Remember the Jimi Hendrix line?

 “If six turned out to be nine,

I don’t mind, I don’t mind”

Offer:  20% off Hyatt Daily Rate for Hyatt properties worldwide with Hyatt Place and Summerfield Suites hotel brands excluded from this promotion.  Promo link

US, Canada, and Caribbean: Book through April 8, 2009. Stay through June 30, 2009.

Rest of the World: Book at least 7 days prior to arrival. Stay through May 3, 2009.

Restrictions: Reservations are prepaid, nonrefundable, and do not allow changes.

Reservations: Book through Hyatt.com using Offer Code LTO108

                               or call 1-800-233-1234

While I am sure there are great savings with this offer at some hotels, my Loyalty traveler advice is to compare rates when you are shopping for hotel rooms with this deal or Starwood’s 50% off a second night.

In my world a 20% sale or 50% sale off a published hotel rate is something I view skeptically. One of the primary reasons I started analyzing hotel promotions was the discrepancy I continually found between advertisements and reality. These percentage discounts are rarely based on the lowest available rate you could normally find otherwise. Frequently I locate lower rates based on AAA or other hotel special offers than the advertised discount rates based on regular rates.

I am not saying hotel companies falsely advertise. I do believe hotels use misleading advertising to steer the customer towards deals that are often not the best deal for the hotel guest.

Whether a room is 10%, 20%, or 50% off some arbitrary rate doesn’t benefit me if there is an even lower rate available for my night or perhaps a slightly higher rate with more favorable terms.

As a consumer I am looking for the best deal for my hotel stay. Hyatt’s 20% off rate provides the lowest available rate for some hotels. The primary drawback is the prepaid, nonrefundable, no changes terms of the 20% discount rate.  These deals often provide more favorable rates when the guest is looking for a higher category room such as a balcony, Club floor, or suite.

Analysis of 20% Off Special Offer Rates at San Francisco Hyatt Regency

May 4, 2009 Hyatt Daily Rate = $249

20% Off Special Offer Rate = $199.20

This is a 20% discount off the Hyatt Daily Rate, however, there are lower rates than the Hyatt Daily Rate. The Hyatt.com rate is a nonrefundable rate at $229. There is no advantage to the Hyatt.com rate.

AAA group rate drops the price down to $211.65. This is still a higher rate than the 20% special offer discounted rate, however, there is the major advantage of having a consumer-friendly cancellation policy with AAA at no penalty for cancellation up to 3pm the day before arrival.

Any hotel frequent guest traveling around North America should have a AAA card for hotel discounts. This is your most important card for hotel travel next to the credit card you use to hold room reservations and pay the bill.

$199.20 20% special offer discount / 211.65 AAA rate

= 6% discount on the Hyatt room rate I would have normally booked.

And I can still cancel the room through May 3.

In my reality, “When twenty turns out to be six, it’s a fix, it’s a fix.”

Higher Category Room = Bigger Savings?

There may be greater savings when seeking higher category rooms. Hyatt Regency San Francisco at the Embarcadero has one side of the hotel for preferred rooms with balconies overlooking San Francisco Bay.

AAA rate for Regency Club King with balcony = $311.65

20% Discount rate for Regency Club King with balcony = $279.20

There is more significant savings with this 20% Discount offer saving $32.45 per night, or a little more than 10% on the AAA rate.

The 20% discount rate looks like a reasonable savings of an extra 10% on the AAA rate. That might be sufficient to forego the liberal cancellation policy of the AAA rate.

Then I looked at other rates and saw the “Regency Club Promo” rate for this date at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco.

Regency Club Promo rate = $284 and the cancellation policy is up to 3pm, May 3, with no penalty.

The refundable rate available for my dates is less than $5 per night more. I certainly wouldn’t risk a nonrefundable rate to save $5 per night on a $284 per night room.

International properties are much less likely to offer AAA discounts making this deal possibly a little better when traveling outside North America.

The bottom line is look at all your rate options before making your reservation – particularly a nonrefundable reservation.

Hyatt Regency San Francisco, balcony room

There is value in a website like DealBase.com for finding hotel bargains. Here is another metasearch engine to find price discrepancies between the hotel website and the online travel agency hotel rates.

