Southwest is offering double points on all travel book and flown between today and May 15. Registration required. Travel booked prior to today will not earn double points regardless of when it’s flown. You’ll receive 24 points (instead of the standard 12 points) per dollar spent on Business Select® Fares, 20 points (instead of ten points) per dollar spent on Anytime Fares, and 12 points (instead of six points) per dollar spent on Wanna Get Away?® Fares. During the same promotion period and with the same registration they’re offering double tier qualifying points on every flight in and out of Milwaukee. (HT: Dallas Morning News Aviation Blog)
15% Discount on Las Vegas – London Awards with BA Avios
British Airways offers three times a week service between Las Vegas and London’s Gatwick airport (they offer daily service to Heathrow). The Gatwick route must not be doing well, because are offering a 15% discount on the points required to book this Vegas-Gatwick flight. The 15% discount is for bookings made by February 28th and travel through March 31st. All cabins are included in this offer though the flight does not have a first class. And because of high fuel surcharges I don’t find Avios redemption for economy to be worthwhile. Business class is where I would focus. This can be booked online or by phone (though phone bookings incur a fee). The discount applies to awards and not to upgrades. You can discount the mileage cost of a miles and money award, but the…
Quickest Paths to Star Alliance Gold Status
Star Alliance has a new video promoting the benefits of Gold status within the alliance. Gold is top tier within Star (there are only two tiers offered). Each member program has their own rules about how to get there. Benefits of Star Alliance Gold The biggest benefits of most frequent flyer programs are held for their own elite members. But Star Alliance Gold status generally gets you lounge access (although United and US Airways qualifying elites only get access to those airlines lounges when flying internationally), priority check-in, priority boarding, priority waitlisting, and also a free checked baggage allowance. Getting Star Gold via Status Match Turkish Airlines is one of the few non-U.S. programs that offers status matches where they will give you status based on status you already hold with another airline. They will…
Traveling to the U.S. for the Superbowl? You Had Better Have Behaved Back in 1981!
As Washington struggles with legislation to let people already in the country stay here, there’s insistence on ‘beefing up the border first’. It may be ‘easy’ to sneak across unguarded portions of Arizona, but it’s not easy to enter the country through its airports. Plenty of countries’ citizens don’t have to get visas to come here. But they have to request permission in advance. And pay for the privilege (that ‘fee’ is supposed to, somehow, promote rather than discourage tourism). They call that visa a ‘visa waiver’. It’s even easier to come to the U.S. if you’re Canadian. Unless you were found with two ounces of marijuana in 1981. Myles Wilkinson a fantasy footbacl contest – besting 4 million people — and the prize was a trip to the Superbowl. Only he was denied entry…
When is the Best Time to Book Airline Tickets and Other Travel Myths
This past week Time featured a piece on ‘6 myths about travel spending that cost you money’. What I learned from the piece is that when Time links to your blog, lots of other mirror sites pull their content and link to your blog as well, sending you trackback pings which are essentially spam that you need to clean up. Hah. (This wasn’t my first time quoted in Time, for instance over the summer they included me on inflight reading styles explaining why I still travel with a physical book and not just an e-reader. But it was strangely the first time they linked to me that I can recall.) When to Book Airline Tickets The first myth they cover is when to book your ticket, and the correct time is not ‘as soon as…
Grand Hyatt San Francisco: A Large Modern Hotel With a Small Hotel Feel
This past Monday I reviewed the Hyatt Regency San Francisco down on the Embarcadero. It’s a large atrium-style hotel that feels busy though I quite liked it (even though they failed to honor my confirmed suite upgrade). If I wanted to be in that part of the city I’d gladly stay there again. During the past week I made another trip to San Francisco and stayed at the Grand Hyatt. The Hyatt Regency is about 800 rooms, the Grand Hyatt about 660 so still a very large property but it feels much smaller. That’s mostly, I think, because the Grand is a much taller building with smaller individual floors and also a smaller lobby area. So you don’t feel the size of the property, since you aren’t walking around a ton, and you also aren’t…
Competitours Dates Announced for Summer 2013
My award booking partner Steve Belkin puts together Amazing Race-style trips called Competitours. Are you one of those folks who watch ‘The Amazing Race’ and mutter to yourself- ‘I could do that’. You love the competitive travel and surprise destinations concept, but you don’t have 60 days to kill or you hate the drama queens teams or there are no auditions in your city. You can see past coverage from Jaunted, JohnnyJet, and Gadling. Competitours is a travel competition where up to 14 pairs of teams accomplish a series of challenges over a 9 day trip through 4 Western European countries. Winners pick up a prize of up to $9000. Great for parent/child bonding, best friends, and couples. The 2013 trip is scheduled for July 5-14 and costs $2950 for East Coast airfare, lodging, 3…
Instant Platinum Top Tier Status with Leclub Accor Hotels is Back
.. and right on the heels of yesterday’s instant hotel status offer, too. Instant Platinum (top tier) status in the Accor Hotels loyalty program comes around with some frequency, each time it does the signup link won’t stay active for long — sometimes a couple of days, sometimes just hours. Here’s the offer for instant Platinum status. Note that the signup page is just a signup page, no indication on that page that accounts will start at the Platinum level, but indeed it’s currently working as of this writing. You must open a new account, it cannot be applied to existing accounts. And when you do so you must use an email address that’s not currently on file with them. Even if you don’t frequently stay at Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, and other related properties…
Faster Free Nights are Back!
It was just back in September that I pronounced the famous Faster Free Nights hotel promotion dead. Not just resting. Not just simply ‘stunned’ or ‘pining for the fjords.’ Definitely deceased. And yet I opened up the front cover of February’s Inside Flyer to find this: Now, Faster Free Nights was the Greatest. Hotel Promotion. Ever run. Two stays — even one nights — with Hyatt and you earned a free night at any Hyatt in the world. Two airport nights and you’d have a night at the Park Hyatt Tokyo. Back in the day it was even better, because as long as there was some sort of charge on your folio a Priceline room would count. What’s more, as long as something billed to your room when staying on your free night, your free…
A Cheaper Way to Buy Those American Airlines Miles
For the past day or so I’ve had a browser window open with the latest US Airways purchase miles offer which runs through February 28. Because I’m being offered a 100% bonus, but not only is it ‘targeted’ this time (only some people have the offer) the offer varies for different folks. And I’ve been trying to sort out US Airways’ thinking here. Some people get a 100% bonus, some people as little as 50%, and some people no bonus at all. When you go to the purchase miles page they make you identify yourself. Then they present you with your offer, here’s the one I got: If you didn’t get a 100% bonus, but you want one and know someone that did then remember that the bonus applies to buying miles and gifting miles.…
