Steven Slater is all the rage this week for his grandiose departure from a JetBlue flight Monday. The Colbert Report aired a piece on the Steven Slater incident. Here is a link to Huffington Post with a hilarious 3-minute clip of Colbert’s Alpha Dog of the Week – JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater.
Congratulations to Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland for his win at the 110th U.S. Open on June 20th, 2010.
Pebble Beach Golf Links 18th Hole at The Lodge
The entry fee to the famed Pebble Beach 17-mile Drive is just short of $10 per car. Remember to take advantage of the car fee rebate opportunity at any of the Pebble Beach Resort restaurants or bars at The Lodge or Spanish Bay. You get a food and beverage credit equal to the cost of the entry fee by presenting your gate payment receipt with the bill.
You can enter Pebble Beach for free on a bicycle at the Pacific Grove gate by Asilomar Beach.
Hyatt Gold Passport announced hotel award category changes effective June 4, 2010. The major change is the addition of a new high-end hotel category 6 award level at 22,000 points per night. There will be 20 hotels in the new category 6 award level.
Category shifts in the 411 hotel chain will see 89 hotels (21.7%) moving to a higher award category and 65 hotels (15.8%) moving to a lower level as of June 4. The majority of the hotels moving up are in the upper half of the award categories while the hotels moving down are primarily (70%) category 2 hotels (8,000 points per night) moving to category 1 (5,000 points per night).
The member friendly aspect of the impending changes is the transparency Hyatt Gold Passport has given by publishing all the category changes five weeks before the changes take effect. I slammed Hilton and Marriott earlier this year for announcing hotel category changes, but not giving members the complete changes in advance and a window of opportunity to book hotel awards before the hotels changed category levels.
Hyatt Gold Passport members have five weeks in which to book hotel awards before the changes take effect. Award night reservations booked before June 4 for stays after June 4 may be modified for up to 90 days (through September 2, 2010).
FAQ for Hyatt Gold Passport changes.
Hyatt Gold Passport Award Categories in High Definition
411 Hotels
Hyatt Gold Passport Hotels in new Category 6 award level as of June 4, 2010
Category 1 Awards (97 hotels)
Category 2 Awards (147 hotels)
Category 3 Awards (66 hotels)
Category 4 Awards (50 hotels)
Category 5 Awards (31 hotels)
Category 6 Awards
Virgin America has partnered with the boutique concept hotels of Morgans Hotel Group. Earn 1,000 Elevate points per stay through the end of the year. Reservations must be booked through MorgansHotelGroup.com or by phone at 1-800.606.6090. Provide your Virgin America Elevate account number at check in or by calling in advance to the 800.606.6090 number to add your frequent flier number to your hotel reservation. Virgin America Promotion Link.
There are not a lot of Morgans Hotels, but hotels like the Clift in San Francisco are popular for their city.
Participating hotels are: Ames in Boston, Sanderson in London, St Martins Lane in London, Mondrian in Los Angeles, Morgans in New York City, Royalton in New York City, Hudson in New York City, Clift in San Francisco, Delano in South Beach, Mondrian in South Beach, Shore Club in South Beach.
The fine print for the promotion reveals a member can earn Elevate points for up to three rooms per stay as long as the Elevate member is a guest and pays for all three rooms. 3,000 points per stay is not a bad haul.
What is the value of 1,000 Elevate points?
I actually have not flown Virgin America yet. I had to look up the value of 1,000 points. My sample itinerary for San Francisco to New York JFK showed a roundtrip award ticket cost as low as 10,606 points + $5.00 in fees for April 13-20, 2010.
The truly surprising revelation was the published Virgin America fare came out to a total of $249.40 for this ticket. That is a relatively cheap cross country air fare for San Francisco – New York.
The value of 1,000 Elevate points in this example = $23.51.
