Jul 17 2018

On a mission to recover radioactive materials, two Department of Energy employees from the Idaho National Laboratory drove to San Antonio. Materials had been loaned to a private research lab, and their job was to get it back and transport it security to a government facility.

They brought with them specialized radiation detectors. And to calibrate the detectors they have to bring along some plutonium, too, and also cesium. These are the materials used in nuclear weapons or dirty bombs.

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Jul 02 2018

Marriott increased points prices at a ton of hotels in March, only to lower their prices in August with the new program. This gave them a higher baseline from which to claim they’re lowering more redemption prices than they’re raising.

Even accounting for this, the number of hotels going up in price is roughly equal to the number going down in price. But comparing Marriott redemption prices in February to pricing in August is a more reasonable take than ‘reductions outnumber increases’.

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Jul 01 2018

Yesterday writing about Marriott’s new list of hotel redemption pricing that will go into effect in August I mentioned the new Marriott program starting August 1.

A Marriott spokesman e-mailed quickly to correct me to say we don’t know when the new award chart will start, because we don’t know when the new program starts. But that’s not what their website says.

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Jun 30 2018

Marriott is apparently cracking down on people booking hotels that haven’t yet opened — speculatively, hoping for compensation when the opening date inevitably delays — and in particular warning people trying to do this while using credit cards “that will not authorize the forfeiture amount.”

Rather than temporarily disabling customer accounts, Marriott needs to fix its IT and better manage construction projects.

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Jun 28 2018

Despite some information out there to the contrary — you can book award rooms now to lock in availability, and then get any points price difference for the same room back in late summer or fall if the points price of the hotel drops. And that’s true even if the hotel is sold out or is sold out of standard rooms.

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Jun 28 2018

Marriott offers ‘travel packages‘ where you redeem points for airline miles and a seven night hotel stay (there are also 5 night packages, intended for timeshare owners, these have become tougher to get if you aren’t a timeshare owner).

The value here is that you get transfers of points to miles at a rate that’s good enough you’re more or less getting a free hotel stay thrown in.

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Jun 28 2018

I’m seeing a ton of coverage of Marriott’s new award chart lauding the top points price of the most expensive hotels. For instance, Dan’s Deals: wrote AMAZING! Marriott’s New Award Chart Is A Dream Come True For Aspirational Hotels. This is indeed good news, but it needs to be tempered.

In many cases this won’t actually be a price cut of two-thirds like it appears at first glance.

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