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.
GroceryMiles 10 Million Mile Giveaway
Jul
02
2006
United’s GroceryMiles has a sweepstakes to give away miles:First prize: 340 people will win 25,000 miles Grand prize: 10 people will win 150,000 miles Register by July 31.
Amazon Groceries Discount
I realize I’ve been well outside the real of frequent flying with the last few posts, but for folks who travel so much it seems like there’s never any time to go to the grocery store I just thought I’d note that Amazon.com now sells groceries, and through August 31 is offering $10 off a $49 order with coupon code GROCERY2 in addition to free super saver shipping on orders of $25 or more. Details here. Update: If you’re hitting $25 for free shipping anyway, why not add a 79 cent PDA case?
Free $5 Starbucks Gift Card
Jul
02
2006
A builder is offering $5 Starbucks gift cards for filling out a survey. As with most promises of Starbucks gift cards, it’s an open question whether it’ll come to fruition.
Cheap bags
Brylane Home has a clutch reduced to $1.99 and a tote and clutch reduced to $7.99. You can use discount code BKSHIP3 for free shipping or code BHSAVE15 for $15 off a $30 order if purchasing multiples of these items.
USAirways Really is That Bad With Baggage
USAirways misplaces dirty bomb in lost luggage snafu, so says The Onion. Terrorist Yousef waits in vain for his dirty bomb.
Same Travel Site, Same Flights or Hotel, Different Prices
Alex Tabarrok points to a discussion of a travel website that appears to price the same hotel differently depending on how results are sorted — offering lower prices for the same room if a person search the site chooses to sort by price (presumably indicating that price is their key criteria for choosing a hotel). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen results precisely the same, but I do understand that Hotwire has been known to offer slightly different pricing to users of different web browsers (perhaps the theory being that more obscure browsers indicate net-savvy individuals who would be more price sensitive?). And there’s a current Flyertalk discussion on whether the ever-problematic USAirways website prices flights higher for Dividend Miles members that are logged into their accounts (although I suspect that it’s a preferences issue…
Mmmm… cookie.
Jun
30
2006
Hotel Chatter reports that Doubletree hotel properties are giving away their chocolate chip cookies to anyone who walks in and asks for 24 hours on the Fourth of July.
You, too, can honeymoon like Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are honeymooning at the new St. Regis Bora Bora. According to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, the newlyweds are staying in the luxury $15,000 a night U.S. Royal Estate at the new St. Regis resort. … Kidman and Urban are among the first guests of the Royal Estate over-water bungalow in the resort, which just opened a few weeks ago. The massive over-water villa boasts a 24-hour butler service, an in-room Jacuzzi and a room with a private swimming pool. And to think, part of my own honeymoon was just at the nearby Bora Bora Nui Resort & Spa. But then that was the most posh property on the island at the time, the St. Regis only just opened this month. And I had the room next to where Christina Applegate honeymooned,…
Marriott is ramping up their airline checkin stations quickly
Jun
27
2006
Marriott is ramping up their checkin kiosks from 32 properties now to 150 within two weeks. All Marriott and Renaissance properties are targeted to have the machines by the end of September. The kiosks will have the functionality to print airline boarding passes, a nice feature indeed. Marriott is actually a bit behind the curve on this one, Hilton announced the capability of their kiosks to print boarding passes back in April, but Marriott looks like it will jump ahead of its competitors with the ubiquity of the feature across two of its brands within a few months. This is one of the easy no-brainers of the hotel industry. If done right the cost to set up the machines with internet connectivity and a printer should be low, and it’s a major convenience. But in…
