Monthly Archives

Apr 19 2016

Back in the fall Marriott Rewards introduced 4 new features to their program. I broke the news on their plan for cash and points, points sharing, points advance, and reward nights counting towards status.

These were modest changes, they’re things offered by other programs, and hardly revolutionary. They’re the kind of marginal improvements we’re used to seeing from Marriott Rewards to go along with periodic devaluations.

But with Marriott acquiring Starwood hotels they were pretty shell shocked to see the customer reaction among Starwood’s elite members. It became clear they were going to need to offer Starwood’s customers the kind of treatment they’ve been used to in order to retain them.

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Apr 18 2016

A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.

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Apr 18 2016

Last week I wrote about checking your credit card statement for unauthorized hotel charges. A pet peeve of mine is hotels charging you for things not on your final folio.

Oddly enough then I actually had a hotel email me last week about failing to charge me for a stay five months earlier.

And it got me thinking: how long is too long? How many months is too long after a stay for a hotel to say they forgot to charge you for part of your bill?

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Apr 18 2016

Hotel chains want you to book directly through them because it costs them less to make a reservation themselves than it does to pay a commission to Expedia or other online travel sites (or travel agents).

Hilton tested a small discount in a handful of cities restricted to Hilton HHonors members. The discount wasn’t great, about 5% (and so generally more expensive than AAA rates), but it was more about the model than the amount.

Today Hyatt introduced member-only discount rates and in some cases they’re bigger discounts than what Hilton and Marriott are offering, but still not better than AAA rates. And they’re not available worldwide.

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Apr 18 2016

Hyatt’s CEO Mark Hoplamazian says loyalty shouldn’t focus on points. Points are a rebate, and they’re necessary to compete, but loyalty is about an overall value proposition that goes beyond the economic calculation for a given stay.

And they’re rethinking loyalty. When a CEO says that I think we expect some changes, but in my experience Hyatt usually moves slowly so I wouldn’t expect them right away.

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Apr 17 2016

The Citi Prestige Card has been the ‘it’ card for the past year. It’s chock full of benefits. Citi has built a premium card to surpass others at the price point. It’s built a transferrable points program, let you use the points at a strong value towards paid airfare, and bundled not just traditional benefits like lounge access but unique benefits like VIP treatment at restaurants and free golf. Here are the 15 things that I love about it.

Today Citi emailed out notice that effective May 15 a new travel benefits guide goes into effect and as far as I can tell the changes are all actually quite good.

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Apr 17 2016

A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.

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Apr 17 2016

Plastiq, the online bill pay service that charges your credit card and then sends out checks on your behalf has dropped the price of processing payments that you charge to a MasterCard from their standard 2.5% (which is still lower than services like Paypal) down to 2%.

They’ve run promotions in the past like 1.5% but this isn’t just a limited-time offer.

Spokesperson Rebecca Sehar tells me, “This is promotional pricing in partnership with MasterCard for US payments – fairly straightforward =) No end date, as of yet, but obviously great pricing..”

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Apr 17 2016

Bernie Sanders’ trip to Rome (there’s no airport in Vatican City, though there’s a heliport) was on a chartered Delta Boeing 767-332ER with 26 flat business class seats, 29 extra legroom economy seats, and 171 standard economy seats.

It’s worth noting that while Bernie Sanders charters from Delta, the Pope prefers American Airlines. While Papal infallibility only applies ex cathedra, promulgating official teachings of the Church, it’s interesting that his charter flight choices didn’t have persuasive power with the Bernie Sanders campaign. (In fact, Sanders has more in common with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who has earned Delta Diamond.)

Here’s the menu detail from the flight:

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Apr 17 2016

This morning I wrote about New York or Boston to several European cities, flying back from Lisbon, for $340 roundtrip.

It turns out that there’s an even cheaper fare. Fly New York or Boston to London, then fly back Lisbon to New York (with a final segment to Canada that you don’t have to take) for $268.

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