View from the Wing

Nicholas Kralev covered the Priority Club Luckiest Loser campaign this week.

In the promo, Priority Club — which naturaly has had its own devaluations — calls out Hilton for the magnitude of theirs. And as I’ve noted before, it’s an especially deep devaluation at a time when hotel occupancy and room rates are suffering in unprecedented ways making the chnages uniquely egregious and difficult to justify.

Kralev quotes Steve Sickel, who’s in charge of the Priority Club program:

“In my 17 years in the loyalty business — first at Continental Airlines and now at InterContinental — I’ve never seen such a drastic devaluation,”

Hilton downplays the changes:

Hilton also sent me some numbers that surprised me. Of nearly 3,500 hotels around the world, only 354 were assigned a higher category in January, and 547 actually decreased while the rest remained the same.

This is more than disingenuous. As Loyalty Traveler notes after crunching the numbers,

Approximately 82% of Hilton Worldwide hotels, around 2,900 hotels, require more HHonors points for a free night after the January 15, 2010 changes.

All programs devalue. I laid out the reasons why back in 2004. Miles and points are proprietary currencies with no central bank or currency board. With fixed quantities of product to redeem for, and increasing outstanding points, there have to be either shortages or price increases. Programs, especially during economic tough times, inflate — the print more points to incentivize incremental travel and revenue and then when times get better they raise points requirements. There’s a certain Lucy, Linus, and the football element to it.

The uniquely irksome thing about the Hilton changes, though, is that they’re being made during the challenging times for hotels, so members have a difficult time understanding it, and Steve Sickel has a real opening to shout them down. But indeed, as Hilton observes in the Kralev piece, pot/kettle/black.

Most of the very best rewards cards are American Express products. Take just a few examples:

Unsurprising that the most rewarding cards are frequently from Amex, since merchants pay higher fees and as a result there’s more money availablef or American Express to spend on awards.

One of the more frequent questoins that I get is, ok, so I get an American Express card. I make it my primary credit card. But what do I do with those merchants I can’t use an Amex at?

For me, my primary Visa/Mastercard choice is Diners Club. It has a flexible points program and still offers primary rental car collision insurance coverage. But you can’t currently apply for a Diners Club in the U.S. though I’m hopeful that will change with the recent sale of the brand by Citibank to the Bank of Montreal.

For many readers, the primary Visa/Mastercard product is the Biritsh Airways Visa from Chase. There was a 100,000 mile signup bonus (it required $2000 in spend for the second 50,000 miles) and plenty of folks are striving for $30,000 in spend to generate a free companion award ticket. That’s a great offer, and one worth considering if you’re going to put $30,000 on the card in a calendar year and you’re willing to pay the British Airways taxes and fees on an award.

Other than that… I’ve been more or less at a loss, and for lack of better options have tended to suggest the Citibank American Airlines co-branded Mastercard, because at least those American miles accrue towards lifetime status.

But now there’s a new product to consider. Reader Mordy noted in response to my discussion of Asiana Club in the last post that the Bank of America-issued Asiana American Express is now being issued as a Visa.

So the Asiana Visa from Bank of America is a real consideration. It earns 2 miles per dollar on all spend. And iwth their disance-based chart, an award traveling less than 10,000 total miles costs 80,000 miles in business class. That gets you from the US East Coast to much of Europe. And takes only $40,000 in spend to get there (compared to $105,000 in spend with the United Visa or Continental Mastercard, or $100,000 in spend with the US Airways Mastercard). Plus you get two stopovers in each direction (yes, 4 total) for a total of 5 destinations on an award.

See also this previous discussion of Asiana club and the co-branded credit card from Bank of America. There are some interesting ways to use this program for Star Alliance upgrades, as well.

Update: When you go to this site for the Asiana Visa it says you only earn 1 mile per dollar. Navigating through a side-door via Google I had stumbled on a page showing it offering 2 miles per dollar, but this now appears unrealiable. Mordy points out in the comments that the Asiana American Express from Bank of America is still listed on the Asiana website and can still be applied for even though it’s no longer apparent from the main Bank of American website.

Most travelers participate heavily in the frequent flyer program attached to the airline they fly the most, and that’s it. And for the most part that makes sense. First, because you want to earn enough miles for an award ticket before spreading yourself thin elsewhere. Second, because it’s the easiest thing to understand. And third, because if you’re flying enough to earn elite status the benefits of that status (upgrades!) are usually strongest with the airline connect to that program.

