Thanks to a hint in their monthly e-newsletter and their rewards night page when viewed in Google Chrome, it seems like Priority Club will be adjusting the number of points required for many of their hotels as of January 18, 2012. Via Gary, the changes are as follows:

It’s not an across the board devaluation. Rather, whereas Priority Club has historically charged a single points level based on the brand of hotel you were redeeming for, and in recent years has added some segments within each brand (so that an Intercontinental might be 30,000 or 40,000 points). Now they’re adding greater segmentation:

• Candlewood Suites will cost 15,000 or 20,000 points per night, rather than just 15,000.
• Crowne Plaza properties will cost 25,000 or 35,000 points per night, rather than just 25,000.
• Hotel Indigo will be 25,000 or 35,000 points per night, rather than just 25,000.
• Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express further segment — going from 10,000/15,000/25,000 to 10,000/15,000/20,000/25,000.
• InterContinental adds a new 50,000 points level. Ouch.
• Staybridge Suites will cost 20,000 or 25,000 points per night, rather than just 20,000.

This is definitely a devaluation, though at the same time I can’t blame them for the segmentation as such. For example, I always found it interesting that the Crowne Plaza Times Square cost the same number of points as the Crowne Plaza O’Hare Airport, or that the InterContinental San Francisco cost the same number of points as the InterContinental Thalasso Bora Bora. But of course they’re not just segmenting by raising the prices at some hotels and lowering the prices equally at other hotels, but rather there’s an upwards trend here in the number of points required.

The funniest part about all of this to me is that last February Priority Club ran the “Luckiest Loser” promotion when Hilton devalued their program, whereby they gave out 400 million points and stated the following in a press release:

“If you want your loyal customers to stick with you during tough times, it’s vital to show you appreciate them and give them more value, not less. So it’s no wonder there was such a negative reaction to Hilton devaluing their points programme,” said Tom Seddon, chief marketing officer, IHG.

…and now they do the same.

While these changes do kick in on January 18, apparently they’ll have a two month grace period during which you can get the old rates if you call the service center. If you ask me, that’s downright sleazy. They’re only providing two weeks notice of a devaluation, unless you’re “in the know” enough to call them and request the old pricing.

So who’s going to be the next to run a “Luckiest Loser” competition? Hilton? Starwood? Hyatt?

Introduction
Etihad Check-in & The Lounge JFK
Etihad Airways First Class New York to Abu Dhabi
Park Hyatt Dubai
Exploring Dubai
Afternoon Tea at the Burj Al Arab
InterContinental Abu Dhabi
Touring the Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi
Etihad Check-in & First Class Lounge Abu Dhabi
Etihad Airways First Class Abu Dhabi to New York
Conclusion

I had booked the InterContinental Abu Dhabi about 10 months out at a rate of 1100AED per night (~$300USD) for a club city view king room, as I was using a buy one get one free certificate for the second night, bringing my cost down to ~$150USD per night. A day before my arrival the Priority Club website showed me as being upgraded to a deluxe suite, which seems to be the standard Royal Ambassador upgrade.

The ride from Dubai took about 75 minutes, and I arrived in the early evening.

Once inside I proceeded to check-in, where I was promptly helped by a very charming lady from the Ukraine (if I recall correctly). She processed my check-in and escorted me to my suite on the 18th floor.

Lobby

Hallway

Read More…

Introduction
Etihad Check-in & The Lounge JFK
Etihad Airways First Class New York to Abu Dhabi
Park Hyatt Dubai
Exploring Dubai
Afternoon Tea at the Burj Al Arab
InterContinental Abu Dhabi
Touring the Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi
Etihad Check-in & First Class Lounge Abu Dhabi
Etihad Airways First Class Abu Dhabi to New York
Conclusion

I know, I know, this report is way overdue. And I know I promised I’d write a trip report on my trip to India, though it’ll be such a monster of a report that I want to make sure I’ve written a good chunk of it before starting to publish it, since I want to post the installments in fairly quick succession. The past couple of months have been very busy for me, and writing this trip report first will be much more manageable and lead to less disappointment. So forgive me, because I promise India is still coming, though I hope you enjoy this one as well.

Planning for this trip started back in January. As a diagnosed points addict, I’m always looking for my next high. I’ve overdosed on Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, and Thai, and they just don’t give me the same high anymore. I needed a new drug, and that came in the form of carefully examining the award charts of just about every airline I have miles with. I’ve always been mystified by Middle Eastern airlines, probably because they seem so unattainable for award tickets because they mostly don’t belong to the three major alliances.