The difference with DealBase.com from just another Kayak.com is the ability to look for hotel bargains by category or tag.

For example a site visitor can look up deals in these category listings:

·         Best Hotel Deals

·         Cheap Hotel Deals

·         Best Five Star Hotel Deals

·         Best Four Star Hotel Deals

·         Cheap Weekend hotel Deals

·         Last Minute Hotel Deals

·         Hotel Deals with the Most Items

·         New Hotels Deals

·         Expensive Hotel Packages

·         Worst Hotel Deals

The problem with searching a category is the geographic diversity of the listings.

When I look at a city like San Francisco then I am hit with dozens of hotel offers. The bottom line for me is I can’t really tell whether the discount deal shown is truly a “deal”. 

For example the JW Marriott San Francisco is listed at $194 and up for a champagne and strawberries night. Regular prices are shown as $369 per night. On another of the 15 pages of deals is the JW Marriott at $199 for a parking package and the hotel regular rate is shown as $294 per night.

Is the $369 per night the regular rate for Champagne and strawberries and $294 per night the regular rate for a room and parking?

If I want to see just JW Marriott San Francisco deals, how do I filter those? It is quite easy actually.

Simply click on the hotel name when it comes up on DealBase.com listings and the website will display all the deals for that particular hotel.

Using tags a visitor can check for Starpoints deals and Hilton HHonors deals, although these sections looked to be fairly basic and little analysis for the “deal” attribute of hotel loyalty points bonus offers.

What I did not see how to do in my limited search time was filter for all hotels in San Francisco offering parking deals.

Another problem I encountered was seeing a good parking deal listed for Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf at $130 and up. The dates I tried were $159.

Can I find out when the $130 rate is available through DealBase.com?

DealBase.com looks poised to be a major player in the coming year as hotel travel deals become more a necessity in this travel environment.

If DealBase.com can fine tune the deal analysis section of this website, then I may be seeking employment in San Mateo.

Hyatt’s uncommon Andaz brand is offering a Buy One Night Get One Night Free at its Southern California Andaz West Hollywood Hotel property.  The minimum hotel rate is frequently around $300 per night. Ouch!

Here is a special offer from Hyatt that will finally get you in Andaz beds in California for less than the cost of a ticket from California to the sister hotel property in London, England.

Offer: Stay two nights and your second night is free and deducted at checkout.

Use offer code: ENJOY

Offer valid:  from March 25 – August 31, 2009 at Andaz West Hollywood

Loyalty Traveler Promotion analysis:

Andaz King room, May 29-31, 2009 Memorial Day weekend holiday.

ENJOY BOGO offer room rate is $295 (+14% room tax) for two nights. Per night room rate is $147.50.

AAA rate is $265.50 per night. $531 for a two night stay.

Andaz King room, Saturday April 4 – Monday April 6, 2009 (2-night stay).

A regular search on Hyatt.com shows a low rate as “Limited Time Offer Andaz King $183.75 per night”.  A two night stay is $367.50. It is possible to travel on this limited time offer at a rate available through May 3, 2009.

This rate is about 50% higher than the Buy One Get One rate using code: ENJOY.

The Andaz West Hollywood standard room rate for an ANDAZ King is $245 per night for the April 4-6 dates. The nightly room rate is reduced from $183.75 to $122.50 per night using the ENJOY special 2-for-1 rate.

$122.50 per night for an upper upscale hotel experience in West Hollywood is a deal.

Hotels will have to start giving away rooms for free if these deals keep pulling travelers’ strings.

Oh wait – the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles is already doing that.

FlyerTalk thread on Westin Bonaventure free room link

Loyalty Traveler March 17 Westin Bonaventure link

Monterey

TripAdvisor Million Miles Sweepstakes

TripAdvisor has an ongoing sweepstakes for one million Continental Airlines frequent flyer miles. You must be at least 18 and a legal resident of the 50 US or DC to be eligible.

The promotion began 12 noon eastern on March 24 and ends at 12 noon eastern on May 4, 2009.

Go to www.tripadvisor.com/FlightSweeps to submit your entry form. 

