Free Frequent Flyer Miles points out that you can get 500 miles for an auto insurance quote from Ameriprise, and that it works every six months. So even if you’ve done it before it might be time to do it again.

Turns out that the 5000 point award nights aren’t even a mistake.

I speculated that someone miscoded the hotel as participating in PointBreaks, since the number of points matched that offer but the hotel wasn’t in the list of participating properties (and would have been the most expensive hotel in the list, by far).

But it is a planned special offer:

Exclusive for Priority Club® members, stay at the new InterContinental Los Angeles Century City, March 15, 2007 through September 4, 2007, to receive triple points, triple miles or triple credit with any 2 night consecutive stay during this introductory period.



Plus, Priority Club members can take advantage of our very special Reward Night PointBreaks offer of only 5,000 points a night for stays from March 15 to May 15, 2007.

Sometime this morning Priority Club changed their redemption chart.

For example, some Holiday Inns jump from 15,000 points to 25,000 points. And some Intercontinentals go from 30,000 points to 40,000 points. The Boston, DC, Vienna, and Tahiti properties are notable among them. There’s no chart of changes by property, so I’ll just be piecing together which ones have changed.

Naturally, there’s a Flyertalk discussion and folks are none too pleased. Bumping the prices of some hotels by a third is bad enough. I understand it (there were some great values there, and great values don’t last). But it’s disappointing. However, making the changes without any notice whatsoever is criminal.

The Intercontinental Los Angeles Century City (formerly Park Hyatt) has award rooms available for just 5000 Priority Club points, and availability appears to stretch through May 16. Dates after that are pricing out at the usual 30,000 points per night.

Though Priority Club does sometimes discount award redemptions (eg 24,000 points instead of 30,000 points for an Intercontinental), this award price is unprecedented… likely an error, though I’m having a hard time figuring out what the keystroke mistake would have been. Perhaps someone mistakenly coded it as a PointBreaks property.

Frequently Priority Club awards are available for any room at a given hotel, including suites, and presumably this is an error on the hotel’s part. Discussion of the phenomenon can be found at Flyertalk’s suite redemption alert thread. These suite redemptions are generally honored — even the wonderful Jimbaran Suites and Imperial Villas at the Intercontinental Bali, when those were available.

Still, I suppose Priority Club might come back and ask for more points later for this booking during an audit (they frequently redeposit points into members’ accounts after award stays, but also sometimes catch the error and correct it months later). But this is different in kind — the advertised price is actually 5000 points! And they did honor the THB0.01 pirce at the Holiday Inn Phuket…

As always with such deals, your mileage may vary.

Lots of folks over at Slickdeals.net are excited about an offer from Chase for their Chase Freedom Card. It’s a no annual fee card with a $250 signup bonus.

Go to Chase.com and look for an icon with a $250 offer at the bottom of the page. If you see a $50 offer (or something else) keep refreshing your browser until the $250 offer appears. Those with spouses can make $500…

Update: Offer can be found directly here.

Update 2: $250 offer no longer appears at the links above, as far as I can tell.

Consumerist has a great post, an insider’s perspective on renting cars from Enterprise. Everything’s negotiable.

Even knowing that, I still won’t rent from them. But for those who don’t mind the undignified “walkaround” of the vehicle and hard sell of insurance, you may benefit from the tips.

1. Enterprise doesn’t have any set prices. That rate you got when you called in was either the full retail rate, or the first number that popped into the agent’s head. There are three main categories of rentals: personal (retail), corporate, and insurance, but on every single contract that goes out the agent manually types out how much you pay per day and he has authority to make it pretty much whatever he thinks you should pay.

…

2. By now everyone knows that you don’t need that extra rental insurance

…

Call for a reservation, say your car was totaled and you need a replacement; your insurance company is cutting you a check for $25.00 per day flat so you need something for under $25. Tell the agent that your insurance company is State Farm, or Farmers, or someone big–the big insurance companies have the best rates

Netflix is offering 2500 American Airlines miles for new enrollment. Offer expires May 31.

The United Mileage Plus offer is just 2000 miles with signup but another 2000 miles if you charge your membership to a United Visa. Total 4000 miles, and no clear expiration date on the offer.

If you’re already a member, consider cancelling (copy down your queue first!) and signing up someone else in the house with a different credit card. If you’ve already gotten the United bonus, consider cancelling and signing up someone else for the American bonus. Or vice versa.