I flew to Doha on Qatar Airways in first class back in March, and while the experience was good, I can’t say I was blown away by them. They certainly didn’t live up to the title of being “the world’s five star airline,” as their slogan suggests.

That being said, I had heard great things about Etihad Airways and have always wanted to visit the UAE, so I quickly got digging. I noticed that ANA (All Nippon Airways) is partners with Etihad Airways, so I headed over to Etihad’s website to check on award availability. Surely enough they had excellent award availability in first class, much to my surprise. So my assumption was that ANA wouldn’t have access to all that award space, since it was just too good to be true. The other issue is that ANA doesn’t let you check award space on their non-Star Alliance partners unless you have miles in your account.

So I took a shot in the dark and transferred 140,000 Membership Rewards points to ANA. That was the cost of the award given that they have a distance based award chart, and that’s the cost of a first class award for up to 14,000 miles of travel (and I’m proud to say that the distance of these flights was 13,734 miles).

Read More…

Priority Club has just posted their latest Point Breaks list, which is valid for stays through January 31, 2012. Through Point Breaks you can book select hotels for only 5,000 points per night, which is a real bargain given that those points are worth only about $30.

The program has no doubt been watered down substantially over the past year, though there are some pretty decent hotels on the list, including my favorite airport hotel in the world, the InterContinental Chicago O’Hare.

While the actual hotels haven’t updated their pricing yet, it should happen shortly. If any of the hotels interest you be sure to book as soon as they open up, as the good ones tend to disappear quickly.

Trip Report Index

I have to be honest, I really don’t want to write a review of this place. I’m dreading it. Why? Because I want the place to myself. The more people that know about the most beautiful place on earth, the higher the rates will be and the more the town of Berchtesgaden will lose its charm.

I think I’ve finally figured out my favorite place on earth. In the past when I wanted to “relax” I would travel to a beach. The thing is, I’m not much of a beach person. I’m the guy that goes to a beach hotel and sits on my balcony happily looking at the beach, without ever going there. It’s just not my thing — the sand, the salt water, etc… bleh.

For whatever reason I never thought of the mountains as a vacation destination, though this was quite possibly the most relaxing two days of my life.

After a two hour drive from Munich Airport on the Autobahn through the stunning Bavarian countryside we made it to the InterContinental Berchtesgaden.

The first cool thing worth noting? The road leading up to the hotel is the steepest hotel in all of Germany, with a gradient of 23 degrees. Made for some fun stick driving!

Driving to Berchtesgaden

As we pulled up to the hotel I had the biggest smile on my face, thinking I had finally found heaven. Literally, this place is amazing.

Entrance to hotel

They call the hotel a “hideaway in the Alps,” and that’s really what it felt like.

Hotel exterior

Hotel exterior

As I pulled up to the hotel we were welcomed by the bellman with a traditional “Grüß Gott” (literally translates to “Greet God”) and asked whether we wanted to park our car.

Hotel entrance

We were escorted to the modern lobby, where check-in was quickly processed. I was thanked for being a Royal Ambassador and we were informed we had been upgraded to a Penthouse Suite because the hotel was full that weekend and they needed to bump us up. Score, especially since we were using a buy one get one free weekend night certificate, meaning we paid 239 Euros for the first night and nothing for the second night.

Hotel lobby

The bellman helped us bring our bags to our suite, noting the facilities along the way, like the lobby lounge.

Hotel lobby bar

The entrance to our suite was located on the third floor, though the Penthouse Suites are two floors, taking up the third and fourth floor of the hotel.

Hotel hallway

Room entrance

The first floor is kind of wasted space since we didn’t spend any time there, though there’s a desk with TV and daybed of sorts.

Room entrance

There’s also a full bathroom with shower and toilet.

Second bathroom

The room led to the balcony, overlooking the center of the resort and surrounding mountains.

Balcony

View from balcony

That led up to the second floor, where the bedroom and living room are located.

Stairs

The living room featured a couch and two chairs, and a door leading out to the deck.

Living room

There was also a large table in the living room which housed the minibar. The minibar doesn’t have any alcohol, but rather only juice and water, which is free for everyone (Royal Ambassadors always get free minibar beverages, though that didn’t do anything for us in this case).

Minibar

Waiting for us above the minibar was the Royal Ambassador welcome gift consisting of a bottle of wine, and a plate with chocolate, crackers, and fruit.

Royal Ambassador welcome gift

The bedroom featured a king bed which overlooked the deck.