I don’t know if there are better award value ratios for Virgin America awards, but that ratio does not motivate me to jump on this offer. The points required for an award are tied to the published fare so it looks like there are limited leverage opportunities for Elevate points.
Loyalty Traveler Key Value: 2 Keys out of 5 Keys (Okay for a stay, but don’t go out of your way.)
This is an opportunity to earn some Elevate points if you have a hotel stay planned for one of the Morgans Hotel Group properties this year, however, it does not look like 1,000 Elevate points have all that much potential value as a hotel rate rebate.
Starwood Lurker, the Starwood Hotels/SPG corporate representative on FlyerTalk, posted a link yesterday for the initial 2009 Starwood Preferred Guest promotion called Night after Night, and located at SPG.com/nights. This promotion will award a 500 points per night bonus beginning with hotel nights on January 7 through April 30, 2009. An additional 5,000 points will be earned for every 10 nights stayed during the promotion period.
Promotion: Night After Night
SPG promo link
Registration is required.
Registration link will go live on January 7, 2009 5:00pm Eastern time and SPG members have until March 31, 2009 to register. Promotion will apply retroactively for eligible hotel nights during promotion period.
Offer: 500 bonus points per night. Earn an additional 5,000 bonus points for every 10 nights for a combined bonus of 1000 points per night. In other words, 10 nights earns 10,000 points.
Promotion Dates: January 7 – April 30, 2009
Terms and Conditions link: http://www.spgpromos.com/nights/tc.cfm
Good features of this promotion are hotel stays do not need to be booked in advance to earn the bonus points and promotion registration will apply retroactively to eligible hotel nights. Any hotel night from January 7 to April 30 qualifies.
114 nights = 110 nights + 4 nights = 110,000 points + 2,000 points = 112,000 bonus points possible from the Night After Night promotion.
There is no provision in the SPG Nights Terms and Conditions stating this promotion is not combinable with other offers which could justify the promotion statement “There will be no limits on bonus earnings during this period.” Combinable promotions for the next few months would be a rewarding benefit for SPG members.
Delta is printing miles as fast as the US Government is printing money.
One of the often touted features of Hilton HHonors is the ability to earn both hotel points and airline miles for your hotel stays. All other major hotel loyalty programs give either points or miles. And choosing miles is generally a lower value proposition as a hotel loyalty program reward.
Hilton HHonors and Delta Airlines turn that notion around. Hilton hotel brand stays will earn six times the Delta Airline Skymiles normally awarded for hotel stays through February 2009. Stays must be 2 nights or more to earn the 6x Delta miles bonus.
Register for this promotion here at HiltonHHonors.com/sixtimesthemiles
Not all Hilton brand properties are participating. Check the Six Times the Miles participating hotels list.
Hilton HHonors My Way Double Dip Earning Style
Hilton HHonors members can select from three HHonors earning preferences for hotel stays:
1. Points & Points
2. Points and Fixed Miles*
3. Points and Variable Miles*
*HHonors member must designate a preferred airline frequent flyer program among the HHonors partner airlines for mileage deposits.
HHonors Points and Points earners receive 15 HHonors points per $1US in hotel spending. (Earn 10 points per dollar regular earning and an additional 5 points per dollar bonus.)
HHonors members with a Points and Points preference will not qualify for the Delta promotion. You can change your HHonors profile online to select one of the two Points & Miles Double Dip earning options to earn the Delta miles bonus.
HHonors Points and Fixed Miles (57 fixed miles partners)
Fixed Miles Earned Per Hotel Stay, normally = 500 miles awarded per hotel stay, except for Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites earn only 100 miles per hotel stay.
Delta 6x Bonus Miles Promotion = 3,000 miles per Hilton brand hotel stay, except Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites earn only 600 miles per hotel stay.
Don’t waste this promotion on Hampton Inn or Homewood Suites stays for only 600 miles.
