Today’s Discover America Daily Getaway from American Express is purchase of Hilton HHonors points — 100,000, 150,000, and 250,000 point blocks and when you pay by American Express you get a 10% discount and bring the price down to half a penny apiece. Buying points from Hilton HHonors directly is limited to 40,000 per year and costs about a penny a point, so this is a deep discount relative to the normal cost of purchasing points. It’s a good deal, and yet I’m torn. My usual mental model is that the average Hilton HHonors redemption gets you about half a cent per point in value. So you’re more or less prepaying the cost of an average reward stay. Not that appealing. There are of course some really strong redemption values, and if you are likely…
Up to 75% Bonus on Transfers of Hotel Points to US Airways
US Airways is offering bonuses on converting hotel points to Dividend Miles during the month of May. There are (3) stackable bonuses: General members get a 25% bonus on transfers Dividend Miles Mastercard holders get a 25% bonus on transfers Dividend Miles elite members get a 25% bonus on transfers So a Dividend Miles elite member with a co-branded Mastercard gets a 75% bonus on transfers into US Airways from hotel programs. Since the bonus is on top of any provided by the hotel partner themselves, a transfer of 20,000 Starpoints would yield 43,750 US Airways miles with a full 75% bonus. Bonus miles will post each week starting May 16, and they will continue sweeping weekly through September 5 to catch any transfers that are slow to post. The full list of hotel transfer…
And the Award for Worst Airline Lounge in North America Goes to…
Some of you are going to say that the honors go to the United Red Carpet Club at Dulles that had the rats. But I haven’t seen reports of Red Carpet Rodents in some time. Though I’d at least agree with the overall sentiment, that the very first thing a lounge should offer is a clean respite from a sometimes-dirty terminal. Sure, there are other minimum conditions necessary to qualify as a lounge that is actually an improvement over sitting at the gate, such as peace and quiet, wireless internet and comfortable seating. But it starts with cleanliness. And given that standard, I wonder whether there’s any worse lounge than the US Airways club at La Guardia? Here’s where I headed in the lounge today, the only open seats by the window over looking the…
Do Bloggers Get Treated Better at Hotels, and Who Has the Best Late Check-out Benefit?
The Frequent Traveler Awards were held at Citi Field, but were managed out of the Sheraton LaGuardia East, which also served as host for the Randy Petersen Travel Executive Summit and for Frequent Traveler University over the past several days. I have to say that for an airport property in New York, it worked surprisingly well. The rate was reasonable, I believe the conference rate was $159, and the hotel itself was just fine. The beds were comfortable Sweet Sleepers, the rooms were clean, and the space worked out just fine. There was confusion at the front desk, it isn’t the easiest place to catch a cab from (though a few blocks down at the subway cabs often congregate and you can of course take the subway!), but it has the huge advantage of being…
Results, Recap, and Experiences from the Frequent Traveler Awards at Citi Field
The Frequent Traveler Awards were held Thursday evening at Citi field in New York. Yours truly donned a tuxedo and had the honor of presenting Program of the Year for an Airline Frequent Flyer Program to Aeroplan (Americas), Lufthansa Miles & More (Europe & Africa), and Emirates (Middles East, Asia, Oceania). Here’s Ben Mutzabaugh’s take from USA Today, titled “And the world’s top frequent-flier awards go to …” It was an amazing evening, healined by emcee Robert Wuhl, himself a frequent flyer and mileage aficianado. These awards represent the voice of the frequent traveler, with more than a million individuals participating in the voting this year. While I’m honored to help run the event, I only get to be one vote — virtually inconsequential in the scheme of things — and so certainly the results…
The Top 6 Current Deals for Earning Miles and Free Travel
Through May 6 a new Chase British Airways Visa receives up to 100,000 bonus miles for the $95 annual fee and modest required spend. Use the miles for a business class ticket to Asia on Cathay Pacific or Japan Airlines, or a business class ticket to South America on American or LAN (not to mention business class to nearer-Europe). There are plenty of reports that the 75,000 mile signup bonus offer for American Airlines credit cards still works, even though the landing page for the offer says it was only valid through February 28. I’ve yet to hear of anyone using the link who didn’t actually get the offer applied to their card account. Share US Airways miles with a 75% bonus through May 31 or US Airways credit card holders buy miles with a…
Last Chance for 100,000 British Airways Miles for Credit Card Signup, and Is It Time to Burn Those Miles Fast?
There are 5 days left to apply for the Chase British Airways Visa and receive a 100,000 mile signup bonus, an offer which expires on May 6th. It’s a phenomenal offer. For instance, 100,000 British Airways miles can be used for a business class ticket on Cathay Pacific from New York to Bali via Hong Kong (with an allowable stopover). 80,000 British Airways miles can be used for, say, New York or Miami in business class on LAN all the way to Easter Island, with a stopover in South America in each direction (perhaps in Santiago and Buenos Aires). What’s more, those awards minimize the fuel surcharges that British Airways does charge on award tickets. But how long will these great value British Airways awards last? I don’t have any definitive information. There are some…
The Winner of National Car Rental Executive Elite Status Is…
The winner of the National Car Rental Executive Elite Status Giveaway is commenter #310, Michael Koopman, as drawn by random.org. Mr. Coopman’s comment in the entry thread was a haiku: Executive Aisle Any car awaits your choice Take that, red Avis! As I explained in the entry thread, National’s unique selling proposition is its ‘Emerald Aisle’ where Emerald Club members pick their own car. Emerald Club Executive Elite members get to pick from the ‘Executive Aisle’ which tends to have a greater, broader selection of better cars. And they receive a free rental for every 5 rental credits (valid for any car that’s available). Executive Elite members also get guaranteed reservations with 24 hours notice. And in practice the treatment received is better than the published benefits, or so Executive Elite members tell me. Congratulations,…
Things I Learned at the Randy Petersen Travel Executive Summit
Randy Petersen opened things up with a retrospective on changes in frequent flyer programs over the 30 years since the American AAdvantage program launched at the beginning of May 1981. I think I know the ins and the outs of programs pretty well, but I don’t always have the history or context to put changes in programs, and comparisons between what they’re offering now and what the value proposition used to look like, into perspective. Randy did a great job if reminding of the time before capacity controls, of the introduction in expiration of mile sand howe that coincided with triple mileage offers around 1988, thus the ongoing cycle of printing large quantities of miles followed by award chart inflation (not Randy’s analogy, but if you don’t prefer to think in terms of monetary economics,…
Giveaway: National Car Rental Executive Elite Status
As promised last week, I’m giving one lucky blog reader National Car Rental Emerald Executive Elite status. As I mentioned, I have Executive status with National myself (but not ‘Executive Elite’). National’s unique selling proposition is its ‘Emerald Aisle’ where Emerald Club members pick their own car. Just cruise the aisle and pick the one you want from that area of the rental lot, it’s not just about picking the car with the lowest miles or the most prestige on offer but sometimes you want a bigger car for more people or a smaller car for easier parking. It’s much nicer than getting assigned a car you don’t want, and then queueing for a rental counter agent to beg to be switched to something else. Much faster, too. Emerald Club <I?Executive members get to pick…
