Next month’s Frequent Traveler University in Northern Virginia has been sold out for months. Some folks have been able to secure tickets because, while tickets are non-refundable, they are transferable up to about four weeks before the event. So folks who bought tickets speculatively, or who discovered they had work or other conflicts, were able to transfer tickets to those who remained alert and jumped on the opportunity. Today marks the last day where April Frequent Traveler University tickets can be transferred. In all, we expect 650 people at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner April 26-28 — the biggest gathering of frequent flyers ever. They’ll come to hear from me, Randy Petersen, The Points Guy, Lucky from One Mile at a Time, Million Mile Secrets, Seth of Wandering Aramean, Frequent Milers, Rapid Travel Chai, plus…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for March 2013.
Last Day to Cast Your Vote in the Freddie Awards
The Freddie Awards are in their 25th year of representing the voice of the frequent traveler, honoring the best in airline, hotel, and credit card loyalty programs during the previous year. Today is your last chance to vote for your favorite programs, the ones you believe did the best job for their members in 2012. Last month I predicted that you would be among more than 1,000,000 frequent flyers expressing their collective voice. In fact – and I don’t have final numbers yet — it appears that nearly three million people have participated so far. I’ve had the great honor of serving as Chair of Nominations for the Freddies, so I’ve been in touch with leadership at scores of frequent flyer programs over the past couple of months preparing for this. And as a co-founder…
Return to the Maldives: Tea at the Burj al Arab, Dubai
Trip Report Index: Introducing and Strategy New York JFK – Abu Dhabi, Etihad First Class Park Hyatt Dubai Touring the Burj al Arab Tea at the Burj al Arab Abu Dhabi – Male, Etihad Business Class Male – Kaadedhdhoo, Maldivian and Transfer to the Park Hyatt Park Hyatt Hadahaa Maldives Kooddoo-Male-Abu Dhabi, Maldivian and Etihad Business Class Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi – Dusseldorf – London, Etihad First Class and British Airways Club Europe London Heathrow – San Francisco, British Airways New First Class Our hotel media rep dropped us off at the Skyview bar, where we identified ourselves to the desk. We were the third reservation there, they found us on the little slips of paper at the desk. It was important to us to be on the early side (and we arrived…
“Mystery Flights” Ain’t New: Extreme Price Discrimination and a Vacation Adventure Saves Money
Alex Tabarrok writes about GetGoing.com, the website that has you pick two destinations and they book you non-refundably into one of them. It’s a price discrimination trick, they should be able to sell you cheaper tickets because you’re the most price sensitive kind of consumer — not one booking based on destination (since you don’t even have final say over that destination), but one truly booking on price. To maximize profit, airlines want to charge higher prices to consumers who are willing to pay more (inelastic demand) and lower prices to those who won’t buy unless the price is low (elastic demand). In essence, this comes down to charging business travelers more and leisure travelers less. In our textbook, …Business travelers, for example, are more likely to want to travel at the last-minute so airlines…
TMZ Airport Edition: Shirtless Justin Bieber and Monkeys at Security and Customs
Yesterday anabolism posted the news on Milepoint that Justin Bieber went through airport security in Poland with his shirt off and pants down below his underwear (photos and video). Apparently he wasn’t ordered to disrobe and he didn’t put his shirt back on post-security. Personally I’m most surprised that he was going through a public security checkpoint considering he was flying private, but I’m not at all familiar with Polish security procedures for private aircraft. Today, tom911 flags on Milepoint that Justin Bieber’s pet monkey has been seized by customs in Munich. monkey has been seized from pop star Justin Bieber after he flew it into Munich from the US on a private plane. The pet, a capuchin called Mally, is thought to have been given to the singer for his 19th birthday on March…
Just Because Your CVS *Appears* To Be Out of Vanilla Reload Cards…
At my local CVS, Vanilla Reload cards are supposed to be here: See, all the way down at the bottom on the right. Just where the red arrow points! (CVS isn’t quite that helpful, I had to add that in a photo editor. :p) But today, this is where they were: Can you see them? No? As a refresher, this is what the cards look like: Now let’s look again: See them now? Nope. But they were there. They were hidden behind the XBoxLive cards. So whatever frequent flyer out there thought they were clever, sorry dude! I found your stash! That CVS is mine… Moral of the story is just because Vanilla Reloads aren’t apparent, doesn’t mean they aren’t there, somebody might have hidden them. Behind the XBoxLive cards or the Red Lobster gift…
Return to the Maldives: Touring the Burj al Arab in Dubai
Trip Report Index: Introducing and Strategy New York JFK – Abu Dhabi, Etihad First Class Park Hyatt Dubai Touring the Burj al Arab Tea at the Burj al Arab Abu Dhabi – Male, Etihad Business Class Male – Kaadedhdhoo, Maldivian and Transfer to the Park Hyatt Park Hyatt Hadahaa Maldives Kooddoo-Male-Abu Dhabi, Maldivian and Etihad Business Class Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi – Dusseldorf – London, Etihad First Class and British Airways Club Europe London Heathrow – San Francisco, British Airways New First Class The Burj al Arab is sometimes described as the world’s only “seven star” hotel. It’s architecturally unique. The rooms are huge (the smallest is about 1800 square feet). It’s expensive, it’s a tourist attraction. And not anyone can just go there to gawk. I made reservations to have tea there…
Starwood Honoring Phoenician Mistake Rate… With a Discount
As The Miles Professor noted in the comments, Starwood has made a decision on how it will handle the $30 rates at the Phoenician in Scottsdale for this upcoming December. They are unwilling to do $30. But they’ll do $130. Depending on the dates that folks booked, paid rooms are available in the $400 – $500 price range (and award nights are 12,000 Starpoints). I am contacting you today in regards to your December 2013 reservations for The Phoenician. Unfortunately, due to a systems error on March 27, the resort temporarily listed the incorrect and very low accommodation rate of $30 per night. While the Terms & Conditions on our website indicate the right to cancel if a reservation resulted from a mistake or error, we value your business and would like to extend an…
Earning Points for Dining at a Hotel Restaurant When You Aren’t a Registered Guest
Both Starwood and Hyatt allow their loyalty program members to earn points for dining at a hotel restaurant… when not a registered guest at the hotel. Starwood has done this for years, and Hyatt rolled out the benefit for the most part across their hotels in 2012. (I got to use the benefit with Hyatt for the first time back in November when I had dinner in DC with Mommy Points) Starwood makes it easy, while you’re supposed to be able to hand over your member card with the bill and have them credit you in my experience folks in the restaurant often don’t know about the benefit let alone how to credit points. So you wait for the points not to post, then submit a missing points request — I send in an email…
Bits ‘n Pieces for March 29, 2013
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Delta will be squeezing four more coach seats into their 737-900s by shrinking the lavatories. More Than Mary has started a series with my advice on getting a little extra luxury for your travel spend, the first part of the series focusing on hotels – with a tip a week for the next six weeks, I believe. SAS will be eliminating intra-European business class. Possibly short-sighted move, if my conversation with a British Airways exec a couple of weeks back is any indication — BA loses money on their intra-European business product itself, but maintains it because it’s key to be able to sell long haul premium cabin seats (they believe cunnecting premium cabin passengers would book away without an intra-European premium product). Le Club Accorhotels instant top…
