The Times of India is reporting that Air India will join the Star Alliance and that an announcement will be forthcoming by the end of December.
About Gary Leff
New Starwod Category 7 Devaluation Confirmed
Last week I passed along that Starwood would be announcing a devaluation of its points by introducing a new higher category for some hotels requiring additional points. Yesterday Starwood Lurker posted on Flyertalk that just such a change is coming. (I assume the announcement was pushed forward because I broke the news here on this blog and on Flyertalk.) Starwood Preferred Guest will be adding a Category 7 to it’s Free Night Award redemption ladder in February 2007. This new category will feature a limited number of hotels which are often unique and have rooms which may not be standard in terms of size, configuration and/or amenities. Free nights at Category 7 hotels will cost 30,000 Starpoints per night in low season and 35,000 Starpoints per night in high season. Please note that where there…
Air Zimbabwe Cancels its Profitable Route
Online Travel Review points to Air Zimbabwe suspending its only profitable route, Harare to London, over fears that its aircraft would be seized for nonpayment of debts.70% unemployment and 1200% inflation, the country can’t mine its significant resources because it lacks the hard currency to secure replacement parts for its machinery. Lay this at the feet of dictator Robert Mugabe, whose wife has been known to take the national airline’s planes on shopping trips forcing the carrier to cancel passenger flights.
Bogus Reviews on Tripadvisor
The Upgrade Travel blog points to a story in the Sunday Times of London on bogus reviews on internet websites like TripAdvisor. Proprietors describing hotels as “outstanding”, “excellent” and “charming” without declaring their interest in the business. Marketing executives to top British hotels recommending perks be offered to customers in return for a promise of a good review. Hotel star ratings on well-known websites that could be easily “ramped” with just a few e-mails from bogus customers. To me it matters little whether reviews are bogus or just written by the median traveler with preferences nothing like my own. I don’t go off of internet rankings of properties. That’s not why I find sites like TripAdvisor useful. I look for common themes in written reviews, specifically for repeated factual details about a property. For instance,…
More on Miles for Cheese
There are reports of the cheese wheels (that I previously wrote about) — with a shiny Boeing 777 on the box, so you know it’s the right one — for as low as $2.99. While details on the company website are limited, one Flyertalker reports confirming there’s no limit to the number of 500 mile codes from the boxes that you can enter for miles. That’s $60 per 10,000 American miles, and depending on your tax situation you might be able to reduce your cost basis further by donating the cheese to a charity. Miles for you, and a cheese-a-licious Thanksgiving for someone in need! This is still twice the price of pudding, of course, but a great deal on miles (and since I’m just a wee bit shy of my next lifetime status mark…
Rumor: Starwood Category 7 Redemptions Coming
I haven’t been able to get this confirmed officially, but I’ve heard from multiple sources that the devaluation is coming after all, and in the form of a new category 7. I apologize that I cannot attribute this, and I hope that the places I heard this are wrong. But my gut says they aren’t. I imagine we’ll know more as the year comes to a close or the new year begins, but that’s just an assumption as to timing. It’s unclear what this would mean initially. Perhaps the really expensive properties like Bora Bora Nui and W Maldives — that already charge more than category 6 prices for redemption — would go into this category. Perhaps it’s just a way to make headroom for rising hotel rates and pressure for greater internal reimbursment on…
Frontier and Airtran Enter Frequent Flyer Partnership
Frontier and Airtran now offer reciprocal earning and burning. In addition to mileage earning and award redemption, the two airlines are recognizing each others’ elite members with priority checkin, boarding, and security — plus Airtran elites get free DirecTV on Frontier flights. Glad I’m a lifetime Airtran elite.Update: Randy Petersen has thoughts on the alliance, and offers some important advice: One caveat, so don’t blame me if you mess up after reading this. The only way this works is if you do indeed book your travel on the airline partner, either Frontier or AirTran, within the airlines Web sites. Going to Expedia, booking a ticket and then trying to get cross program credit is not going to get you anywhere. This is similar to some of the restrictions that hotel programs have in that you…
Free Hotel Nights from Travelocity
Travelocity has a coupon offering $50 off a two-night ‘Travelocity GoodBuy’ hotel stay booked by November 30th (requires paying with Mastercard). Promo code is HOTEL50. If the discount code doesn’t work for you it’s likely that you have a Travelocity affiliate cookie on your computer (eg you clicked on a Travelocity link somewhere, such as from a cashback mall). Travelocity won’t let you use the coupon and pay someone a commission on the booking at the same time, so you need to delete these cookies for this to work. There’s a current Flyertalk thread on hotel stays you can get for free via this promo, mostly centered on Las Vegas properties. As one Flyertalk member observed, “just because the icon “Use MasterCard® and SAVE $50!” is not listed with a GoodBuy hotel… the promo most…
Hyatt increases redemption rates
As of December 29th, Hyatt is introducing a new higher award category (‘category 5’) for their most expensive properties. Currently the most points required for an award night is 15,000. The new category 5 will require 18,000 points for a single night. In the U.S. this includes the Park Hyatt DC, Hotel Victor. It includes the Park Hyatts in Tokyo, Paris, and Sydney. I get those. But Dubai?Here is the new award chart. You may want to make 2007 reservations now, before December 29, using the old chart…
Miles for Cheese
Nov
12
2006
Specially marked packages of Swiss Knights Fondue and Cheese are offering 500 American Airlines miles. You can pick the stuff up at Costco, Traders Joes, and some supermarkets. Some folks looking to top off their American Airlines accounts may find buying long shelf-life, no need to refrigerate cheese worthwhile just for the miles. The economics aren’t quite as good as buying pudding once was but I suppose you, too, can reduce your cost basis by donating the fondue to charity and taking a tax writeoff. Product website is short on details, such as how long the promotion will run or whether there’s a maximum number of codes a single individual can redeem for their account.
