Category Archives for Commentary.
A man was arrested on Sunday at the Hyatt Regency Houston on Louisiana Street in advance of a New Years party expected to draw 2000.
He was apparently just holding onto the weapons in his room for safe keeping so they wouldn’t be stolen out of his truck. But he was drunk early Sunday morning and harassing guests in the lobby. And he had just been arrested on weapons charges a week earlier.
A YouTube prankster was on vacation at the Waldorf=Astoria Boca Raton Resort and Club and three hours before New Years’ the property kicked him out — apparently because they were afraid he might perform a prank there though he didn’t bring his camera crew.
He says he refused a conversation with the manager because he was napping when they came to the room, and that the manager and police entered the room — his girlfriend was naked, and they wouldn’t let her get dressed in private.
It seems as though Northwest Airlines may not be enforcing the Saturday night stay rule on award tickets in order to be eligible for their standard (“PerkSaver”) mileage pricing. Developing…
Sometime this morning Priority Club changed their redemption chart. For example, some Holiday Inns jump from 15,000 points to 25,000 points. And some Intercontinentals go from 30,000 points to 40,000 points. The Boston, DC, Vienna, and Tahiti properties are notable among them. There’s no chart of changes by property, so I’ll just be piecing together which ones have changed. Naturally, there’s a Flyertalk discussion and folks are none too pleased. Bumping the prices of some hotels by a third is bad enough. I understand it (there were some great values there, and great values don’t last). But it’s disappointing. However, making the changes without any notice whatsoever is criminal.
There’s something calm.. and peaceful… and home about this clip. If you’re a United frequent flyer you’ll certainly agree.
Last month I reported on a rate glitch at the Holiday Inn Phuket — THB0.01 per night from May through October — and the rate was available for more or less a full day. No one has been cancelled that I’m aware of, whether they booked at the Priority Club website, Travelocity, or elsewhere. The hotel did say at first that there was an error that they couldn’t honor, though they didn’t cancel reservations. Now, as reported by several Flyertalkers, the hotel has explicitly acknowledged that they will be honoring this “once-in a lifetime, special room rate.”
My greatest fear is that the awards offered by airlines and hotels will go away, that the great values will disappear. What if I can’t use 60,000 Cathay Pacific miles to fly British Airways business class to Europe anymore? What if 90,000 United miles no longer buys a business class ticket from the US to Australia? I have this recurring nightmare, I hope speaking it aloud doesn’t make it more likely to come true, and fortunately it’s just my worrying and not something based on insider information. United’s award chart is so much better than any of their U.S. competitors’. Many other airlines devalued their award charts in the past few years while United was in bankrupty (the Qantas term for it was ‘rebalanced’). United didn’t make award chart changes, I assume they didn’t want…
Priority Club (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Intercontinental, etc.) is probably worse than any other chain with respect to hotel properties complying with the terms and conditions of their loyalty program. One specific area where this manifests itself is upgrades for elite members (Platinums can never really know what to expect at a Holiday Inn, and Royal Ambassador treatment varies markedly at all Intercontinentals — is there an upgrade at all? is it to an executive room or a suite or two room categories or…?). But what bothers me most at the moment is their decision to award points and stay credit on any given rate. You just never know whether you’re going to earn points. And even if you think you should, reporting a discrepancy after the fact may or may not be met with…
Randy Petersen reported some fascinating pieces of data about Delta frequent flyers: The largest current SkyMiles balance is 21,846,145 miles. …Most transoceanic segments in 2005: 61 Most miles flowm: 519,676 I have miles in my accounts. And I’m known to fly occasionally. But I’m a nobody. Nothing. A gnat. No, not even a gnat. Gnats have wings and can fly.
The Arizona Republic compares the two USAirways co-branded credit cards and correctly sides with the Barclays/Juniper Bank Mastercard product that I’ve been touting the past couple of days over the stale Bank of America card.
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 »