3,000 miles is quite an incentive to pay a little more to stay in another Hilton brand like Hilton Garden Inn, Doubletree, Conrad, or Hilton. The miles can have $50 in future value on tickets using miles, however, the recent adoption of a three tier redemption rate for Delta Airline tickets using miles may prove to give Delta miles a lower than 2 cents/mile future value in many cases.
HHonors Points and Variable Miles (43 variable miles partners)
Delta 6x Bonus Miles Promotion = 6 miles earned per $1US in hotel spending.
Variable Miles Earned per Hotel Stay, normally = 1 mile earned per $1US in hotel spending.
For a Homewood Suites or Hampton Inn hotel stay with a total projected spending in excess of $100 you will earn more with a Variable Miles preference rather than Fixed Miles, (remember taxes and fees do not count for base hotel spending). For all other brands you would need to spend more than $500 for your hotel stay to earn more with the Variable Miles earning option.
You have the option of changing your miles earning preference between hotel stays.
Hilton HHonors Check-In Desk, Hilton Singapore (2006)
Update Wednesday 10-22-08.
On Monday, October 20, I contacted Fairmont Hotels marketing department asking for clarification of the 7-Day Winter Sale promotion and Free Night offer. I questioned the telephone customer service reply I had received regarding the free night being credited back to the guest’s account at checkout since this detail was not mentioned anywhere in the promotion terms and conditions.
This morning I received an email from David Doucette, Executive Director of Internet Marketing for Fairmont Raffles Hotels International. The website promotion pages have been updated to include the sentences:
“Advertised rates do not include price adjustment for the free night. Free night credit is applied at check-out.”
Loyalty Traveler gives this deal a big thumbs up in light of the explicit free night clarification now shown for this promotion.
There are still 5 1/2 days to take advantage of the great rates being offered for this 7-Day Winter sale promotion.
The offer was a good deal and now I consider it a great deal. So keep in mind as you read through this post that my analysis of the promotion was not based on being refunded one night’s stay. And that free night on top of the 10% to 20% nightly rate discount makes this sale up to a 40% discount on Fairmont Hotel rooms. This is exactly the kind of hotel deal travelers need in this economy.
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Fairmont’s Free Night Winter Sale Offer Looks Good, But Looks May Be Deceiving
Fairmont Hotels 7-day Winter Sale One Free Night and 20% Off
Fairmont Hotels has a Winter Sale starting today and ending at 11:59pm EST, October 27. So, if you count today, the Fairmont Winter Sale is actually an 8-day sale.
The Fairmont Winter Sale offers Discount Rates AND one free night for stays between November 3, 2008 and April 15, 2009.
While the prices may be good rates for Fairmont Hotels there is a highly restrictive condition for this sale:
Hotel booking is entirely prepaid and nonrefundable. No cancellations.
Fairmont Hotels 7-Day Winter Sale Terms and Conditions
Nonrefundable reservations make me cringe; especially when the rate is for a luxury hotel booking –possibly for several thousand dollars.
I’ve wanted to write about nonrefundable reservations for the past week since before reading Joe Sharkey’s New York Times article and the Fairmont special offer opens the way. The topic of nonrefundable hotel rooms has many facets from nonrefundable, nonchangeable prepaid hotel rates to using hotel loyalty points for a free room, but with a credit card room deposit than can turn into a very expensive no-show or last minute cancellation.
The Fairmont Hotels 7-Day Winter Sale provides me with the opportunity to discuss the booking option of Nonrefundable, PrePaid Hotel Stays compared to other more flexible hotel booking options.
Is the Savings Benefit of a Nonrefundable Hotel Reservation Really Worth the Risk?
My bias is for maintaining the most flexibility I can arrange and afford when making hotel reservations. I have to know there is almost no chance of me missing the stay before I go nonrefundable.
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A Free Night Looks Good, But Looks May Be Deceiving
The Fairmont Hotels homepage ads look great – “Spectacular Winter Sale”
Fairmont Hotels 7-Day Winter Sale advertisement
“Save up to 20% and Receive a Free Night”
The advertisements caught my attention and my Loyalty Traveler eye for a good value hotel deal. I decided to analyze the claim a little more closely.