Bedroom

The interesting thing about the deck is that it’s not a private balcony, but rather a massive deck shared with all those in Penthouse Suites on the top floor. While it might lack privacy to some (meaning you actually have to put on clothes to go outside), it was awesome to be able to walk around outside just by opening your “back” door.

Outdoor patio

On the other side of the bedroom was the bathroom, which overlooked the center of the resort, with two sinks, a huge walk-in shower, tub, and toilet/bidet.

Bathroom with a view

Shower

Bathtub

Toilet

Closet

While the Penthouse Suite is 154 square meters it doesn’t feel nearly that big since it’s spread out over two floors. Still, it’s quite possibly one of the coolest suites I’ve ever stayed in.

The resort also features a pool, both indoor and outdoor. Both pools are heated, especially the outdoor one which was almost like a hot tub.

Indoor pool

There’s nothing quite as relaxing as swimming with a view of the Alps.

Outdoor pool

The hotel also has a very nice gym and spa, though I didn’t use either.

Gym

But what’s most stunning about the hotel is the location. It’s literally right on top of a mountain with amazing views of the surrounding areas. I got up early the first morning and went for a walk, and I can’t recall ever feeling as good. I’ve never breathed such fresh, clean air as in Berchtesgaden. Given that I was there in August the weather was perfect, probably high 60s or low 70s during the day, a bit cooler at night, though always with sun. It was simply the most refreshed I’ve ever felt.

Walking trail from the hotel

It’s worth noting that while the hotel charges 15 Euros for valet parking, there’s a public parking lot just a three or four minute walk down the hill that we parked at for free.

Parking near hotel

In the next installment I’ll cover Berchtesgaden, which was just amazing. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner in town both days, so didn’t make use of the restaurants in the hotel, which were obviously priced typically high for an international resort in a small European town. That being said, the InterContinental made an amazing base for exploring the area, and this is hands down my new favorite place on earth to vacation. If you haven’t been to Berchtesgaden wait for the next installment and you’ll see why!

Funny enough a blog reader visited last month after reading my brief review, and he emailed me two weeks ago saying Berchtesgaden “has to be one of the most gorgeous places on earth” and saying the InterContinental was one of his “best hotel experiences ever.”

Since Berchtesgaden is only about two hours from Munich Airport I plan on dropping by every time I’m connecting in Munich, be it just a regional connection or while enroute from the US to Asia.

Two things I have to publicly shake my head over today:

Priority Club’s website

Priority Club’s website has more or less been down for the past three days now. For the most part it won’t load at all, though at times the main page works while other pages don’t. How the hell can the hotel chain with more hotel rooms than any other have a website that’s down for three days? I was trying to book a room at the InterContinental Dubai for next week, but instead gave my business to Hyatt because I can’t book a darn hotel room!

British Airways’ award chart changes

This is what really riles me up, though. On September 1 I wrote about British Airways’ award chart “adjustments” which will kick in on November 16. On one hand kudos to them for giving some advance notice, though they said from the beginning that they won’t release the new award chart until November 16. I think we all figured they’d back down from that, but as reported on TravelSort, they’re sticking to it. It’s un-f*&$^%-believable to me that a program would have the courtesy to announce the changes in advance, but not say what the changes will be. The worst part is they won’t give a reason.

Which makes me wonder, why don’t they reveal the new chart? Is it because it’s so atrocious that they think we’ll redeem all of our miles now (I think most of us are already redeeming all our miles)? Is it because they haven’t finalized the award chart yet? If so, did they lie to use when they promised the number of miles required wouldn’t go up in 97% of cases? Does anyone at the airline have any sort of an answer?

Per Frequent Miler, Ultimate Rewards is offering 10 bonus points per dollar spent through InterContinental Hotels Group, which includes hotels like Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, and InterContinental. Ultimate Rewards is the points program for cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, which I’m sure many of you have due to the recent 50,000 point sign-up bonuses, not to mention the two points per dollar spent that the card offers on hotels and dining.

To take advantage of the promotion just go to your Ultimate Rewards home page by logging in and then click on “Earn Faster” at the top right of the page.

From there select “Travel” in the “Shop by Category” area, and then “Hotels & Accommodations.”

The next page should list the offer:

So just by booking your hotel through that link you would be earning 12 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent, in addition to the Priority Club points you would already earn.

Given that Ultimate Rewards points can be converted to British Airways,Continental, Hyatt, etc., I’d say that’s about an 18% bonus (12 points per dollar spent times 1.5 cents each), in addition to the points you earn for the stay anyway.

Priority Club has just posted their latest PointBreaks list, good for stays through September 30. Through PointBreaks, select hotels are available for only 5,000 points per night, compared to the usual 10,000-40,000 points per night.

