One of my favorite resorts is the Intercontinental Bali. The service is great. I wouldn’t stay at the ‘regular hotel’ it’s large and busy and there are just so many wonderful and inexpensive places in Bali to go. But their club lounge experience is really nice, it’s peaceful, and it represents just a phenomenal value although pricing is certainly higher than it was a couple of years ago. There are three separate ‘wings’ of the hotel, the main property, the Sinjara wing, and the Club wing. As even an regular ‘ol Ambassador you can expect an upgrade to a Duplex Suite, they don’t upgrade generally between the wings though so if you want club you need to book (or buy up to) it. Historically they were very generous with upgrades, as a Royal Ambassador in…
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General Principles for Booking Award Seats to Australia with American Airlines Miles
I summed up some advice for booking Australia flights with American miles over on Milepoint and thought it might be worth reproducing the advice here as well, since Australia is one of those really frequent questions that I get (and that I’ve touched on before). 1. BA/QF/CX loads their schedules ~ 355 days out. Their members can book flights beginning that early. 2. Interestingly, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan partners with these three programs. Alaska doesn’t load its own flight schedules until 331 days out but they can book award seats on QF/CX/BA 355 days out, no problem. In fact, you can book a partner award 355 days out and then call back later to add in Alaska segments once the Alaska schedule loads and they won’t charge you to make the change! 3. But American…
Avis Decides to Sell Me a Car Instead of Renting It
I was shopping for a 2-day rental car this morning, and I searched for 48 hours plus 30 minutes. I was curious how it would price, since Avis will still give you a 30 minute grace on the return. I actually probably needed an extra 30 minutes even beyond this, but it was really just to see the price. Well, they sure taught me! It was going to be a very expensive rental! I was thrilled to see the option to rent a hummer! But at $3400 that was going to be a little bit outside my budget for a weekend vehicle. Alright, I bet there are other rental companies at the same airport that would have rented for less, and even if I had booked it I bet it would have given the folks…
US Airways Woke Me Up This Morning
I’m scheduled to be on a flight late tonight. At 5am this morning my phone rang, waking me. It was a US Airways robocall letting me know my flight — a full 15 hours later — was cancelled. They give a phone number for re-accomodation, it would be much easier (especially if they’re going to wake you at 5am) if they would say something like “press 1 to be connected to US Airways specialists” instead of reading off a phone number. It’s a little early to make sense of the number. Now, it wasn’t a weather cancellation but they quickly offered me another flight that worked for my schedule and had me in not too far off the original plan. Of course I went to check in and the reservation was ‘out of sync’ so…
How Should I Burn My Last 25,000 bmi Miles?
I’m down to a little over 25,000 bmi Diamond club miles, what should I do with them? The expectation was that Diamond Club would get folded into Miles & More by this summer, but that plan appears to be on hold. And I guess that also means if I want to be a Lufthansa Senator (not that I really do, I just love the name for the status) that I’ll have to qualify for bmi Gold status this year — assuming that the program gets folded into Miles & More next year. Which is still an assumption. But I don’t want to wind up with a stash of Miles & More miles. They’re not great for a US-based flyer except single-continent travel, their award chart in premium cabins is pretty expensive for travel to, say,…
Frequent Traveler University Program Announced
I should have been more on top of this, considering that I’m speaking as part of the agenda, but Lucky scoops me on the schedule for the day at Frequent Traveler University. Events begin Friday evening, April 29 with cocktails at the Sheraton LeGuardia East. THen the educational program is as Lucky posted: 850a-900a Opening Remarks MORNING: EARNING 905a-1015a Part 1: Earning By Flying Fare Classes: How Flying 1 Mile Could Earn You 2.5 miles or .25 miles! Elite Status: How to Transform Precious Metals Into Precious Bonus Miles! Mileage Running: How To Top-Off Your Account To Achieve Elite Status or Reach Award Redemption Threshold 1015-1030a Break 1030-1140a Part 2: Earning By Buying Credit Cards: Sign Up Bonuses and Most Points Per Dollar of Spending Mileage Transfers: How Credit Card, Hotel and Your Best Friends…
Changes Coming to Priority Club Over the Next Two Months
Via Priority Club Insider, Business Traveler reports on Priority Club’s planned ‘revamp’ in the coming two months. The piece is light on specifics but does mention the introduction of “a ‘flights anywhere’ function will allow travellers to redeem their points on any flight globally” which sounds tremendously like “SPG Flights” — directly spending points to buy airline tickets, which is almost certain to be a low value reward (too many points per dollar of airfare). The rest of the piece focuses on introduction of mobile platforms, and revamping lobbies to accommodate small business meetings, so doesn’t give much to go in as far as a revamp of the program itself is concerned. Surely there’ll be more than a flight option? Priority Club sorely needs: Ability to spend additional points for upgraded rooms Real elite benefits…
Capital One’s 110,000 Mile Offer Applies to Their Business Credit Card Too, And You CAN Get the Bonus for Both!
There’s been lots of discussion and speculation about how the Capital One 100,000-mile account balance match offer would apply to their small business card program, and whether it would be possible for one person to get the bonus once for the personal card and once for the small business card. The answer is that yes, it applies to the small business card as well. And yes one person can get the bonus twice that way! But you need to use a different frequent flyer account to match each offer. You can’t give Capital One the same frequent flyer account with 100,000 miles in it twice. (At least those are the rules as they explain them to me, I can’t say whether they’ll catch this in practice and actually deny the miles to someone who tried…
Hilton’s Second Quarter Promo: 1000 Bonus Points Per Night
Via Lucky, Hilton’s second quarter promo is 1000 bonus points per night from April 1 through June 30. Registration required. As my grandfather used to say, “better than a hole in the head.”
What Do Terrorists and Mileage Runners Have in Common?
They’re both interested in low cost per mile. When an admitted al-Qaida operative planned his itinerary for a Christmas 2009 airline bombing, he considered launching the strike in the skies above Chicago, the Associated Press has learned. Tickets were too expensive to Chicago, as well as Houston, however, so he refocused the mission on a cheaper destination: Detroit. (HT: Dan R.)
