Via Priority Club Insider, Priority Club is offering double points or double miles beginning with your second stay from May 16 through August 15 (stays at Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites earn double points beginning with first stay during the promo period). Registration is required. Priority Club Insider suggests waiting until May 16 to do so, in case a better offer comes along that is mutually exclusive from this one. Though I suspect most folks will benefit from just registering and forgetting about it, rather than setting a calendar reminder to register next month.
3000 Ameircan Airlines Miles for Shopping, Dining, and Traveling
Via Milepoint member Destination David, today’s American Airlines 30 Deals / 30 Days offer is 3000 bonus miles for completing the following tasks by May 27: Spend $30 through the AAdvantage shopping portal (One Mile at a Time says that you need to spend $30 “via the AAdvantage eShopping Toolbar” but that doens’t appear to be correct.) Spend $30 through the AAdvantage dining program Credit a flight on American, a hotel stay, or a car rental to your AAdvantage account. Registration required. The shopping part is easy, so is the dining part though if you aren’t already a member of the AAdvantage dining program you’ll need to register a credit card. And a single car rental works. Not worth doing all three if you aren’t going to be engaging in any of these activities anyway…
Live Chat with the President of American AAdvantage
On May 4 at 9pm Eastern, Milepoint will host an online chat with the President of the American AAdvantage program. This is the launch of an ongoing series to offer frequent travelers a chance to interact with the people running the frequent flyer and frequent guest programs they participate in. If you can’t make the live chat — and if you have any interest in the American Airlines AAdvantage program, you should — but you have a question that you’d like answered, you can submit your question in advance. There’ll be a chat ranscript published afterward to read the answers in.
The Challenges of Just Making a Reservation with Hilton, and Do They Have Too Many Brands to Offer a Functional Website?
Quick – can anyone name all of the hotel brands that are a part of Hilton? Without looking it up, that is? There’s Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, Hilton, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn, Hampton Inn & Suites, Homewood Suites, Home2 Suites by Hilton, and Hilton Grand Vacations. The proliferation of brands certainly affects other chains too, I don’t think Hilton is actually the worst here, if I had asked the same question about Marriott, would you have included TownePlace Suites in your list? But Hilton has different phone numbers for each. Or call Hilton directly and get a menu tree asking which one you want to make reservations at. There has to be cost savings to better-integrating the brands. There has to be upside to just having fewer brands, there may be brand…
American AAdvantage 30 Deals in the Next 30 Business Days, and Register Today to Receive Bonus Miles for Flights
2011 marks the 30th anniversary of the birth of the modern frequent flyer program, American AAdvantage launched May 1, 1981. United’s program was launched a matter of days later. (David Rowell claims that Texas Air’s program launched in 1979 counts, but American’s is generally regarded as the starting point.) To celebrate 30 years of frequent flyer miles and as the first and certainly first surviving program, American is launching 30 deals in 30 days. And you’ll want to check it each and every day. Today’s deal is that you can register for up to 30,000 bonus miles flying American. Book on AA.com by April 30, 2011 for travel between May 15, 2011 and November 15, 2011 for the following bonuses: 1st roundtrip = 1,000 bonus miles 2nd roundtrip = 3,000 more bonus miles 3rd roundtrip…
$8 All-In Hertz JFK 3-Day Weekend Rental Error Rate
This was posted by baseline on Flyertalk about 7 hours ago, but it’s buried in a non-obvious place so there are no replies yet as of this posting seven and a half hours later. But it was emailed to me this morning.. (thanks for that!) Seems to work from 4/28-5/1. Good for pickup and dropoff at JFK or a pickup at JFK and dropoff at another location. I tried some Manhattan dropoffs and they worked just fine. Stackable with coupons too. Economy thru Fullsize rates are dirt cheap. Click here to get a rate of $7.91 *total* for a Thu-Sun rental of a compact car. You can play with the dates and dropoff location to suit your needs. Hopefully some folks will get use out of it before it disappears! UPDATE: Also seem to work…
Aeroplan Guts their Award Chart for High-End Premium Cabin Trips
Aeroplan has just released a new award chart which will go into effect July 15 and it hurts. On the whole, the changes to pricing of Air Canada awards aren’t terrible, nothing goes down but awards like coach to Hawaii goes from 40,000 to 45,000 (business is harsher, 60,000 up to 80,000). Business to nearer Europe goes from 85,000 to 90,000. Business to the Middle East and to Australia go from 115,000 to 135,000. Plenty more increases but on the whole all of that scale. Aeroplan claims that “[t]he adjustments represent an average increase of less than 5 per cent in the number of miles per reward for all ClassicFlight (Air Canada) and Star Alliance flight rewards.” Rewards Canada echos that changes in Star Alliance flight prices are mostly “to bring these rewards in line…
Starwood One Free Resort Night for Every Three Stays Between May 1 and July 31
Every three stays at any Starwood property between May 1 and July 31 will earn a free night redeemable at any Starwood resort with standard rooms which is in categories 1 through 6, plus the St. Regis Punta Mita which is category 7. One of my real Starwood pet peeves is that ‘all suite’ hotels, though not including Sheraton Suites properties oddly enough, cost double points to redeem. Even though they draw their high room rates which justify their category assignment by virtue of the room types they offer in the first place, so members get penalized twice when it comes to redemption — the higher points price because it’s an expensive hotel, and then double the points because the rooms are all suites, which is why it is so expensive in the first place.…
Cab Driver Kickbacks to Hotel Doormen Receive Scrutiny
Barbara DeLollis reports on a new Santa Monica, California law outlawing hotel doormen from enforcing kickbacks from cab drivers. Apparently the ‘cut’ is about 10% and is referred to as a ‘cookie’. My suspicion is that cab drivers pay because regulated taxi fares in many cities are set above market clearing prices. Or at least because on average pickups of passengers from hotels reduce waiting times, so they are more lucrative at the regulated fare (since fares cannot legally vary by location of pickup in most jurisdictions) than trolling for rides. So it’s worth it to them to do so. Hotels tacitly condone the practice because they see the cab drivers as compensating their doormen, so they pay those employees less. Further, the kickback schemes kelp retain employees, it takes time to cultivate illicit kickbacks…
On Bringing the Road Back Home, Instead of Making the Road Feel Like Home
Some hotel chains try to recreate stay experiences to make their guests feel as much at home as possible. But many regular guests feel more at home in a hotel than they do when they’re not on the road. I know I’ve certainly brought the hotel feel home, and I enjoy experiencing new things from design elements to foods and even glassware. The bathrooms in the condo I own and now rent out was designed to feel like several of the modern hotel bathrooms I’ve seen, my wife found the perfect glass vanities with bowl sinks, the shower tiles we like, and shower systems that we’ve liked the best. When I was staying at W hotels more frequently I started using Bliss products at home, though I’m now less enamored (most recently preferring L’Occitane). And…
