US Airways is offering double elite qualifying miles on flights through March 31 (registration required). The offer applies only to tickets purchased after registering.
(Hat tip to One Mile at a Time.)
Per this Flyertalk thread, American Express is launching a new co-branded Hilton credit card — the “Surpass” card.
The regular Hilton Amex has no annual fee, comes with Silver elite status, and offers Gold after $20,000 in spend within a year.
This new Surpass card will cost $75 a year, will come with Gold status the first year, and thereafter $20,000 in spend requalifies for Gold and $40,000 in spend earns Diamond status.
In addition, the card will come with 40,000 bonus points with first purchase (previous Hilton Amex cardholders, even of the old lesser flavor, will receive the incremental bonus above what they received in the past for signing up). The first 8 Hilton stays costing $100 or more within 18 months will each earn 2500 bonus points (so no award nights without any room revenue). Hilton spend will earn 9 points per dollar, and bonus categories of grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, and various utilities.
Now, Hilton has perhaps the weakest elite top tier of the major hotel chains. But if you can reach it via just $40,000 in credit card spend, I’m definitely there…
Hotels generally have been seeing low occupancy, with declines in business travel and also leisure travel which tends to be discretionary. This is great for those who are continuing to travel, there are some real bargains out there.
This also should mean less pressure to raise redemption rates at hotel chains (and yet Hilton has increased the number of points required on the outstanding value AXON awards, 4 nights in a category 6 Hhonors property has gone from 125,000 to 145,000 with no notice).
And it should mean more inventory available on opaque channels like Priceline, and at lower price points. 2002, here we come!
One of the most hrad hit of markets is Las Vegas, with conventions being among the most economically-sensitive segment of the business travel market and where leisure stays dry up quickly. Couple that with being the city with the most hotel rooms in the United States and a spurt of recent growth and you have a real ailing hotel town.
The casino hotel strategy has been to massively discount rooms, going as low as necessary to get occupancy rates up, since these properties tend to extract significant ancillary revenue from hotel guests entirely apart from room rate. While these hotels do want to use room rate to some extent to differentiate their patrons as ones likely to drop more in gambling, room service, and other expenditures, you do see even the top properties on the strip like the Wynn and Venetian dropping price — it’s not uncommon to see rates at half the level they were a year ago.
This has created an interesting conundrum for the alternative Vegas properties, ones that are ‘off-strip’ and which make their business as a traditional hotel rather than casino. There are several a block off Las Vegas Boulevard, some near the convention center, and they don’t make their money on gambling with rooms as a loss leader. For them it doesn’t make sense to price themselves close to zero to fill up their rooms and extract non-room revenue. So it’s seems as though these properties had been holding price a bit better over the last few months. Presumably as properties like the Wynn become available in the $150-range, that draws significant traffic away from off-strip, less luxurious options. So occupancy rates likely suffer at these properties the most.
Thus it was interesting to me to see Marriott begin their discounting, even in a bit of a targeted way. Take for instance the Marriott Suites hotel by the Convention Center. It’s a block off Las Vegas Boulevard behind the Wynn. They’re still offering their usual rates, which I frequently see in the $160 – $180 range, but they’re also making rates of 1/3rd off available, promoted through select channels. Here’s the offer page, and it’s a deal for every 3rd night free. Some test booking show that this package really does pull up the otherwise-lowest rate when the offer is available, and with 3rd (and 6th, and 9th) available free that brings down the cost significantly.
I recognize the conundrum that properties like this are in, and they really are forced to discount, $100 a night on a 3- or 6-night stay is a pretty good deal here and may fit the bill for someone looking to be off-strip on a more business-oriented stay. Plus the suites, while smallish, are nicely configured.
I admit, I tend towards a bit more of the flash, but traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard can be a bit much even with the downturn, waiting at a cab or valet stand at the big hotels may be an inefficient use of time, and there’s a real role for these properties to play in Vegas. Still, I’d probably take the Wynn )or for my absolute druthers, at the opposite end of the strip, the Four Seasons), though a Marriott elite looking to requalify could easily feel differently…
Following on Hyatt’s generous bonus offers with Air Canada and with Southwest, it now seems there’s a similar offer for earning bonus Hyatt points.
