1
May
Hyatt Gold Passport hotel stays earn bonus miles for 4x or 5x standard earn rates from May 1 to August 31, 2012 with at least 12 airlines. There is no central promotion page I have found on the Hyatt website and the airlines listed below are ones posted on One Mile at a Time and The Points Guy. Read More…
This week I realized that Marriott Rewards MegaMiles ending April 30 offered a good value rebate when earning 2,000 Virgin America Elevate points on hotel stays. The current Marriott Rewards MegaMiles is ending soon, but keep this analysis of Virgin America Elevate points in mind for future opportunities with Marriott and other hotel chain frequent flyer bonuses. Read More…
British Airways Executive Club is offering 25% Avios bonus points on hotel point transfers between April 20 and June 20, 2012 from eight hotel partners:
* I placed an asterisk next to the four programs I think are the only hotel programs worth using for this bonus offer. Read More…
Best Western Rewards has a promotion offering Southwest Airlines frequent flyers who enroll in Best Western Rewards between March 8 and April 30 the opportunity to earn Gold Elite after one hotel stay along with 1,200 Rapid Rewards points. Offer is only available to residents of U.S. and Canada.
To participate in the promotion, you must:
1. Become a new Best Western Rewards member by enrolling through this Best Western Rewards-Southwest Airlines link.
3. Set your Best Western Rewards earning preference to Southwest Airlines points.
4. Stay at any Best Western branded hotel by April 30, 2012.
Best Western Rewards member will earn Best Western Rewards Gold elite status (normally requires 10 nights) and double Rapid Rewards points (1,200 points) after the first Best Western hotel stay by April 30, 2012.
Members qualifying for this promotion will retain Gold elite through the 2012 year. Best Western hotel stays normally earn 600 Rapid Rewards points for Southwest Airlines flyers earning miles rather than Best Western points. This is the standard number of points given per hotel stay with most hotel loyalty programs. Double points (1,200 Rapid Rewards points) is only available for the first stay during this promotion.
Double Dip with Best Western’s Free night after 3 stays by April 8
Be sure to check out the major Best Western Rewards promotion for a free night voucher after three stays by April 8, 2012. The free night offer should be stackable with this Southwest promotion. Here is my Loyalty Traveler analysis of what I called the best midscale hotel chain promotion of the season.
Best Western Gold elite benefits
Members can change their earning preference to points if they choose after earning the Gold elite and 2x miles bonus with Southwest Airlines.
Best Western Gold elite has the primary advantage of 10% bonus points.
Best Western Rewards now allows points as elite qualifying route
Another feature of Best Western Rewards that changed just this month is elite qualification by points. All stays at Best Western earn 10 points per dollar (unless you have earning preference set to airline miles).
Gold elite = 10 nights or 10,000 points in a calendar year.
Platinum elite = 15 nights or 15,000 points in a calendar year.
Diamond elite = 30 nights or 30,000 points in a calendar year.
I am awaiting clarification on whether points counted for elite status are only points earned from hotel stays or if partner activity points also count similar to the way Priority Club Rewards works for elite qualification.
My guess is only points from hotel stays count. Then, the next question is whether only base points count or if all points from hotel stays like elite bonuses and promotion bonus points count.
There does not seem to be detailed explanation in BWR terms and conditions on the new elite qualification terms.
Assuming only 10 base points/$1 count (this is how Hilton HHonors works), then elite status would require $1,000 in hotel spend for Gold, $1,500 in spend for Platinum and $3,000 for Diamond in a calendar year.
I’ll update when I receive clarification on the new elite route of qualifying by points.
I feel compelled to issue a reality check based on the overwhelming pitch by bloggers for Starwood Preferred Guest being the primary program to consider when transferring hotel points for the US Airways points-to-miles 50% bonus from March 11-31, 2012.
Several travel blogs over the past 24 hours have discussed the US Airways hotel points transfer bonus promotion and most of the commentary suggests no other hotel program is worth considering besides SPG to get the best miles value from your hotel points. Read More…
March 15, 2012 will be the last day to earn miles for Hyatt stays or redeem Gold Passport points for miles in four airline programs including Air Canada Aeroplan, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, Frontier EarlyReturns and US Airways Dividend Miles.
