Travel and Leisure has come out with its 2006 list of the world’s best hotels. Every year these lists come out, and even though I should know better I allow them to frustrate me. Why is it that people who know little about hotels get treated as experts? How could they make such monumental ranking blunders? Indulge me by allowing me to point out just a few absurdities: The Royal Orchid Sheraton in Bangkok — listed as the #36 hotel in Asia — isn’t even the best Sheraton in the city and certainly isn’t better than the Grand Hyatt Erawan (#42), whose bungalows vault the hotel into the same league as Bangkok’s Peninsula and Oriental properties. The Inn at Little Washington is nice, though more worthwhile for dinner than for lodging and more notable in…
What Cathy Doesn’t Know, or Why Cartoon Characters Can’t Redeem Their Miles
Yesterday’s Cathy cartoon expressed a common frustration about using frequent flyer miles. I don’t mean to dismiss the idea because it is commonly held and people do have difficulty redeeming miles. But the conventional wisdom doesn’t match reality. If you take the miles and points game seriously, you should be able to do pretty well on the redemption side. Here are some basic tips. Build up miles in a single program until you have enough for the awards you want, and then diversify into other programs. That way when it comes time to redeem you’ll have more than one program to choose from. Sometimes United hasn’t had seats, but American does. Or Delta won’t, but United will. One good way to do this is to accumulate miles through partner activities (credit cards, mortgages, internet service,…
Northwest Shopping Bonus
Jul
12
2006
Northwest is offering 500 bonus miles for shopping online through their Worldperks Mall and spending $150 or more between July 1 and September 15. Registration is required. See the details on the offer, because some of their participating merchants (eg hotel, car, flowers) are excluded from earning the bonus. All your online purchases should — of course — receive some kind of reward, whether it’s Northwest miles or something else. The best one-stop sources for learning about the best bonuses are the extensive RewardsDB charts and the Webflyer tool. It’s always worth checking out these resources before making an online purchase of any kind. (And it’s not just miles – you can earn cash rebates, too.)
Fake Vacations
I usually write about real travel and real vacations, but Tyler Cowen points to Persey Tours which offers all of the accoutrements of travel without the trip. For $500, nobody will believe you weren’t sunning yourself last week on Copacabana Beach, just before you trekked through the Amazon rain forest and slept in a thatched hut. Hey! That’s you, arms outstretched like Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic, on top of Corcovado! Persey Tours was barely keeping the bill collectors at bay before it started offering fake vacations last year. Now it’s selling 15 a month — providing ersatz ticket stubs, hotel receipts, photos with clients’ images superimposed on famous landmarks, a few souvenirs for living room shelves. If the customer is an errant husband who wants his wife to believe he’s on…
One reporter’s view on how to book whatever award ticket you wish
John Ewoldt of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has nerves of steel and decides to book whatever award tickets are available and just shows up for travel on his preferred dates and times. Not a recommended strategy, and contrary to Ewoldt’s assertions this is not something that will work on all award tickets. Just try it with many carriers’ partner awards or with a good number of Asian or European carriers that don’t permit changes. But I still have to respect his effort!
Up to 5000 Bonus Miles for Transferring Hotel Points to United
Jul
11
2006
Got this last night by email: Convert your hotel points into Mileage Plus miles now through September 30, 2006 and earn up to 5,000 bonus miles that you can redeem toward travel, dining certificates, auction items, and more. Check out Mileage Plus Awards to view all of your redemption options.Here’s how to transfer hotel points and earn bonus miles: 1) Select a hotel points program that you belong to from the list below2) Transfer the amount of hotel points equivalent to 10,000–19,999 miles(exchange rates vary by hotel program), and you’ll earn 2,500 bonus miles 3) Convert the amount of hotel points equivalent to 20,000 miles or more(exchange rates vary by hotel program), and you’ll earn 5,000 bonus miles Select your hotel program: Marriott Rewards®, visit Marriott online or call 1-800-450-4442. Priority Club® Rewards, visit InterContinental®…
20% off on hotel rooms I wouldn’t stay in
SmarterTravel is featuring 20% off at Choice hotels (Quality Inn, Comfort Inn, Clarion Inn..). At least you earn points.
The Challenge of Redeye Flights
The Global Traveler has tips for surviving redeye flights. Basically don’t drink caffeine and try to get to sleep right away. Great as far as it goes, but I find redeyes to be brutal, and survival to depend entirely on the seat. I had tremendous difficulty flying Bangkok to Narita a couple months back in ANA’s old style business class seat. It was just uncomfortable and nothing I did could change that. Give me a full recline in a comfortable seat and it’s a different story. The short flight time would still present challenges and I wouldn’t be well rested on the other end, but it would have been far better. The only real tip for surviving redeye flights is a modern business class or three-class first class seat. I know that won’t help many…
American Miles for Movie Theatre Sodas
Jul
06
2006
Cinemark Theatres are again offering American Airlines miles for the purchase of a large soda. Back in 2004 the offer was just 100 miles per soda. Now it appears that not all codes are winners, but at least 1 in 5 are and those receive a minimum of 500 miles and a long-shot chance for 100,000 miles. Sounds great, right? Just go to a Cinemark theatre and dumpster dive for these codes off sodas and get some award tickets. Alas there’s a limit of 10 Instant Win 500 AAdvantage miles Game Piece codes and two 5,000 AAdvantage miles Game Piece codes per account. Of course, each member of your family can have a separate account and I’m willing to bet that excess codes wind up on eBay… Since there aren’t any Cinemark theatres near me…
Sometimes Banner Ads Show You Something Useful
Amtrak is advertising over at Flyertalk.com, and a banner brings you to a signup bonus promotion — enter promotion code NEC06 while opening an Amtrak Guest Rewards account and receive 3000 bonus points for your first train trip taken within 90 days of signing up instead of the usual 500 points. That’s enough for a one-way Northeast corridor ticket, and almost enough to transfer points to Continental or Hilton.