You are allowed one entry per week.

Winner will be drawn on May 6, 2009.

The Grand Prize is 1,000,000 Continental Airlines OnePass frequent flyer miles plus $5,000 cash.

Last month TripAdvisor.com had over 8 million unique visitors.

But how many will enter this contest? And how many will submit multiple entries?

Kayak.com, the travel meta-search engine that scans the web for hotel prices (and airfares) from different online travel agencies, purchased TravelPost.com in 2007. Recent news indicates Kayak.com will try to establish rivalry to TripAdvisor.com’s globally dominant hotel review database with a revamped TravelPost.com site.

Kayak.com has put money into a relaunch of TravelPost.com. My initial glance at the site reveals a major hurdle is still waiting to be leaped in catching up to the volume of TripAdvisor.com hotel reviews.

Major Hotel Review Sites

Last summer I attempted an analysis of TripAdvisor.com hotel reviews compared to some other hotel review sites.  Ultimately I concluded Expedia.com, owner of TripAdvisor.com and Hotels.com, had the most comprehensive database of hotel reviews on the web. No other hotel review site came even close.

Six sites I studied last July were:

1.    TripAdvisor (Expedia)

2.    Hotels.com (Expedia)

3.    IgoUgo (Travelocity)

4.    TravelPost (Kayak)

5.    Orbitz

6.    Yahoo Travel Guides

The basic methodology was to look at the number of recent hotel reviews for several major San Francisco hotels. I defined recent as any review posted on the hotel review website within the prior 12 months. 

Some hotel review sites displayed a good number of total reviews when checking a hotel rating, however, closer examination showed the vast majority of these hotel reviews were more than a year old.  Some of these hotel review sites had seen their popularity wane several years earlier.  TravelPost.com was one hotel review site sitting idle despite having one of the largest hotel review databases.

Last summer TripAdvisor.com appeared to be the only hotel review site on the rise with a database large enough to be generally useful to a broad range of potential hotel guests traveling around the USA and the world.

The Ascendance of Kayak.com

Now in 2009 Kayak.com is stating a commitment to promote TravelPost.com in a plan to tackle TripAdvisor.com in a subtle front against Expedia’s domination of the online hotel review scene.  It is too early to tell whether TravelPost.com can mount a competitive campaign.

The popularity of Kayak.com over the past couple of years is an indicator that TravelPost.com can receive plenty of advertising and referral traffic.  Kayak.com pulled in 6.25 million unique visitors during February 2009, according to Compete.com, compared to 8.19 million TripAdvisor.com visitors.  Kayak’s hotel review site TravelPost.com is still a toddler in popularity at 340,000 visitors in Feb 2009 compared to the giant TripAdvisor.

How effectively Kayak.com can refer people to TravelPost.com for hotel review submissions will play a key role in the success of this site. With Kayak.com already receiving 75% of the traffic of TripAdvisor.com, a hotel review site would be a natural extension to the one-stop check of Kayak.com.

The Hurdle – who will generate the reviews for TravelPost?

The primary issue I see at the moment is the database of hotels TravelPost.com is accessing.  I rechecked some hotels that I studied last July, eight months ago.

Here is an example to illustrate the database issue hurdle TravelPost.com must overcome to be a competitive hotel travel review website with TripAdvisor.com based on the member activity over the past 8.5 months as measured by hotel review posts.

Westin St. Francis, San Francisco is a major hotel with nearly 1,200 rooms in downtown San Francisco located on Union Square in the shopping district.  This hotel has had thousands of guests over the past 8 months.

 *  The raw numbers in this table indicate TripAdvisor.com grew by 111 hotel reviews in the past 8.5 months.  The reviews for the Westin St. Francis on TravelPost.com appear to have grown by 68 reviews, a respectable number of reviews added to the database.  A closer look at the source of these reviews indicates most of this growth is actually from using IgoUgo as an added database of hotel reviews on TravelPost.com.  There were only 3 reviews accessed from TravelPost.com since July 2008 during the timeframe that TripAdvisor added 111 reviews for the Westin St. Francis Hotel.

This is why TravelPost.com has a huge hurdle.  Getting the public posting is a challenge.

