Tag Archives for upgrades.
The general manager of a premium Los Angeles-area chain hotel writes to me, explaining why his hotel will not offer top tier elites to suites even though the chain requires them to do so.
Spoken.io is a furniture price comparison shopping website, and they promote a number of life hacks to save money – like how to get a free upgrade on a flight. And this particular tip is… a little weird?
In a video posted recently, they suggest that if you have a short layover, ask for an upgrade with this simple script.
Starting June 9th American Airlines is making some minor changes to how complimentary upgrades work that most AAdvantage status members are going to like. Upgrades when traveling on an award ticket will now be available to all status members and will come with higher priority than before.
IHG now has, in my view, the second best elite upgrade program behind Hyatt – which allows confirmed upgrades at booking to suites, and allows them more often for their heaviest stay guests – but whose confirmed upgrade benefits only start after 50 nights. Marriott allows confirmed upgrades based on availability (and only into capacity controlled suite inventory) starting 5 days prior to check-in for elites after 50 nights. And Hilton doesn’t require hotels to upgrade elites to suites at all.
During the American Airlines third quarter earnings call on Thursday, Cowen and Company’s Helane Becker asked what percentage of customers were actually paying for premium cabin seats.
Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja answered somewhat ambiguously at first, but then gave numbers for their domestic route network.
Hilton is making two changes to Honors Gold and Diamond upgrades. Starting today they will be selling upgrades through the app. Beginning November 18 they will process automatic complimentary upgrades at Hampton Inn and Hilton Garden Inn hotels with the technical ability for them to do so.
With American Airlines systemwide upgrades now available for one category upgrades on British Airways for flights between the U.S. and London and for intra-European flights, British Airways Gold members and higher are being given upgrade certificates valid for travel on American Airlines too.
American Airlines makes companion upgrades free starting Thursday. That’s officially the end of 500 mile electronic upgrades (‘stickers’).
If you have any 500 mile upgrades left in your account they’ll each be converted to 250 status-qualifying Loyalty Points. However if you have any purchased 500 mile upgrades in your account you should contact American and ask to have them converted to 5000 redeemable miles instead.
Perhaps the room just isn’t used very much and doesn’t get a lot of attention. Or perhaps they only assign it as an upgrade on one night stays, and it’s rarely paid for (or hasn’t been in a long time), and so on one night stays no one bothers to complain – they’re leaving anyway. So without guests letting the hotel know about maintenance issues, those issues don’t get addressed.
I fell victim to this myself – I didn’t stop at the desk on the way out, so didn’t complain about the condition of the room.
The complimentary upgrade program has one oddball route exception. All Caribbean flights receive complimentary upgrades except one. It’s a 900 mile flight operated with an American Eagle Embraer E-175 regional jet.
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 »