Running the numbers through sample bookings reveals a very different result than I expected when booking the 7-Day Winter Sale rate. The savings are not even close to being a free night in cost savings. The nonrefundable nature of this deal makes me wary.
You will save money with the special rate, however, for properties I checked the overall savings with Winter Sale rates was at most 20% less than a non-promotional, regular booking search with consumer-friendly no-penalty cancellation policies of arrival day to 7 nights before hotel arrival, depending on the specific hotel.
So much for the free night claim! A free night leads this frequent guest to expect at least a 25% discount on the normal hotel rate for a 4-night stay (most hotels in the Winter Sale offer a 4th night free). Imagine a $100 per night regular hotel rate:
· Night 1 = $100
· Night 2 = $100
· Night 3 = $100
· Night 4 = free
To me, 4th night free means I pay $300 when the regular room rate would have been $400 for a four night stay. Saving $100 on a $400 hotel stay is a 25% savings.
In addition to the free night, if I am saving 20% on the regular hotel rate, to me, this means I get the $100 hotel rate at $80 per night.
On a four night stay for a hotel normally $100 per night, a 20% savings on the normal rate and a free night makes me think I will get 4 nights for the price of 3 nights at $80 each. Paying $240 for 4 nights on a regularly $100/night room would be an overall 40% savings.
Now, that would be a “Spectacular Winter Sale”.
Unfortunately, for the potential Fairmont guest, my three sample searches showed only a 20% overall savings at best on a 4-night stay using the Winter Sale rate compared to the regular Best Available rate. I guess Fairmont has a different concept of 4th night free than Loyalty Traveler.
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Loyalty Traveler searches for Fairmont Hotels 7-day Winter Sale
Rate searches conducted on 10-20-08 for a 4-night hotel stay January 16-20, 2009 at three Fairmont Hotels:
1. San Jose Fairmont, San Jose California
2. Scottsdale Fairmont, Scottsdale, Arizona
3. Chateau Whistler, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada
Hotel rate search results show the Winter Sale overall hotel rate advertised as up to 20% off AND a free night is not based on the simple comparison of what any hotel guest booking the same dates through the default Best Available Rate on the Fairmont Hotels homepage would find.
Fairmont San Jose, San Jose, California
Hotel Stay: Jan 16-20, 2009
lowest priced room, Fairmont King, Main Building, 450sq.ft.
$119.20 per night Winter Sale Rate – nonrefundable, no cancellations allowed; $536.48 for 4-night stay
$149 per night regular Best Available Rate (BAR) – reservation may be canceled up to 6pm hotel time, January 16, 2009.
The hotel special offer saves approximately $33 per night after taxes. A guest booking a five-night stay at the Fairmont San Jose using the Winter Sale rate will pay the same as four nights booked through regular reservations. I call this a 5th night free offer.
Fairmont Scottsdale, Scottsdale, Arizona
Hotel Stay: Jan 16-20, 2009
Upper Mid-range room, Casita Suite, Premium King, 850sq.ft.
Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, Scottsdale, Arizona
Fairmont Scottsdale
$688.50 per night Winter Sale Rate – nonrefundable, no cancellations allowed.
4-night total rate with taxes = $2,754 + tax = $3,082.28 prepaid nonrefundable deposit
$765 per night or $3,060 for 4-night stay, booking regular website Best Available Rate reservation
Fairmont’s Winter Sale saves $306 on a $3,060 regular rate for the four night hotel stay at the Fairmont Scottsdale. The real value of the Winter Sale in this hotel sample is just a 10% savings on a four night luxury hotel stay and comes up far short of the value expected in the advertisement for a discount AND a free night offer in the Fairmont Winter Sale.
Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, main pool
Fairmont Chateau Whistler, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada (ski resort)
Mid-Range room, Deluxe Valley View King
$479 per night regular reservations, $2,203.40CAD payment due 3 days to arrival Jan 13, 2009
$383.20 per night Winter Sale, $1,762.72CAD nonrefundable prepaid October 20, 2008
Winter Sale special rate saves $440.68 on a 4-night stay.
440.68/2203.40 = 20% total savings on 4-night stay. The Winter Sale basically gives a 5th night free meaning 5 nights at the Winter Sale rate = 4 nights at Best Available non-promotional rate.
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This 7-Day Winter Sale offers a Fairmont Hotel discount for the next six months of travel.
The risk of losing a couple of thousand dollars if you need to cancel your trip to save 10 to 20% on hotel rates combined with the fact that Loyalty Traveler finds the actual savings is of significantly lower value than I would have expected with the advertised offer of a free night AND up to 20% savings makes me wary to suggest this offer to travelers.
You should think twice before making the Winter Sale hotel commitment for any trip with much possibility of being cancelled. Remember winter’s wicked weather. Hotel flexible plans are often worth the extra cost.
Update to this post before actually posting on Loyalty Traveler blog 10-20-08.
Just off the phone with Fairmont Hotels to ask why they advertise up to 20% off AND a free night when my searches show only 20% off as the best offer I find.
Where is the free night deal of the Winter Sale?
Fairmont Hotels telephone agent comes back after having me on hold for several minutes to tell me the hotel rate for the 4th night on the four night stay is refunded at check-out.
That is a great deal if true! Why is it not written in the promotion terms?
As a consumer the refund detail is probably the most important detail I need to know next to the rate being prepaid and nonrefundable.
I would want the refund term in writing before committing to this deal. Fairmont Hotels needs to update the 7-Day Winter Sale Terms and Conditions if this is truly how the promotion is scheduled to operate.
Why keep the consumer in the dark about how the free night component of this hotel offer is implemented?
If the prepaid free night is refunded on check-out, then the Fairmont Winter Sale is a great deal. Too bad the Winter Sale promotion details are not clear on this aspect of how the Free Night offer works.
Priority Club Rewards Buy Points 10% bonus
Buying points is a good way to top off the points in your hotel loyalty account for that free hotel stay award. Until November 6, 2008 Priority Club will add a 10% points bonus to all purchases. Priority Club raised the price of points this past year to $11.50 per 1,000 points on purchases of 20,000 to 40,000 points.
Priority Club points purchase link and rules:
Points must be purchased in 1,000 point increments
· Only 40,000 points may be purchased in a rolling 12-month period (this favors buying points sooner rather than later if you plan to buy 40,000 points so you can repeat purchase in another 12 months).
· Price:
o $13.50 per 1,000 points for 1,000 to 9,000 points
o $12.50 per 1,000 points for 10,000 to 19,000 points
o $11.50 per 1,000 points for 20,000 to 40,000 points
· Points will appear in account within 48 hours.
The current promotional bonus deal allows the Priority Club member to purchase 44,000 points for $460. And if you think buying 44,000 points seems like a waste of money, keep reading.
Holiday Inn Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco
Buying points can be a great hotel cost savings
No other program offers the opportunity to get a high value room for so few points as InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) Priority Club Rewards with their PointBreaks for 5,000 points award nights. The challenge with PointBreaks is getting your reservation in as soon as new hotels are listed. The list changes every couple of months and as hotel reservations are booked the PointBreaks hotel list dwindles in size.
Current offers for PointBreaks are valid for hotel stays through November 30, 2008.
Consider the Hotel Indigo Columbus Architectural Center in Columbus, Indiana, one of the new boutique brand hotels of IHG. (I realized there is a Columbus, Indiana after several minutes searching for this hotel in Ohio.)
