Loyalty Traveler is giving away an iPod Touch and $50 iTunes gift card sponsored by National Rental Car for their #summeronthego campaign. This prize giveaway is limited to U.S. residents.

This giveaway was posted on Loyalty Traveler last Wednesday.

The theme of the #SummerOnTheGo campaign is encouraging business travelers to get outside and explore the area when traveling on a business trip.

Loyalty Traveler #SummerOnTheGo  contest sponsored by National Car Rental.

National’s Summer On-The-Go Prize Pack ($310 value)

• Apple iPod Touch
• $50 iTunes Gift Card
• Some National branded items!

Entry Rules:

1. Post a picture on Instagram or Twitter of you outside by 12:00 noon (Pacific time) Tuesday, June 18, 2013.

Your photo can be in a park, courtyard, outside on a patio for lunch. Wherever. You just need to be seen outside to have a valid photo entry for this contest. 

2. Tag your photo with @LoyaltyTraveler and use #SummerOnTheGo.

These are two essential components for your photo post so I can follow along, find and include your photo in the contest entries.

3. I’ll choose a winner for the National Summer on-the-Go prize pack and contact the winner for shipping details to pass on to National Car Rental.

Note #1: The prize pack is available only  for U.S. residents per National Car Rental promotion rules.

Blogger Disclosure: I will receive compensation for running this National Car Rental giveaway including an iPod Touch and $250 American Express gift card. I have never had an iPod.

Looks like another road trip is in my near future. I am hoping my road trip back across the western states to Colorado includes an opportunity to photograph wild mustangs in Nevada. I’ll tell more about Mustang Monument in a separate post. This is a fascinating project  establishing a wild horse eco-preserve to help save the 30,000 remaining wild horses roaming federal lands.

Ric Garrido enjoying(?) the 115 F outdoors #summeronthego in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, June 8, 2013.

Hyatt Gold Passport points have not come up on Daily Getaways for 2013. Perhaps they will appear in the last two weeks of Daily Getaways offers.

There are three days of points offers from Best Western, Choice Privileges and IHG Priority Club/IHG Rewards Club next week during week three of the Daily Getaways offers. So far this year there has not been much that excites me in those sales.

Hyatt points $18.46 per 1,000 Points.

Hyatt Gold Passport allows members to buy up to 40,000 points per calendar year at the rate of 1,000 points for $24.

The current sale gives a 30% bonus when buying 30,000 to 40,000 points for $720 to $960. Read More…

On a Thursday in early May I was approached by a man at Capitol Reef National Park in Utah asking me, “Did I see you at Bryce Canyon National Park on Wednesday or perhaps Zion National Park on Tuesday?”

“I was at both parks,” I replied.

“Which park did you like better?”

I thought for a few seconds and said, “Bryce Canyon!”

“Really? We liked Zion the best.”

Utah’s Fabulous Five

A common question, “Which park is your favorite?” awaits those who visit Utah’s Fabulous Five, a marketing name for the five National Parks of southern Utah.

Zion seemed to have a spiritual effect on the hikers I met who had ventured away from the main canyon filled with tourists and into the back country for a day or more. Read More…

Best Western Rewards brings back their free night after three stays offer for summer 2013 travel. Members must register by July 28.

Basic rules:

• Only one free night voucher may be earned.
• Voucher expires January 31, 2014
• Free night only valid for hotels in US, Canada and Caribbean.
• Stays worldwide qualify for earning the free night voucher.
• No retroactive credit for stays completed prior to promotion registration.

Analysis:

Best Western was far and away the best hotel brand for my Fabulous Five tour of Utah’s National Parks last month. I visited and stayed at Best Western hotels by Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Moab for Arches and Canyonlands and Cedar City.

Best Western Plus Bryce Canyon Grand Hotel is $144 for midweek in late June on AAA rate. In July discount rates rise to $180 per night.

Best Western El Rey Inn, Cedar City, Utah was real motel like, but a large room with microwave, refrigerator and the hotel offered free breakfast and a swimming pool. AAA rates in July are as low as $58 per night.

Best Western has a flexible dates calendar to find lowest rates on a calendar.

Best Western El Rey Inn, Cedar City, Utah.

Family issues are setting my travel sights on another road trip to Denver in the next few weeks.

Best Western earn and burn looks like the hotel chain I will be visiting again on my next long-haul loyalty traveler road trip from Monterey, California to Denver, Colorado this summer.

Best Western points are on sale at Daily Getaways on Wednesday, June 26 with 10,000 points for $67. American Express payment reduces the cost to $60.30 for 10,000 points. There is a purchase limit of 50,000 points per member.

A popular summer hotel like Moab, Utah Best Western Plus Canyonlands Inn is $220 after tax on AAA rate for July dates. The hotel is a 32,000 points reward night. Buying 32,000 points will cost $192 during the Daily Getaways which is slightly better than the paid rate. There are many Best Western properties for 16,000 or 20,000 points where $120.60 to buy 20,000 points will likely save a bit more on the hotel rate.

Between points purchases for better value award nights and paid stays to earn a free night for a 32,000 or 36,000 points Best Western hotel looks like a good way to get hotel value out of Best Western this summer.

