After having a few hundred dollars of credits ‘removed’ from my Jetsetter.com account, and being given he runaround by customer service — being told I had violated their terms and conditions, but being refused requests to tell me how, and then being told that using referral links that they had given me at all were seemingly in and of themselves a violation of their terms and conditions — I shared the ludicrous story of their customer service responses here on this blog. The post generated over 100 comments, it also was posted on Jetsetter’s Facebook wall and tweeted and re-tweeted. Lucky picked up on it as well. Within hours of my posting, I finally heard from a ‘real’ person at Jetsetter (from a non-generic email address with a person’s name attached). I was unfortunately in…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for February 2012.
US Airways Trial Preferred Status: You Can Earn the Top Elite Tier Even if You Just Sign Up for the Cheapest Silver Challenge
US Airways doesn’t do status matches, if you want expedited elite status they will sell you a ‘challenge’ where you get temporary status for 90 days and then have an opportunity to fly to keep that status on an accelerated basis. Trial silver costs $200, trial Gold $400, and trial Platinum $600. Then your travel on US Airways flights determines whether or not you keep status: Silver: Fly 7,500 miles or 10 segments Gold: Fly 15,000 miles or 20 segments Platinum: Fly 22,500 miles or 30 segments Chairmans: Fly 30,000 miles or 40 segments Here’s something that’s implied by their chart, but that I didn’t actually know — the level you pay to sign up for is just the amount of temporary status that you have during your 90 day challenge. Put another way, the…
Priority Club 24 Hour Reward Night Sale
Via @PriorityClub on Twitter, they’re running a 24 hour award sale at 50% off (or more) on a handful of properties: We’re pilot-testing our One Day Sale with reward nights starting at 50% off! Hurry, it’s only around for 24 hrs! Here’s the award sale and the page says that the sale is available from “12:00 a.m. Thursday morning to 11:59 p.m. EST Thursday night.” However there’s also a countdown clock on the page that shows the deal expiring an hour before that, at 10:59pm Eastern. IT glitch, it seems… There are only 12 hotels on offer, although two of them are Intercontinental properties — Johannesburg for 15,000 points per night and available for redemption February 24 through April 13, and Panama City, Panama for 12,500 points per night and available for redemption through April…
Continental’s Victors Get in their Zingers Against the Old United
In the Continental-United merger (read: Continental acquisition of United), integration means that most things are being done the Continental way. Not everything, mind you, they tried briefly to use Continental’s boarding procedures but realized ‘back to front’ was a problem when they were upselling passengers for economy plus up front and then those passengers boarded last and had to gate check their bags. But even there, it’s mostly Continental leadership making those decisions. They’re keeping Rhapsody in Blue, at least for now, but even that was touch and go for awhile. The victors, of course, get to write the historical narrative. And they’re getting in some zingers. I do think that Continental meal service has been better than United meal service on the whole in recent years, but this line from United’s (i.e. Continental’s) executive…
Hyatt Gold Passport Dropping 4 Airlines as Partners
As I understand it, in the coming days Hyatt Gold Passport will be announcing that effective March 16 members will lose the ability to earn miles with Aeroplan, Alaska Airlines, Frontier, and US Airways for their hotel stays and also the ability to transfer points into miles with these airlines. While the announcement of these changes have not been made yet, apparently a website detailing them is up early. This isn’t a huge loss, Aeroplan gutted its award chart last year and then began adding fuel surcharges to awards, taking a once great frequent flyer program and making it mediocre at best (though its online booking tool is pretty good). Frontier is, well, one of the weakest programs in North America. Personally I will miss the opportunity to earn US Airways miles, at least during…
30% Bonus on Purchased Amtrak Guest Rewards Points
Amtrak Guest Rewards is running a 30% bonus on purchased points through March 31. You have to log into your account to see details of the offer. You can purchase a maximum of 10,000 points in a year. The same bonus applies to gifting points, though the same 10,000 cap (not a separate cap) applies to receiving points via gift as via purchasing for yourself. Not an amazing offer by any means, but useful to top off your account towards an award you want to redeem for and also can be strategically useful for some, it’s often less expensive to buy points (especially with bonus) than to buy tickets on some Northeast corridor routes especially and also on 1000-point one-way routes. Provided of course that your travel falls outside of Amtrak blackout dates (and for…
More News Coverage of the Oneworld MegaDO
The AP’s Scott Mayerowitz was onboard the charter and filed this report. ABOARD AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 9454 — Eric Mueller’s vacation started when his plane filled with smoke. Soon, people slid down an emergency chute, inflated life vests and climbed into a raft. …The most recent journey had 160 people paying up to $1,699 for a seat and access to spots normally off limits: Boeing’s sprawling 737 factory, American’s mission control-like operations center and the cockpit of the world’s largest passenger jet. Tickets sold out in 17 minutes. …The camaraderie was part of the trip’s appeal. Sure, it was really cool to walk inside the first 747 ever built. But it was also fun to gulp down gin and tonics midair with other guys — three out of four passengers were male — who have…
Why I Don’t Trust Hotel Discounter Jetsetter.com
There are several hotel consolidators and discount sites that promise deals, Their offers are frequently limited, sometimes the deals are good and frequently they aren’t, but they all try to distinguish themselves in one way or another. Back in October, SniqueAway offered me a site credit if I would promote their product by giving away some credit to me readers. I asked them if I could give away the credit they were offering to readers and the credit they were offering to me, so that’s what I did. Also in October, TripAlertz was offering $10 for every person you got to sign up their email address using your link. I said at the time that was too generous, and it clearly was, they reduced the amount of their offer quickly and then twice in quick…
Sheraton Club Room Discount with Bonus Starpoints
Hotel ‘special offer’ rates can be frustrating, the best offers are usually corporate discounts that not everyone is eligible for and will sometimes though not always be verified by the hotel, you can often search for corporate codes online and in the U.S. at least they’ll generally be honored without pushback though in Asia hotels will often ask for corporate identification (such as a business card) to verify eligibility for company rates. A revenue manager for a major chain in a major U.S. city once told me that he specifically instructed his hotels to ID the IBM rate since that rate was so low, but other than that I’ve rarely seen U.S. hotels check eligibility. Still, there are plenty of rates out there that most people can use. Costco rates on rental cars are often…
New York Times on Credit Card Signup Bonuses and Rental Car Savings
Two from The Times: The New York Times runs a good piece on AutoSlash and why some rental companies won’t allow the site to display their rental car prices. There’s an easy workaround, though, if you want to book a car through Avis. Just make your booking at Avis.com, provide AutoSlash with your confirmation number, and they’ll track your reservation for you and keep checking for price drops, automatically rebooking you if the price improves (or checking with you if you’d like a better price with another agency if the price drops elsewhere). AutoSlash is the best place to get lowest price rental car deals, since prices change all the time and it takes the work out of continually checking for rate drops. The Times‘ Ethicist column endorses credit card signup bonuses in the retail…