The following is an excerpt from my July 12, 2008 post “Online Hotel Reviews Website Comparison”.

Online Hotel Reviews

Travelers place a lot of faith in consumer-generated hotel reviews. I trust FlyerTalk.com content because there is a large community of travelers who provide opinions and feedback on each other’s comments. Most major upscale hotels around the world have user comments and reviews from the 100,000+ members of the FlyerTalk.com community.

I believe the self-monitoring independent community of FlyerTalk.com provides more accurate hotel reviews than what is typically found on TripAdvisor.com, particularly when it comes to the experience for elite frequent guests in the major hotel loyalty programs.

Social Media Co-Opted by Corporate Media

The best social media websites with consumer generated comments and hotel reviews have been co-opted by corporate media. Social media websites where users generate the content for free has been a successful marketing partnership for major travel industry players. What in many cases started out as independent, organically developed networks of people creating content for free to help other travelers has developed into the current condition of the major global travel reservations corporations like Expedia.com and Travelocity.com owning social network sites like TripAdvisor.com and IgoUgo.com as corporate subsidiaries.

Meta-search engines like Kayak.com who own TravelPost.com, and bulletin boards like FlyerTalk.com and Cruisecritic.com are not sellers of travel, but make money on an advertising model based on travelers frequently interacting as a community creating new content.

Major Online Hotel Reviews and Their Parent Corporations

IgoUgo.com hotel reviews and hotel rate meta-search engine = Travelocity.com (Parent Company)

TripAdvisor.com for hotel reviews and hotel rate meta-search = Expedia.com (Parent company)

Hotels.com has a large database for hotel reviews. Hotels.com is also an Expedia company. Hotel guests must have booked stay with Hotels.com to post a review and most of the reviews do not have any written comments. A point scale survey on Hotel Service, Hotel Condition, Room Comfort, and Room Cleanliness are used to give the hotel a rating on a 5 point scale. This website offers a quick snapshot of customer satisfaction for hotel.

TravelPost.com for hotel reviews and Kayak is a meta-search = Kayak.com (Parent Company)

Orbitz.com generates its own database of user-generated hotel reviews based on hotel guests booking through Orbitz.com and responding via e-mail to a post-stay request for a hotel review.

Yahoo! Travel uses a couple of different hotel review databases. When conducting hotel searches through the Yahoo Travel homepage the results use Travelocity and the hotel reviews are the same as Travelocity. When using Yahoo Travel Guides or FareChase for hotel searches the hotel reviews are a different set.

Update March 28, 2009: Here is a link to Elliott Ng’s blog discussing UpTake.com for metasearch of hotel reviews. You should defintiely take a look at the UpTake.com site.

I am amazed how few people are trying to get the 50 free rooms this weekend at the Westin Bonaventure.

Rooms are still available for free online as of one minute ago for 3/27 or 3/28.

http://www.thebonaventure.com/give_away/index.cfm

 It is 9:19 am Pacific time and the hotel still hasn’t given away 45 free rooms for this weekend.

10:05am and there are still rooms available for free at the Westin Bonaventure for this Friday or Saturday night. Are people afraid the big one will happen this weekend after the rumblings around the Salton Sea today?

Hooray for Marriott Rewards. 

Just two months after increasing the rates across the board on virtually all multi-night hotel awards using your points, the marketing team has come up with a multi-night redemption discount – redeem a three night stay at the points level for a two night redemption for select resort properties globally.

The offer: Redeem points for a 3-night stay and only pay points for two nights at participating Category 4, 5, 6, and 7 Marriott properties.  Link to Marriott Rewards offer.

·         3 for 2 Resort Redemption Special at participating Category 4 resorts = 40,000 points

·         3 for 2 Resort Redemption Special at participating Category 5 resorts = 50,000 points

·         3 for 2 Resort Redemption Special at participating Category 6 resorts = 60,000 points

·         3 for 2 Resort Redemption Special at participating Category 7 resorts = 70,000 points

Promotion Dates: March 24 – September 7, 2009

Reserve your room and request your redemption certificate:

Call 1-800-MARRIOTT to make your hotel reservation at one of the participating resorts.  Inform the reservation agent that you are using a 3 for 2 Resort Redemption Special.

