Now the Privilege Club program credits miles to members before they fly and permits earning and redemption for purchases at the Doha airport. I spoke with Noora Al-Ansari who heads the Privilege Club program, and with Thomas Thiollier who manages duty free, about the changes.
I’ve even documented instances where the difference in room rate was over $450 per night! It’s amazing that even as hotel chains spend a lot marketing that you’ll find the best rates on their rooms through their own websites, hotels are unloading rooms for less through Airbnb.
One guest even managed a successful Marriott best rate guarantee against an Airbnb listing.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
The woman beside me, and the woman in the aisle of row 2 she was traveling with, both had coffee cups. The two woman were probably in their late 50s or early 60s, and were giggling. They talked about what was in the cups, and it wasn’t coffee. That would become important later on in the flight, during a medical emergency, since one of the women claimed to be a doctor.
When the Marriott LAX rolled out this extra charge ‘to protect their workers’ it was $10.72 per night. Two months later they’ve already increased the fee to $13.87 per night – a 29% increase.
At 1004 rooms, this hotel has the potential to generate $5,082,800 per year with their new Worker Protection charge. They aren’t required to spend the money on worker protection (indeed they won’t). Even at 80% occupancy that’s $4 million a year, most of which goes to the hotel’s bottom-line.
Taxpayer subsidies aren’t the right way to handle funding needs of the FAA. It’s not surprising that airline CEOs don’t want user fees, they want more money to provide services for their flights but they do not want to be the ones to pay for it. They’d rather get government subsidies than pay the cost of upgrading air traffic control.
When you book a flight you have the option, in most cases, to select your seats. Not everyone does this, which is something I’ll never understand in cases where seat assignments are free. But I also don’t think the choice people make are logical when they do choose seats.
Loyalty programs like Marriott Bonvoy, World of Hyatt, IHG One Rewards, and Hilton Honors all sell points to consumers, and generally the cost to the program of redemption is lower than the cost of sale. That practice would be banned by New Jersey law if this ultimately passes.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
There’s a rumor on FlyerTalk that status matching from Hyatt to MGM Rewards will terminate mid-year. It’s unclear what would happen to future earning of Hyatt points and elite status nights, or redeeming points for free stays (plus resort fee..) at MGM hotels in Las Vegas, if this were to happen.
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 »