A four night stay at the Hotel Indigo Architectural Center from Monday, November 3 to Friday, November 7, 2008 will cost 20,000 points using the PointBreaks special offer. A Priority Club member can buy 22,000 points with the current bonus points promotion and book this four night stay for $230.
This same hotel stay will run $153 per night + 12% tax for a nonrefundable room rate of $171 per night. A four night fully paid stay will cost $684.
Just buying Priority Club Rewards points and booking a PointBreaks stay will reduce the four night hotel stay at the Hotel Indigo, Columbus, Indiana by $450.
Now that is a discount!
HHonors will revert back to calendar year elite qualification and end rolling 12-month qualification as of January 1, 2009. Members who reach an elite level in 2008 will maintain that status until March 31, 2010. The membership year will now end in the month of March rather than April as had been the rule.
Elite Membership Year: Qualify for a membership level in 2008 and your elite status level will remain effective through March 31, 2010.
The new membership year is a change from the prior membership year rules which allowed a member reaching an elite level in one calendar year to maintain that membership level through the month of April (HHonors member attaining Diamond elite in 2007 holds that level through April 2009).
HHonors has always done things just a little differently.
· HHonors is the only program that qualifies hotel stays using points towards frequent guest elite status activity.
· HHonors requires a 6-night stay or longer to get the points reduction on multiple night hotel stay awards.
· HHonors almost exclusively targets bonus points promotions tailored to specific members rather than recruiting frequent guests from the masses with open registration for high value promotions. This targeted marketing strategy comes from the hotel program that used to give away thousands of points a year just for updating your guest profile online every quarter.
HHonors introduced “Rolling Tier” elite qualification in the beginning of 2005.
HHonors has been the only major hotel loyalty program in the past few years to offer elite qualification on a 12-month rolling tier model where any 12-month period could be used for qualification.
Advantage of Rolling-Tier Elite Qualification
Even HHonors diamond members struggled to understand how HHonors rolling tier was calculated. There is a 92-page thread on FlyerTalkto attest to the confusing aspects of the Hilton HHonors rolling tier elite qualifying method.
In my opinion, rolling tier elite qualification was primarily a benefit for a frequent traveler who may have finished one calendar year (assume 2007) short of desired elite status.
Let’s say the traveler started a new job in June 2007 and made 20 Hilton stays by December 31st, 2007. The member stayed enough to qualify for mid-level elite membership as HHonors Gold member after 16 stays, but the real benefits of hotel frequent guest program high-elite membership come with top-tier elite membership. The frequent guest needed 28 stays, 60 nights, or $10,000 of eligible hotel spending to reach 100,000 base points and qualify for HHonors Diamond elite membership.
Under most hotel loyalty programs (Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, Starwood) the member would have started January 1, 2008 of the new calendar year with a cleared slate of 0 Stays and 0 Nights towards elite membership qualification.
The HHonors member with 20 stays on December 31, 2007 had a much lower threshold for elite status qualification in 2008. Only 8 more stays by June 2008 in the rolling tier qualification period was needed to reach top-tier Diamond elite membership in Hilton HHonors.
A hotel frequent guest seeking top elite status in one of the major programs but without this status on December 31, 2007 had minimal incentive to stay with their particular loyalty program for 2008. Each program requires about the same amount of hotel activity for earning top elite status and the member starts from scratch on January 1, 2008. Rolling tier qualification should have been a competitive advantage for Hilton HHonors in maintaining loyalty for 2008.
Qualification Criteria for Top-Tier Elite Membership
(all these programs now base elite qualification on hotel activity for Jan 1- Dec 31 calendar year)
Hilton HHonors Diamond: 28 stays, 60 nights, or earning 100,000 base points.
Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond: 25 stays or 50 nights
InterContinental Hotels Group Priority Club Platinum: 50 nights or earn 60,000 points.
Marriott Rewards Platinum: 75 nights
Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum: 25 stays or 50 nights.