Hyatt Gold Passport announcement link.
There seems to be a trend in the hotel loyalty world of dropping North American airline partners while foreign carriers are added to hotel partnerships. Perhaps this has something to do with the focus on international development of hotel brands while the USA sits on the economic backburner for the time being. Hyatt announced that 170 new hotels in the pipeline will be 70% outside North America.
Marriott Rewards dropped American Airlines as an airline partner in 2011 and recently added Russia’s Aeroflot.
Hilton HHonors dropped Southwest Airlines for 2012, but Latin American travelers have the choice of Avianca/Taca LifeMiles.
The good news is there are still 30 airline partners with Hyatt Gold Passport. In my opinion, when it comes to points-to-miles exchanges, the value of Hyatt Gold Passport points is more than airline miles and I would not trade points for miles without an instant redemption opportunity for a high priced airline reward.
The real opportunity for me of the Hyatt Gold Passport airline partnerships are the occassional high value miles bonuses for hotel stays. And over the past couple of years Hyatt Gold Passport has allowed members to earn both points and miles on several of the bonus promotions.
10
Feb
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards was restructured last year from a program where 16 credits was a free ticket to a system where 6,000 points = $100 for the “Wanna Get Away” lowest fare types. Choice Privileges and Wyndham Rewards have a competitive edge fitting their hotel market segments as the fastest earning hotel programs for Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards points at low levels of spend.
Marriott Rewards and Hyatt Gold Passport take the lead when elite and credit card bonus points are added to hotel stays.
Hilton HHonors and Priority Club ended their partnerships with Southwest Airlines in 2011. Starwood Preferred Guest eliminated the option to transfer Starpoints into Southwest Rapid Rewards in 2011. Club Carlson does not partner with Southwest Airlines.
Hotel Points to Southwest Airlines Conversion Tables
The tables are formatted to be read in columns. Each column shows the points earned for a set amount of hotel spend, elite status bonus points and credit card bonus points for hotel stay payment and converts hotel points into Southwest Airlines points.
These tables are formatted to compare the conversion rates of different hotel programs for points to miles. The amounts shown in the tables do not necessarily correspond to the amount of hotel points required to be transferred in any specific program. For example: Wyndham Rewards requires points transfers for most airlines in blocks of 8,000 or 17,500 or 30,000 points.
The standard earning rate across most hotel loyalty programs is 600 points for a hotel stay. This is a great deal for the midscale programs like Best Western, Choice and Wyndham. The 600 points per stay are not as good a rate when staying at full service hotels like Marriott, Starwood or Hyatt.
Choice Privileges looks like a great program for pulling in Southwest credits. Southwest is one airline where Hyatt Gold Passport rises significantly in ranking compared to the other major hotel loyalty programs.
Related Loyalty Traveler posts:
Here is a spreadsheet with the ten largest hotel loyalty programs worldwide and all their airline partners for earning miles and points-to-miles transfers.
Hilton HHonors is far and away the biggest program for airline partnerships. That can be a major factor for a frequent guest earning miles from hotel stays in a frequent flyer program where there might be few opportunities to earn miles other than flying.
There are 8 airlines that only partner with one of these ten programs.
[click on image to see full-size in new window]
I will follow up this post with comments and details on airline miles differences in earning rates between different programs.
This seemed like a useful table to create as I work on my series of hotel points-to-miles exchange rates across loyalty programs for a selection of major airlines.
Loyalty Traveler – Airline Tables for Hotel Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates
Personally I find hotel points more valuable than airline miles earned in points-to-miles transfers. I rarely exchange hotel points into miles.
Situations where I would consider exchanging hotel points into frequent flyer miles include:
1. To earn a hotel or airline loyalty program promotion bonus requiring partner activity.
I have picked up thousands of airline miles in frequent flyer promotions with a partner activity credit using Starwood Preferred Guest transfer of 100 or fewer Starpoints into airline miles. SPG Platinum members have no minimum transfer level for points-to-miles exchanges. SPG Gold = 1,500 Starpoints minimum transfer. SPG basic member = 2,500 Starpoints minimum transfer.