The 3 for 2 Resort Redemption Special will be issued electronically and will be available at the hotel upon check-in.

Participating Hotels: This promotion is limited to 55 Resort hotels globally, fewer than 10% of Marriott’s approximately 700 hotels globally in the category 4 to 7 hotel stay redemption range.  

Camelback Inn, JW Marriott Resort, Scottsdale, AZ

Promotion value

Essentially the 3-for-2 resort redemption special is the same discount a member would receive with a PointSavers rate of 33% off the regular per night redemption rate.  At this redemption rate you can stay at these resort hotels over the next six months for less than a 3-night stay would have cost at the regular redemption rate last year, before the Marriott Rewards changes.

Undeniably some resorts are a great value at this redemption price. Others will require a cost comparison since hotel rates have plummeted in many locations by more than 50%.

JW Marriott Ihilani Resort in Hawaii – 3 night award at this category 7 hotel is 70,000 points.

The lowest available rate is $249 per night for a stay May 12-15, 2009.

$750 room rate + tax or 70,000 points? This is a redemption value of a little over 1 cent per point.

How to get Marriott Rewards points if you don’t already have a stash

Marriott Rewards members can purchase up to 50,000 points per year at $12.50 per 1,000 points.  You need to compare the cost of a desired 3-night stay on points with the $625 cost to purchase 50,000 points if you choose this route.

The long duration of this promotion means you can apply for a Marriott Rewards Visa credit card and receive a signing bonus of 20,000 points in time to use for this promotion.

American Express Membership Rewards card members can transfer Membership Rewards points to Hilton HHonors, IHG Priority Club, and Starwood Preferred Guest, but not Marriott Rewards.

Diners Club Rewards 1,250 DC Rewards points = 1,500 Marriott rewards points.  This is a relatively poor exchange rate compared to using Club Rewards for airline miles:

1,000 DC points = 1,000 airline miles for most participating frequent flyer programs.

Is this Marriott promotion a good redemption value?

Certainly Marriott is offering members an olive branch after the outcry over the January 2009 changes to the Rewards free night redemption table changes making almost all hotel awards more costly in points in 2009.

This special redemption opportunity may be the incentive to pull some members into Marriott hotels over the next few months.  There is hope of earning sufficient points with paid hotel stays and promotional bonus points to get a real resort vacation with Marriott in 2009 rather than a staycation with the brother-in-law who has the pool and BBQ set-up in his backyard resort.

I just wish this promotion included more properties within the Marriott family of hotels.

Urgent Notice: Your Mileage Plus Miles are Expiring

This is the message on the envelope from United Airlines Rewards Processing Center

Don’t panic. This news is not as bad as you think, but is annoying as hell to some of us.

     “Urgent Notice: Your Mileage Plus Miles are expiring. Redeem by April 18, 2009”

The headline grabs your attention. It grabbed mine when I picked up the envelope from my mailbox.  

This Urgent Notice is a marketing gimmick used on letters I have been receiving from United Airlines Rewards Processing Center in 2009.

I have received letters with this Urgent Notice warning a couple of times the past couple of months. The first line is –  

“Our records show that your Mileage Plus miles are about to expire.”

An offer follows to redeem my miles before they expire for magazines.

A letter dated March 4, 2009 from United Airlines Rewards Processing Center tells me my Mileage Plus account record indicates “As of 01/01/09, your miles will expire on 8/31/09 without any activity.”  The bolding is mine.

Actually, I had activity on December 24 and December 31, 2008 on United Airlines.

I’m pretty certain United Airlines’ records indicated as of 01/01/09 my miles will expire on July 31, 2010.

I feel it is a misleading solicitation to get me to spend miles on magazines rather than airline tickets.

www.magsformiles.com

What do you think?

Luxury Hotel Marketing Gurus: Use Loyalty Programs to Boost Occupancy

The Double EQM offers from American Airlines and United Airlines this week are the kinds of promotions I think Tim Winship of Frequentflier.com had been expecting to see from the industry for the past couple of months. Here is a link to Tim’s SmarterTravel blog from March 5.

