Posted by Seth on April 23, 2010 under Trip Reports | 
Most folks want oceans, mountains, lakes or other beautiful nature when looking out of their hotel rooms. I like that stuff, too, but if I’m staying at the airport hotel I’m hoping for a room with decent views of the runways. At an airport like Los Angeles International, where the airplanes coming and going are more varied that desire is even stronger. I love that I got to watch a Yangtze River Express 747 freighter land this morning as the sun was coming up and that I got to watch the sun disappear into the sea just off the end of the runways last night as planes came and went. Besides, the LAX runways have mountains (ok, hills) and ocean surrounding them so everyone wins.
A Southwest 737 prepares for takeoff with a Virgin America Airbus right behind.
A Southwest B737 just off the ground with an Air China B747, Air France B777 and Alaska Air B737 in the foreground
A B747 freighter arriving from China
Look up a bit from the horizon and you cannot even tell it is an airport.
Yeah, it may not be for everyone, but this is a room with a view that is pretty much perfect for my somewhat “different” outlook on the world. For those curious, room 1438 at the Sheraton Gateway LAX.
Posted by Seth on April 10, 2010 under Trip Reports |
In addition to a phenomenal grilled cheese sandwich at the little kiosk at the T of the Midwest terminal in Milwaukee, there are some great views of the runways. During my 3ish hour layover I mostly just sat there watching the planes come and go. In addition to a whole bunch of Embraer ERJs and E-Jets there were a few 737s to be seen. There were also a C-130 and a KC-135 tanker from the Air Force and Air National Guard base that the airport shares a runway with. A bit of glare from the sun on the windows, but overall a great plane spotting opportunity from inside the terminal.
After getting my fill of plane spotting it was over to the gate to wait for the minor delay (only an hour) and then to hop on my flight over to Minneapolis. The flight was thoroughly uneventful and I had an empty seat next to me, so plenty of room. And they had enough cookies to serve a full plane so the flight attendant was pimping out the extras to anyone willing to listen. I may have had more than one.
A short flight over to Minneapolis and then some top-notch views of the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Into downtown on the light rail and met up with a friend for dinner at The Local. I even managed to score an elite upgrade at the Westin on an ineligible rate.
Good times all around, and a solid start to the week-long adventure.
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Posted by Seth on February 22, 2010 under News |
Starwood has announced this morning that they are making a significant improvement in the benefits for their top-tier elites: free in-room internet access worldwide at Starwood hotels. Complimentary internet will be given only in the room that the Platinum elite guest is in should they have multiple rooms on one reservation and any charges incurred will be removed on check-out making it a quick and easy way to implement such a scheme. This is a quite nice benefit for those who stay enough to make that elite level, though still not enough to sway me in my theory that hotel elite status is not particularly valuable. After all, I generally stay at properties that already have free internet for everyone anyways or just tether to my BlackBerry and get the connections with no real additional costs.
More details on the promo can be found here and discussion of the promo on FlyerTalk here.
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Posted by Seth on April 17, 2009 under News |
It is very rare that a corporate espionage story makes the news and even less likely that I’d care at all. But a lawsuit filed yesterday did catch my attention. Starwood has filed suit against Hilton alleging corporate espionage and theft of trade secrets, all over Hilton’s plans to launch their new Denizen brand. The guy responsible for the new brand, Ross Klein, used to work at Starwood and now he works at Hilton. And when he left his old job he walked out the door with 8 boxes of papers, apparently contracts and market research, among other things.
I would be pretty pissed, too, if I were Starwood. After all, they’ve enjoyed a relative monopoly on the luxury/style segment with their W brand over the past many years. But does that mean it is corporate espionage that resulted in a competitor starting up a similar brand? Continental has made a huge name for itself by offering tons of transatlantic air service on 757s, planes often considered too small to serve the market. But they now offer service to twenty-something cities in Europe from their hub in Newark, mostly on 757s. And they get a LOT of business on those flights. And then the guy responsible for that plan went to work for Delta. The following summer Delta added a ton of flights to similar destinations in Europe. Corporate espionage? Or just a guy who knows what he is doing moving to a new company?
Ultimately this is likely going to come down to a boring trial with lots of testimony about the files that were taken and very little about the actual details of the brand. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun to watch.
Hudson Crossing Travel Industry Insight: Starwood sues Hilton over Denizen – "Zengate
Posted by Seth on February 20, 2009 under Uncategorized |
After a pretty strong run of loyalty program devaluations during the past year or so (I’m looking at you, Delta) there have finally been a few small changes that are benefitting the travelers. This week’s good news comes from two of my favorite programs, Continental’s OnePass and Starwood Preferred Guest.
