London’s Sunday Times carries a puff piece on Starwood Hotels CEO Frits van Paasschen “whose mantra is ‘refuel the cool’” He has his work cut out for him, though I’m not sure he realizes just how. Starwood has had four unique selling propositions, two of which were loyalty program-related and three of which have been matched or bettered by the competition over the past couple of years. 1) SPG True Redemption. This was the best program for award redemption, period. Not only no blackout dates but no capacity controls. But now Hilton and Hyatt both explicitly matches this, and in practice Priority Club seems close. 2) Platinum suite upgrades. Intercontinental Royal Ambassador has long had a better upgrade policy, but the program was too small for Starwood to worry about. Hilton doesn’t offer a suite…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for December 2009.
Fixing Air Traffic Control in the United States
Reason.tv‘s video, Your Flight Has Been Delayed… And It’s Washington’s Fault makes the case for folowing Canada’s lead and prviatizing Air Traffic Control. Of course this weekend’s delays weren’t Washington’s fault. But certainly transportation funding priorities are out of whack, air traffic control technologies are terribly outdated, and Canada’s private model seems to operate better (in spite of more snow up North!). That said, I’ve long wanted to imrpove plane-to-plane communications and make planes more like cars…
Just Over a Week Left to Take Advantage of the US Airways 250% Holiday Shopping Bonus
I’ve written plenty about this offer already, but there are likely several people still on the fence so I thought I’d write it up as simply as possible in one place. The bonus offers the opportunity to buy US Airways miles at about 7/10ths of a penny apiece. That’s buying business class from the US to Europe for ~ $700 (plus taxes and award redemption fee). First class to Hong Kong on Star Alliance partner awards becomes ~ $850 per ticket (again, plus taxes and fees). So it’s a pretty amazing offer. The basics of the deal: * You need to have (5) transactions with different merchants in order to reach the 250% bonus level. The 5th needs to be Track It Back which normally offers 40 miles per dollar but becomes 140 under this…
Well Done Diners Card Worldwide Marketing Campaign
I like the new Diners Club international marketing campaign, I thin kit’s really well done. It’s available on YouTube in multiple languages. Here’s the South African version of the ad, the diference being a mention of winning 1 million South African Airways miles and displaying the URL for the South African website. The ‘belong’ theme is common, travelers will recognize it for sure. The theme of a credit card connecting you to your values and using your money to accomplish things that matter is, umm, hardly new. (Mastercard, anyone?) And yet the images and language appeal to a more upscale demographic. Yet the benefits of the card really aren’t positioned the way that American Express positions Platinum or Centurion. So intellectually I’m a bit skeptical of the commercial. And yet it resonates. Here in the…
New 80% Off Restaurants.com Discount Code
Through December 25, promo code Santa is good for 80% off purchases from Restaurant.com. A standard e-certificate costs $10, so this code makes it $2. Now, I don’t really use these certificates. But Restaurant.com is a frequent shopping partner valid for various promotions. And for the US Airways Holiday Shopping 250% mileage bonus, you can purchase Restaurant.com certificates through ThanksAgain to earn a partner. And of course you need 5 total partners in order to reach the 250% earning threshold. So here’s a $2 option.
United’s Most Frequent Flyer: 700,000 Miles Per Year in the Air
Scott Mayerowitz has an ABC Travel piece on United’s most frequent flyer, tied to the movie Up in the Air (hint: Tom Stuker flies twice as much as Ryan Bingham), and writing about airline top tier elite programs like United’s Global Services and American’s Concierge Key. About Tom Stuker’s flying, Stuker has flown nearly 700,000 miles this year alone, criss-crossing the globe for work as an automobile sales consultant. Over the years, he has racked up nearly 8.8 million miles on United Airlines, making him the top member of the airline’s Mileage Plus frequent flier program. If this is accurate — if the 700,000 figure is actual butt-in-seat miles rather than elite qualifying miles (juiced by double elite qualifying mile promos and class of service bonuses) then it is truly impressive. Actually, it’s impressive either…
A Case Study in Starnet Blocking: Booking United Awards to South Africa
As many of you know, I probably book more frequent flyer award tickets than anyone else in the world. So I get a lot of regular experience dealing with a wide variety of frequent flyer programs. After Delta, United is my second least-favorite to deal with (Singapore is no bargain, either). All for different reasons. Delta just offers the least amount of premium cabin international award availability at reasonable mileage prices, and has all sorts of hidden rules like too many segments bumping up mileage prices (when they’re the ones who force you to go looking for extra segments to find available flights in the first place). While United as a Star Alliance carrier has access to some incrediblle partners and award inventory, regular readers of this blog kow that they are the only Star…
Details of Starwood’s First Quarter Promo – Register January 5
From January 5 through April 15, Starwood is offering double points on 1 and 2 night stays, triple points on 3 night stays, and quadruple points on stays of 4 nights or more. This is in addition to usual 50% elite bonuses and any other bonuses on offer. Registration is required, beginning on January 5. While most properties are participating, not all are. They advertise “over 850” but you may want to check the participating properties list so see whether where you’re staying will be awarding the bonus points.
5000 Bonus Miles on First Transfer of American Express Points to British Airways Miles
One Mile at a Time noted yesterday that British Airways was now live as a U.S. American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner. I hadn’t expected this until January, they’re a few weeks ahead of schedule. He also notes that they’re offering 5000 bonus miles for making your first transfer. And, indeed, the Amex Membership Rewards website says: “In honor of this new partnership, you can receive 5,000 bonus BA Miles when you transfer Membership Rewards® points to British Airways before January 31, 2010. You must be enrolled in the British Airways Executive Club in order to participate in this offer, visit http://www.ba.com to enroll. Bonus Miles will be awarded by February 28, 2010. One bonus per Cardmember. Taxes, fees, charges & surcharges, including airline surcharged, apply.” So I can transfer 1000 Amex points to BA…
And The Monster Outlets-To-Go Powerstrip Giveaway Winners Are…
The winners in the Monster Outlets to Go Giveaway Are… Well, before I actually tell you who won I’ll hold onto the suspense for just I moment (I know you’re all waiting with bated breath). There were 669 eligible comments, submitted by the deadline of noon eastern time yesterday. Thanks, folks! I didn’t check to see just how many were submitted by the same folks, multiple entries were eligible, but I know that commenting in this thread became a favorite pasttime for many. What will you all do now that the contest is closed? I used an online number generator to come up with (3) random numbers in order to determine which comment numbers were the winners. But I had a little problem the first time through. The initial winners were Erich and Autumn and….…