I am still surprised to see few remarkable offers from the hotel industry loyalty programs thus far this year for travel in the USA.  The loyalty program deals seem better for hotel stays in Europe.

Double stay promotions were rampant last year with Hyatt and Starwood offering frequent guests the opportunity to earn top elite status with just 13 hotel stays, yet nothing for 2009.

Joe Sharkey At Large recently posted on BoardingArea.com the dour news for the luxury hotel segment.

“As has been the case for months, luxury hotels have been the worst clobbered. In the luxury niche, occupancy was down 20.3 percent; room rates were down 15.5 percent and RevPAR (gulp) was down 32.7 percent.”

This March 2009 data from Smith Travel Research indicates luxury hotels are taking a beating as reduced occupancy and falling room rates hurt hotel profitability.

As a frequent guest I like to check data to learn more about hotel rates in different market segments. I will use more of the STR data Joe referenced and then present my idea for helping the luxury segment maintain higher daily rates. I think I have a win-win idea for the hotel industry and consumers.

Smith Travel Research Hotel Industry Data for Week Ending March 14, 2009

Data compares hotel industry rates and occupancy from the week of March 14, 2009 to the week of data from one year ago in March 2008.

I have added examples of hotel brands in the different market segments. STR may have a slight variation in placement of hotel brands within these segments, but I think this is fairly close to their alignment.

Average Daily Rates (ADR) per Market Segment    

Luxury Hotel Segment

(St. Regis, JW Marriott, Waldorf-Astoria Collection, Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton)

ADR $255, down 15.5%,

Occupancy  61%, down 20%  

Upper-Upscale Hotel Segment:

(Westin, Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt Regency, Hotel Indigo)

ADR $150, down 12.4%

Occupancy 64%, down 16%

Upscale Hotel Segment

(Four Points, Hilton Garden Inn, Courtyard by Marriott)

ADR $112, down 10.9%

Occupancy 63%, down 15%

Midscale with Food & Beverage Hotel Segment

(Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express)

ADR $83, down 7.7%

Occupancy 50%, down 17%

Midscale without Food and Beverage Hotel Segment

ADR $87, down 5.7%

Occupancy 57%, down 16%

Economy Hotel Segment

ADR $52, down 6.7%

Occupancy 48%, down 15%

Independent Hotel Segment

ADR $94, down 14.7%

Occupancy 54%, down 16% 

Ritz Carlton San Francisco

Here is a Loyalty Traveler creative marketing idea from a hotel loyalty program frequent guest. 

Luxury Hotels are taking a big hit to occupancy despite the luxury hotel segment having the greatest rate declines of any hotel segment.  A friend of mine laughed at me a few years ago when I told him I travel to luxury hotels on the cheap. He commented that his brother manages luxury hotels and the hotels I stay at are not luxury hotels.

He was correct. I have only stayed at a few luxury hotels over the years. Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton, Oberoi Hotels are not where I typically stay as a frequent guest.  Look at the average rate of $255 per night for the luxury hotel segment, over a 15% drop in rates from a year ago, and that is still well above my economic comfort level for a hotel night.  The few times I have spent over $250 per night for a hotel were due to an incredible loyalty program promotion that I could rationalize the expense due to the value added benefit of the hotel stay.

Loyalty Traveler’s Economic Stimulus Plan for Luxury Hotels

Hotel chains with loyalty programs offering elite membership could offer a luxury hotel targeted promotion for double elite credit for stays within the luxury and/or upper-upscale hotel segments. If points promotions are not working, the opportunity to earn elite status faster through more expensive hotel stays may be a motivator to guests currently staying away.

For example:

Starwood Preferred Guest could offer double stay credit targeted for stays at properties in the St. Regis, W Hotels, and Luxury Collection.  Hilton HHonors could award double stays for Waldorf Astoria Collection, Marriott for JW Marriott Resorts (double night credit).

A leisure traveler like me just might be willing to spend $275 for a luxury hotel night that will get me closer to my elite status goal more quickly.  Given the choice of two stays at a Four Points or one stay at a St. Regis that counts for two stays, then many frequent guest loyalty program members would probably schedule a luxury hotel stay for double stays credit.

