Back in January I blegged for help to select a new laptop bag. My ancient one was finally coming apart at the seams, and I was sad to see it go. It had been the ideal bag for me, and I have very particular preferences.

I got good feedback on the post. I also got a note from the Tom Bihn luggage folks, asking me whether I’d like to give some of their stuff a spin. They first suggested their carryons, but since I had a specific need for a laptop bag they sent me a couple at no charge: the Checkpoint Flyer and the Empire Builder.

I haven’t given the Empire Builder a spin yet, on first inspection it’s probably too big for me. I carry a small laptop for a reason. But the Checkpoint Flyer has been just perfect. And I do mean perfect.

It’s much better than I’d have expected. I didn’t think the TSA-approved designs would work for me, most of the ones I’ve seen look and feel cheap and my sense was that they don’t provide sufficient protection for a laptop. Or they don’t let me haul all the crap I take along with me in my bag. But this one satisfies on both counts.

With this bag, instead of removing the laptop at the Kingdom of the Smurfs and putting it into a bin, the bag unclips and lays flat and goes through the x-ray machine without being taken out. This is considered ok because the laptop portion of the bag is free of obstructions.

I much like this, both because it cuts down on a few seconds going through the checkpoint (I needed those seconds last weekend on the way back from Miami, massively delayed on the way to the airport by a big accident on I-95) and because it protects my laptop.

Last April I was traveling non-stop for a couple of weeks, laptop in and out of bins, and I must have banged it around a little too much because the battery fell off. A clip broke. The computer was more or less toast as a laptop, it was more than 3 years old so as far as work was concerned time for a replacement. This bag, on the other hand, does a great job protecting the laptop. Obviously not having to take it out going through the checkpoint is a huge plus. In addition, it’s in a different container from the rest of my stuff, so it doesn’t get crushed by everything I shove into the bag.

I’ve read the enthusiastic comments at Flyertalk about Tom Bihn bags. They generate fierce loyalty. To me I always saw the bright colored bags and thought they were a bit campy, too touristy, I prefer a low profile when traveling and I also want to be able to bring my laptop bag at least into meetings without seeming like a teenager trekking through Europe. I didn’t realize that the bags came in black and in grey. Those colors aren’t as good at the baggage carousel, but they’re a must for me in a laptop bag (and I don’t like bright colors at the carousel, except perhaps my luggage tags which rather stand out).

The bag’s storage is great without really being bigger than my previous bag that could never have on its own worked as an overnight bag (IMHO this one would if I wasn’t carrying a bunch of other stuff, and if it were a casual weekend overnight).

I fill the front two pockets with phones, a pocket camera, my keys, cables, noise cancelling headset. Laptop in the middle. Tom Bihn Freudian Slip in the back filled with papers, magazines, pens. I also carry my travel wallet with membership cards, coupons, discount certificates. In the middle of the rear a small packing pouch with wireless pocket router, travel power strip, and Kensington Empower Adaptor. Pretty insane, sure. But I have everything I need at my fingertips and my laptop bag has to support that.

Since the center of the bag isn’t where the because the laptop goes, I have plenty of space. And since the laptop compartment is solid, with the two portions of the bag bulging around it, there’s no risk to the computer when the bag is overstuffed.

The bag is high quality and price reflects that. The Tom Bihn folks advertise that their bags are made in the USA, as though that’s a strong positive. The materials are very good, but my particular partisan predilections are such that I actually value a bag made in a less developed country where the workers can use the jobs, the income, the economic growth much more than in the US. But wherever the bag is made, it’s great construction. I’ve been in the rain with it and the snow with it and no moisture seeps in. I’ve stuffed it with regulatory filings for a dozen states. Once that zipper closes it stays closed, and the seams seem more than solid.

The bag has a briefcase-like handle, and needs a shoulder strap — which is extra. The $220 bag really becomes $250, then, without packing cubes or other accessories like the Freudian slip. The laptop portion of the bag is quite customizable, they have a different size to fit most laptops so you don’t have one larger than what you need.

One complaint I’ve seen about the design is that unclipping the bag to get the laptop out is annoying in everyday use, that it’s a great bag at the checkpoint but not for every day. I disagree. I don’t like unclipping the bag to take out the laptop, so I don’t. I just unzip the side of the laptop compartment and slip the laptop in and out.

