Hilton’s first quarter 2018 promotion is out (registration required) and you can start earning with the first stay because the big push is ‘book direct’ even for infrequent guests and the loyalty program is a key differentiator in the value proposition for booking at Expedia or Hilton.com.
2000 bonus points per stay, 10,000 additional bonus points every five stays, earning period is January 1 – April 30, 2018.
The Conrad though is one of the other really accessible places on points. Despite how expensive rooms are the most any Hilton costs for a standard room is 95,000 points per night. You can get a redemption value relative to the cash price of a room in high season that’s three times normal for the Honors program.
Historically standard rooms have been beach villas, with water villas costing up to 322,000 points per night based on the cash price of a room. Right now though Ethey’re offering water villas at 70% off of that points price. Water villas are pricing out as the standard room for 95,000 points.
American is eliminating the idea of a section of extra legroom seats at the front of coach from their 777-300ERs. Presumably this is about squeezing more seats into the plane, but has the added benefit of making sure Main Cabin Extra isn’t “good enough” for those who might buy up to Premium Economy.
And that’s all on top of changing the Main Cabin Extra section in their 777-300s from 9-abreast seating to 10-abreast, taking away shoulder width. With this reconfiguration the plane goes from American’s best long haul plane for elites flying coach to arguably their worst long haul plane for elites flying coach.
Planes are packed full of people, some of whom are downright awful. Planes get delayed and our plans are ruined. Airline employees may want to help but they’re frustrated too — by all of the people giving them grief when they didn’t cause anyone’s problems to begin with.
So the little things, person to person, that add a little kindness to travel are extra meaningful. And where flight crew are involved it’s often crew at Southwest.
I just wrote about an Air France first class fare from the West Coast to London for ~ $1500 roundtrip. Incredible.
This fare is available as a one way for $636 as well. So if you want to get off in Paris you can manage this as a throwaway ticket.
Act fast this will not last. I have never seen Air France first class for less than business, not much more than coach. And for many Air France first is a unicorn, since very few people are able to ever redeem for it.
This will be Cathay Pacific’s longest flight, and the longest flight from Hong Kong. Cathay’s A350 has business class, premium economy, and coach but no first class.
Currently this flight has at least 5 business class award seats available pretty much every day.
In October Alaska Airlines flights were delayed because of a seal on the runway in Barrow, Alaska. Alaska’s Department of Transportation issued a warning to pilots about ‘low sealings’.
Barrow’s airport is back in the news this time for polar bears. And dealing with polar bears on a taxiway is complicated, because they’re a protected species. Airport workers can’t chase them off.
The Millemiglia frequent flyer program is one of the real dumpster fires of loyalty. And not just for doubling partner award prices overnight either.
Some loyalty programs expire miles. Alitalia expires the program. Everyone’s mileage goes away at the end of the year when the program resets. If you want your miles back, they have a promotion to earn them back.
Regardless always register for these promotions, even when they’re weak, because extra points are always better than a hole in the head (‘lokh in kop’) as my grandfather used to say.
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 »
