Intercontinental Hotels offers perhaps the most rewarding elite level of any chain. You pay to join their ‘Ambassador’ program but the level you can earn is Royal Ambassador. And this in many ways is the most lucrative elite level there is: not just 4pm late checkout, but also guaranteed 8am check in; suite upgrades that often aren’t capped and can yield the biggest and most impressive suites; free drinks from the minibar (not to mention a free pay movie if you want it and free internet). I’ve had some of my absolute best suites from Intercontinentals over the years — from the Presidential suite (twice) in Manila, a Diplomatic Suite in Bangkok, Ambassador Suite in Singapore, a Terrace Suite in San Francisco at the Mark Hopkins, to name just a few. But the program is…
About Gary Leff
Using Your Points at Ski Resorts
Loyal reader Marc writes Hi – I’ve been reading your blog every day for a few years now and I was wondering if you could put something together on using points and miles for ski trips, as this is the time of year that many people start thinking about winter plans. I have compiled a list of ski resorts where points can be used and I am hoping that you could add some of your wisdom and maybe ask for some help from your readership to build the list. I love to travel all over to ski, and I’ve stayed at many of the hotels on the list below, but I’m always interested in finding out about new ones. Here’s what I have so far…. Westin Monache (at Mammoth) Ritz Carlton at Northstar (Tahoe) Hyatt…
American AAdvantage Buy Miles Bonus: Too Expensive But Still Strategically Useful
American AAdvantage is offering a bonus on purchased miles through the end of October. The amount of bonus miles you’ll receive depends on the range of miles you purchase. The sweet spot here is 36,000 miles purchased — to maximize your bonus, your bonus as a percent of miles bought, and also to amortize the $30 fee per transaction over the greatest number of miles. Even still, once you factor in that $30 fee and also the 7.5% tax on the sale you’re looking at $1094.25 to buy 36,000 miles and receive a total of 46,000. That’s $0.0238 per mile. This is strategically useful if you need to top off 46,000 to 50,000 miles in your account, or for instance if you need 7500 miles. But at about 2.4 cents a mile I’m not a…
Free Starwood Gold Status for CLEAR Members
Through the end of the year, Starwood Preferred Guest is offering free Gold status to members of CLEAR (expedited security, but distinguished from PreCheck). The offer also includes 1000 bonus points per stay, up to 10 stays, through December 31. The signup form asks for your CLEAR membership number, I do not know whether they ever validate that membership number. But signing up for CLEAR is enough to get Starwood Gold status. And there have been plenty of free trial offers for CLEAR, for instance if you’ve signed up for Milepoint Premium one of the benefits is a 90 day free trial with CLEAR.
Ritz-Carlton Rewards Visa: Strong Value for Ritz Guests and Frequent Marriott Customers
The Ritz-Carlton Rewards® Credit Card About four months back there was an offer for the Ritz-Carlton Rewards Visa that waived the $395 annual fee the first year (for owners of Ritz-Carlton Residence condos). I didn’t pay it much mind at the time because I’m not a huge fan of the Marriott program, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards is largely a rebrand of Marriott Rewards. A $200 annual fee credit on a card that I wouldn’t have been paying a fee for is nice, but I look for more than $200 in value from signing up for a card from Chase. I started looking at the card again because I have an upcoming stay at a Ritz-Carlton resort (and at an incredibly, shockingly favorable rate, y’all will see a trip report when it happens). Ok, get ready for…
Time Management for Part-Time Bloggers: Keeping Up With Everything You Need to Know in 15 Minutes or Less
There was a bit of a twitter conversation about my blogging this morning, with folks observing that I’ve been posting more lately than I have in the past, and wondering if I’ve become a full-time blogger. I haven’t. I originally came at all of this miles and points stuff years ago, traveling for work, traveling for personal reasons shortly after college — I would head home cross-country several times a year, my girlfriend after college lived in a different city. And my nature is that I read fine print, I read all of the marketing materials that the frequent flyer programs sent me in the mail. And I was kind of blown away by the value propositions I was seeing before my very eyes. I signed up for a US Airways credit card, got the…
Bits ‘n Pieces for October 11, 2012
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Aer Lingus: Off-season sale to Dublin, travel in January and February, from $599 for New York departures, $649 for Boston departures, and $699 for Chicago departures. Book by the end of October and Saturday night stay required. Air Canada: 15% off January 8 – February 15 travel within Canada for bookings made by October 12 with promo code EARLYBIRD15 (HT: ACMM) Cathay Pacific: A Day in the Life of a Flight Attendant. (HT: Ben) Delta: Delta Points reminds that if you want good customer service, you have to tweet. New York Hotel Market: Lots of new properties on the horizon, but little relief for rates expected. It amazes me how pricey New York hotel nights continue to be throughout most of the year. (HT: @TheBrettGall)
United Makes Another Retroactive Change to Bonus Terms and Conditions
On Monday I noted that United had added language to the terms and conditions of its offer of 5000 miles after $1000 in spend on one of its co-branded credit cards. The new language — added more than 2/3rds through the promotion period which began August 1 and ends October 31 — restricted eligibility to spending on certain cards from Central and South America (!!). I noted at the time that the terms of the 5000 miles after $3000 in spend offer had not been changed, though I flagged that with a “yet.” And indeed Ron emails to let me know that the terms of that second offer have now been changed as well, restricting it, in bold, with: Eligible card for this promotion is only Standard Bank- Argentina. They say they can change the…
Earning Hotel Elite Status as a Meeting Planner Rather than on Stays/Nights
Several programs will award status based on meeting activity, not just points. Starwood offers their meeting planners Platinum status after $100,000 in spend. That’s a lot for someone to just ‘game’ the system, since it’s based on actual spend, but it’s not very much for a real meeting planner. We can easily swing a few of those in my office. Of course, since that’s Platinum status on meeting spend rather than nights, it doesn’t come with the incremental benefits (read: confirmed in advance suite upgrades) that have been awarded to 50 night platinums since March. That makes their meeting planner incentive less valuable than it used to be since meeting planner platinums are behind plenty of other platinums in the upgrade queue for a given stay. I suspect this is an unintended consequence of this…
Bits ‘n Pieces for October 10, 2012
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Virgin America: Double points for West Coast flights (between Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle) through November 15. (Registration required.) NH Hoteles: 50% off flash sale for bookings through Saturday night Eastern time and stays through end of year. Kuwait: “Customs officers at the airport arrested an Arab expatriate for possession of a dildo.” (HT: Alan H.) Delta Small Business Bonus: Enroll in Delta’s small business SkyBonus and then credit a flight within 60 days to earn 30,000 bonus points which are not the same as bonus miles, rather the bonus is enough for 4 lounge day passes, a domestic upgrade on a full fare ticket, or 30 drink chits. Details of the offer here (.pdf) (Via Delta Points)