Ultimately I’m very satisfied with the bag both for carrying my laptop and as my everyday briefcase. It’s not too large and it has plenty of room for everything I carry. I think investing in a high quality bag makes sense. I carry my laptop to and from work. I carry it on countless flights. It’s expensive but I use it every day so it seems worth the price (again, it was given to me..). If you see your bag as a tool on the road, well then not much has impressed me as much as this bag.

The 5000 bmi mile bonus for one-night stays at Wyndham Rewards properties has been extended through March 31.

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…

And remember that bmi now has family accounts, so just credit 4 stays to each family member’s account and pool them.

Details here.

(HT: TM Travel World.)

Tonight I’ll be recording another podcast with the folks at Upgrd.com. It’ll be a few days before it’s live, but in the meantime you can check out the most recent installment in the series on Star Alliance awards and how to successfully book them.

Starwood Lurker confirmed the rumor today that Starwood Preferred Guest would not be making large-scale changes to the categories of its hotels for 2010.

Each year Starwood has re-categorized hotels based on their average daily room rates. Those categories determine the number of points required for a free night. When rates go down, point requirements go down. When rates go up, the points price becomes more expensive as well.

That’s the value proposition that Starwood has always followed, more or less, since the inception of the program.

Then the hotel industry hit the worst revenue year it had ever seen.

RevPAR decreased a whopping 17.3% in the first 11 months of 2009 as hotel chains lowered prices. This tops the 1.3% decline in revenue per available room that occurred from Jan. to Nov. 2008.

Rates were down close to 20%, Starwood members expected points prices to fall, too. But Starwood apparently had other plans, and tried to spin not raising prices as a huge win for members. ‘We expect hotel prices to go up, but we aren’t going to sock you for that now. Because we love you.’

Categories are determined on a forward looking basis, which led to last year’s adjustment that moved 160 hotels to a lower category. Though rates are expected to generally rise in 2010, we wanted to make sure all of our members are able to continue to take advantage of our 2009 award levels. As a result, categories will not be changing for any of our branded hotels in 2010.

I’m genuinely flummoxed.

Starwood’s excuse for not dropping the majority of hotels a category or more after a disastrous revenue year  is to claim that recategorization is forward looking, rather than backward looking.

But hotel recategorization has always been primarily based on prior year average daily room rate. Claiming that categories have historically been determined on a forward looking basis rather than being anchored to prior year rates is simply disingenuous.  (“We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”)

The entire reason the re-categorization has been done February-ish has been to allow enough time for hotels to report their revenue data from the previous year, analyze that data, and then listen to appeals from hotels.

It’s true to say that the categories are somewhat forward-looking. Starwood hasn’t gone strictly by prior year rates, if a hotel was a ‘victim’ of extraordinary circumstances that depressed their average rates in the prior year, Starwood was open to that and might give a hotel a higher category based on the argument that their rates are likely to be much higher the coming year. So it’s never been 100% backward looking.

But what Starwood is doing is breaking the value proposition. They’ve come up with a new method, assigning categories based on forward-looking projections of what they think revenue is likely to be (but they aren’t even doing that, they’re not changing categories at all.)

As one fairly prominent Starwood member said to me, “They look into their crystal ball, and based upon what they see the ADRs are likely to be in the coming year, they adjust the categories. GAAP needs a provision for this approach to accounting!”

Three years ago there was a major devaluation. In 2007 I referred to it as a bloodletting.

In May, 2006 I predicted a 25% devaluation in Starwood points for 2007. Starwood specifically denied a 25% devaluation.

But I then broke the news in November, 2006 that the 2007 devaluation would see a new category 7. Which proved exactly correct, Starwood’s previous denials notwithstanding.  But at least the redemption categories remained tied to average room rates. And now they’ve broken that linkage.

I bet that the Starwood program folks genuinely thought they could spin this positively, “We’re not increasing point requirements even though hotels are recovering!” Well thank you, Starwood!

Flyertalk’s SanDiego1K, who moderates the Starwood Preferred Guest forum, told me “I feel betrayed.” Certainly one of the better-informed of all Starwood Preferred Guest’s members, she said she “truly thought this would be the year we’d see a big drop.”