This time around there are even five InterContinental hotels on the list, including the ones in Dallas, Malta, Santa Domingo, Bahrain, and Chongqing.

I stayed at the InterContinental Malta back in 2009 and had a great stay, and at 5,000 points per night it’s an especially good value.

If you happen to be in a city with a hotel on PointBreaks in the next couple of months, this is an amazing deal.

Earlier in the year InterContinental Hotels Group added the Palazzo and the Venetian in Las Vegas as InterContinental “Alliance” hotels. This was pretty exciting news, because it was a great way to earn Priority Club points while staying on the Strip, not to mention getting elite benefits as an Ambassador or Royal Ambassador member. For the most part they’ve been honoring the benefits, though recently they’ve added the following restrictions to Royal Ambassador benefits on their website:

Royal Ambassador Benefits:
Please be aware that all Royal Ambassador member benefits apply at these InterContinental Alliance Resorts with the exception of:
· Free Internet:  Internet is included as part of the daily resort fee of your stay at The Venetian or The Palazzo.
· Mini Bar: As a Royal Ambassador member, you will receive a $100 credit toward mini-bar beverages per stay.

For those of you that have no clue what Royal Ambassador status is, it’s InterContinental’s invitation only elite tier, and I consider it to probably be the best top tier hotel status out there. What I love about Royal Ambassador is that all the benefits they offer are guaranteed, as opposed to based on availability — 8AM check-in, 4PM check-out, room upgrade, free beverages in the minibar — leaving very little variability.

There’s no doubt that the free minibar benefit is one of the coolest gimmicks ever. The novelty of being able to take whatever you want out of the minibar, all while laughing at the price list, never wears off.

Anyway, I can certainly see why they’d want to limit the minibar benefit. There’s no doubt that a lot of people abuse the benefit and invite friends over (I’ve been guilty of it in the past). I believe the rule is that the minibar beverages are for “in-room consumption,” meaning you’re not technically violating the rules if you have friends come over, though it’s certainly not in the spirit of the benefit.

What seems especially harsh is the $100 per stay rule, as opposed to $100 per night. Usually $100 worth of drinks would sound like a lot, but I believe the half bottle of champagne in the minibar retails for about $50 per bottle. For a one night stay that’s fine, but for a week-long stay it translates to a Diet Coke or two every day (which, in fairness, is all I want!).

Anyway, it certainly doesn’t set a good precedent, though I hope it’s only because this is an “alliance” hotel, and that we don’t see this spread to other InterContinental properties…

*Gets on first-world-problems pulpit*

I love being an InterContinental Royal Ambassador. It’s quite possibly my favorite top tier status. As a Hyatt Diamond and Starwood Platinum I feel like I’m usually treated like a United 1K, while as an InterContinental Royal Ambassador I feel like I’m treated like a Global Services member. That’s not a jab at Hyatt or Starwood — the fact is, they have a lot of top tier elite members.

Maybe it’s the fact that Royal Ambassador is an “invitation only” elite tier, or maybe it’s the fact that there are fewer InterContinentals, which means there are fewer people qualifying for elite status with them.

At least that’s how they treat you. Most of the time.

My one major frustration with InterContinental is that they don’t honor elite benefits on award stays. Gary has written about this several times, including here and here. As Gary always says, “I am not my rate,” and I couldn’t agree more with that — if you’re supposedly a “guest” of a hotel brand, you should be treated based on your overall loyalty to the chain and not your value to the company on a single transaction.

This is especially true on award stays. You earned those points through your loyalty to the chain, and it’s a bit of a slap in the face to essentially say “you’re one of our most valued customers… except when you redeem points that you earned from us for your stay.” And this is probably why every other major hotel chain honors elite benefits on award stays.

But the real reason I’m making this post now is because I stumbled upon a post on FlyerTalk that couldn’t sum up the issue any better. A FlyerTalk member emailed the InterContinental Melbourne and asked whether they would honor Royal Ambassador benefits on an award stay (because some hotels do, and some don’t). Their response?

When booking on the points no benefits will apply as by using the points that is a benefit in itself.

I couldn’t have summed up the chain’s view of award redemptions any better myself…

I have a lot of Priority Club points, but I’m scared to redeem them. Some hotels honor elite benefits, but often it’s as a courtesy or “one time exception.” I don’t want the hotels to have to do me a favor by letting me use my hard earned points for stays with them. But unless they change their policy, that’s how it’ll continue to be.

*Gets off first-world-problems pulpit*