I wasn’t at the Freddie Awards this year, during the ceremony I was in the Thai Airways first class spa at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport. So I don’t have a lot to share about the event. But I’ve been reviewing the results. Certainly I have a different take on who should have won in many cases, I wouldn’t call Alaska’s MVP Gold the best airline elite status for instance. But what really struck me was Delta Skymiles winning the best elite level in Europe. Delta offers almost nothing to the European elite members (although European addressed Skymiles accounts have historically earned Platinum status with only 50,000 elite qualifying miles). There’s no complimentary upgrade program except when Europeans have already crossed the pond. It’s a terrible program for international upgrades. And what else is there, really, for…
Priority Club: Stay 2 Nights, Get a Free Night (Or Earn Double Points)
Priority Club has cobbled together a potentially lucrative but also confusing “stay 2 nights, get a free night” promotion. Registration is required. It’s actually two promotions in one. First, every two nights from May 4 through July 3 earns a free night, up to a maximum of 4 free nights. Those free nights can be used between July 3 and December 26. These free nights are redeemable any night of the week, not just weekends like Starwood’s free night bonus offer. Japanese hotels and members with addresses in Japan are excluded from the free night promotion. Perhaps most importantly, while earning credit towards free nights you do not earn your normal points or miles. The second piece of the offer is double points earning, instead of free nights. That doesn’t preclude earning points (naturally). It’s…
Your Stimulus Dollars at Work
“You’ve heard of the Bridge to Nowhere. You might call this the Airport for Nobody.” The John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport has an impressive $18 million runway made of reinforced concrete that’s big enough to land any airplane in North America. The airport also has a $7 million air traffic control tower, a $14 million hanger and $8 million radar. Most of the time, the only thing the airport doesn’t have is airplanes. An average of just 20 people a day flew out of the Murtha Airport last year. But, the airport was just awarded more federal money — $800,000 in stimulus funds to repave an alternate runway…
It Can Happen to the Best of Us
Upgrade: Travel Better reported on his mistaken Priceline booking. He entered the wrong dates for a hotel reservation that he won, and managed to work with the hotel and Priceline to get them to shift his dates to what he originally wanted. Just a few days ago I realized a similar boo boo myself, not on Priceline but with a similar prepaid, non-refundable booking at the Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport hotel. Seems I had entered the exact right day – in the wrong month! I had booked for May instead of April, which is why the nice ladies at door 4 in the arrivals hall didn’t see me on their list of arrivals. When I walked up to the checkin desk they couldn’t find my reservation either, so I handed them my printed confirmation. A little…
Hyatt’s (3) Different Suite Upgrade Instruments
Hyatt used to be quite stingy with suite upgrades. Their top tier elites weren’t entitled to suites, even when suites were going empty, and getting into one usually took some cajoling and paying a higher than normal room rate. But now that Hyatt has upped the ante in the elite status game and provided new confirmed upgrade instruments to their top tier elites. Still, the current situation can be confusing because at present there are 3 different types of suite upgrades available through Hyatt. The points upgrade. Spend 6000 Hyatt Gold Passport points to confirm an upgrade to a suite, but you must pay the ‘prevailing rate’ for your room. And this is frequently argued to be rack rate, even though that hardly prevails with most other bookings… Diamond Upgrade Certificate. Historically each diamond member…
Delta and Northwest Offer Big Bonuses for Partner Activity
Delta’s new bonus mile offer for partner activity is called Pile on Miles. Registration required. Partner activity through June 22 counts towards incrementally more bonus miles, and each partner can only count once for the offer. Unique Partner Activities 4 ———– 4,000 miles 6 ———– 6,000 miles 8 ———– 8,000 miles 15 ———– 15,000 miles 25 ———– 25,000 miles Northwest is making the same offer, which means that between the two programs 50 partner activities earn up to 50,000 bonus miles.
Northwest Online Shopping Bonus
Northwest is offering 1000 bonus miles for shopping with specific merchants through their mileage portal through June 30, up to 10,000 miles total for the promo. The participating merchants are: AVON Bagsbuy BarnesandNoble.com Beauty.com Big Dogs Bliss Borders Brookstone Charlotte Russe CHEFS Cheryl & Co. Clinique drugstore.com eBags ESPNShop.com Footlocker Gaiam GiftBaskets.com H2O Plus Harry & David ICE.com JC Whitney Jos. A. Bank Kiehl’s Kodak Gallery Lab Series Lancome Lord & Taylor macys.com Magazines.com Magellan’s Naturalizer.com Nautica Nordstrom.com Northern Tool & Equipment Omaha Steaks Origins RedEnvelope Rosetta Stone Saks Fifth Avenue Sears.com Sephora Shoebuy ShopNBC Smart Bargains Smith + Noble SpaFinder The North Face The Walking Company Things Remembered TravelSmith Vans Vera Bradley Vision Direct VistaPrint Zazzle Naturally, there are Flyertalkers trying to figure out how to get 10,000 miles out of this promo as…
New 30,000 Mile American Airlines Credit Card Offers
One Mile at a Time has links to new, improved Citibank American Airlines credit card offers — 30,000 mile signup bonuses for the Mastercard, American Express, and Business Mastercard products. The cards have no annual fee the first year, and remember that Citi cards are churnable — you can get the signup bonuses over and over — and individuals can generally apply for two cards every 60 days although this experience on the frequency of successfully applying for cards may vary.
$220 from DC to Peru
As posted on Flyertalk, Washington-Dulles to Lima, Peru is running ~ $220 all-in, bookable any time through the end of the schedule (March, 2010). Use Kayak and enter IAD as departure city and LIM as arrival city to find it quickly. You can get the price under $200 by flying United, Dulles – Mexico City and then LanPeru down to Lima. That fare, though, is only valid through June 17, and a Saturday stay is required.
Starwood’s Free Weekend Night Promo
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.