As of this past Sunday, United is waiving paper ticket fees, Australian Electronic Travel Authority Fees (which up until recently were free), and the $25 same-day confirmed change fees for 1K, Global Services, and passengers flying on paid premium class ickets.

I still miss the days when same-day confirmed changes (not on the day of departure, but well in advance) were no cost to Premier Executive and 1K members. I could book an 8am flight and call up a week later, still long in advance of travel, and change it to a 2pm as long as the same fare class I had ticketed was available on the 2pm (and technically as long as the fare I had purchased wasn’t time or flight specific, but those rules were often ignored).

Still, fee waivers are good, and certainly appropriate for top tier elites.

The Cranky Flier thinks that the end of the Alaska-Hawaiian Airlines frequent flyer program tie-in signals that Alaska is finally planning to offer Hawaii flights itself.

Not a crazy bet, and the Alaska 737s can make the trip. Presumably Seattle-Honolulu and possibly Seattle-Maui.

This would be good news for lots of flyers, as Alaska partners with American, Continental, Northwest, and Delta (among others) so many mileage program members would have a new option to Hawaii.

Alaska Airlines offers $50 companion tickets once a year with their co-branded Visa ($99 companion ticket with the business Visa). This is probably the best companion ticket out there — it’s good on any fare, from cheapest in the market to first class, there are no blackout dates or other restrictions, and the companion ticket counts as the same booking class as the paid ticket. Earns miles, eligible for upgrades, etc.

USAirways offers $99 companion tickets once a year with their co-branded Visa. There are a few restrictions (such as minimum ticket price of the paid ticket, advance purchase requirements, even a few blackout dates) but in general it’s quite usable, and the companion ticket earns miles. In fact I used one for travel last weekend.

American’s Mastercard offers a companion ticket as well, but requires the paid ticket to be in a relatively high-priced booking class in addition to have a minimum ticket price. I tried to use one a couple times, price was always about the same as just buying two tickets outright. The certificate expired.

Then there are the standard travel promotion companion tickets that are nearly always next to worthless. They may require booking a full fare ticket (so the paid + free ticket likely cost more than two paid tickets). Lots of fees, restrictions. Whenever I see ‘free companion ticket’ or other such come-ons without lots of details, I’m skeptical.

So that’s how I started out when I heard American Express had introduced a new domestic companion ticket program for their Platinum and Centurion credit cards. They already offer a 2-for-1 deal on international business class with some carriers, and that requires purchase of a full fare business class ticket. It’s occasionally useful, but not too often.

This new program for domestic coach tickets turns out to have some uses.

Invite a travel companion to accompany you on your next flight. Receive complimentary companion airfare, up to four times each year, when you use your Platinum Card® to book qualifying domestic Coach-Class air travel – starting at $299 – aboard one of six major U.S. carrier. For more information or to make a reservation, call 1-866-354-8386 or the number on the back of your Card.

American, United, Continental, Delta, USAirways, and Northwest participate.

You have to pay $299 or more for the paid ticket (if the regular fare is, say, $249 you have to buy the $50 difference, and Hawaii airfares have a higher minimum – $899 from most airports, which divided by two may still be a good deal). Both tickets get charged a $15 ticketing fee, and they charge tax on the ‘free’ ticket.

There are a handful of blackout dates, but certainly not as bad as some (like what Amtrak does to their free tickets!).

The paid ticket should generally be eligible for elite benefits and mileage accrual. I don’t know yet about the companion ticket. But thus far it appears a worthwhile deal in some cases. It won’t always be a miracle worker, but it’s definitely one for the arsenal worth trying.

It isn’t often you hear someone making an argument against requiring all airport workers to pass through security screening, but Bob Poole offers one that makes enough sense to merit reposting:

At most airports, the secure area begins just behind the ticket counter, and agents go back and forth between secure and non-secure areas a dozen or more times a day. At smaller airports, the same people who work the ticket counters often do double-duty as gate agents, and may even load and unload baggage. To be meaningful, the 100% screening policy would have to screen these people every time they went back into the secure area, all day long. And what about mechanics and carpenters and electricians, bringing tools to work? None of those tools could get through passenger checkpoints, but people can’t work without their tools.



The TSA recognizes the access-control vulnerability. It has made two policy changes to improve things. First, last fall it required everyone working at airports—not just those going into secure areas—to undergo a background check. Second, it has begun a program that uses roving teams of security officers to do random checks of employees in secure areas. It’s in place at many larger airports and plans call for extending it to all airports where TSA operates.