Las Vegas is a city of performers playing the streets, clubs and major productions from Cirque du Soleil to Nevada Ballet. Cirque du Soleil offers eight different shows at Las Vegas Strip resort theaters.

‘Michael Jackson One’ is the latest Cirque du Soleil production opened May 2013 at Mandalay Bay. I am not much of a Jackson fan, however, about half the songs were familiar to me including major dance routines for Bad and Thriller involving trampoline and rope bounces and zombies to wow the audience.

I’ll give you one tip for the show. The audience is subjected to some paparazzi treatment before the show begins. Avoid the aisle seats if you don’t want to be flash mobbed by photographers in your face.

There was a show for the IPW Press Brunch condensing acts from several hotel theater shows into a single 45-minute show at the Smith Center for Performing Arts. Read More…

Sampling food from dozens of the major hotel restaurants in Las Vegas like The Cosmopolitan, Caesars Palace, Mirage, Venetian and Palazzo and more casino resort restaurants in one place is a great opportunity for a foodie.

IPW Press Brunch

This is my third IPW convention and one of the highlights of each convention for media is the kick-off Press Brunch where local restaurants offer a taste of food and beverages from many of the city’s premier restaurants.

Somehow drinking cocktails at 9:30am in Las Vegas did not seem out of the ordinary in the way serving copious quantities of alcohol before noon seemed odd at IPW conventions in Los Angeles and San Francisco the past two years.

Smith Center for the Performing Arts, Las Vegas Read More…

Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway offers mountains and lakes and volcanoes in an easy drive out of Bend, Oregon. This area is worth a visit whether for a day drive or a multi-night hike and camping trip.

Two years ago, June 2011, I passed through the region on a road trip from Monterey to Vancouver, British Columbia and back again. My memory from that trip was snow, snow and more snow piled up alongside the roads, on and around the mountains in mid-June. I had planned to enter Crater Lake from the north entrance, but the pass had not opened by mid-June that year in a season with far higher than average snow fall.

The snow seasons have been less than average the two years since.

Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway is 66 miles long and a relatively flat road through the Oregon Cascades west of Bend, Oregon.

Loyalty Traveler Oregon road trip articles:

Under Cascade Blue Skies – Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway in Oregon (June 23, 2011)

Deep Blue Water under a Mirror Sky – Crater Lake National Park and Crater Lake Lodge (June 25, 2011)

Enter the Loyalty traveler iPod Touch giveaway this week.

You can enter the National Car Rental sponsored contest to win a free iPod Touch and $50 iTunes gift card by submitting a photo of yourself enjoying outside life.

National Car Rental #SummerOnTheGo iPod and iTunes Card Giveaway (June 12, 2013)

Yesterday I drove some back roads in Monterey County on the long way home.

Since I have written about back roads across other western states this past month, I’ll share a few photos of Monterey County’s alternate route to Carmel/Monterey. Coming from the south the distance is a little shorter than Highway 101/Highway 68 to Monterey, but the drive is a whole lot slower.

Carmel Valley Road Google Satellite Map

After 420 miles driving from Las Vegas on four hours sleep, I needed to add a little gravel to the travel and a little drive grind to stimulate my mind and stay awake for the last two hours home.

Vineyards and a pasture at the base of mountain heavens in the Santa Lucia Range.

Carmel Valley Road should really be called Carmel Valley mountains country road. The 60-mile drive from Highway 101 King City to Carmel, California on the coast makes the Big Sur Highway 1 drive seem like an interstate highway.

The vineyards seem to be encroaching on the wilderness everywhere, yet there is still plenty of natural mountain scenery to enjoy on the hour-plus drive between the wineries on the eastern side of the Santa Lucia Range and Carmel Valley Village 37 miles to the northwest.

Ridgetop view from Carmel Valley Road.

At times the road seems like it goes on forever as the time passes over an hour and Carmel-by-the-sea is still 28 miles away.

Carmel Valley Road is the long way to Carmel, but taking the back road with its twisting curves, one-lane bridges, turkey vultures’ wings shining brightly in the clear sky sun overhead kept me engaged for the final miles home to Monterey.

There’s no place like home.

Rural Monterey County on Carmel Valley Road.

Best part of all was feeling the sea air of Carmel and Monterey at 67 F.

I slept better last night with the cool ocean breeze flowing through the bedroom window than I have in weeks of big city nights in Toronto and Las Vegas.

Monterey, California.

National Car Rental asked me to participate in their #SummerOnTheGo campaign with a giveaway of an Apple iPod Touch, $50 iTunes gift card and some National branded items.

The theme of the #SummerOnTheGo campaign is encouraging business travelers to get outside and explore the area when traveling on a business trip.

Loyalty Traveler #SummerOnTheGo  contest sponsored by National Car Rental.

National’s Summer On-The-Go Prize Pack ($310 value)

• Apple iPod Touch
• $50 iTunes Gift Card
• Some National branded items!

Entry Rules:

Read More…

Conrad Miami has a ‘Stay Cool’ rate for July and August hotel stays based on Miami’s highest Fahrenheit temperature for the day of booking.

Bookings must be made between June 30 and August 31, 2013 for hotel stays during these same dates. The rate is determined by the temperature posted on the hotel’s website under the weather section of the homepage.

For example, a high temperature of 94 degrees means that guests can book a deluxe room for only $94 per night.

Read More…