Speaking of Starwood, news of their next promo is out. Every two stays between May 1 and July 31 earns a free weekend night. Each free night will have to be redeemed by end of September.
Starwood Needs Confirmed Suite Upgrades for Platinums
While Starwood got great vibes from its members for this year’s recategorization of hotel award categories, it was pretty much as expected — their award categories are driven by each hotel’s average daily room rate for the previous year, and those are down markedly. (Plus the past few years have seen huge increases in the category rankings, and I believe modifications to the daily rate range for each category.) Meanwhile, Starwood’s two unique attributes are being matched by its competitors: no capacity controls on awards (now matched by Hilton and Hyatt) and upgrades to suites (now offered four times a year confirmed for Hyatt Diamonds instead of unlimited based on availability at checkin for Starwood Platinums). For some time I’ve wondered what Starwood would do to up the ante on the competition. Speculation heated up…
Bangkok Protests Ending
Apparently the Red Shirt leaders have turned themselves in to police and the protesters are going home. Meanwhile, I read that Songkran is being extended two days. Perhaps this represents loss of face for Shinawatra, but the underlying issues are unlikely to go away. He still has plenty of funds and supporters, the government isn’t seen as broadly legitimate, I’d expect that matters have simply been delayed until another day.
An End Game for Thailand?
I’ve been watching the current protests in Thailand over the past several days, and it’s fascinating from a political science perspective. The Thai PM can’t really crack down on the protesters too heavily, he just came to power himself on the back of similar protests The ASEAN conference should have been easy to provide security for, there’s basically only two roads in and out of Pattaya but nothing was done The PM has lost face in front of the international community. Has to crack down now. If it doesn’t work, he’s inept and has to leave. But if things turn violent he loses confidence of the people and has to leave. So he has to hope that the protesters disburse. Roughly speaking the protesters are being paid to protest, and things are pretty nonviolent, even…
Northwest Discounts International Award Redemption
Through April 20, Northwest Worldperks is offering discounted international redemption for travel through June 15. The offer applies to Delta, Northwest, and KLM-operated flights only. If you don’t have Worldperks miles, but have a balance with Delta Skymiles, you can of course transfer your Skymiles over to Northwest instantly to take advantage of the offer (it wouldn’t surprise me if Delta is offering the same or similar deal but I haven’t yet checked). The offer provides for a 10-20% discount on coach awards and a 25% discount on business class awards. Fourteen day advance booking and a Saturday night stay are required. Update: As expected, Delta is indeed making the same offer.
Tentative Update on Fairmont Friends & Family Rate Offer
Several days ago I posted about the Fairmont Friends & Family rate. In the current low bookings environment, hotels are looking for ways to get incremental room nights. Fairmont has been promoting the employee friends and family rate, encouraging employees to have their friends book deeply discounted stays and even offering them a $10 per booking financial incentive for doing so. The goal of this sort of promotion is to spur incremental business, somewhat ‘quietly’ in a way that doesn’t detract from revenue bookings. In other words, sell a room that would otherwise go vacant for $129 without diverting someone to that rate who would have booked a room at $429. And since the friends and family rate is capacity controlled, with hotels only making rooms available that would go unsold at higher rates, this…
Intercontinental Offers Free Internet to Ambassadors
Intercontinental Ambassador (and thus Royal Ambassador) members now receive free internet at most Intercontinental properties. Hyatt just rolled this out for their elites, so perhaps this is a response. And with a second program jumping on board there’s some momentum, and thus pressure on other programs to consider this as well. (Though these are smaller programs, not as though Marriott and Hilton made the offer with Starwood lagging behind.) Not all Intercontinental properties participate, hopefully more will join in. And it’s always great when there’s a new benefit, without pairing with cutbacks. Update: This Flyertalk post lists the currently non-participating Intercontinental properties, and points out that only roughly 1/3rd are currently listing as participating. Hopefully that number will grow.
Triple bmi Miles with Hilton
Hilton is offering triple bmi miles through June 30 (Registratoin required.) The usual offer is 1000 bmi miles per night, up to 3000 per stay. That makes bmi truly a favorite double dip mileage partner. With this offer it’s 3000 bmi miles per night, up to 9000 per stay. Not all properties are participating, but the list that are is significant. Over at Flyertalk there’s a discussion of whether booking a $45 AAA rate at the Las Vegas Hilton is worth it just for the bmi miles. Gotta love low rates and per-stay (rather than per-dollar) promos.
Fairmont Friends & Family Rate for Everyone
As posted on Flyertalk, Fairmont is making their friends and family rate available to anyone. Some great rates available. (This is similar to the outstanding Priority Club offer.) The promo is valid through the end of the year, and stays can be booked no more than 90 days out. The promo code is NFAF and the person posting the offer provided Booker ID#13421516 which is a number you enter after searching for your room using the promo code above and selecting the room type. Employees apparently earn $10 per stay booked until their Booker ID.
Carrying Money Through Security Might Mean You’re a Terrorist
Here’s the audio of the passenger who was recently detained at St. Louis airport for carrying $4710 in cash contributions to a political organization through security. I have a hard time figuring out why carrying ‘a large sum of money’ makes someone a threat to airport security. Someone who is going to blow up a plane is unlikely to bring a large sum of money with them onboard, unless perhaps they’re attempting to single-handedly combat the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing… (Though even there, as Ben Bernanke drops money from helicopters, doesn’t it seem easier for a terrorist just to burn the money than the bring it onboard an aircraft?) (Hat tip to One Mile at a Time.)