From Continental, it is the implementation of a change that was announced a couple weeks ago at the event they hosted in Houston and a compromise on a change that they announced last summer for reward tickets. The change was particularly severe for their gold and silver elite members, where the fees jumped 3-5x from previous levels. After having their ear chewed off enough from their frequent fliers, Continental agreed to change the policy again, and the new policy went into effect yesterday. The policy is a nice compromise. It allows free changes for everyone as long as the origin and destinations do not change and the travel dates – both old and new – are 21 days out. For changes closer in to the date of travel or changes to the cities there are still fees, but this way one can make a reservation several months out on less than ideal connections/flights and refine the details as better connections or routings become available. That is a big win, particularly for non-elites, but also a nice give back to the silver and gold elites.
On the Starwood front, they announced the results of their annual award category reassignments yesterday. This happens every year and hotels are shifted around, with some becoming more expensive to redeem for and some becoming cheaper. Over the past few years the trend has been strongly in favor of the more expensive direction. Plus they added a “peak dates” surcharge, making things even worse. Well, the 2009 changes are strongly in favor of the customer. Peak date surcharges have been removed on all but three properties worldwide. Moreover, the number of hotels going down a redemption level is actually more than the number going up. That’s great news for us. Some notable changes (courtesy of ALCO):
- Cat 6 (20,000/night) —-> Cat 5 (12,000/night):
- Westin St. John, U.S.V.I.
- Cat 5 (12,000/night) —-> Cat 4 (10,000/night):
- W Montreal
- Westin Aruba
- Westin Dawn Beach, St. Maarten
- US Grant, San Diego
- W San Diego
- Westin Riverfront, Avon, Colorado
- W Atlanta Buckhead
- Sheraton Kauai
- W Lakeshore Chicago
- Westin Michigan Avenue, Chicago
- Hotel Ivy, Minneapolis
- W Minneapolis
- Le Meridien Vienna
- Westin Dublin
- W Seoul Walkerhill
- Cat 4 (10,000/night) —-> Cat 3 (7,000/night):
- Westin Fiji
- Westin Chosun Busan
- Sheraton Fota Island Resort & Spa, Cork, Ireland
- Sheraton Austin
- Le Meridien Lingotto, Turin, Italy
- Sheraton Bilbao
- Four Points Darling Harbour, Sydney
So this is some happy news to head in to the weekend with. It is about time.
Posted by Seth on October 23, 2008 under Uncategorized |
It was only a matter of time before Marriott made this move to stay competitive in the frequent stay program space. Starwood has had a no blackout dates policy for a long time now (though some hotels do manipulate room types to limit availability), and Hilton recently changed their program to expand that option to all their members; it previously was reserved for their Diamond (top) level group. Now Marriott has joined the crowd, removing their StayAnytime reward product and removing the blackout dates from their program.
Of course they are spinning this as a great benefit to their members. And, of course, it is an it isn’t. They have added a new Category 8 reward level. Stays at those properties will now be 40K points/night, up from the previous max of 35K points/night at a Category 7 property. The hotels that will be classified as Category 8 are:
- Paris Marriott Hotel Champs Elysees
- Renaissance Paris Vendome
- JW Marriott Capri Tiberio Palace Resort & Spa
- Rome Marriott Grand Hotel Flora
- London Marriott Hotel County Hall
- London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square
- London Marriott Hotel Marble Arch
- London Marriott Hotel Park Lane
- Le Merigot, A JW Marriott Beach Hotel & Spa, Santa Monica
- Renaissance Chancery Court London
- New York Marriott East Side
- New York Marriott Marquis
- Renaissance New York Hotel Times Square
- South Beach Marriott Hotel
In addition, multi-night stays are getting a bit of a change. The current program offers a sliding scale, where the per-night rate is reduced the longer you stay at the same place. The new program will offer a 5th night free approach; shorter stays will no longer receive a discounted rate per night. This is actually beneficial for folks who were planning on a five night stay in a hotel in categories 1-5. For the category 6-8 hotels the five night price actually goes up in the new program. And for 2-4 night stays the cost goes up across the board.
Also, they are increasing the bonus earned by their Platinum members to 50% from 30%, a much needed increase to remain competitive.
All changes are effective as of January 15, 2009; rooms cannot be booked using the new levels until that time.
This is certainly one of those changes where the value will be measured very much individually based on travel habits. It would definitely be bad for me as I rarely have a five night stay anywhere. But for folks who like that approach to travel it might not be so bad.
