Alaska Airlines is ending its 1000 mile online booking bonus September 5th. Beginning September 6th, though, you’ll be able to earn the bonus only by paying with an Alaska Airlines Visa. And somehow the article introduces this as an exciting new improvement, titling as New 1,000 Mile Online Booking Bonus. Heh.
The New York Times ran a piece on the science of dealing with jet lag. But who’s going to do this? Dr. Charmane I. Eastman, director of the Biological Rhythms Research Lab at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said she had found one way to virtually eliminate jet lag from, say, a New York-Milan flight. It involves resetting your body clock with small doses of the hormone melatonin for three days before flight time — combined with going to bed an hour earlier each day — and then taking in bright light, natural or artificial, after arriving in Italy about six hours later. She recommends using a light box, widely used to treat the “winter blues.” Better is the article’s suggestion to drink some coffee and take a better. Better still, here are my…
Worldperks University has added a new, third course — read a couple quick screens, take a three question ‘quiz’, and get 100 bonus miles. The offer says miles post in 3-4 weeks, but they actually post instantly. When you complete the quiz you also become eligible for Book and fly one roundtrip flight on an NWA- or KLM-operated flight within the next 90 days and earn an additional 2,000 Bonus Miles. Back in March Northwest introduced the first two easy quizzes, I’m glad to be able to ‘enroll’ in another one at the start of a new semester… (Hat tip to Slippahs.)
Air Tahiti Nui has long been a partner of American Airlines, has recently added Northwest Airlines, and was supposed to add Delta — for redemption only. You can spend lots of points to get to Tahiti but if you’re flying Air Tahiti Nui on a paid ticket you’re not going to earn miles — unless you pay to join Air Tahiti Nui’s own program (doesn’t make sense for most) or book the flights as Qantas codeshares. That’s now changed. As of August 1, you now can earn American miles when flying Air Tahiti Nui. These are not “elite qualifying miles” so they won’t help you keep your Gold, Platinum, or Executive Platinum status. But they’re redeemable miles.. the kind that will help you earn towards your next award flight to Tahiti! Most coach fares (Y,…
Via the Upgrade Travel Blog, USAirways is selling day passes to its lounges for $25 through August 31 — rather than their usual $40 — by mentioning promo code ES25. Details here. Most US carriers sell day passes for $50, though $25 is the usual price for access to the Alaska Airlines Boardroom without a membership. (Boardroom members can buy day passes as gifts for only $15, and a year and a half back Alaska was selling these around Christmastime for only $12.50.)
Hotel Chatter interviews the custom party planner for Hooters Hotel in Vegas, who will arrange ‘anything that’s legal’. He’ll arrange “Celebrate your Divorce” packages and put stripper poles in your room.
A reader at HotelChatter.com wants to know which Starwood hotel to use for an anniversary stay. The choices are: Westin St. Francis W San Francisco Palace Hotel Le Meridien Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf The St. Regis – not on the list above – is absolutely outstanding. Of course it’s category 6 property so 20k – 24k points per night! The choice depends on how many points this person has to burn in their account…. The other key question is whether they have any status with Starwood. The Westin St. Francis has some absolutely teeny rooms at the entry level, so I don’t think I’d stay there unless I was a Platinum and thus reasonably assured of an upgrade. (The St. Regis does a good job upgrading Platinums to suites, by the way.) The Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf…
According to this thread on Flyertalk and this thread and others at Biddingfortravel.com, La Quinta Resort & Club is coming up on Priceline for $40 when bidding for a resort in the “Rancho Mirage-Indian Wells-Palm Desert” zone… and $25 when bidding for a three-star hotel in this same zone. Priceline has been known to set minimums for successful bids at a particular quality level. It looks like there’s a rate of as low as $25, but when bidding for a resort Priceline rejects bids under $40. There aren’t any three star properties willing to accept anything even close to $25, so Priceline ‘upgrades’ you to a resort when bidding on a three star property. My hunch is that La Quinta loaded a Priceline rate of $250, err they meant to load a $250 rate, and…
According to this thread on Flyertalk and this thread and others at Biddingfortravel.com, La Quinta Resort & Club is coming up on Priceline for $40 when bidding for a resort in the “Rancho Mirage-Indian Wells-Palm Desert” zone… and $25 when bidding for a three-star hotel in this same zone. Priceline has been known to set minimums for successful bids at a particular quality level. It looks like there’s a rate of as low as $25, but when bidding for a resort Priceline rejects bids under $40. There aren’t any three star properties willing to accept anything even close to $25, so Priceline ‘upgrades’ you to a resort when bidding on a three star property. My hunch is that La Quinta loaded a Priceline rate of $250, err they meant to load a $250 rate, and…
According to this thread on Flyertalk and this thread and others at Biddingfortravel.com, La Quinta Resort & Club is coming up on Priceline for $40 when bidding for a resort in the “Rancho Mirage-Indian Wells-Palm Desert” zone… and $25 when bidding for a three-star hotel in this same zone. Priceline has been known to set minimums for successful bids at a particular quality level. It looks like there’s a rate of as low as $25, but when bidding for a resort Priceline rejects bids under $40. There aren’t any three star properties willing to accept anything even close to $25, so Priceline ‘upgrades’ you to a resort when bidding on a three star property. My hunch is that La Quinta loaded a Priceline rate of $250, err they meant to load a $250 rate, and…
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