But not everyone flies enough to earn status on their home program. Sometimes other partner programs with lower qualification thresholds would allow someone to earn status, when they wouldn’t crediting miles to the program of the airline they fly. [In one example, say you're based in Los Angeles and fly both American and Delta a lot but don't make status -- if you could combine the flying in a single program for status you might earn status. Enter Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, which partners with both Delta and American.]

And sometimes the benefits of another program are just too compelling.

If you are a 50,000 mile flyer with US Airways, Continental, or United you earn mid-tier status with those programs. And while you might get upgrades (and with Continental and United status flying on United, access to Economy Plus seats. Technically this benefit is a few months away for Continental elites, but it’s coming).

But you don’t get lounge access when traveling domestically. On the other hand, partner Star Alliance Gold members have access to lounges — including Continental, United, and US Airways lounges — when flying purely domestic itineraries in the United States.

And the award charts of some of those partners can be quite attractive. Especially compared to United, who has a nasty habit of blocking its members from redeeming for awards actually being offered by its partners.

While plenty of readers have heard me sing the praises of the bmi Diamond Club — with its reasonable elite status requalification levels (it takes 55,000 miles to earn Gold the first year, but just 38,000 to requalify), its generous bonuses for paid premium class tickets, and its cash and points award chart that leverages the miles you have, I haven’t often taken a close look at some of the other hidden values in the Star Alliance partnership. (I also like bmi for double-dipping with Hilton, since you earn 1000 miles per night up to 3000 miles.)

So I will briefly focus on three different Star Alliance partner airlines:

Air Canada Aeroplan requires only 35,000 flown miles for Star Alliance Gold status. While Air Canada itself has some fares that do not earn full qualifying miles, if you credit your United, Continental or US Airways flights to Air Canada all paid fares earn full qualifying mileage.

Aeroplan is an American Express transfer partner, and points post from Amex to Aeroplan instantly. There are some amazing awards, like first class from the US to South Asia for 120,000 miles (as far south as Singapre — Malaysia and Indonesia are more expensive). And their routing rules are exceptionally generous: routings from the US to Australia via Asia (not permitted by United), no additional miles to cross the Atlantic on awards between the US and Asia, in fact those awards let you route via the Atlantic one way and the Pacific the other. And they permit two stopovers in addition to destination on an international award (United, US Airways, and Continental only permit one).

Downside is that you have to have at least one transaction every 12 months to extend the validity of your account, and miles expire after 7 years regardless of activity level. There’s no way to extend. For me not a big deal, I use my miles. But you can’t just let them sit with Aeroplan forever.

I explained in some detail in December, 2008 why Aeroplan is one of my favorite frequent flyer programs.

Turkish Miles & Smiles requires 40,000 miles in 12 months to make Star Alliance Gold. That status is valid for 2 years. And — as long as you don’t reside in Turkey — requalifying only takes 25.000 status miles in the first year or 37.500 status miles over two years. (Note that while all United and Continental paid fares earn 100% flown miles for qualification, not all other partners’ discounted fares do — including US Airways.)

While some awards, especially first class awards, tend to be expensive there are also some amazing award values. Take for instance: Business class from North America to Israel and the Middle East is 90,000 miles (compare to 120,000 with US Airways). Business class between North America and India is 100,000 miles (compare to 120,000 miles with Continental).

You can top off your Turkish account with mileage transfers from Hyatt, you can double dip with Hilton, and credit your Avis, Budget, or Hertz rentals with them.

Asiana Club is great for earning Star Alliance Gold status and great for credit card spend.

Star Gold is earned after flying 40,000 qualifying miles within two years, and status lasts for two years. If you earn the status quickly enough, it can actually last for a full four years before dropping down and having to requalify again. Not all fares earn full mileage, however.

Since they have a distance-based award chart, award routings really aren’t an issue. You’re permitted four stopovers (two in each direction) in addition to your destination.

Awards can pricey for greater distance travel in premium classes, but flights totaling 10,000 miles or less are 80,000 miles in business class. That covers much of the East Coast of the US to Near Europe. (Compare to 100,000 miles with US Airways or 105,000 with Continental and United.)

