to book mileage liability at the market value of the rewards they can be redeemed for, rather than at the marginal cost of carrying an additional passenger on a flight. Historically, airline yield management was able to restrict ‘saver’ level awards to seats that would have otherwise flown empty. So an airline would ‘sell’ the seat to its frequent flyer program at roughly cost, so order of magnitude perhaps $25 for a US domestic ticket. Of course that wasn’t the only element of redemption, or balance sheet liability. There are rulebuster type of awards which come at a higher cost, premium cabin awards, partner awards, etc. But to a pretty good approximation, mileage programs would sell miles at a huge…
Is American’s Charging for a FIRST Checked Bag All That Bad?
The blogosphere and everywhere else is lit up about American’s decision to begin charging not just for the second checked bag, but the first as well. They’re also cutting back on domestic flights. The first bag fee doesn’t apply to (both paid and award) first and business class passengers, full fare coach (and full fare aka AAnytime award) passengers, and American and oneworld partner elites. Fortunately, though I’m not much of an American flyer, I do have lifetime elite status since they’re the only carrier which grants such privileges based on total miles earned in an account rather than miles flown. Some folks describe the new policy as the end of the world, others just say the end of the world is $130 a barrel oil and what are you gonna do? Others think American…
Two Northwest Worldperks Bonus Mile Promos
Northwest elites whose account addresses are in North America can register to receive 50% Bonus Miles on tickets purchased after registration but prior to June 20, 2008 for Northwest or KLM-operated flights, for travel before August 31, 2008. This is a 50% bonus on redeemable miles on top of the standard mileage and standard elite bonus, but is not an elite qualifying bonus. Hilton is offering double Northwest miles for stays between May 1 and July 31, 2008. Registration required, and you don’t have to be a Northwest (or Hilton) elite to take advantage of this one.
Orbitz Formalizes VIP Customer Program: “Priority Access”
Just as Expedia has formalized its VIP customer program, so too now has Orbitz. Expedia has done more to promote theirs, I actually knew that I was an Expedia ElitePlus member. They’ve also offered up clear criteria on re-qualification ($10,000 in Expedia spend in a year or 12 hotel nights — clearly hotels are a profitable product ofr Expedia). And there are a few value-added benefits, however miniscule. Orbitz on the other hand offers a dedicated customer service line and waiver of its own fees, just like Expedia. They offer free Hertz #1 Club Gold (easily obtainable elsewhere free) and occasional discounts such as this one which I imagine would be useable by anyone: Save $50 on a 3-night hotel stay or a 3-night flight + hotel package — in any destination! Use Promo Code:…
