I’ve given Starwood Preferred Guest a bit of a hard time in recent posts. And I stand by everything that I’ve said — that their unique value propositions have been eroded. They were once head and shoulders above the pack but I believe they’d fallen behind Hyatt Gold Passport and they aren’t quite as unique in differentiating themselves from the rest of the field, either. Still, I’d certainly rather be a Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum than a Marriott Platinum, Hilton Diamond, or Priority Club Platinum. I don’t think that Starwood has really intentionally rested on their laurels. It’s really just speculation, based on personal observation rather than direct knowledge of their financials, but my sense is that the program has the highest cost structure of any of the major hotel loyalty offerings. When Starwood Preferred…
Free $10 Per Night Priceline ‘Bonus Cash’
Priceline is offering ‘bonus cash’ for watching a video. Just watch (or let the video run in the background) and a green button appears that says “GET BONUS CASH NOW.” You’ll be prompted to log into your account and Priceline will deposit a coupon which will add $10 per night on top of whatever you bid on a stay of up to 5 nights. It doesn’t REDUCE the price you are charged. If you bid $50 for a hotel, Priceline will act as though you bid $60. You’ll be charged the price you bid, in this example $50 per night plus taxes and fees. But your bid will be accepted or rejected on the basis of $60 per night. So you’ll use the coupon to bid $10 less than you otherwise would have. The coupon…
Something Big on the Horizon for Starwood Preferred Guest?
Flyertalk’s Starwood Lurker is ‘teasing us’ with the tagline, Guess what’s next? in his signature appended to all of his posts. There’s even a Flyertalk thread dedicated to guessing what’s next. And William does helpfully tell us in that thread that ‘what’s next’ does not refer to the return of peak season increased redemption rates for category 5, 6, and 7 properties. Now, the last time Starwood built up suspense for a big announcement, all they had was SPG Flights, the option to redeem flights for air travel directly rather than through mileage transfers. A benefit I would never, ever take advantage of, the value proposition is simply poor (though I’ll never complain about new added options for members, this one was simply not one to get excited about). Personally though, in spite of being…
Starwood Brings Back Peak Season Points Redemption Surcharges for Most Expensive Hotels
For the past two years Starwood has ‘suspended’ peak season surcharges, where they charge extra points for up to 16 weeks a year for category 5, 6, and 7 hotels. They’ve cited the overall economy and room rates as the reason for the decision, and it was a real boon to members. Each hotel in the upper 3 redemption categories gets to declare what dates are their peak season and members are charged: 16,000 points per night instead of 12,000 for category 5 (33% upcharge) 25,000 points per night instead of 20,000 for category 6 (25% upcharge) 35,000 points per night instead of 30,000 for category 7 (17% upcharge) But in 2009 and 2010 the practice was suspended. However, it’s back and Starwood has announced peak season dates that hotels have submitted for 2011 and…
Thanksgiving in Mumbai: Washington Dulles and the Lufthansa Senator Lounge
I decided to have my Thanksgiving dinner with Indians, so my wife and I went to India. She expressed a strong preference against my usual ‘let’s try out new flight product’ approach, and I didn’t take the opportunity to fly Turkish first to Istanbul or fly the new Swiss first (hop up to Montreal..). Instead we made the flight with just two flights in each direction, 3 segments in first class on Lufthansa and a final flight home in first on United. I’ve actually been a fan of the Lufthansa first class product, it’s old and dated but certainly comfortable. But it’s sure wearing thin. And the United product, well, we’ll get to that. I was flying the old United first. I haven’t flown it internationally in 3 years. At first it seemed familiar, like…
Air Traffic Delays Cause Significant Economic Harm, and How to Solve Them
Sean from the Budget Travel blog passes along this post on the economic cost of flight delays. I was actually surprised by the quality of the analysis in the post about the FAA-commissioned academic study. The study itself concludes Passengers lose about $16 billion a year because of “schedule buffer, delayed flights, flight cancellations, and missed connections. But there are real differences between the various causes of delays, and while each is costly it’s not really useful to talk about ‘schedule buffer’ along with delays and of course missed connections are mostly a function of delays and cancellations, and are minimized by schedule buffer. Sean points to air traffic control as the biggest driver of the problem, citing the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General, and that gets it right. Of course plenty of operational factors…
When People DON’T Need My Award Booking Service
I don’t write often here about my award booking service, except in passing to explain why I redeem so many darned miles and deal with airline call centers so frequently. For instance, I’ve completed 4 award trips in the past 12 hours for 7 passengers, making 5 separate reservations with Continental (2), United (2), and US Airways. But just as often as someone comes to me for an award that I book, I explain to them that they don’t need to. I do get the occasional ‘one passenger, domestic coach’ request and by the time they’d pay my fee I suggest it isn’t worth it any longer… just buy the ticket. My service really is designed for securing premium cabin international travel, the value proposition is just much stronger, than searching for domestic coach awards.…
Delta 100% Bonus on Purchased Miles
Delta is offering a 100% bonus on purchased miles when paying for the transaction with a Delta co-branded American Express card. The offer runs through the end of the month, and is only open to primary Delta Amex accountholders. You can purchase between 2000 and 60,000 miles under the offer. I had seen the offer a couple of weeks ago. But the interesting thing that finally prompted me to post it is a comment from Steve yesterday that the Flyertalk thread on the offer was pretty moribund. As of this writing there’s a whopping 10 posts in the thread. That’s in stark contrast to the huge excitement generated by the persistent US Airways 100% bonus on purchased miles. And the difference in excitement levels is hardly that US Airways doesn’t require use of their co-branded…
The Most Beautiful Places in the World Aren’t Where Travel Writers Say They Are (or: “How Many Travel Writers Actually Travel?”)
I wonder whether the people who write articles like this have ever even visited the places they trumpet? Or perhaps, they trumpet the only places they’ve ever visited? The Lonely Planet author says that Paris is one of the most beautiful places to wake up. Now, plenty of people would be thrilled to wake up in Paris, because then they’d, well, be in Paris! But daytime is hardly Paris’ best face. The Champs-Élysées at night lights up beautifully, there’s sometihng about the juxtoposition of lights and dark sky that makes the glow of the Eifel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe special. But the morningtime…? And I was just in Mumbai last week. There are many, many things that can be said about Mumbai, but among the 10 most beautiful places in the world to…
Aeroplan Actually Makes You Fly Air Canada in Order to Earn Elite Status Moving Forward
Lucky notes an interesting rule change over at Air Canada for elite status qualification: at least 10,000 miles or 5 segments have to be flown on Air Canada in order to be eligible to earn status in the program. Flying 35,000 miles earns mid-tier status and Star Alliance Gold. So for, say, a US Airways passenger who hits just 35,000 miles in a year and flies routes and times where as a Silver they’re unlikely to be upgraded often, they may be better off crediting their miles to Aeroplan. They’re a mid-tier elite, instead of a bottom-tier elite, and they receive free lounge access even for their domestic flying in the US (access to US Airways lounges, as a partner Star Alliance Gold). Not to mention access to partner lounges (like the Lufthansa lounge at…