In a comment to a post about Starwood’s annual category recategorization in February 2008, Ric Garrido made an important point about Starwood’s inflation over the years — while programs like Hilton and Priority Club were boosting point requirements over the years by 15% or 30%, in many cases Starwood was jacking up required points for free nights by as much as 200% and 300%. (Cf. Pulitzer in Amsterdam, Westin Sukhumvit)

Some of these increases should have been reversed — based on the value proposition as Starwood has articulated it — after the worst hotel revenue year ever. But they weren’t. Starwood Preferred Guest is swallowing the difference. And telling you to thank them for it.

Starwood still has a large number of lovely properties, place I actually want to redeem to be at. But their points are relatively hard to earn through stays, and those points are worth less as hotel points prices remain the same but rates have fallen. They seem to be taking the wrong competitive approach, when Hyatt seems to be doing nothing but adding value to its program.

Dracs pointed me to a new Priority Club multipartner bonus.

The offer is up to 6000 bonus points: 1000 for the first partner, 2000 for the second partner, and 3000 for the third partner activity.

Register and complete eligible activity by March 31. All activity has to post to your account by June 15, and points should post in the second half of June.

I just transferred 2 American Airlines points into 1 Priority Club point at Points.com for my first partner. I might transfer the minimum amount from American Express Membership Rewards or Diners Club and do one shopping transaction in order to hit my three partners.

The last partner bonus offer was up to 4 partners and 10,000 miles, so this one isn’t as lucrative. Priority Club had a real problem correctly distinguishing partners and posting earned points last time, see for instance here and here.

As I mentioned the other day, having enjoyed giving away the free Hilton hotel night, I thought I’d try some other giveaways. And for variety, I’m testing out giveaways on Twitter.

To see how it works out, I’m starting small, giving away a US Airways club pass. I just posted the following:

RT this &follow @garyleff 4 chance 2win USAirways Club pass (exp July) on 3/1. Enter up2 5x/day.

Follow @garyleff in order to keep up on my giveaways!

TravelZoo has the Westin Dulles Airport for $69 weekends including breakfast ($99 during the week) through May 22. Book by March 9.

The deal is being promoted on the TravelZoo site through VistUSAHotels.com.

Since the best rate during the week at spg.com seems to be $119, this $99 weekday rate should be good for a Best Rate Guarantee claim.

The Best Rate Guarantee, which offers to match price and either beat by 10% or provide 2000 Starpoints as compensation (not to mention get you booked via the Starwood website for elite privileges), doesn’t apply to ‘package rates’ that include breakfast. So while the hotel offers a $69 rate without breakfast on weekends, and a more expensive breakfast-inclusive rate (where breakfast can be taken via room service or in the restaurant), there doesn’t appear to be a viable Best Rate Guarantee claim on the weekend offer, so to get it you need to use VisitUSAHotels.com.

$69 for a weekend night with breakfast would seem to make it worth popping out to the airport the night before a morning flight…!

Loyalty Traveler details Marriott’s moving around hotels amongst various redemption categories. Bottom-line appears to be not bad at all.

Approximately 350 hotels will decrease by one category and approximately 300 hotels will increase by one category. Ninety-five percent of the hotels changing categories are in categories 1-5.

And clearly more hotels are moving down than up in categories 6, 7, and 8.

I signed up for a Continental Mastercard back when there was a 46,000 mile signup offer. I considered that worth the price of an annual fee, especially considering that since Continental joined the Star Alliance their frequent flyer program has become one of my favorites.

For the first time that I’m aware of, though, they’re now offering a no fee the first year deal which also comes with 25,000 bonus miles. Not 46,000 to be sure, but at no cost other than a hard pull on your credit it’s still pretty good.

The biggest reason not to do it? Chase has become more and more difficult getting new credit cards if you’ve applied for other cards with them in the past six months. So if you’re considering in the future a Hyatt Visa from Chase, or waiting around for the British Airways 100,000 mile bonus offer to re-appear, you might well take a pass.

But for a no-fee offer, this one is pretty good.

Update: Here’s a link offering 30,000 bonus miles (25,000 with first purchase and 5,000 for adding an authorized cardholder to the account) with fee waived the first year.  Very Nice.

Points, Miles, and Martinis describes how to override the settings of thermostats in many hotel rooms.

INNCOM thermostats are quite common, and the blog has tested the technique at both Hilton and Hyatt properties successfully.