The transfer of loyalty to a different hotel frequent guest program becomes much more costly to the loyalty program member in terms of lost amenities and benefits once top-elite membership is attained in any hotel loyalty program.
This is why most hotel loyalty programs will give a top-tier frequent guest in one program a complimentary status match to top-tier elite membership.
And this is why the benefits and privileges of top-tier elite membership are usually generous as a means of keeping the high value frequent guest loyal to a particular hotel chain.
Hilton HHonors has decided to eliminate rolling tier elite qualification, so apparently there was not ample competitive advantage with this hotel loyalty program feature.
29
Jun
Pebble Beach, California Lightning Strikes
June 22, 2008
No Woman No Cry
“gonna make the fire light
a-log-a-wood burning through the night”
A week ago in Monterey it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit and a lightning storm crossed the Central Coast. This is a photo of the lightning over Pebble Beach area. A storm front with lightning strikes lasting less than 30 minutes only dropped about five minutes of heavy rain here in Monterey. The lightning strikes set off fires along the Central Coast.
The Los Padres National Forest southeast of the town of Big Sur has burned over 30,000 acres in the past week. Some of the oldest existing buildings on the coast ridges around Big Sur burned. The Henry Miller library was almost lost to the fire. Ventana Inn and Post Ranch Inn were evacuated. 20 miles of coast Highway 1 have been closed for the week.
San Jose Mercury news article on Big Sur fires Friday, June 27, 2008
The fire was originally called the “Gallery” fire due to the proximity of the burning forest to an art gallery on Highway 1 and just south of the Nepenthe cliff top restaurant and store. There is a web camera mounted on the deck of Nepenthe’s and the fire area could be seen in the webcam images last Sunday.
Nepenthe Webcam, Big Sur, California
Big Sur Fire Map from KSBW Monterey local TV news
The town of Big Sur is actually open and accessible. Big Sur is hurting at the start of this tourism season, but the air quality is so bad here that I would not recommend anyone coming to this area at the present time. The wind has blown the fires’ smoke over Monterey Bay and all the way up the Salinas and Santa Clara Valleys and it is a week of sore lungs and officially “unhealthy” air.
The “Indians” fire in southern Monterey County on the eastern side of the Los Padres National Forest has been burning for several weeks and so far has scorched over 100 square miles of mountainous land. Together with the Big Sur Basin Complex fires, the Monterey County fires are just about to go over 100,000 acres in burn area. Conditions seem like 1977 when the Los Padres forest fires burned for several months and over 250,000 acres in Monterey County’s mountains and hill country.
California is facing a long hot summer.
A website has been established to coordinate news and resources for those affected by the Big Sur fires:
http://surfire2008.org/index.php
July 3 update: The fire has burned over 55,000 acres. Big Sur was under mandatory evacuation yesterday as the order affects Highway 1 on both sides of road and the road has been closed for a 30 mile stretch. The road looked like the fire line as the flames fanned the ridge above the reporter at Andrew Molera State Park, just north of Big Sur village on last night’s report. The fire is spreading in all directions. Fire still only 3% contained. No more buildings lost yet, but I read the fire is getting closer to Ventana Inn and Resort location. The air has not been too bad in Monterey the past few days with an onshore breeze.
July 8 Update: The fire has now burned over 80,000 acres over the past two weeks. The smoke was attached to the fog yesterday and the smell in Monterey was present all day. Good news is the fire has not crossed Highway 1 at Big Sur and the regular blogs from a person at the Post Ranch Inn indicate the fire danger has decreased around the Ventana Inn and Post Ranch Inn hotels.
The temperature is set to skyrocket this week to 100+ in the inland areas around Big Sur. The forecast for Monterey is 70s, but we never know here in Monterey and the temperature may just creep up past 90 again for the third heat wave stretch in two months.
July 31 update: The Basin Complex fires were 100% contained last Sunday and the acreage burned was about 163,000 acres. Big Sur is open and getting back to summer business.
