Place of Travel Deals, Frequent Flyer/Guest Programs
Detail is here, in summary
1 Valid on UA or UX only
2 half of RT miles
3 Stopover is NOT allowed
4 backtracking is NOT allowed
5 Award from PEK-SIN/TPE/BKK are NOT allowed in one award as considered Backtracking
The detail is still unknown, but from what I already knew is
one ways requires half of RT, and valid on United/United Express flight only.
Oh man!, it is disgusting!!
check the list
Even youth hostels are much better than those hotels
Gary posted a Reader email about “What are delta miles still good for”,
other than what’s already mentioned in the article, I added in comment section “Delta Award miles allows one open jaw and one stopover on any award tickets, even within Asia. I was able to price LAX-CDG-PRG(stopover)-CDG-SEZ(destination)//CPT-AMS-LAX all in Business for120,000 each and bookable online on Delta.com”
Another reader asked how did I make it happen, I am now writing a detailed instruction, hope to clarify some questions. In order to book above award, you need to do following:
1 sign up an account with Expert Flyers, a paid award inventory search site, $9.99 per month with 5 days free trial. Then use EF to search award inventory on AF from LAX-PRG, once u find ur date, write down flight number and time then plug LAX-PRG into Delta.com award multi city search segment 1.
2 use EF to search award inventory on AF from PRG-SEZ, after u find date, write down flight number and time then plug PRG-SEZ into Delta.com award multi city search segment 2.(Note: flight from CDG-SEZ is AF code, operated by Air Seychelles, but bookable on delta.com)
3 sign up account with Air France, then search award flight from CPT-AMS on KLM, AF website offers calendar search function. after u find seat, write down flight number and time, DON’T plug into Delta.com award multi city search segment 3 yet.
4 also use AF site to search award seat from AMS-LAX on KLM one day after ur CPT-AMS departure date due to time different or two days after, no more than 2 days! After u find seat, write down flight number and time, plug entire CPT-LAX into Delta.com award multi city search segment 3. you will see seats show up, sometimes even with long layover, but still consider as connection.
5 click search, select all flights u write down, price it, you will see 120,000 miles total in business class.
The reason I ask you to do exactly above because
1 Delta website doesn’t show or incorrectly shows AF inventory using Round Trip search
2 AF site doesn’t show award seats for CDG-SEZ since it’s operated by Air Seychelles.
3 without EF, Delta site shows award seats from CDG-SEZ(and all other locations from Europe to Africa) only if BOTH direction available, so if ur outbound is available, return is not, delta website will not show anything for both directions
4 AF site doesn’t show award from CPT-LAX directly, has to break into one by one.
5 NWA site doesn’t support KL flight from Africa to Europe on calendar.
One more to add:If you just want a simple trip, AF site maybe enough, but delta site may not show, call NWA Singapore or China to book! People are nice and no phone booking fee
with above instruction, you can do it for many others destinations such as stopover in AMS, then go to MRU, return from JNB. or stopover in CDG, then go to MRU, return or TNR, CPT, JNB. However, there is one trip you can not book on delta.com, which is open jaw return from SEZ. You can open jaw to SEZ, just not return, I guess it’s a technical problem with delta.com. well, they have too many technical problems anyway!
Now, let me explain a little bit more using website to book Intra Asia stopover+ open jaw. This time is using nwa.com(don’t know how much longer)
1 use nwa.com china or japan english site because nwa asia site still shows seat for KE and CZ.
2 select multi city award search and plug in flight one by one.
3 select flight u want, price it, you will see 20000 econ/40000 business if routing is permitted.
4 for intra Asia flight, DON’T use Delta website(even all on NW) or Delta call center to book. Delta still charges fuel surcharge for flight on CZ, but no such charge on NWA.com.
5 If you have to call, call NWA China or Singapore(both Singapore call center), they don’t charge phone ticketing fees
I hope I have made clear enough to save u guys some delta miles.
I just got this email from Hyatt Regency Mission Bay, you will earn 5000 bonus points until June 30,2010, with promotion code 5000GP, the rate is $159 per night
In addition to this 5000 bonus rate, you can also add a G2 bonus code for stay after March 1st or G3 code before March 1st by calling hyatt CSR after the reservation. Not a bad deal for one night.
