Through November 26, if you register for a new Club Carlson account and then have a stay within 30 days of registration, you’ll earn 4500 bonus points. The single best thing about the Club Carlson program, I think, is the Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Signature® Card which gives you: Up to 85,000 bonus points for signup — 50,000 after first purchase and 35,000 more after $2,500 spend within 90 days. 40,000 renewal bonus points each year. Gold elite status in the Club Carlson program just for having the card (benefits such as upgrades, early check-ins, and late check-outs). Buy One Get One awards: A free award night with every award stay of two nights or longer. That means you only spend points for one night on a two night award stay, every time (up…
About Gary Leff
Nothing Gets Me More Excited Than a New Gift Card at an Office Supply Store!
Stopping by Staples to pick up Amazon and Starbucks gift cards (because I prefer to earn 5 points per dollar for my purchases rather than just 1 point), I noticed a store card I hadn’t seen before. I’m used to seeing Southwest Airlines, Marriott, various gas stations, iTunes, and cards for a bunch of restaurants I wouldn’t want to eat at. This was the first time I saw gift cards for Whole Foods: I went to a talk by John Mackey, co-CEO of Whole Foods, earlier in the year at the National Press Club. His interlocutor asked about Whole Foods prices, repeating the mockin name “Whole Paycheck” to which Mackey replied “I’ve never heard that one before.” And in fact there are some items that are much more expensive there, in some cases reflecting higher…
Citi Thank You Points Bonus for Hilton HHonors Transfers
After a year of speculation, Citibank finally introduced its first transfer partner to the Thank You Points program: Hilton back in January. Citi Thank You Points are worth a penny or 1.25 cents apiece. The transfer rate to Hilton is normally 1 Citi point to 1.5 Hilton points. Even before the March 28th Hilton HHonors devaluation massacre, I valued Hilton points at half a cent apiece. So I considered this to be a bad value – instead of getting at least a penny in nvalue, a transfer under most circumstances meant getting three-quarters of a cent. Of course topping off accounts for certain high value awards you could exceed that. Transfer partners are useful, more options are good, and the hope was that this would be the first of several transfer partners. But 10 months…
Have a Citibank Hilton Visa? Earn 2500 Bonus HHonors Points Per Stay
This offer appears to be for holders of the free Citi Hilton HHonors Visa card and not for folks with the $95 Citi Hilton Reserve Card (those folks already earn more points for their Hilton stays) and also not for holders of American Express co-branded Hilton cards. Registration is required prior to check-out to qualify, you must pay for your stay with the Citi Hilton HHonors Visa card, and the offer is valid for stays between November 25 and February 28. You can join the 30,000+ 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 follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Bits ‘n Pieces for November 23: Cell Phones in the Sky May Be Good, $350 Europe Tickets, and Inflight Cocktails
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: My WTOP radio interview on cell phone use inflight. (Streaming audio) I like doing WTOP because as an all-news station in the local DC market it directly reaches federal policymakers. The sun no longer sets on British Airways call centers. It’s easy to forget that until their merger with United, Continental didn’t offer 24 hour call centers for booking international award tickets. Fancy cocktails you can make out of what’s in the galley. US-Europe roundtrip on United for $343 including all taxes. It’s through a Norwegian travel site, pricing without fuel surcharges, so may not ultimately be honored. Read the caveats, but potentially great deals to be had! You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts…
30% Bonus on Purchased American AAdvantage Miles Through December 31
American AAdvantage is offering up to a 30% bonus on purchased miles through December 31. The most miles American allows you to buy in a calendar year is 60,000. This is a tiered bonus, and if you buy the full 60,000 miles you get 78,000 at a cost of $1808.75, or 2.32 cents per mile. The miles are processed by Points.com so do not earn bonuses for your credit card spend. They don’t post instantly, usually 1-2 days but can take 72 hours under their terms, which is ok usually since American still generously allows 5 day award holds. At the end of 2012 and again at the beginning of 2013 American offered a 50% bonus on purchased miles, which meant a price of 2 cents per mile instead of 2.3 cents. If your need…
Get Free Instant Top Tier Elite Status With Sofitel, Novotel, and More!
In case you missed one of the past opportunities for Le club Accorhotels instant top tier Platinum status for new account signup, free instant top tier Platinum elite status from Leclub Accor Hotels is back. How to Sign Up This offer won’t last long, usually just a few hours once they start getting lots of signups but sometimes a little longer. You must open a new account, it cannot be applied to existing accounts. And when you do so you must use an email address that’s not currently on file with them. Even if you don’t frequently stay at Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, and other related properties frequently, you never know when you might find yourself in one and having top tier status can’t hurt. What Platinum Status Gets You Platinum status usually requires 60…
10 Reasons You Should Like It If the FCC Lifts the Inflight Cell Phone Ban
Since news came out that the FCC would consider lifting the ban on cell phone data and voice while inflight, there’s been a public outcry and a bit of backgracking. Scott Mayerowitz reported today that even the FCC Chairman himself doesn’t like the idea of people making voice calls on their cell phones onboard airplanes. The FCC has also gone to some lengths to emphasize that they’re just looking at safety and whether the practice should be banned on that basis, so if there are ultimately cell phone calls on planes it’s your airline you should blame. Eventually it’s highly likely we’ll see the ban lifted, because technology has evolved such that cell providers can make money providing the service rather than just being taxed heavily by inflight users. Airlines offering this would install relays…
The Jet Airways Pot ‘o Gold: The Passenger in the Lav Before Me Left WHAT?
$1 million in gold bars found in the lavatory toilet of a Jet Airways plane. Cleaners working on a commercial plane in eastern India have found 24 gold bars worth more than $1 million stuffed into a toilet compartment, officials said Wednesday. …The plane belonging to Jet Airways was being cleaned at Kolkata airport on Tuesday after a trip from the eastern city of Patna. It had previously been flying on international routes. “The cleaning staff of the airport were going though their routine duties and found two bags in the toilets of the plane,” director of the airport B.P. Mishra told AFP. At least we know they clean the tpilets! (HT: Alan A.) You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by…
Alaska Airlines Visa Considering New Benefits and Bonuses
Some cardholders of the Bank of America Alaska Airlines co-branded Visa are receiving a survey about possible new benefits and bonuses. About one-third of Alaska’s 3 million frequent flyer program members have the card. They expect to make an additional $50 million off the card product in 2014. And yet — while Alaska miles are great — the card itself hasn’t really kept pace with advances in the industry. There aren’t category bonuses (other than spending on Alaska itself), there aren’t travel benefits like free checked bags or priority boarding. And the once great $50 companion ticket is now $99 and doesn’t apply to purchasing first class. The survey covers targeted spending bonuses, free checked bags, earning more than just one companion ticket in a year, reducing the price of the companion ticket to $50,…
