News notes from around the interweb:
- You can earn IHG Rewards Club points (that count towards status) for OpenTable restaurant reservations. It’s 150 points for most bookings worth 75 cents if you go through this version of the site. (HT: Head for Points)
- Pardoned turkey earns IHG Rewards Club points on their first stay at an Intercontinental. I’d note that the IHG terms do not appear to limit membership to homo sapiens.
Most fowl #WashingtonDC news of the day… this year's turkey pardon goes to birds named Bread and Butter. https://t.co/f6sk8Ha14Y
— Phil Tenser (@pstenser) November 25, 2019
- Qantas considering new long-term loyalty features
- Aegean has devalued its Star Alliance award chart without notice. They’ve offered some cheap awards, albeit with restrictive routing rules and fuel surcharges. Award pricing has gone up as much as 25% in some cases, though the program still offers awards for fewer points than many other programs.
- Aeroplan has had a separate elite status, apart from Air Canada’s status (Altitude) program. It recognized people earning points in the program, not flying. With Air Canada re-acquiring the frequent flyer program, and preparing to relaunch it, the separate Aeroplan elite program goes away – status earned will be recognized through 2020 (and there will be no more earning of the status after 2019).
- United is closing its San Francisco arrivals lounge. Most US airlines don’t have dedicated arrivals lounges in the U.S., though passengers connecting off of an international flight can use showers (American and Delta clubs, American and United business class lounges). However customers terminating after international flights don’t have this option, and won’t on United in San Francisco any longer.
Are you sure it’s OpenTable? The restaurants in my area are leading me to Resy.
Gary, for the sake of disagreement:
There are several Hotel loyalty programs where you can stack Open Table points with dining awards. They’ve been around for quite some time on Rewards Network. You can’t stack IHG and OT when using that link. Marriott’s new EAT around town has very similar point values, and reward nights are much easier to obtain over IHG. Whereas IHG’s hotel redemptions are insulting, this 150 point offer is just as bad, if not worse. You lose the opportunity to gain more valuable OT points. I used it one time, realized the points are worth a fraction of the OpenTable points, oh, and the 150 point link didn’t work for a popular NYC restaurant, the largest OpenTable Network in the country. Why not take the 100, or 1000 OT points and redeem for another dining experience? The 100 OT points for a basic reservation equal $1.00 dining credit, with many opportunities for 1000 point dines, or a $10 dining credit. The 150 IHG points for booking OT through their app are worth at best 75 cents. Instead of doing above, find a 1,000 point restaurant, that’s also in the rewards Network, say IHG or Marriott.
1,000 pt OT spend, plus 600 Bonvoy or 800 IHG points for a $100 dinner. OT bonus $10, plus $3.60 in Bonvoy, or $4.00 in IHG value. Why take the 75 cents when you can gain so much more?