You can make these thermostats go lower than their usual settings, and turn off motion sensors that turn off the air conditioning when you’re not in the room.

While holding down “display”
Press “off”
Then Press “Up” arrow
Release “display” button

You’ll know it worked when … it says VIP!

Good tip for those who like their hotel rooms cold..!

I have many times posted discounts for the W Hotel Store (such as here, here, here, and here). And I’m the happy owner of a W Hotel Bed (plush top with feather bed), purchased with a 40% discount code.

This time, however, MilesQuest beats me to the punch:

The W Store has a brand new promotion code for 35% off.

Enter promo code QDG8Y

Another promo code you can use is code Y6S2Q for 30% off bath towels and a free bath mat with a $50 order.

Ben Mutzabaugh covers the rather bizarre story that

Iran has threatened to bar – and possibly impound – aircraft that fly into its airspace unless they use the name “Persian Gulf” on their in-flight monitors

They’ve even revoked the immigration status of a Greek flight attendant working for an Iranian carrier who referred to the body of water as the Arabian Gulf — “Due to his inappropriate and irresponsible behavior.”

Airlines have just a couple of weeks to comply, and if they repeat the offense they risk having their aircraft impounded when they reach Iran.

The U.M. agrees with Iran’s naming convention, but this still rather smacks of a dictatorship’s enforcement of Newspeak.

It appears that Hyatt may finally be on the verge of introducing a credit card partnership. This has been rumored for years, it’s been seriously examined and worked on at Hyatt for years, and the chatter out of Hyatt’s offices has really picked up the past few months.

Hyatt has been the only major chain without a credit card partner, although it is and has been possible to earn Hyatt points via credit card spend (Diners Club).

There’s a current thread on Flyertalk discussing a survey about potential mixes of benefits for a Hyatt co-branded credit card.

It’s naturally likely to come with a signup bonus and bonus points for Hyatt spend.

Other possible benefits include:

Update: It will be a Visa issued by Chase.  Details to come…

Wendy Perrin offers her lessons learned from a cancelled flight, the result of Snowpocalypse-induced cancellation of her flights to Hawaii.

She sums up — don’t wait for the airline to inform you of the cancellation, be proactive (if you wait, alternate flight options will be gone), suggest alternate routes to the agent when rebooking (don’t just accept that nothing’s available), and ask your hotel to waive cancellation penalties if you don’t make it there on the intended check-in day.

I did a major set of rebookings during the storm, it’s not really part of my job as such but I’m “the expert” and we had a major event on the West Coast with a large contingent traveling from DC across several days, myriad flights, and different airlines.

I echo Wendy’s remarks about rebooking early. The airlines were offering weather waivers. When it became clear that it was highly likely that the storm would hit during a particular timeframe, I was able to rebook a few people for the afternoon the day after the storm was supposed to be over. That still got them to the event in time.

Not everyone was willing to rebook proactively, and there were challenges.

One person called me at 7am for help, as soon as she saw her flight cancelled for the next day. She was early enough that I grabbed her the last seat open at the time on a non-stop that would get her to the event in time.

I say ‘last seat’ somewhat tentatively. It was the last open seat at the time I was re-booking. But availability changes dynamically. When weather waivers are in place, travelers can and do cancel flights. So inventory opens up all the time. And then it disappears as other people grab the seats. There were several times I saw open seats that were gone by the time an agent picked up the phone.

Elite status matters a great deal. In this case, the biggest benefit was a phone number to use with United, Delta, and American that allowed me to jump the queue. I had three and four minute hold times rather than 30 and 40 minute hold times. That’s crucial when trying to grab seats that open up with tons of folks trying to rebook and fighting over limited inventory.

Two folks were on a United flight that sent out a cancellation e-mail. During the confusion of a massive weather event, don’t assume your EasyUpdates are accurate! By the time I got on the phone with United, the flight was reinstated.

It turns out they then cancelled the next non-stop on the route instead (both operated by Airbus A319s). And that meant to different staff members needed rebooking. And by the time that happened there was nothing left.

To Wendy’s point about suggesting alternate routings and flights, when I had to called Delta to get someone rebooked (they were originally connecting through JFK!), Delta’s website had no suggestions and the agent on the phone said nothing was available. I fed them specific flights to Atlanta and hten on to the West Coast. Their system didn’t suggest it, it forced a 5 hour layover in Atlanta, but it got them there.

