General

Category Archives for General.

Starwood Offering ‘Faster Free Nights’ and Other Targeted Offers

May 05 2015

Starwood appears to be getting aggressive with targeted offers. For instance, they’ve got a double elite credit offer out there currently.

This morning I received an email offering me a targeted promotion. The email didn’t tell me what I would get.

It’s interesting they’re imploring me to ‘come back’. I haven’t stayed with Starwood in a month.

Continue Reading »

Club Carlson Offers a New Elites-Only Bonus to Help Offset Their Devaluations

May 05 2015

When Club Carlson announced that their co-brand Visa will stop giving second night free on award stays, they offered something of a sweetener to make the news go down more easily. They announced 30,000 bonus points on your next stay paid with the card by August 31. It turns out that any room charge even on an award stay is enough to trigger this bonus. Now Club Carlson is changing the points prices of a number of their hotels, and net net not for the better, I suppose it should be seen as part and parcel of their approach that they are offering elites 5000 bonus points per stay in June and July that’s booked this month. (HT: Flyertalk) I do expect the changes and this promotion are related — to get elites to continue…

Continue Reading »

Etihad A380 First Apartment Award Space Wide Open to/from New York!

May 04 2015

Via One Mile at a Time it appears that award space is wide open for two passengers to fly Etihad’s first ‘apartment’ onboard their A380 between New York JFK and Abu Dhabi. This is the single most aspirational award product in the sky. The upper deck of the Etihad A380 has just a single aisle. There’s a shower onboard. There’s no product with as much personal space. You can find the availability yourself on the Etihad Guest website, you are looking for ‘Guest First’ availability. Or just call. But as of now most flights most days have the space open. American, for instance, charges 90,000 miles each way for first class between the US and Middle East or Indian Subcontinent. That means flying Los Angeles – New York JFK – Abu Dhabi in first class…

Continue Reading »

Denver Airport Was Invaded by Storm Troopers on Star Wars Day

May 04 2015

It was a sort of clever idea at first, “May the 4th be with you!” But brands spend a lot of money on consultants and ad firms to try to graft onto internet members. And so brands can’t stop tweeting about Star Wars Day. Denver international Airport got into the meme (though I sure hope they didn’t spend a lot of money doing it, they need all the reserves they can get to deal with continued baggage system problems). A full set of photos are available on the Denver airport’s Facebook page. Check them out. Really. Here’s a taste: I’m left with several questions. No doubt you can add your own. Denver is a United hub. Is that Jeff Smisek guiding in the plane? What does it say about TSA that Darth Vader brought to…

Continue Reading »

Hyatt Lets You Transfer Points to/from Any Member for Free

May 04 2015

Hyatt’s 40% bonus on points purchases, stackable with a 20% rebate can certainly be a good deal — especially for elites, redeeming cash and points, at expensive hotels. Thinking about how to really make the most use of this, I started to ponder the 55,000 point per year purchase limit for Gold Passport points (which used to be just 40,000). Just like you can scale the Starwood 25% bonus on purchased points using family accounts, you can exceed Hyatt’s purchase limits using multiple accounts. And they don’t even have to belong to family members. I find that most people aren’t aware of Hyatt’s generous rules for transferring points between members. Any two members may transfer points with no fee by filling out and submitting a form to Gold Passport. That’s right – you can combine…

Continue Reading »