And Asiana miles are exceptionally easy to earn for residents of the U.S.: the Bank of America-issued Asiana American Express earns two miles per dollar spent on all purchases (Update: Commenter Mordy points out that Bank of America now issues this card as a Visa!). That means an award ticket to Europe in business class for $40,000 in spend, compared to $105,000 in spend with the United Visa.

Like Air Canada Aeroplan, Asiana miles expire after 7 years (5 years if you aren’t elite). So you use ‘em or lose ‘em, this isn’t a program in which to save for retirement.

I described the hidden value of Asiana Club in greater detail back in July.

Playing with partners isnt’ for everyone, but if your reward goals match their award charts, or your travel patterns mean you could earn a higher level of status with them than with your ‘home’ carrier, they’re something to consider.

Carrier.co.uk has a honeymoon offer at the Intercontinental Hong Kong of a complimentary upgrade to a Superior Suite on regular room booking.

United one-way awards are bookable on-line only, not by phone.

You can’t hold awards at united.com.

Hence, you cannot put one-way awards on hold.

If you don’t have enough miles in your account, you can buy miles.

But mileage purchases can take up to 48 hours to post.  (Why can other airlines do this instantly??)

Normally not a big deal.  While you normally need miles in your account with United to put an award on hold, you can put a United-only award on hold pending posting of purchased miles.  (The requirement for miles in your account to hold an award is not one imposed by American and US Airways.  And Continental only lets you put awards on hold when you don’t have enough miles in your account.)

But since you cannot put a one-way award on hold, and you have to wait up to 2 days for purchased miles to post, you’re forced to risk an award disappearing while you wait.  And wait.  And wait.

Via the Flying Pinto.

Avis is offering a progessively increasing Lufthansa Miles & More bonus for each rental, including one-day rentals. (Hat tip to Marty.)

As a base member of Miles & More, Avis will reward you with:

- 1.000 Miles for your second rental
- 1.500 Miles for your third rental
- 2.000 Miles for your 4^th to 6^th rental
- 2.500 Miles for your 7^th to 10^th rental
- 3.000 Miles starting with your 11^th rental

In addition, MIles & More elite members do even better — Frequent Traveller and Senators earn 1000 miles with their first rental, not just their second, and HON Circle members “receive double miles on the base promotion.”

You can book here to prepopulate the reservation with the corresponding Avis Discount number for the promotion based on your status (or lack thereof), or provide the discount number listed on the offer page.

I haven’t vetted the rates that pop up with these discount numbers, but at first blush this is the best milage offer out there for folks making many one-day rentals.

For 2 day rentals, I like the offer of 2010 Delta miles that runs through end of February.

And for 3 day rentals, I like the offer of 3000 US AIrways miles that runs through March, 2011.

Fresno is something of a hotel wasteland. There’s a Marriott Courtyard, a couple of Holiday Inns, the local Picadilly chain (which years ago was about as nice as it got), a Radisson, a couple of La Quintas, and a well-placed Hampton. Supposedly there’s a Hyatt Place coming.

Not a lot as far as full service properties go.

And with a penchant for Starwood properties, I wind up at the Four Points. I wish it was further North, it is it’s on Blackstone (a main drag, across the street from a mall that’s been surpassed many times over and that’s fairly dead, and near a Starbucks and the 41 freeway) about 10 minutes from the airport. The neighborhood isn’t the best in Fresno, I lived there at one point in Northwest and this isn’t Northwest. Not Northeast either. But I never felt uncomfortable in the area, and hotel keycards are necessary in order to get into the inside corridors of the buildings.

The rates here are often great, when I stayed a base-level room was going for just shy of $100. It’s a category 2 property, so free nights are 4000 points during the week (I’d just assume pay cash!) and 3000 during the weekend. Of course, Starwood has introduced cash and points awards for category 1 and 2 properties, during the week that’s a pretty good deal especially.

The hotel is laid out in several separate two-story buildings. There’s no elevator, but for a single flight of stairs this isn’t a problem. The grounds themselves are nice enough but the old concrete buildings don’t give off a high-end impression from the outside. Ground floor rooms facing the courtyard have sliding glass doors. All things equal I’d probably take a second floor room for a greater feeling of security.

Still, this is a very nicely renovated Four Points. Flat panel TVs, Four Comfort Beds, curved shower heads with the Bliss Shine products, and a free bottle of water as well as in-room refrigerators.

