Priority Club Pointsbreak is arguably one of the best hotel award promotions. One can redeem reward nights at various Priority Club (PC) properties throughout the world for just 5000 PC points ( worth ~$30).
The Pointsbreak list is normally updated every 2 months or so and is valid for the next 2 months. The last time the list was updated, was on Feb 28, 2011. However the new list is has been published today and it is valid only till May 15!
Incidentally, PC announced significant changes to their program last month. …

I wrote earlier that Hyatt Points are valued at least 1.3cents/pt. Discover America is back with its annual getaway and present a chance to buy Hyatt points at less than 1cent/pt.
 

The Hyatt point purchase deals on April 15 are as follows
24,000 Hyatt points for $250, ~1 cent/pt
30,000 Hyatt points for $333. ~1.1 cent/pt
36,000 Hyatt points for $415, ~1.1cent/pt
69,000 Hyatt points for $778, ~1.1 cent/pt

The deal becomes sweeter if you have an Amex card as purchases with Amex card are given a 10% discount on the aforestated price.
Note …

Hilton has announced their promotionfor 2011-Q2: from April 1 to Jun 30, 2011. Registering for the promotion basically gives you 1000 bonus points per night. It is nothing to be really excited about. Hilton’s lowest category hotel redemption starts at 7500 points per night. So even a category 1 redemption would require at least 8 nights. And a top notch Hilton hotel for 50K points would require 50 nights! Valuing HHonors points at $6 per 1000 points, this promotion is essentially worth $6 per night.

Of the other hotel chains only …

Booking complex award itineraries, made up of multiple cities and multiple connecting flights can be very painful. I just booked such a trip myself. When I started out I had no idea how cumbersome and time consuming it would be. I really thought I had it easy. After all, I had enough miles on all three Airline Alliances to redeem for the award trip. So I thought I would have multiple options to choose from. Instead it turned out to be a major time drain and resulted in a complex …

When does a Mileage or another Loyalty program make cost effective sense for you? When do you become a ‘Mileage addict’? As I have written all the posts that I have on Airline Miles, I have often wondered that myself. I wrote an article earlier this year as a part of my Economics of Airline Miles series titled Is Earning Miles really worth it? When does it not become worth it?
I just read this excellent article on CNN.com by Christopher Elliott titled – Confessions of a frequent flier skeptic. He …

The Win a Trip for Two to Australia’s Gold Coast contest generated tremendous interest. As I was getting all the entires in on my blog (I approved each and every one after reading them), I was just amazed by the vast range tips and experiences my readers shared in their comments. While the winner was selected using a random number generated on random.org, I decided to bring to the attention of my readers some of the most unique comments I got. I of course do not expect anyone else to …

In continuation to my ever popular post on 10 Reasons why Starwood is the Best Loyalty Program, here are 10 more reasons:

Ability to book Airline Award tickets even when award inventory is not available. Airlines treat tickets booked via Starwood as revenue tickets and not award tickets.
Earn airline miles on award tickets booked via Starwood. As I mentioned above, airlines treat these as regular revenue tickets.
Ability to book one-way airline award tickets.
They did not raise their redemption rates like Hilton did in 2010!

Award hotel stays are actually free! There are …

Why do I have to pay for my ‘Free’ Award Ticket?
One unique feature about the Free awards airlines give is that they are not really ‘Free’. While Hotels give absolutely free stays when they give awards, airlines charge you when redeeming Airline Miles.

The cost of redeeming miles should be taken into consideration when one is planning to redeem miles for free awards.
Here are a few:
Taxes:
Yes, Uncle Sam and all the other uncles, aunts and second cousins twice removed, who represent governments all around the world; want their cut when you …

Starwood Preferred Guest or SPG for short is the Loyalty Program offered by the Starwood group of hotels. It is consistently voted as the Best Loyalty program in the market by business travelers.
It is also my personal favorite. Here are 10 reasons why:

Starwood hotels have a very extensive network of hotels all over the world. More importantly, they have hotels in a broad spectrum of price points. Their hotels include well known names like – Sheraton, Westin, W (no connection to a well known ex-president) and the hip aloft.
Very aggressive …