2. To secure the miles needed for an immediate airline reward redemption.
2003 was the only time I transferred 20,000 Starpoints into 25,000 miles. I was buying two First Class awards on British Airways from Denver to Melbourne, Australia with stopovers each way in London for 150,000 miles per ticket. I needed quick British Airways miles to beat the deadline for the price increase in BA Executive Club when the First Class US-Australia roundtrip award ticket increased to 420,000 miles.
There are many ways to get miles and I see trading hotel points for airline miles as a no net gain transfer for a leisure traveler staying in hotels. You save on airfare using hotel points for airline award tickets, but you don’t have points for free hotel rooms.
3. No plans to stay at the hotel chain frequently enough to earn points required for room reward nights.
The hotel points-to-miles tables show Wyndham Rewards and Club Carlson are two programs where you can earn points and transfer to miles at low levels. Club Carlson has a minimum transfer level of 2,000 points = 250 airline miles. Club Carlson members earn 20 points per dollar in hotel spend. Stay at a Country Inn & Suites on a stay costing more than $100 and you will earn more than 2,000 points. You can also just choose to earn miles for a hotel stay instead of points. Club Carlson gives 250 miles for Country Inn stays and 500 miles for a Radisson Hotel stay.
4. More hotel points than you need for hotel reward stays.
Some people have millions of hotel points.
Starwood Preferred Guest published statistics in December 2011 showing one SPG member earned nearly 20 million points in 2011 and another member redeemed nearly 12 million points (link to SPG pdfshowing stats).
I wonder how many of those redeemed Starpoints went for airline miles?
And hopefully not United Mileage Plus miles.
My question for readers: Have you exchanged hotel points for frequent flier miles? Was it better value than saving points for hotel stays?
British Airways Concorde outside London Heathrow First Class Lounge July 2003. The last commercial flights by BA Concorde were October 2003.
Loyalty Traveler – Airline Tables for Hotel Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates
HHonors is running double, triple and 2,012 miles through March 31 with four airlines.
American AAdvantage = Double Miles.
Air Canada Aeroplan = Double Miles.
US Airways Dividend Miles = Triple Miles.
Delta = 2,012 miles with two night stay. Does not need to be a weekend stay, but will earn a lot of bonus points too if your stay is a weekend stay when combined with other HHonors bonus point promotions.
Bonus miles can be earned in addition to the weekend bonus points through Facebook on Jan 17-18 and the 5,000 per two-night weekend More Points promotion through March 31, 2012.
HHonors Bonus Miles promotions link.
There are about 450 participating properties for Aeroplan and maybe 475 for American and US Airways. Delta Airlines does not have a list of participating hotels at the time of this post.
Hilton HHonors 2012 Q-1 miles offers.
The Hawaiian Miles link on the HHonors promotion page linked to an expired United Mileage Plus promotion at the time of this post.
HHonors Earning Miles link shows the standard earning rate for the vast number of airlines partnered with Hilton HHonors. The basic earning rate is 500 miles per stay, except 100 miles for Hampton, Homewood and up to 100 miles for Home2Suites. In most cases, double miles is 1,000 miles per stay (Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn, DoubleTree) or 200 miles per stay (Hampton/Homewood).
There was a media reception for the newly opened Cathay Pacific Airways First and Business Class Lounge in San Francisco Airport’s international terminal this week. This is the first Cathay Pacific branded lounge in the U.S.
I was interested in attending since it has been a few years since I have even stepped foot in an airport lounge. I have spent quite a few hours in Business and First Class airport lounges in the past so I have some frame of reference for lounge amenities.
SFO International Terminal
The interesting aspect of this trip was checking in with Cathay Pacific and receiving an economy class boarding pass for the evening flight so I could pass through airport security. I guess the fine print on the boarding pass stating “only valid with ticket coupon” would have prevented me from boarding flight CX 873 departing at 12:05am for Hong Kong.
