I get press releases all day long from travel providers, and 99% of the time I spare you, my readers, from having to hear about them. They usually read something like, “New survey research discovers that X% of travelers say they want to get away for Y holiday, and Z is a great place to [Book Your Travel Online / Stay for a Romantic-Exciting-Fun Time / Waste Large Amounts of Your Hard Earned Dollars]” And on occasion when I reply to the PR hacks with a legitimate question, even just searching for how in the world there’s something to write about, I don’t hear back. Most PR firms send out press releases hoping something’ll stick but don’t know enough about what they’re pitching to speak intelligently about it, or they’re too lazy to do the…
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Award Booking Successes and Frustrations
Grey Roberge details his experiences booking a Star Alliance first class award through Aeroplan. Regular readers of my blog know that I’m a big fan of the Aeroplan program, and in particular their first class award from the US to South Asia (as far south as Singapore) for 120,000 miles — which allows you to transit the Atlantic or Pacific (or one ocean each direction) and to stopover twice in addition to your destination. And I rather like Aeroplan agents, I have found them on the whole to be quite friendly. It’s a Canadian thing. The one thing I don’t like is that they do not permit award holds. Instant ticketing only. Now, you can make changes to an itinerary after ticketing for CAD$90. And as long as you’re three weeks out from travel, you…
Successfully Booking Star Alliance Awards Podcast
Tonight I’ll be recording another podcast with the folks at Upgrd.com. It’ll be a few days before it’s live, but in the meantime you can check out the most recent installment in the series on Star Alliance awards and how to successfully book them.
Starwood Preferred Guest’s Stealth Devaluation
Starwood Lurker confirmed the rumor today that Starwood Preferred Guest would not be making large-scale changes to the categories of its hotels for 2010. Each year Starwood has re-categorized hotels based on their average daily room rates. Those categories determine the number of points required for a free night. When rates go down, point requirements go down. When rates go up, the points price becomes more expensive as well. That’s the value proposition that Starwood has always followed, more or less, since the inception of the program. Then the hotel industry hit the worst revenue year it had ever seen. RevPAR decreased a whopping 17.3% in the first 11 months of 2009 as hotel chains lowered prices. This tops the 1.3% decline in revenue per available room that occurred from Jan. to Nov. 2008. Rates…
Another Excellent Stay at the Westin Diplomat
Several folks asked me about this post from yesterday morning, the sunrise photo I was waking up to, where I was? It was another great stay at the Westin Diplomat. This isn’t the nicest or most refined property in Starwood, or even of theirs in South Florida. There’s a new W in Ft. Lauderdale that was tempting to check out. But this hotel offers the very best Platinum elite treatment of any property, anywhere. They have something like 86 suites in the upgrade pool, about three-quarters of which are “corner suites” — a bedroom and separate living room with small dining area and large bathroom. These suites have a wraparound balcony looking straight out at the Atlantic ocean, and to the side the ability to see the Intracoastal Waterway as well. With this many suites,…
Continental Ramps Up Investment in Premium Class Meal Service
The Houston Chronicle, umm, chronicles Continental’s push to improve its premium cabin catering. They spoke to me about the efforts, and while I caveated that I’m not a frequent Continental flyer, Continental remains the only carrier serving complimentary meals in domestic coach, whatever you may think of those offerings. Meals don’t generate incremental flights, very few people get on a plane just to eat the food! Non-stop service drives most decisions, but when connecting the biggest consideration is seat — followed by quality in soft product. Attracting premium passengers is all about generating the expectation (and delivery) of a comfortable, stress-free experience. The quality of service, the small touches, airport ground handling, and food are all a part of seamless execution that draws a revenue premium.Celebrity chefs are pure marketing. They’re a signal that the…
United One-Way Awards Will Include Partner Travel – Likely Starting This Summer
Nicholas Kralev speaks to the head of United Mileage Plus and learns that the initial rollout of United one-way awards have been United metal-only because they started with the website, and the web doesn’t offer the ability to book partners. (I don’t expect that functionality anytime soon; perhaps if United and Continental merge they can keep the Continental site?) But the intention is to roll out one-way awards with partners. For the time being, United’s one-way “awards,” as well as its new “miles and money awards,” are limited to its own flights for technical reasons — those tickets can only be booked on its Web site, which doesn’t offer access to partner “awards,” Mr. Atkinson said. When phone agents are able to book them — sometime in the summer — partner-carriers will be included, he…
United Announces New Award Chart Effective April 27
United has announced a new award chart set to take effect April 27. On the whole the changes aren’t drastic, split up a couple of regions, and basically copy Continental. They created separate regions for Northern and Southern South America. Currently the cost of an award from North America to South America is 55,000 miles in coach, 100,000 miles in business, and 135,000 miles in first class. Under the new award chart, “Northern” South America is 35,000 miles in coach, 70,000 miles in business, and 90,000 miles in first. Meanwhile, “Southern” South America remains at the old (55/100/135) pricing. So this is actually an improvement, awards to Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Surinam, and Venezuela are less expensive. Awards to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay remain the same price. Business Class between…
Which Visa or Mastercard Should You Carry?
Most of the very best rewards cards are American Express products. Take just a few examples: The Starwood American Express is outstanding, with a good hotel rewards program and lots of mileage transfer partners, not to mention the 5000 mile bonus for each 20,000 miles redeemed for. The more general American Express cards with Membership Rewards are incredibly flexible, they have fewer transfer partners than Starwood but in many cases points post instantly (e.g. to Air Canada Aerolan and Continental Onepass). The Hilton Surpass American Express offers Diamond elite status after just $40,000 in spend. Unsurprising that the most rewarding cards are frequently from Amex, since merchants pay higher fees and as a result there’s more money availablef or American Express to spend on awards. One of the more frequent questoins that I get is,…
Easiest Ways to Earn and Keep Star Alliance Gold Status, and the Hidden Award Values These Strategies Offer
Most travelers participate heavily in the frequent flyer program attached to the airline they fly the most, and that’s it. And for the most part that makes sense. First, because you want to earn enough miles for an award ticket before spreading yourself thin elsewhere. Second, because it’s the easiest thing to understand. And third, because if you’re flying enough to earn elite status the benefits of that status (upgrades!) are usually strongest with the airline connect to that program. But not everyone flies enough to earn status on their home program. Sometimes other partner programs with lower qualification thresholds would allow someone to earn status, when they wouldn’t crediting miles to the program of the airline they fly. [In one example, say you’re based in Los Angeles and fly both American and Delta a…