Those are sensible measures, and combined with continued intelligence and police work, they should make a meaningful difference, without imposing the huge burdens on airports of 100% screening of all secure-area staff. But two other steps would further reduce risk. At one smaller airport I know of, the background check requirement goes beyond what TSA mandates. Having a criminal record of any sort disqualifies one from working anywhere on the airport, even if the job is outside the secure area. Second, we need better employee badges. They should be biometrically encoded, so that only the person who was cleared can use the badge to get into secured areas. And companies with on-airport employees should be required (with severe penalties) to promptly turn in the badges of anyone whose job at the airport terminates.

I’m not sure it’s right to say that the ’secure’ area begins right behind checkin desks at most airports, but I do recognize the burden of screening folks several times a day. And though they might not be unduly delayed (at least compared to the rest of us), using crew lines for instance, extra time will be required to process any special rules such as determining what materials can pass through the checkpoint that a standard passenger couldn’t bring.

And diverting TSA agents from screening passengers to handle airport staff will certainly ramp up delays.

Meanwhile, since checkpoints don’t perform especially well to begin with, alternatives are likely to make us safer. And since using checkpoints serves as a panacea, we don’t take other more important security steps when we subject folks to ever more onerous checkpoint screenings.

Normal pricing is 35,000 miles for coach and 75,000 miles for first. But this Flyertalk thread is discussing how these awards are pricing out like regular domestic flights. Get ‘em while you can!

Choice Privileges, the frequest guest program of a variety of low-end hotels (sometimes Comfort Inn is just the only decent place in some towns, but I’ll still pass on EconoLodge) has a member referral program — new members referred by an existing member get 500 bonus points on their first stay, and the existing member gets 500 points as well.

Thanks for Free Frequent Flyer Miles for the pointer, and if you’d like a referral for the bonus points just email me.

Encounter, the space age restaurant at Los Angeles International Airport that some mistake for an air traffic control tower, is being closed for at least six months for structural repairs.

The food isn’t great, but it’s better than most of what you’ll get at the airport and it’s a fun visit. Bummer.

USAirways seems to have updated their award chart with no notice whatsoever. The first item I’ve noticed is that flights between North America and “South and Central Asia” now run 80,000 miles for coach/120,000 for business/160,000 for first class — up from 60/90/120 thousand respectively.

This really is a disappointment. I know that USAirways has had a much maligned program, and things have generally changed for the worse since America West took over things. But I was just starting to collect USAirways miles again over the past few months, racking up about 90,000. And now that doesn’t buy my favorite award any longer.

Update: This was discussed briefly earlier in the week on Flyertalk. It surprises me that there’s less attention being paid to it than I would have expected. One summary of the changes to the award chart:

New groupings of various geographic areas.



Used to have South Asia and Central Asia as seperate levels, now just South & Central Asia. Mileage for this new grouping is the higher of the two previous groups.



Africa has been discounted by 10,000 per class.



Australia, New Zealand, & Oceania are now missing, possibly grouped with South Pacific. South Pacific area is 10,000 per class less then Australia, New Zealand, & Oceania.



It now costs the same mileage to fly C as F to Hawaii from North America (70,000 miles – F has been discounted to old C level).



It now costs the same mileage to fly C as F to within North America. (Other then UA on their 3 class planes, this doesn’t make a difference)



New chart does not have any information about what countries are included in what geographic areas.



A A* award is now the same price as a US only award for North American, Hawaii, and Caribbean & Latin American travel.

Mark Ashley doesn’t like car upgrades. He usually gets a bigger car than he wants, burns more gas, and bigger isn’t always better anyway.

Back when I was a run of the mill “Preferred Select” elite member with Avis, I expected to get a one car class upgrade on each rental. Sometimes I’d just book one class below what I wanted to get.

The rule, of course, with any travel — air, hotel, or car — is always to confirm the minimum that you’ll actually be happy receiving.

More than upgrades, I enjoy service … I like that my status now with Avis yields a ride back to the airport in the car I drove up in, no transferring bags and waiting on a bus or dropping off other passengers. And I do love my car upgrades. But I can more or less point to the specific car on the lot that I want. Warm weather climate? Convertible. Long drive? Cadillac.

Car rental upgrades can be as much of the travel experience as any other upgrade. But I’d agree that bigger isn’t always better. A nice car, though, is still sublime.

I just love this story.

Lufthansa Senator member sees the first class checkin has a long time, wants to use the empty business class line. They’re told ‘no way’ — a benefit of Senator status is that they use the First Class lines. Period. They’re not allowed to use the business class lines.