After some confusion at checkin on my last stay, arriving late at night during Fresno State graduation weekend and being given a lesser room than I had booked (all that was available, I booked late and online inventory didn’t match actual inventory properly), this time I was given a suite which was really two adjoining hotel rooms opened up with one of the bedrooms turned into a big living room and therefore the suite had two full bathrooms.

The lobby area has been nicely renovated with a sitting area, coffee station, and one computer with internet. When an older couple was monopolizing the machine and I needed to print out my boarding passes, a staff member invited me to use her checkin computer behind the desk. Very thoughtful of her!

I’ve never checked out the pool, though the website highlights the cabana-style tents beside the pool which look nice in the photos. The fitness room is small but perfectly serviceable.

Most importantly, platinum treatment is excellent. Platinums are given coupons for free breakfast and also free cocktails in the on-property restaurant, benefits not required by the Starwood Preferred Guest program. The breakfast buffet is modest but better than offered in many domestic lounges, eggs, breakfast meat, potatoes, waffles, toast, biscuits and gravy, yogurt, cereal and fruit offered in a proper restaurant with a waiter bringing coffee, etc.

Given the dearth of properties in Fresno, this one is my choice. Location isn’t ideal, but the renovation is nice, the staff are friendly, and they treat elites very well.

A couple of days ago I posted that I’m going to be giving away a free Hilton hotel night.

The only thing I’m waiting for is to decide how to do it.

In the comments to that thread some folks commented stuff lke

make it one entry per reader or such. not much fun for those who can enter 50000000 times.

When I gave away a travel power strip there were over 670 entries, many many from the same people. I was fine with that, but appears it didn’t play well with some of you (presumably the people who didn’t enter 100 times!).

At the same time, I gotta tell you, the easiest way for me to do a giveaway is to have each comment be a separate entry, with no limit on the number of times any given person can enter. Then I run a random number generator and pick the comment niumber that corresponds to the ensuing generated number. I’m looking to keep it easy for myself, while giving away travel items to you.

If I limit entries, I have to police who comments multiple times. Or create accounts. And de-dupe against folks using multiple email addresses. And it becomes even more unfair when I can’t do that — anyone with their own server can enter as many times as they want, generating unique email addresses for each entry (or do Imake it one entry per domain name?), while anyone without their own server can only enter one or maybe three or four times, limited by the number of email addresses you have. So limiting entries is a bit less fair in some sense, than opening it up to anyone to enter as often as they’d like.

So the bleg for this post is: how should I run this contest and select winners, offer me some ideas, while keeping in mind that I’m not a computer programmer and don’t want to make a huge investment in an apparatus or Rube Goldberg scheme to run this, I just want to offer a free hotel night to one of you (thanks to Hilton and to Boarding Area).

Let me know your thoughts and suggestions!

Via Marginal Revolution, Crooked Timber on RyanAir: Shafting Your Customer As a Reputational Strategy. They’re proud to be awful!

Ridiculously Extraordinary writes about being inspired by my post about little white lies I tell airline agents when booking awards to get American Airlines to release a domestic flight in advance of an international award segment.

Now, the author originally wanted something that isn’t possible:

So while I was booking my flight to India a couple of months ago I settled on flying American Airlines / British Airways. I wanted to fly Cathay Pacific, but didn’t know how to get the person I was speaking to at AAdvantage to give me the CP ticket. She told me only the AA/BA flights were available. I knew that wasn’t true, but I didn’t know enough to get around it.

On an American Airlines partner award you need to route from the US to India via the Atlantic. It’s only on a oneworld award (which also requires two partners that aren’t American) that you can pick your own routing. So unless you book a oneworld award, I don’t believe Cathay Pacific is an option from the US to India.

But success came in cutting down a Chicago layover, asking American to open up seats on a flight that wasn’t showing standard awards as available.

And this reminds me of one of the nice things about American. I’m a lifetime AAdvantage Gold, but certainly not an Executive Platinum (sitting around 1.8 million miles earned lifetime, closing in on Platinum). So I don’t have real juice with the airline.

But a year or so back I booked an award where I wanted to fly DCA-JFK in order to connect to an international premium cabin segment departing JFK. The DCA-JFK flight was unavailable. The rep put me on hold for a little bit, and Inventory Management released the seats on the short domestic hop for me so I wouldn’t have to fly up to New York the night before.

