Category Archives for Hotels.
This one Hyatt redemption category change – even though the move is not in members’ favor – speaks volumes in favor of Hyatt. In the meantime you may want to book this one amazing value property for future stays quickly.
A reader contacted me several weeks ago about a fairly traumatic situation. She had booked an award stay over the phone at the Andaz Papagayo in Costa Rica for the end of December. She made the reservation by phone nearly a year in advance. Then in May she figured out she couldn’t make the trip work, so she cancelled the booking. A month later she discovered a $7000 charge on her credit card from the property.
While we think of most award reservations as fully cancellable, in fact awards usually carry the same cancel rules as paid rates. So if standard paid rates at a property come with a 60 day cancellation policy, not uncommon for remote resorts during peak season, award stays may also. I do not recall ever seeing an award stay that wasn’t cancellable at all booked 11 months in advance.
Like Hilton, now that IHG no longer tells you how much hotels should cost they aren’t telling you when they raise prices or even institute new maximum prices that are 50% higher than previous maximum prices. That’s not good for members.
I wouldn’t go transferring over 75,000 points to earn IHG’s top Spire Elite status, since the opportunity cost of those points is quite high. It could make sense to top off an account that has already earned quite a few points in order to get there. And you could use IHG’s status to status match to another hotel chain though bear in mind that Hyatt doesn’t currently match this way.
The recognition benefits here aren’t strong, what’s useful is 4 p.m. late checkout with Marriott and and additional points earning when spending money with the other partner.
What’s significant is to see the continued expansion (in this case return of) the model of rewarding and recognizing elites of another brand in order to get access to their customers, much as American and Hyatt are now doing with their partnership.
New York’s rent control laws are truly bizarre and now a man who checked into a hotel and as a result claimed to own the hotel has even managed to get a housing court to agree.
Fortunately the hotel in question, the
Washington DC is suing Marriott over its resort fees. “Resort fees” are extra charges, on top of a room rate, that aren’t optional. In other words they’re part of the price of a room, but the hotel advertises a lower price instead. That’s on face deceptive.
Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson, who thinks you have to enter a passport number to make a reservation at Marriott.com (so their unprecedented data breach was just the result of saving information for your booking convenience) and who thinks problems with the Bonvoy program were just “noise around the edges” gave an interview where he defended the undefendable resort fee. Naturally he did so disingenuously.
Forget the TWA Hotel as an avgeek’s paradise, the Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu attached to terminal 2 at Tokyo Haneda airport has them beat, hands down.
The property has just introduced a “Superior Cockpit Room” which includes a full sized Boeing 737-800 flight simulator. And they offer one of the best deals anywhere for experiencing a sim.
“Resort fees” are extra charges, on top of a room rate, that aren’t optional. In other words they’re part of the price of a room, but the hotel advertises a lower price instead. That’s on face deceptive.
Marriott hasn’t talked about the really valuable data that’s been breached, preferring to focus on expired credit cards and passports. The EU proposes to fine Marriott for a criminal hack of their systems, which is how the law works, but it’s not clearly the best way to drive collaboration between large companies and government agencies protecting against nation state attacks.
And indeed it’s government agencies that are the biggest violators of data privacy.
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 »
