Category Archives for Hotels.
Right now, for some reason, award nights at the Conrad Bora Bora are wide open through March 2022. Book for 89,000 Hilton points per night (a great value), and they’re fully cancellable. If you have Hilton points there’s no reason not to book a trip.
And you thought you have been Bonvoyed, I don’t know that there have been many Marriott stays worse than this one.
A guest at the Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort and Spa went to the ocean “for a midnight swim.” Nobody told her that this might dangerous.
Back in March I wrote about the JW Marriott Los Cabos charging award guests an extra $30 per night fee to stay, calling it “the most Marriott Bonvoy thing ever.”
This flat fee was described as a ‘service charge’. Paid rate guests pay a service charge of 10% of their room rate, and with paid rates under $300 service charges are lower for guests paying cash than those paying with points. Marriott is refunding everyone who was charged this fee for a points stay at this property and two others.
Marriott’s top executives have shared that they are considering eliminating alarm clocks from rooms. They’re also looking to ‘simplify’ and reduce the cost of breakfast at brands where that’s included in the room rate for all guests.
It turns out though that anyone can register for free Hyatt status and a fast track, and the broader offer is even better because instead of free 90 days of status, the free Explorist mid-tier status lasts through end of 2021 whether you stay enough with Hyatt to keep status or not.
What’s more, instead of having just 90 days to stay enough to keep status you’ve got until the end of the year so it’s far more generous.
R.I.P. Federal Leisure Rate. Marriott no longer needs to incentivize federal workers to stay the weekend with discounts.
Hyatt’s dedicated concierge program is much easier to qualify for than Marriott’s. Yet there will likely be far fewer members qualifying for a concierge in 2022. That’s the perfect time to amp up the service in ways it was originally envisioned, and the current Hyatt leadership is well-positioned to drive this.
The Eliza Jane hotel in downtown New Orleans on Magazine Street was a great base for a four night stay, using category 1-4 free nights. I was upgraded to a Publisher’s Suite.
I dunk on Marriott a lot for its failure to deliver on promised benefits, for its clueless customer service agents, and its broken IT. And Starwood members are generally unhappy with the Marriott Bonvoy program. To be fair, benefits aren’t received as consistently as they used to be for Starwood members. The credit card’s earning isn’t as rich. And top status is harder to earn, with a minimum spend requirement at the 100-night level to receive ‘Ambassador’ service that no longer includes an individual assigned Ambassador.
However, for Marriott Rewards program members the Starwood merger has surprisingly been a blessing and that’s really easy to forget.
The Fort Wayne, Indiana Fairfield Inn by Marriott is billing guests a surprise “energy surcharge” that appears to be 4% of the room rate. This surcharge isn’t disclosed to customers when booking their room.
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 »