Lufthansa can just be… that way. Those of you who’ve ever tried to access a Lufthansa lounge know what I mean. Your boarding pass displays your status, which entitles you to the lounge…. but the rules say you must present your membership card. No card, no entry. Rules.

Starwood’s significant devaluation got plenty of attention, but Marriott quietly made significant adjustments to its own hotel categories to much less fanfare. It’s been discovered, and is being discussed on Flyertalk. The summary:

Changes in MR redemption were effective March 2, 2007. 14 hotels went down one category level, 535 went up one category level.

And one member’s calculation of the impact of the change:

Some quick calculations….approximately 20% of Marriott Rewards properties were impacted and the change is reported to be a 1 category increase. On a 1 night stay, that is an increase of about 33% across the categories. So it appears to be an overall devaluation of about 6-7% (33% x 20%).



I can live with this as it is in-line with overall inflation in hotel room rates, unlike the ridiculous almost 20% devaluation over at SPG. I just wish Marriott had chosen to provide some notice that this was going to occur (which SPG did).

Alitalia is offering some significant bonuses:

2,000 bonus points after your first flight within 3 months of enrollment.

• 3,000 bonus points after your fifth flight segment by December 15, 2007.
  
• 5,000 bonus points after your seventh flight segment by December 15, 2007.

Partner flights count towards the bonus.

Now I’m much more tempted to credit my upcoming Alitalia flights to the MilleMiglia program, and continue to top off the account by crediting Skyteam flights there. I’ll need to decide before leaving for my Toronto-Larnaca trip later this month.

I know I’m tempting fate flying USAirways this weekend, with the impending reservation system changeover from Sabre to Shares. I’m even flying back home tomorrow morning. Hope it goes smoothly.

My travel rituals include collecting articles and documents to review in a folder that goes with me on my way to the airport, and I cruise through it in the lounge or when I board the plane. If it’s an evening flight I know I have to attack the folder right away, as the night wears on I may get too tired to read.

Last night’s simple flight down to Ft. Lauderdale was delayed about an hour by a crew scheduling snafu, so I had a bit of extra time — and I made it past my work and on to pleasure reading (if you can call it that). I had printed out Barbara S. Peterson’s piece in the March Conde Nast Traveler. Ms. Peterson went undercover getting hired as a TSA screener.

It was well worth a read. Some excerpts…

On the process of being interviewed to become a screener:

My “interviews” are so detached and impersonal that they could have been carried out by a robot. My first face-to-face with a TSA official consists of my sitting mutely while she reads to me stiffly from a script. I am then ushered into a different office, where another interviewer asks me a series of generic questions that he reads from his computer screen (“Have you ever helped anyone in need without being asked?”). The queries offer no opportunity for probing, and never during the hiring process am I asked about my reasons for wanting this job. One assistant tells me: “We are supposed to ask everyone the same questions,” which, if correct, seems a rather literal-minded interpretation of a government-fairness policy.

On training materials and testing:

By the end of two weeks, two of my classmates have dropped out and another two have failed the battery of multiple-choice and threat-identification tests we’re given at the end of the course. But the laggards are given another chance, which I interpret as a subtle message that the TSA will do what it can to ensure that we all make our way to posts at the airport across the street. Most of us are ready: We have mastered the arcana of how to screen all manner of carry-on gear—everything from crematory urns to the service monkeys that some disabled passengers are allowed to take through security. We’re also instructed on how to spot bomb components in X-ray images, but some of the information we’re force-fed during our training is already out of date: We’re repeatedly told, “You’ll have to unlearn this when you get to the airport,” because procedures have changed. We spend hours being taught how to operate explosives-detection machines, including models that we’ll never see because our airport hasn’t acquired them. The training materials, I learn, are from another giant government contractor, Lockheed Martin. While the TSA obviously dictates the content of the materials, procedural updates apparently take a long time to move through the pipeline.

On screening folks like former U.S. Senator Bob Kerry, whose artificial leg (as a result of being wounded in Vietnam) sets of metal detectors:

The reason the TSA—and my supervisors—give for searching this man is what I will come to call the “you never know” argument. As in you never know if an elderly person in a wheelchair is a dupe for a saboteur. Of course, it’s important to keep the extra screening as random as possible to avoid any patterns that a terrorist could exploit. But clearly, unless you believe that The Manchurian Candidate presents a plausible scenario, there are people who could safely be exempted without compromising security.