Vegas is all the rage this year in the lodging loyalty industry. Las Vegas is the largest hotel market, but the major chains had very limited presences there. Hyatt kicked things off with its MGM alliance that involves both points-earning and redemption and also reciprocal elite status recognition. I think of this as the hotel industry’s answer to airline alliances. The latter have been close to tapped out, but have been a real engine of growth for a decade. Hotel chains can grow strategically in much the same way, exchanging customers, without the infrastructure cost or addition of new rooms, competition, and driving down of prices. Starwood and Caesars followed up with their own, somewhat less extensive partnership. IHG plants its flag with Venetian, and Marriott has the quite-good Cosmopolitan. Yesterday, Marriott Rewards let me…
ASIA
Search Results for "ASIA".
Amazing American Airlines First Class Award Space to London in April
There’s been a real knock on American Airlines lately for the lack of award availability using their miles to Europe. They’ve been great to Asia — great space on their own flights, Japan Airlines seats are on the whole easier to get than they once were, and while Cathay has tightened up a bit it’s still doable (especially in business class and on new routes). But Europe has been something of a challenge. Business class space on American’s own flights has been really tough the past couple of years. First class used to be easy, but that changed perhaps six months back. On partners the transatlantic cupboard has been spotty — Iberia is feast or famine, Air Berlin has a few routes, and British Airways isn’t nearly as generous as they used to be with…
Tipping When Traveling Abroad: When to Do It? How Much to Give?
Commenter Scott G asked, Would love an insight into tipping in various regions of the world. Traveling in July to Paris and Japan and October to London and Ireland. In your experience does it vary by country, culture, or continent? When traveling to Australia a few years back was surprised that tipping is not always customary and only recently was becoming more popular in cabs and restaurants, etc. Haven’t seen a travel blogger explore this topic in detail. I’m not really an expert on tipping. Just because I know how to get around the world doesn’t make me an expert on its cultures. I think I’ve gained some insights into the places I’ve visited, my life has certainly been enriched by my travels and I understand places better than if I hadn’t visited. But goodness…
Delta Is Great for Award Availability If You Don’t Like Your Spouse
Last week we learned that Delta wants to keep your spouse out of their lounges — the $450 Skyclub membership fee will now require you to pay for guests. It turns out they also want you to travel alone, too. Delta has always been pretty good about releasing just a single award seat. I’ve not had too much difficulty finding one business class award seat to Asia on many Delta flights. The challenge has always been finding two (fortunately Delta has airline partners that are more generous with award space than they are). So I did something of a head tilt when I saw MileValue declare, “Not April Fools: Delta Has the Best Award Space to Asia I’ve Ever Seen.” Delta has been de-emphasizing connections through Tokyo, and they’ve been adding direct flights from their…
A Quick Jaunt to Southern India: Clipper Lounge and Chennai – Abu Dhabi in Etihad Business Class
Previous Installments: Introduction and Trip Planning Etihad Lounge, Washington Dulles Etihad First Class, Washington Dulles – Abu Dhabi Etihad Business Class Lounge, Abu Dhabi Terminal 1, and Abu Dhabi – Chennai Business Class Park Hyatt Chennai Eating South Indian Food in Chennai Etihad has one flight a day in and out of Chennai. It arrives and departs in the middle of the night, scheduled for just over an hour on the ground. It departs Abu Dhabi from a bus gate, and perhaps that’s why the flight perenially runs a few minutes late and squeezes the turnaround time in Chennai. And as a result if leaves Abu Dhabi a bit late too. That’s interesting to me not because the flight is unreliable, it isn’t, delays tend to be short. But because in the Middle East and…
The TSA Learns its Procedures Via Rumor, Pay for Lounge Access, and Earn Hotel Bonuses (Bits ‘n Pieces for January 13, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: A former TSA supervisor takes to reddit and thousands of comments ensue. (HT: Reid) There was very little new or enlightening, but this — though obvious — was a surprising admission: The basic SOP that most officers have to know is several hundred pages long; few of them have actually read the whole thing and are essentially relying on word of mouth. Here’s a slightly more emotional reaction to Delta’s lounge access policy changes than I had offered. How to put awards on a brief hold at Delta.com. This only works for creating itineraries that can be booked online. The current major hotel chain promos you should register for. US airlines will generally offer paid day passes to their lounges in addition to membership and access to international…
Delta Takes Away Elite Access to Many International Lounges
Yesterday Delta sent out an email announcing a big price increase for lounge membership and instituting a policy that everyone accessing their lounges via premium credit card would have to pay a fee to bring in guests. Will Run for Miles flags another change to Delta’s lounge policy, this time one that wasn’t announced just slipped into their ‘Skyteam Benefits’ page. Effective May 1, 2014, all Delta third-party operated international lounges will become Business lounges. What this modest statement means is that a ton of lounges will no longer be available to elite members. Here’s the change: And here are the lounges that elites flying international economy lose access to: THIRD PARTY BUSINESS LOUNGE LOCATIONS: Latin America and the Caribbean Bogota, CO (BOG) Caracas, VE (CCS) Lima, PE (LIM) Quito, EC (UIO) Rio De…
How to Transfer American Express Points to American AAdvantage – Or Book Star Alliance Awards Without Fuel Surcharges
A trick we used to use sometimes with our award booking service to help a client top off a US Airways frequent flyer account if hey had American Express Memnbership Rewards points was to transfer the Amex points to Air Canada’s Aeroplan and from Aeroplan to US Airways via Points.com. Those transfers were offered at 1 Aeroplan point to 0.84 US Airways points. Sometimes the client would have enough Aeroplan points for their ticket, but didn’t want to pay the fuel surcharges that Aeroplan imposes on about half of their partners. This worked out best for awards where US Airways charged fewer points than Aeroplan did, but sometimes even the loss in points with the transfer was worth it for the cash savings. The option went away from the Points.com website several months ago, but…
The Best Aspirational Hotel Redemption Value in the World? An Overwater Bungalow on Bora Bora!
I spent part of my honeymoon on Bora Bora and loved it. I stayed at Bora Bora Nui, which was then a Starwood property, in an overwater bungalow facing Mt. Otemanu for 5 nights at a cost of 186,000 Starpoints. That was before SPG had ‘category 7’. The hotel became a fantastic value for a standard villa when it transitioned to Hilton, just 50,000 points per night (and eligible for elite multi-night discounts). Now the property can be about 90% more points. Not a bad value, by any means. But also still just for a basic room .. .not an overwater bungalow. The Intercontinental Thalasso Bora Bora used to put guests staying on points in a ‘Garden Villa’. You could pay cash to upgrade, starting at ~ $200 per night for the lowest overwater bungalow.…
A Quick Jaunt to Southern India: Etihad First Class, Washington Dulles – Abu Dhabi
Dec
31
2013
Previous Installments: Introduction and Trip Planning Etihad Lounge, Washington Dulles I flew Etihad first class earlier this year both New York JFK – Abu Dhabi and also Abu Dhabi – Dusseldorf. In some ways this Etihad first class flight was better than either of those, though my return flight to DC would be better still. Etihad’s premium cabin award availability, certainly booking far in advance, is amazing. At times they’ve seemed to go through cycles where their entire first class cabin or at least the majority of it on both the New York and Washington DC routes has been open for awards. Most of the time there are 2 first class award seats. And from the US they partner only with American, which means the bulk of demand for the seats comes from American’s frequent…
