Priority Club has a short survey for 250 points. Deadline is February 28. It’s tied to the Freddie Awards, and February 28th is also the close of voting in the Freddies. They say points will post within 6 weeks of the close of the survey, so by April 11.
Starwood posted its Cash & Points award hotel participation for 2006 yesterday. Well, sort of, since hotels in Asia aren’t listed yet. This has been a long time in coming, I understand from Flyertalk that they were trying to get this up much earlier but a glitch in the process delayed it until January 30. They even moved back the date to look for it on the website a couple of times. I don’t really know what the glitch was, but posting a full year of participation by the end of January is actually an improvement on past practice. Starwood used to list these awards only one quarter at a time, and the listing would usually be posted no earlier than a few days into that quarter. Last year they moved to show a full…
Starwood posted its Cash & Points award hotel participation for 2006 yesterday. Well, sort of, since hotels in Asia aren’t listed yet. This has been a long time in coming, I understand from Flyertalk that they were trying to get this up much earlier but a glitch in the process delayed it until January 30. They even moved back the date to look for it on the website a couple of times. I don’t really know what the glitch was, but posting a full year of participation by the end of January is actually an improvement on past practice. Starwood used to list these awards only one quarter at a time, and the listing would usually be posted no earlier than a few days into that quarter. Last year they moved to show a full…
Starwood posted its Cash & Points award hotel participation for 2006 yesterday. Well, sort of, since hotels in Asia aren’t listed yet. This has been a long time in coming, I understand from Flyertalk that they were trying to get this up much earlier but a glitch in the process delayed it until January 30. They even moved back the date to look for it on the website a couple of times. I don’t really know what the glitch was, but posting a full year of participation by the end of January is actually an improvement on past practice. Starwood used to list these awards only one quarter at a time, and the listing would usually be posted no earlier than a few days into that quarter. Last year they moved to show a full…
Cathay Pacific is offering 250 AsiaMiles for completing a short survey on duty free. (This offer is currently listed on the front page of the Cathay Pacific website under Hot News.) Update 2/3/06: Survey seems to have closed and is no longer available.
The famed American Express Centurion Card (U.S. version) is certainly not worth the $2500 fee any longer. Centurion members used to get Diamond status in the Hyatt Gold Passport program. Last year that benefit was pulled, and American Express added Platinum status in the Priority Club program instead. That’s hardly a like exchange: anyone can get Platinum status by doing as little as transferring some points into their account from Membership Rewards, the status provides very little in the way of benefits, and I can’t imagine that too many Centurion cardholders find themselves staying at Holiday Inns all that frequently in order to take advantage of it. Now comes news that Platinum status in the Starwood Preferred Guest program will no longer be offered. Everyone signed up for the status through January 21 (about a…
The February issue of Inside Flyer predicts (subscription required) that the combination of USAirways and America West will allow you to combine your miles in the two programs in “late March or early April.” Readers of this blog know better. As I mentioned last month, you can combine the miles in your accounts now on a self-service basis using Points.com. Points transfer between USAirways and America West on a 1:1 basis at no cost. Transfers from America West to USAirways appear to complete in real-time. Having tested it the other way as well, it looks like transfers from USAirways to America West take somewhat longer.This method will let you combine points to top off for an award, or even move all your miles from one account to the other to take advantage of current partnerships…
Goodies Blog tells you how to get your soda and chips for the Super Bowl for free.
Flying doesn’t lend itself to private conversations, even flying in first class, or even in an international first class ‘suite’. That’s a lesson that someone needs to teach Under Secretary of State Robert Joseph. The Washington Note reports that Joseph was not much of a diplomat on a recent Dulles-Oakland flight. Bob Joseph was on his way to meetings at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. He was having a loud conversation with someone he was sitting next to. (Of course, “loud” is a relative term — but let’s satisfy that with “loud enough to be heard by others in first class.”) The key point of conversation is that Joseph reportedly stated “I miss the Soviet Union, because they knew what the rules were, and now we are stuck with these ‘surrender monkeys’ in France and Germany.”…
Craig Depken looks at what it cost to travel from New York to New Orleans and back in 1906. From the Jan. 28, 1906 NYT is an advertisement for the Washington and Southern Railway: MARDI GRAS – NEW YORK TO NEW ORLEANS AND RETURN – $37.75. Tickets on sale February 21 to 27, good returning until March 3, 1906. Extension of limit March 16th can be had by depositing ticket and paying 50 cents at New Orleans. I don’t know how long it would have taken to get from the Big Apple to the Big Easy on a train, but I would figure two days or so. The folks over at EH.net estimate the following 2004 values for the $37 round trip: In 2004, $37.75 from 1906 is worth: $789.69 using the Consumer Price Index…
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