And I was much appreciative.

Kudos where they’re do, and what a contrast to Hilton’s January points devaluation.

Loyalty Traveler lays out the significant point reductions that Goldpoints Plus is requriing for free nights at their top-end hotels:

The cost for a free night reward in the top three categories of their six hotel reward tiers has dropped. Over 300 hotels at the top of the Carlson hotel chain require fewer points for free night rewards.

The highest Gold Points Plus category-6 rewards were 90,000 points for a free night and are now only 60,000 points. In addition to lowering points at the high end categories, the program has eliminated FlexNights which were a 50% premium for peak demand rewards.

To repeat: Top tier hotels have dropped from as high as 135,000 points for one free night to 60,000 points for a free night. This is certainly a move in the right direction for loyalty travelers. All you Hilton HHonors people looking for loyalty love may want to check out what Carlson Hotels and Gold Points Plus offer.

I haven’t paid much attention to Goldpoints in years. They were great for signing up under the hotel program, then using the shopping portal in December, 2001 to purchase magazines through Valumags, and transferring the miles earned out to one of many different frequent flyer programs. Well, the December 2001 holiday promo is long past, they since doubled the points required to transfer to airlines miles, shut down the mileage mall, and severed ties with TGI Fridays. (Yes, Goldpoints served as a dual loyalty program for TGI Fridays and Radisson hotels, although the benefits differed slightly, Radisson then further differentiated by rebranding as Goldpoints Plus and now that’s all that’s left.)

Goldpoints has an offer for free silver status, and at least in Europe, Middle East, and Africa they really get the concept of loyalty — all elite members are welcome at their hotels, any time, for use of free wireless and a couple complimentary cups of coffee or hot chocolate.

Now, on the whole I don’t have much interest in Radisson, Park Place, or Country Inns and Suites. But I have to give real props to a program that’s increasing the value of its points and doing more to benefit members.

Expedia is offering $10 off per night on “Expedia Special Rate” hotel rates (minimum 2-night stay) with promo code 10WINTER. Book by April 30 for travel through May 31.

Not enough of a discount to make it worth my booking with Expedia (even as an “Expedia Elite”) when I won’t get elite benefits or stay credit with Starwood, Hilton, etc.

At least Marriott provides elite benefits on stays booked from any source (including Priceline). In fact, last weekend I spent a night at the Renaissance Boca Raton, Pricelined for $96 (web rate was $229). I got an upgraded to club level (last time I Pricelined there I had an executive suite), access to the closed club lounge (raid the refrigerator for bottled water), and coupons for full breakfast buffet (due to closed lounge). I’ve blogged about this hotel on a couple of my past half dozen stays here (e.g. here, and sorry that the photos are no longer displaying). They’ve always been exceptionally friendly, the pool area is very nice for a city hotel, and it’s well located for me.

The 3000 US AIrways mile bonus for 3-day Avis rentals that’s targeted to US Airways elite members doesn’t seem to be restricted to elite members.

For a rental a week and a half back, I had the following activity post to my US Airways account today:

AVIS 2010 PREF. MEMBER 3000 MILE BONUS

I am not a US Airways elite member.

Oh, and in addition to the 3000 bonus miles I received 150 miles (50 per day x 3 days).

This Flyertalk thread notes a bonus to celebrate bmi becoming a new partner with Wyndham Rewards: 5000 bmi miles per stay through February 28.

The bonus can be earned a maximum of 4 times, doesn’t require registration, just choose bmi miles as your earning preference and provide your Diamond Club number.

I guess I’ll be scouring the area for a cheap Knights Inn or HoJo’s that I can check in and out of four times this month for 20,000 miles…

Update: From the comments, beaubo notes that bmi now allows household accounts, so “that 20K up to 6 people, amplifying to 120K BD which is a US-Asia Business Class roundtrip with no co-pay!!!”

A 10-year old kid smacks down Anthony Bourdain for his ‘rough life’ flying first class and eating good food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVQk5NlGEBs

It’s a funny clip, especially around 50 seconds in after Bourdain patronizes the kid. Sometimes the commenters on this blog do this to me…

(HT: Marginal Revolution)

This afternoon I received my renewal email for Expedia’s Elite Plus program. I’m not sure plus what, exactly.

