Earlier in the week I was answering questions about why the Wyndham Rewards Visa wasn’t nominated in this year’s Frequent traveler awards. And the only reason is that it’s a new card in the summer of 2010, and the awards are based on offerings available in 2009. But I admit, it’s the first time I gave the card a look, and so it’s an interesting coincidence that Loyalty Traveler analyzes the card this week. It’s a no fee visa that could be useful even for folks without an interest in points in the Wyndham Rewards program, because their points conversion to airline miles is fairly reasonable. For the most part you earn 2 points per dollar spent and 2.5 points transfer to an airline mile — so you’re earning 0.8 miles per dollar. Ok, not…
Up to 9,999 Air Canada Aeroplan Miles with Avis
Avis is offering up to 9,999 Air Canada Aeroplan miles for rentals through March 31, but the bonus is somewhat limited in usability… not least of which because it’s just for my readers in or visiting Canada. In addition.. First, it requires a 5-day rental or longer. And second the higher mileage bonuses are applicable to higher car classes, smaller cars mean fewer miles. Vehicle Car Group Bonus Miles Coupon # Sub-compact / Compact A or B 2,500 MCAA037 Mid-size to Full-size C, D, E 5,000 MCAA038 Premium, SUV, Minivan F, G, H, V, W 7,500 MCAA039 Premium SUV Z 9,999 MCAA040 The coupon code above generates the mileage bonus but per the terms and conditions of the offer must be used in conjunction with discount code (AWD#) H660500, which auto-populated when you click the…
United 40% Off to Australia
United is running another ‘TWARE’ sale, 40% off of flights to Australia. The discount code is TWRAU. Need to ticket today for travel through November 30, and of course this will work on T, L, and K fares .. which means not upgradeable with United’s systemwide upgrades for 100,00-mile flyers. Of course, even when the link stops working, sometimes the promo code still works.
Starwood’s Outrageously Priced, Unattainable High-End Hotel Redemptions
Ever since my speculations about Starwood Preferred Guest award categories for next year, I’ve been thinking more and more about their award structure and am increasingly bothered by another feature of their redemption program — the exorbitantly high redemption rates for some of their high-end properties that are described as ‘all-sute’ hotels. Some of their most expensive high-end properties, such as the W Maldives and St. Regis Bora Bora, are all suites. That is part of why they’re as expensive as they are. In order to get the same value out of a (regular, not all-suite) category 7 hotel award as a category 2 weekend hotel award, the rate for the property is going to need to be about $1000 or more per night. That’s at the standard 30,000 Starpoints for a category 7 hotel,…
US Airways Discounting Lounge Membership for 3 Days Only
US Airways is running a ‘3-day sale’ on lounge membership, lasting through Wednesday September 29. The price is $249 and the $50 new member initiation fee is waived. (The ‘normal’ price is $450, or $375 for most US Airways elite members and $325 for Chairmans Preferred members.) They’re also offering 3000 elite qualifying miles for joining using promo code CEB3K (that offer runs through September 30). These appear to me to be combinable. It will even count as a ‘hit’ in the grand slam promo. Of course, the US Airways clubs in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh still charge a buck for alcoholic drinks based on state law, and the Boston club has no liquor license if I understand correctly. But it’s still a great deal. Now, I already get US Airways lounge access via my American…
On Southwest’s Planned Acquisition of Airtran
I won’t have a lot to say on the announcement of Southwest’s planned acquisition of Airtran. I’ll leave that to the Cranky Fliers and Dan Webbs of the world, it’s a little outside of my area of interest — I try not to fly Southwest or Airtran and have little interest in their mileage programs. Still, it’s hard not to see this as a bg deal. This is obviously bigger than Southwest’s previous acquisitions.. Morris Air, run by Dave Neeleman who would go on to found JetBlue once his non-compete was up, and Muse Air which was founded by Southwest’s original President Lamar Muse and his son (and dubbed ‘revenge air’ after Muse’s ouster of Southwest and attempts to compete across Southwest’s key routes). One expects Airtran to begin aligning policies with Southwest once the…
Strategies for Earning 100,000 Bonus Miles Through the US Airways Grand Slam Promo
TM Travel World has an excellent post where he lays out how he plans to get 36 ‘hits’ in the US Airways Grand Slam promotion and earn 100,000 bonus miles. What’s useful about the post is that he details the specific items he’s doing and buying and their costs. I have many different items myself, and I’m not likely to hit the top bonus for 36 activities, but there are some useful nuggets here. He’s going to earn four different partner credits from hotel points transfers into US Airways. Starwood Platinum members can transfer as few as 1 point to miles in their choice of programs, you need to transfer a minimum of 100 miles for this promotion. Then he’s transferring points from Hyatt, Hilton, and Goldpointsplus. He’s going to credit six hotel stays and…
Behind the Scenes of the Frequent Traveler Awards Nomination Process
The Frequent Traveler Awards are underway, and I’m told there have already been hundreds of thousands of votes cast. I’ve gotten a couple of questions here on my blog, by email, and on Flyertalk about what it’s all about, and how it differs from the Freddie Awards — which Randy Petersen decided to bring to a close after two decades. Like the Freddies, the Frequent Traveler awards fulfill a unique role: They honor the best loyalty programs, not the best or hippest resort hotels or airline seats and food. They are decided by the traveling public at large, not by a group of self-described ‘experts’. I’m the Chair of the Frequent Traveler Awards committee that put together the structure, voting processes, and nominations for the Frequent Traveler Awards. I had always been a bit of…
Opting Out of e-Rewards’ Creepy ‘Advanced Cookies’
e-Rewards, the survey site that lets you redeem points for miles in a variety of programs (unless you sign up via a specific program, in which case your redemptions are restricted to that program), plans to implement (on or about October 1) some pretty extreme tracking cookies to watch your overall web browsing sessions. On the whole, I find that their surveys are less rewarding (fewer points for longer surveys) than they were perhaps five years ago. And the opportunity cost of my time has gone up. I rarely find it worthwhile to complete their surveys on the basis of the rewards they’re offering. But I still complete some surveys because I like to have a small stash of points that I can redeem at-will. The surveys are too cumbersome for, say, the 1000 frequent…
Hotel Industry Rates and Occupancy… What Will it Mean for Starwood Award Categories in 2011?
Starwood assigns hotels to award categories (which determines the number of points it takes to redeem a room night) based on each hotel’s projected average daily room rate for the year. Back in February, Starwood announced that they wouldn’t be changing hotels’ award category assignments (for the most part) for 2010. They spun this as doing a favor for their members — we aren’t raising point requirements! — but my view was that given the way they structure and describe the program, they should have been lowering points costs. Each year when they moved more hotels up in categories than down, it was justified based on the room rates those hotels were drawing. Starwood has even added increasingly higher category levels to the program in order to charge more points for the highest priced properties.…
