Search Results for "ASIA".
In addition to Hyatt’s offer of 1000 Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles per night, they’re also putting the choice of 1000 American Airlines points per night on offer as well from March 15 through June 30.
Voting for the Freddie Awards is now open and will last through February 28. I voted for United as program of the year and best elite level. It has a truly industry-leading award chart — fewest miles for the best international premium class awards (think 90,000 miles for business class to Australia) — and its 1K program can’t be beat for international upgrades from reasonable fares without a co-pay. On the other hand, not a single one of my votes went to Northwest, Delta, or Continental. Together they’ve been increasing mileage costs on premium-class awards and (Continental and Northwest especially) offer generally poor award availability. Skyteam really is the leftover alliance, with equally stingy partners Air France and KLM. On the other hand, best redemption has to go to American… (with a nod to all…
Starwood posted its Cash & Points award hotel participation for 2006 yesterday. Well, sort of, since hotels in Asia aren’t listed yet. This has been a long time in coming, I understand from Flyertalk that they were trying to get this up much earlier but a glitch in the process delayed it until January 30. They even moved back the date to look for it on the website a couple of times. I don’t really know what the glitch was, but posting a full year of participation by the end of January is actually an improvement on past practice. Starwood used to list these awards only one quarter at a time, and the listing would usually be posted no earlier than a few days into that quarter. Last year they moved to show a full…
Starwood posted its Cash & Points award hotel participation for 2006 yesterday. Well, sort of, since hotels in Asia aren’t listed yet. This has been a long time in coming, I understand from Flyertalk that they were trying to get this up much earlier but a glitch in the process delayed it until January 30. They even moved back the date to look for it on the website a couple of times. I don’t really know what the glitch was, but posting a full year of participation by the end of January is actually an improvement on past practice. Starwood used to list these awards only one quarter at a time, and the listing would usually be posted no earlier than a few days into that quarter. Last year they moved to show a full…
Starwood posted its Cash & Points award hotel participation for 2006 yesterday. Well, sort of, since hotels in Asia aren’t listed yet. This has been a long time in coming, I understand from Flyertalk that they were trying to get this up much earlier but a glitch in the process delayed it until January 30. They even moved back the date to look for it on the website a couple of times. I don’t really know what the glitch was, but posting a full year of participation by the end of January is actually an improvement on past practice. Starwood used to list these awards only one quarter at a time, and the listing would usually be posted no earlier than a few days into that quarter. Last year they moved to show a full…
Continental is hosting a gathering for its frequent flyers this weekend and one Flyertalker has posted some news. international rewad and upgrade travel will see significant mileage increases for the 2006 program year. It sounds like Y upgrades to BF to Hawaii will jump to 15,000 miles while discount economy upgrades will cost 35,000 miles in addition to any required fees. Upgrades to Asia will jump to 50,000 miles for discount economy tickets (plus fees) and 25,000 for full Y. Europe will jump to 40,000 and 20,000 respectively. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like offered inventory will change much …nor will the fee for the mileage option on discount economy tickets. Mark Bergsrud mentioned at a Q&A at the ‘Do today that they don’t expect any changes with the system and inventories. An upgrade award to…
Leigh Witchel has a new ongoing series on finding the best mileage awards. So far he’s written about credit cards and also mileage programs with awards based on distance. The latter key takeaway is one of my favorites, the neat benefit of Cathay Pacific Asia Miles — awards in business class under 5000 miles are only 60,000 points. So flights on British Airways from the East Coast of the US to most destinations in Europe qualify. Similar flights would cost 100,000 British Airways miles. Separately, the new Gratis Air Blog is posting daily airfare deals, some of which are pretty good.
Continental posted several changes to their frequent flyer program today: You can now receive your BusinessFirst upgrade rewards until 24 hours prior to your scheduled departure. Previously, 72 hours were required. Effective February 1, 2006, you may redeem reward travel within the 48 contiguous U.S., Alaska and Canada on round-trip flights of 1,500 miles or less for only 20,000 miles. Effective April 1, 2006, some Easy Pass BusinessFirst reward mileage requirements will change: Routes between: Miles requiredbefore 4/1/06 Miles required4/1/06 and after N. America and Asia 240,000 250,000 N. America and Europe 200,000 250,000 N.Amer & India/Africa/Mideast 240,000 250,000 N. America and Tel Aviv 200,000 250,000 Hawaii and Europe 220,000 270,000 Hawaii and Tel Aviv 220,000 270,000 Asia or Europe & S. Amer. 240,000 280,000 The introduction of 20,000 miles for flights under 1500…
I love ‘best of the best’ hotel lists, and this year’s Travel & Leisure‘s 500 best hotels around the world — as voted on by readers of the magazine — is no exception. (Hat tip HotelChatter.) This one, I love to hate. While there are lots of wonderful properties on the list, the rankings are truly bizarre. If you believe this list, there are more top luxury hotels in the United States than in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Carribean, Australia, New Zealand (and the rest of the South Pacific) combined. This has to be a function of the limited travel experience of T&L readers. Some of the stranger U.S. listings: The St. Regis isn’t the best hotel in Manhattan. And the Pierre isn’t better than the Ritz-Carlton Central Park, the Peninsula, and the Mandarin…
I love ‘best of the best’ hotel lists, and this year’s Travel & Leisure‘s 500 best hotels around the world — as voted on by readers of the magazine — is no exception. (Hat tip HotelChatter.) This one, I love to hate. While there are lots of wonderful properties on the list, the rankings are truly bizarre. If you believe this list, there are more top luxury hotels in the United States than in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Carribean, Australia, New Zealand (and the rest of the South Pacific) combined. This has to be a function of the limited travel experience of T&L readers. Some of the stranger U.S. listings: The St. Regis isn’t the best hotel in Manhattan. And the Pierre isn’t better than the Ritz-Carlton Central Park, the Peninsula, and the Mandarin…
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 »