This type of promotion would allow luxury hotels to maintain rates while offering a valuable incentive to loyalty program members who are willing to pay more for the elite qualifying stay that counts double at a more expensive hotel.

This allows the luxury hotels within the hotel chain to offer a targeted incentive at little cost while distributing the cost (more elite members in the hotel loyalty program getting complimentary upgrades) across all the hotel brands in the hotel chain.

In past years frequent flyer programs often restricted double elite miles to the higher fares. The recently released promotions from United and American allow double elite credit on any fares. The airlines are getting desperate.

Hyatt and Starwood Hotels offered double stays in 2008 for any hotel stay within the chain. Perhaps offering double stays for the upper tier hotels will be more effective in maintaining room rates.

Related posts from Loyalty Traveler on Hotel Consumer Economics

Sep 3, 2008: Hotel Travel Going Down, Down, Down. It’s the Economy, Stupid!

Oct 10, 2008: Luxury Hotels – “Show Me the Discount”

The registration page is uploaded for this double elite qualifying miles offer from American Airlines.

Registration code: DBEQM

Basic terms:

1.    Registration required for double EQM. No credit for flights taken before registration.

2.    Offer applies only to new ticket reservations purchased and traveled between March 18 and June 15, 2009.

3.    Only elite qualifying miles are doubled. There is no doubling of redeemable miles for awards.

Basic benefits: link to AAdvantage Elite Member Guides

1.    12,500 flight miles will earn AAdvantage Gold.  Lots of fee waivers for the periodic traveler.  The savings on baggage fees alone may justify a mileage run trip.

2.    25,000 flight miles will earn AAdvantage Platinum and 100% redeemable mileage bonus. Oneworld Sapphire benefits including complimentary airport lounge access when flying international.

3.    50,000 flight miles will earn Executive Platinum and eight complimentary systemwide one-way upgrade certificates.  Your elite status and certificates will be valid through February 2011.

This just might be the offer that gets me back in the skies. I voluntarily grounded myself in summer 2007 after back-to-back trips to Buenos Aires over an 11 day period in which I spent nearly 20 hours sitting on airplanes on runways at Atlanta, Washington DC Dulles, and New York JFK.  I went from Star Alliance Gold back to driving myself in my car along the west coast for staycations.

Executive Platinum at 50,000 flight miles is economical for a somewhat frequent traveler.

The benefits are huge with waived fees galore and complimentary international upgrade certificates for this year and next.  Spend $2,500 over the next three months, or even less if you have time to fly the really cheap fares, and you can be looking at numerous flights in the front cabins for the next two years.

It has been a while since I did 50,000 miles in economy class, and this deal may not be workable for me due to the family illness. And if it turns out I go on a ticket buying spree, my wife will certainly have sanctioned my absence.  She knows the value of international upgrade certificates awarded to Executive Platinum members.  

For my wife, flying 50,000 miles in economy during a calendar year, let alone three months, is an unfamiliar experience.  She has flown over 50,000 miles in a calendar year during many years, however, the majority of her travel was in Business or First Class. My sheer butt pain from long-haul economy class travel over the years has been her sheer lie-flat bliss in the skies.

Update: March 19 – United Airlines matches with its own Double EQM offer through June 15: http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,52639,00.html

Make a reservation through Friday, March 20, 2009 for a stay at Hyatt Place or Hyatt Summerfield Suites between April 8, 2009 and June 5, 2009 and save 30% off Hyatt’s Best Available Rate at 150 hotels.

Reservation must be prepaid and is non-refundable and non-changeable.

Hyatt Place Reservations 30% Discount link or call 1-888-492-8847 and use code: LTO401

Hyatt Summerfield Suites 30% Discount link or call 1-866-974-9288 and use code:  LTO401

Sample Savings:

Hyatt Place Fort Lauderdale Airport North,

Thursday, April 23, 2009

1 King Bed room

$150    Hyatt Best Available Rate

$143    Hyatt.com rate – nonrefundable

$135    AAA promo rate

$105    Hyatt Limited Time Offer 30% discount rate

Hyatt Place room layout is spacious