A valuable rewards for hotel stays seem to me a function of where you book and how you pay rather than where you stay. That’s surprising to some because we’ve been taught to stay on the hotel loyalty program treadmill. And because hotels are trying so hard to get customers to ‘book direct’ you’d expect their loyalty programs to offer the best rewards for staying at their properties. But that isn’t always the case.
Doctors frequently tell their patients to wear sunscreen every day, and that’s even when they aren’t going to the beach. Vacationers in Hawaii, though, are going to find that over 70% of sunscreens are illegal to buy in Hawaii as the result of a new law the governor there is expected to sign.
Marriott increased points prices at a ton of hotels in March, only to lower their prices in August with the new program. This gave them a higher baseline from which to claim they’re lowering more redemption prices than they’re raising.
Even accounting for this, the number of hotels going up in price is roughly equal to the number going down in price. But comparing Marriott redemption prices in February to pricing in August is a more reasonable take than ‘reductions outnumber increases’.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
New Air France points pricing is live and often makes no sense. Some awards are more expensive, some less expensive. Instead of a hidden award chart they have a calculator.
It’s interesting how this plays out with their promo awards, which are now out for July booking and September/October travel.
Around 1 p.m. Eastern this afternoon a United Express flight UA6122 experienced smoke in the cabin while taxiing for departure to Houston. The Mesa-operated Embraer regional jet stopped and crew deploy a slide.
Mesa Airlines appears to be ferrying another ERJ-175 over from Washington Dulles as United flight UA3232 to take passengers on to Houston.
Yesterday writing about Marriott’s new list of hotel redemption pricing that will go into effect in August I mentioned the new Marriott program starting August 1.
A Marriott spokesman e-mailed quickly to correct me to say we don’t know when the new award chart will start, because we don’t know when the new program starts. But that’s not what their website says.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A couple flying from Labuan to Kuala Lumpur on Malaysia Airlines were waiting to take off when they looked out the window and saw their cat Scooty running on the tarmac.
There’s video of the incident and the cat is in the top left corner. While perhaps an optical illusion the cat seems to disappear into a drain. Airline staff came out from under the plane’s wing — carrying the cat’s empty cage, door open.
Marriott is apparently cracking down on people booking hotels that haven’t yet opened — speculatively, hoping for compensation when the opening date inevitably delays — and in particular warning people trying to do this while using credit cards “that will not authorize the forfeiture amount.”
Rather than temporarily disabling customer accounts, Marriott needs to fix its IT and better manage construction projects.
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 »
