News and notes from around the interweb:
- American AAdvantage has a new site for redeeming miles for car rentals. I haven’t spent a lot of time on it, but the first car I pulled up was from Enterprise so I priced it (without discounts) on the Enterprise website at $146.15 with all taxes and fees.
American wanted 18,029 miles for the rental or $0.0081 per point. The option to spend the fewest miles was 4,500 miles + $148.82. That’s more cash than paying outright for the rental. Your points literally have negative value?
- TSA action movie. This is hilarious. A far more realistic portrayal though was She’s Out Of My League (2010)
- Order through the app when you hit TSA, pick up your cup as you walk by. These machines were gone for a bit, upgrade revealed. And it certainly isn’t worse than Starbucks, probably marginally better.
Someone over at @costacoffee hit the UPGRADE button! Our Costa Coffee on-the-go machines just got a glow-up, the kind where it makes everyone’s life easier. ☕️
Locate your next cup using our wayfinding map https://t.co/2VIhJCWfdX pic.twitter.com/avGweJe2ru
— Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (@AUStinAirport) October 21, 2024
- Hilton guest says beachfront hotel had none of the amenities she paid for, including beach access
@curlyheadsierraaa @hilton ♬ original sound – Curlyheadsierra - You sunk my battleship.
Dude was ready to throw hands at the end pic.twitter.com/e57RkfwZAM
— NO CONTEXT HUMANS (@HumansNoContext) October 20, 2024
- The Delano will rebrand as the W Las Vegas
- Preferred Hotels & Resorts I Prefer is now a Citi transfer partner at 1,000 : 4,000. They have some amazing hotels, and this could occasionally make sense.
Meh, that is close to the par value of $0.01 per point. Yeah “travel hackers” get more but you have to be the kind of person that doesn’t have a real job to actually fly those routes. If you’re someone who gets a lot of respect in professional circles–let’s say you are a partner at Paul, Weiss–you will be averaging $0.01 per point.
@SFO
For someone who thinks of themselves as super important, you sure do waste a lot of time here. It’s funny that you think you’re respected in professional circles. My guess is you’re just a karen who leaches off your betters and who everybody trashes as soon as you leave.
The fact you don’t know how easy it is to get excellent value from AA points indicates this is yet another aspect of life you have no clue about. Don’t you get tired of being wrong all the time?
Found a funny screenshot I took almost 11 years ago of a similar thing with Hilton points. A Homewood Suites was showing three options: $84 a night, or 30,000 points… or $112 + 12,000 points. So I guess 12,000 points back then had a value of negative $28!
So W is now a conversion brand for Marriott? Will this be franchised or licensed because until now Marriott has not generally, if ever, franchised or licensed W.
@SFO/EWR even if you are somehow fine generating 1 cent per point in value, this is still 19% less than that which is not “close to” the same.
Furthermore I hope you are never earning 1 point per dollar on any of your card spend when those points are worth just 1 cent to you, otherwise you are not very smart rather than respected.
Having a job makes one respectable?
Lol in what world? The one when you get 2 weeks vacation?
Not having to have a job, and living off passive income, being able to fly any route, whenever you want, that’s respectable.
Remember that with hubs in DFW, CLT, and MIA, AA has a large red state clientele. So while many people would realize it’s unwise to be dropping 4,500 miles to pay higher than market rates for the car rental, AA is simply capitalizing on the general financial ignorance that is keeping their customers in red states to begin with. After all, if they had the financial wherewithal to know not to burn miles just to spend more money, they’re probably smart enough to figure out how to get out of the red state hellscape they live in.
@UncleJeff This isn’t a political site. Your snide comments about people who share different political views from your’s makes you look foolish. Just an FYI, TX and FL are the fastest growing states in the Union. A lot of CA and NYers have no trouble relocating to these states.
Gary, I know you like to have a wide open forum where people are free to express their views, but there are literally tens of thousands of sites where people who have nothing better to do than engage in tiresome political pissing contests can amuse themselves. I’d be all for deleting political comments that are irrelevant to the topics.
Bad IT. If you look at the progression of prices there, someone lazily kept the cash/points options going beyond the logical stopping point.
@DaveS and @Brian W – this is a travel blog with political undertones. The anti-union, anti-government, anti-regulation and occasionally even anti-California themes are common in Gary’s postings. And as such, he’s been able to successfully capture a niche reader base that follows travel and politics. That results in readers who are sometimes batsh*t crazy, and others that call it out. And plenty in between.
There are plenty of travel blogs that just talk about points or miles or whatever, but this one has really built its unique niche by fusing both quality travel content with identifiable political undertones.
So with all due respect, the political content and comments you may disagree with is part of the content that defines why this is such a successful site.