United is offering 20% off for saver award to Hawaii, 32000 miles after discount(YES!, 32000 AFTER DISCOUNT, 40000 before discount)
Personally, using miles to Hawaii is the biggest waste of miles.
There are five Hacienda hotels operated by Starwood under Luxury Collection Brand. Hacienda San Jose is the closest one to Cancun, Hacienda Temozon is the largest one with 28 rooms and Santa Rosa is the smallest among them with only 11 rooms. The building was built in Mid 1800 and changed various owner before it was abandoned. Then Roberto Hernandez-a Mexican billionaire bought numbers of them changed some of them to hotels.
Before
After “Hotel Lobby”
Before
After
Before
After”Swimming Pool”
How to get there: The hotel is located in local Santa Rosa Village, 360 km from Cancun or 80km south of Merida. Drive from Cancun is easy, the hotel website posts detailed driving direction. Just make sure get full tank of gas before getting on freeway, only 1 Gas service station on Cancun-Merida Express toll road. The toll is almost $30 USD per way!
Check in was fast and easy considered the size of the hotel and was offered a welcome drink.
lobby main building
Room: I booked the hotel in last minutes, so only double bed room left and hotel was fully booked, but the Manager was able to change us to a King size Suite after first two nights. Our first double room was located in side Heritage building and had Plunge pool in the back shared with Room 9 and 10.
Then Our king Bed suite Room 10
Internet/Business center: Free and fast and covers all rooms in hotel
Pool: The hotel has two small pools with no heater, it was cold.
Restaurant: The hotel has one restaurant located on back of main building. The food is good and reasonable priced. However, Lunch and dinner are same menu and selections are not so great. Also, except in house manager and assistant manager in training, everyone else is from local Santa Rosa village, so there may be some communication barriers. I always ordered 2 eggs one boiled and another double side fried. They either made two boiled, or sunny side up, but they made right after I pointed out. There were no set time for Breakfast, I woke up around 1:00 pm, they still prepared BF for us. The house made bread was soooooooooo good!
More About this Hotel: The hotel employees are very friendly and try to accommodate you in every possible way. We arrived on Dec 31st, the entire hotel had a new year eve celebration program starting from 8:30 pm and 5 course dinner from 9:30pm for only $80 USD per person, but after long drive, my wife and I were very tired and could not wait until 9:30 pm for dinner, we decided to eat dinner in our backyard. They had no problem with that despite the kitchen was busy for everyone else.
Getting Around: there are several similar size village around that area with abandoned Hacientas in each village. Plenty things to do to keep you busy, you can go to Celeston to see Flamingo, go to Uxmal Mayan Ruin or Chichen Itza(closer from Santa Rosa than from Cancun). If you want to explor a Cave, there is one 4km long dark cave located not far from hotel.
Personally, I like the hotel a lot and will definite visit other Haciendas next time. If you want to see real Maya and mexico, this is the place to go, not Cancun.
local village shop
local residence
abandoned Haciendas in nearby Village
I don’t have link, it seems like the promotion is for stay until Feb 28th,2010
The rates are Cheap such as St.Regis beijing ￥975 weekday, ￥750 during Chinese new year week.
Check yourself!
If you ask me this question one year ago, I would say Starwood Program, but during the past year, Hyatt improved their programs by offering free internet to all Elites and confirmed suite upgrade for 4 times per year for Diamond member in addition to club level upgrade. At the same time, SPG elite treatments declined severely in North America,member didn’t get Suite upgrade even they have suite available.
The only down side is Hyatt has few properties than Starwwod, especially international location and Spg elite treatments at international location declined not as bad as North America.
My personally advice is, if you can, get top elite status in both program and use Hyatt for domestic and SPG for international with no hyatt hotels.
Promotion is here, third night free or forth night free for Resorts.
If you are not member of their Select Guest program, you should sign up one, so you can earn miles and they offer free internet for all members.
Link is here, should active anytime today or tomorrow. If you are EXP with 125,000EQMs, you selected two from following
However, people have found out that you can select same award twice, which means 2 EVIP upgrades+2 more EVIP upgrades.
I am having hard time to make choice now, I already have 8 UA and 8 AA, with 4 more, I will have 12 EVIPs + my friend owe me one, so total 13!