They offer a dedicated phone line where you don’t have to wait on hold for interminable amounts of time, and they waive their own imposed change fees (that you wouldn’t have had to pay if you’d book your travel through the airline or hotel directly anyway). At least this fee waiver used to be part of the program, I can’t seem to find it on the website any longer. And I haven’t found their ‘elite’ customer service to be better, just faster to pick up the phone.

Beyond that they give you “early access to sales” and “exclusive offers.” I think I’ve been in this program as long as it’s existed, and had some sort of VIP status with them long before that, and I’ve never gotten early access to sales or exclusive offers that were actually valuable. Perhaps this just means that I’m marketed to more or that my marketing emails go out early in the automated queue?

When the “Elite Plus” program was first introduced in fall 2007, it included a complimentary subscription to Mileage Manager, which would now be quite worthwhile since Mileage Manager has introduced an online award search tool that will perform searches repeatedly overnight and email you when availability has changed for an award. (It’s limited to awards searchable on major US program websites, but still quite useful.)

Sadly, there really are no more ‘value adds’ to the program.

Qualifying takes 15 hotel nights booked through Expedia, or $10,000 in spend. I easily make it under the latter criteria, since I frequently use Expedia when booking travel for others — I like the user interface, it stores data including frequent flyer numbers on lots of folks, is pretty decent for combining mutiple airlines (Orbitz is probably better but I hate their checkout process). And most importantly, until recently they offered 1% cashback (sometimes as much as 2.4%) via Fatwallet — I wound up a Fatwallet Cashback VIP member as well. Hah. Fatwallet moved to offering $3 fixed per airline ticket, so I moved to eBates (if you join via my referral link and make a $20 purchase from an online partner, we both pick up a bonus $5, though you can probably get the bonus without using my link as wel). They still offer 1% cash back on airfare purchases made through Expedia.

I assume I’m still an OrbitzVIP but I’m actually not sure.  Their offerings were similar, a priority phone number and getting extra marketing sent to you in the guise of “special offers for our best customers.” As I dig into it, it appears that the Priority Access program still exists, but I cannot tell if I’m still a member. Perhaps not! I was a year and a half ago when they first rolled it out. (But they do publish the 800# on that page, so perhaps anyone can get their calls answered more quickly by Orbitz?)

I seem to recall that Travelocity had a program that once upon a time at least used to send you occasional airline club passes.  They revamped the program in 2005 (original thinking, they called theirs Travelocity VIP).  When I go to the website for it, I get a message that the offer has expired. Does anyone out there know if Travelocity has replaced this program with something else?

Meanwhile, Hotels.com offered an actual rewards program that provided free nights. They still do, but Loyalty Traveler reports that they’ve just gutted the core value of that program, effective next month.

It seems to me that the online booking engines are missing something here. They caught onto the clue train briefly, realizing that a good chunk of their revenue comes from their most frequent customers and that there’s otherwise very little differentiation between the major booking services. And unlike the airlines, they don’t even have ‘the most non-stops from a given city’ to cause customers to differentiate between them. So they struck on a familiar idea: a loyalty program of some sort. But these have all more or less languished.

It does seem as if they could do some real value-added, though I haven’t worked through the economics of how. Perhaps a base-level Priority Pass membership. I liked that Expedia offered a partnership with Mileage Manager. Travelocity used to give out lounge passes. Real tangible benefits.

Prior to the VIP programs I used to get gifts from Expedia, I once got a nice leather travel wallet. And I got a picture frame, where I was supposed to think about photos from the next vacation I’d book on Expedia. And they gave me a nice bright yellow leather luggage tag.

They were right to tie recognition to definable levels of activity or spend. I know I can shoot for something. And they’d darn well better provide more than their median level of customer service. That’s just a baseline, though, it doesn’t make me want to book with Expedia over a travel provider directly (other than for the cash back…). And I certainly avoid them for hotels, since so many chains are reticent to provide points or elite benefits for stays booked through such channels. It seems so easy and low cost to come up with something better than schlocky additional marketing pitches as a ‘benefit’ of loyalty to the booking sites.

And yet none of them have really cracked that nut yet.