Naturally, registration is required, and nights through April 30 count towards the promo.
| Stay | 2 nights | 4 nights | 6 nights | 8 nights |
| Points Earned | 2,000 | +4,000 | +6,000 | +8,000 |
| Total Points | 2,000 | 6,000 | 12,000 | 20,000 |
Citibank announced last month that ‘fixed point redemption’ (which allows redemptions valued up to 3 cents a point instead of the standard 1 cent) would be ending March 1.
It appears that they’ve already gone ahead and pulled the plug on 3 cents value, capping redemptions at 2 cents as of last week. This despite the FAQ on the Citi Thank You Network website still showing the 3 cents value, and the Thank You Network terms and conditions requiring 30 days written notice for changes to the program.
This is all second-hand, at this point, per this thread on Flyertalk. It’s of particular concern to me because I’m hurtling towards 90,000 points to make a redemption… and I need to wait until my credit card points post on or about February 19 in order to do so. I’ve made a whole lot of extra charges to this card precisely because they announced changes would be coming March 1.
Developing, but I’m potentially incensed.
If you book a 2-night hotel stay on Expedia using promo code TY5K09 you’ll earn a 5,000 Thank You Point bonus.
Frugal Travel Guy suggests it as a hail mary ot get to 90,000 Thank You points prior to March 1, getting in before the devaluation of the program.
I’m a bit more conservative. Sure, if you have no other plays it’s worth trying. As Rick notes, it’s unclear whether you have to check in to get the bonus (though on an Expedia pre-paid hotel I doubt it) or whether the points will post in time (my gut says no). As a result I wouldn’t spend incremental dollars to ‘buy’ Thank You Points this way, even the property he suggests @ $15/night.
But if you’re going to be booking hotel rooms anyway (by March 1 for stays through May 1), and Expeida turns out to be a reasonable place to do it, this bonus is still better than a hole in the head (as it were), even post-devaluation (when points top out at 1 cent apiece in redeemable value). And Expedia bookings earn cashback via Fatwallet as well.
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is offering 25% discounts on all awards booked online by September 15 for travel from March 1 through September 30.
In addition, coach awards on specific routes in specific months are being discounted 50%. But that’s not the part that interests me most, it’s the 25% discount on first class awards that’s interesting (of course, on those routes where it’s still possible to redeem at standard levels for first class, which means where Singapore still flies 747s).
Singapore Airlines is an American Express Membership Rewards partner. On the one hand, you won’t want to go transferring bucketloads of points without checking out their standard reward chart, it can be expensive relative to US-based programs. On the other hand, availability on Singapore Airliens is generally better for Singapore KrisFlyer redemptions than for partners. And they’ll release more than one first class award seat at a time. So if you’ve been dreaming of that Singapore Airlines first class redemption this could be an excellent time…
In the first of the tax season bonus miles offers I’ve seen, the Chase United Visa is offering double miles on tax payments charged to the card up to 15,000 bonus miles for charges made between March 14, 2009 and May 31, 2009.
Of course paying your taxes online entails a ‘convenience fee’ so you’re still paying better than a penny a mile. So if you were going to put your taxes on a credit card anyway, this may be the one to use — unless and until other cards match with a similar bonus, as several have in the past.
Sadly the best bonus days are behind us, I recall one year when the United Visa offered 5000 bonus miles for any tax payment and so I charged $1…
Via Frugal Travel Guy, registering for Skymiles Shopping and making a purchase yields 1000 bonus miles.
From Fatwallet and there from Slickdeals comes an easy 1000 DL miles for registering with SkymallShopping.
Here is your link
And a sample purchase for $1 Link
Just what we all really want a Prince CD.
Go ahead and register. And then use the Skymiles shopping website to navigate to your store of choice (don’t just go to the Prince CD link above). I notice that that CD is backordered, and that the $1 mentioned above doesn’t include shipping. So take it as an example only.
