I’ve stayed a few times recently at the W Austin, booked on points before the recent shift in Starwood reward categories. The property went from category 5 (12,000 points most nights) to 6 (20,000 points most nights), and I figured it was worth getting in under the wire. Now, I’ve reviewed several hotels in the Austin area: the Hyatt Place Downtown, Westin Austin at the Domain, and Hyatt Regency (also here and here). But the W is in my favorite location — right smack downtown, but not by all the 6th street bars (so quieter) and with a view of the river. It’s across the street in one direction from Lamberts Downtown Barbecue and a block in another direction from a great wine bar (Cru). There’s a Starbucks in the building (entrance around the corner),…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for April 2014.
How Not to Take Your Anger Out on an Airline
I’ll occasionally take to Twitter to vent frustrations during my travels. And I tend towards the sarcastic. But I don’t do this. The girl then freaks out. In the movie Airplane! a passenger calls out to his friend, “Hi Jack!” and is immediately taken down as a security threat. And that was pre-9/11. One commenter notes that you know you’ve screwed up “when you make American Airlines look good by comparison.” I mean, I get that Sarah was probably in the process of planning a oneworld explorer award and all… but a hashtag would probably work better. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also…
Why Last Week’s American AAdvantage Debacle Eroded So Must Trust, and How They Can Win It Back
Last week American AAdvantage made several changes to its program: Rolling out a new three-tier pricing model for AAnytime awards (paying extra miles when regular award seats aren’t available). Eliminating free stopovers on international awards at the North American gateway city Eliminating distance-based oneworld explorer awards Increasing the telephone booking fee from $25 to $35 (they still do not waive this fee for awards that cannot be booked online, and most airline partner awards cannot be). I wrote a post framed as my still trusting AAdvantage. The argument was more nuanced that that, but the title detracted from understanding my argument rather than summarizing it. That’s my fault. My point was that American AAdvantage has deeply eroded trust with its changes this week, and was very much on the brink of doing real damage right…
American Doesn’t Know When AAdvantage and Dividend Miles Will Combine
My running assumption has been that Dividend Miles and AAdvantage — and indeed US Airways and American — would combine either the last weekend of February or the first weekend of March 2015. It will have been about 15 months since the merger was consummated (and there was plenty of preparatory work done in the time leading up to that, especially as the question of the merger dragged on due to the Department of Justice’s anti-trust lawsuit). And it’s a relatively slow time for travel. It’s the window that United-Continental, Northwest-Delta, and America West-US Airways used. But the tasks of combining airlines are gargantuan. The America West-US Airways combination was initially an operational disaster (I’m strange enough to have consciously opted to fly US Airways that weekend — everyone was told to check in online,…
Last Day to Buy US Airways Miles at 1.1 Cents Apiece With 100% Share Miles Bonus
Today is the last day to ‘share’ US Airways Dividend Miles with 100% bonus. That means effectively buying miles at ~ 1.1 cents apiece. Limited time offer: Give up to a 100% bonus when you Share Miles! Share miles from April 7th until April 13th 2014 and your friend or family member will get up to 100% MORE in bonus miles – up to 50,000 miles. The bonus is actually tiered, you need to share at least 30,000 miles to get that bonus. Lower amounts receive a lesser bonus according to the following schedule: You transfer 50,000 points from account A to account B at a cost of $567.50. Account B receives 100,000 miles. If you have a spouse or significant other, transfer 50,000 points to them and they receive 100,000 miles; then they transfer…
Southern Italy: the Great Destination No One Goes to Anymore
The New York Times carried a fascinating op-ed on Italian tourism. I often say it’s best to go where the tourists aren’t, frequently that means travel to popular destinations during shoulder season when hotels aren’t overrun and you can find better deals and upgrades. It also means overlooked destinations, and though the New York Times is covering it the data suggests that Southern Italy is worth considering. Only 13% of tourists who travel to Italy visit Southern Italy. Naples is the third largest municipality in Italy after Rome and Milan. It’s one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. But there’s an average of fewer than 3 flights a day in total from German airports to Southern Italy. Naples is apparently just ahead of York and Stuttgart as a tourist destination. The Italian…
Is Plink Rewards No Longer Rewarding?
Back in October I wrote an introductory guide to Plink Rewards, A Free Double Dipping Points Tool: How to Take Advantage of Plink Rewards. Plink is a shopping rewards program that works automatically. You sign up for the program and then link a credit card, and then qualifying purchases made with that credit card will earn you points in the Plink program. There’s nothing more to do to earn the points. (You don’t need to remember to do anything, which is nice.) It’s been a very valuable double dipping tool the past several months. But I’m not liking two current aspects of the program. Plink Is Short on Worthwhile Merchant Partners Plink was fantastic when you earned points for purchases at Staples. Staples is a ‘staple’ of my buying routing (mostly Amazon gift cards, Starbucks…
A New Lounge in Phoenix Anyone Can Access, and the Growing Network of Airline-Independent Lounges
American Express Platinum may have lost access to American and US Airways lounges a few weeks ago and will be losing guest privileges at Delta lounges May 1, but there’s a growing network of lounges that the card does get access to. This month Citibank will give American club lounge day passes to Amex Platinum cardholders. Increasingly though you don’t need to belong to one airline’s club network in order to have lounge access. United’s clubs are off-limits to credit card holders of a bank other than Chase with a lounge access product. And American’s and US Airways’ lounges have been withdrawn from the Priority Pass program. But there are independent pay-in lounges, there are lounges operated by banks, and there are lounge networks like Priority Pass (and sister program Lounge Club). In fact, The…
Uber Reducing New Member Referral Credits In Two Weeks
Since I’ve covered Uber extensively in the past, I thought it worth flagging that Uber: Appears to be cracking down on being able to stack new member referral credits with promotion codes (generally you have to choose one or the other, otherwise they’ll remove the latter from your account). (HT: Deals We Like) Is reducing new member referral credits from $20 to $10 after April 25. That means using a referral credit a couple of weeks from now will only get you $10 towards your first ride (and only get the person who refers you $10 as well). Here’s the email I received from Uber on this second point: One last opportunity for double referrals* — score $20 in Uber credit for every friend that takes a ride before April 25th with your invite code.…
Getting Taxed On Your Miles? Here’s How to Dispute It
This is the last weekend before tax day. I finished most of my tax return but I haven’t filed it yet. I do it myself with tax software, rather than going to a professional, because anyone who will do taxes for someone like me isn’t someone I would trust to do my taxes. I’d rather use the software, put together by real experts, than have someone not in a position to work on more lucrative accounts than mine working on my account. Here’s some important tax advice for mileage junkies. While in the U.S. frequent flyer miles are not generally taxed (even though theoretically miles earned through business travel, or business expenses charged to your credit card and reimbursed, could be) there is an exception — prizes you win, or incentives you receive that aren’t…