Last weekend I stayed at the Conrad Miami. Hilton isn’t especially known for their Diamond treatment. Diamonds get full breakfast, access to a lounge when not on the executive floor, and promised upgrades aren’t meaningful (i.e. they don’t offer suite upgrades as part of the rules of the program).

Then again, do I really count as a real Diamond? I made my status with a quick $40,000 churned through a Hilton Surpass American Express. In other words, it was earned quickly with a bit of credit card spend, not through loyalty to the chain. So I’ll take what I can get!

And at the Conrad, I got more than I was paying for (a $220 rate, I believe): a one-bedroom bay view residence.

Valet parking on arrival was excellent, a staff member read my luggage tag and addressed me by name. Staff guided us inside, to the elevators and up to the 25th floor “Sky Lobby.”

There was no wait at checkin, I was initially told that I was given a bay view, but the agent at the desk typed a bit and gave me a better room. He then gave me a wifi code for complimentary internet, and informed me of complimentary breakfast in the restaurant (no coupon, they have a list, but this didn’t work entirely smoothly). We were then walked from reception to the elevators — a different bank of elevators than the ones we came up in. We weren’t escorted to the room, however.

The room smelled a bit of smoke though I was told it was non-smoking. I quickly got used to it. There was a full kitchen, washer/dryer in a closet in the entryway, a living room with small round dining table, decent-sized bedroom and large bathroom plus a guest bath in hallway. There was a large closet in bedroom, and this confused me because that’s where they put the bath towels!

The balcony had plastic furniture, which could have been improved, but it looked directly out at Miami, and over to the right between the buildings it looked out on the bay.

Furniture in the room was a bit worn around the edges. Ancient and not especially large TVs, surprising, I would have expected a proper flat screen. But as a faux HHonors Diamond via Amex spend, I’ll take it.

Service at the hotel unfortunately was at its highest point at checkin, so it had nowhere to go but down.

The phone in the room rang about twice an hour, half a ring only, no one was there.

I had arranged specifically for 1pm checkout the morning of our departure. I watched the desk agent enter this into the computer. At noon there was a knock on door, a staff member wanting to know when were we leaving? The knocking woke me up from a nap before I was to head off to the airport.

Breakfast was in the restaurant on the 25th floor. We had to wait a few minutes while they cleared a table, there were half a dozen tables all left dirty but they tidied one up near the window looking out onto the city. It was a buffet, there was lox – so I’m happy – but no bagels. A staff member brought me a couple of small bagels. Service was slow. It took about 10 minutes to flag someone down to bring me coffee. It turned out he was our server. He proceeded to have a lengthy conversation with the next table while I sat waiting for coffee. Anyone who knows me knows I need my coffee. Getting refills wasn’t easy, either. Time for the check. I had given my room number when entering the restaurant. I had been told they ‘keep a list’ of what rooms are to receive complimentary breakfast. They brought a full price check. I asked the waiter, “oh, do you want me to check the list?” He came back, “yeah, you’re fine.”

At checkout I stopped by the desk, let them know I was leaving. I needed to stop by the computers (available for any guest’s use) beside the checkin desk, so that I could print boarding passes anyway. They asked me how my stay was. I told them. “Oh, I’m sorry.” Nothing more was said.

Great reception, very good room for the rate, good physical plant, but consistent mashups in service. For Miami it was pretty good, though.

I’ll be back with y’all shortly with details.  But… I’ve given Hilton quite a hard time lately, from their points devaluation to my contention that they were being insufficiently generous with program member donations to Haitian relief.

But now I have something positive.  A Hilton Hotel Be My Guest Certificate valid through June 30 “for “one complimentary lodging (room and tax only) at any participating Hilton Hotel in the United States.”

Many thanks to the folks at BoardingArea for making this possible, as well.

I’ll shortly announce rules (there really aren’t any, just instructions on how to enter and by when) for the giveaway and we’ll give this ago. There was great interest last time I did a giveaway, and that was just for a power strip. I figure a hotel night ought to be even more interesting to y’all!

And since I run just a modest blog, with modest readership, you know that the chances of winning are pretty good. I mean, I don’t get all that many readers so entering will mean a good chance of winning.

Keep checking this space!

US Airways is offering an account signup bonus.

Enter promo code E110 in the promo code box on the signup page to earn 1,000 bonus miles, which should post to your account within four weeks.

Offer is valid through April 18.

(HT: Frugal Travel Guy.)