The craziest re-booking I made was when two seats opened up from Washington Dulles to Kansas City. On two different flights. I grabbed one staffer each those flights. They had a forced overnight in Kansas City and then the morning non-stop out West.

See, United said nothing was available. That was almost true. Nothing any sane person would want was available, but that’s different than nothing being available! One by one I tried each and every city in the middle of the country that I could think of which would have service from both Washington, DC and San Francisco. Denver, nothing. Dallas, nothing. Houston, nothing. Minneapolis, nothing. And so on. Finally I had hit on Kansas City, and the onward flight to San Francisco even had four seats open!

When you absolutely have to get there, you suck it up and overnight in Kansas City. United had to put me on hold for awhile and then document that we agreed they weren’t responsible for the enroute hotel night. No problem, $42 later per room and we had the airport Hilton on Priceline.

Not everything was so successful. The one person flying American was far harder. American doesn’t have nearly as much service as United out of DC, so fewer flight chances to rebook. I managed to find one seat to St. Louis. But with the service pulldown in St. Louis, from there we had to find a seat to Dallas, and then only from there to San Francisco. It wasn’t great, but it was an option.

Finally, there was one person I could not help — without the purchase of a brand new ticket. She was scheduled to fly on Virgin America. Virgin America’s limited service was completely booked for days. There just aren’t that many flights, so not many chances to rebook, and Virgin America wasn’t going to send her over to another carrier. We accepted a refund and she didn’t go, rather than spring for a new walkup ticket.

The lesson here is to avoid the small niche carriers when possible, and that there are huge benefits to elite status and significant service from an airport during irregular operations. United — with signfiicant nudging along — get everyone out that needed to get out, and in time for events and meetings in spite of the snow storm.

Fortunately I know routes, and how to check inventory. I use the KVS Tool, some folks use Expert Flyer, and these sorts of tools were a lifesaveer in finding flights that had inventory available.

Several folks asked me about this post from yesterday morning, the sunrise photo I was waking up to, where I was?

It was another great stay at the Westin Diplomat. This isn’t the nicest or most refined property in Starwood, or even of theirs in South Florida. There’s a new W in Ft. Lauderdale that was tempting to check out. But this hotel offers the very best Platinum elite treatment of any property, anywhere.

They have something like 86 suites in the upgrade pool, about three-quarters of which are “corner suites” — a bedroom and separate living room with small dining area and large bathroom. These suites have a wraparound balcony looking straight out at the Atlantic ocean, and to the side the ability to see the Intracoastal Waterway as well.

With this many suites, it’s the ‘default’ room for Platinums. The hotel’s reputation for giving Platinums suites is so strong that they’ve been known to send out emails to Platinums during high demand periods (like the week between Christmas and New Years) just to give them advance warning that they might not get a suite. When you’re that consistent, you do need to set expectations appropriately when you’re likely to deviate.

The other great benefit is the club lounge, which all suite guests and all Platinums have access to. It’s on the 33rd floor and has both indoor and outdoor seating areas, with the outdoor areas overlooking the ocean on one side and the Intracoastal on the other. There’s free wireless in the lounge.

They do an amazing job with breakfast up there, nothing cooked to order but a nice spread complete with lox and a variety pastries. In addition to coffee and tea, and as befitting a South Florida property, the orange juice is quite good.

There’s an evening canape service and also dessert service. I didn’t visit the lounge for either of those during this stay. On my most recent previous two stays this service had slipped. Unlike Asian properties, they don’t continually put food out during evening service times. Rather, they put out a tray or two and when it’s gone for the night it’s gone. And the vultures, they do descend. A shame, because they used to always have the most wonderful tasty desserts before bedtime…

Two other minor gripes about the lounge: cocktails aren’t free, and at breakfast they distribute $0.00 checks for guests to sign, a not-so-subtle mechanism to solicit for tips. But those are really minor complaints, Platinums here get definite value for their money.

Now, I’m not sure I’d love this property without status. It’s very large, there can be competition for pool chairs, and valet parking isn’t cheap at ~ $25/day (not a lot for a big city, but this isn’t even Ft. Lauderdale proper). Internet is $12.95 a day (beginning March 1 that’ll be free for Platinums…).

Still, all in all one of my favorite Starwood properties, my very favorite in North America, and the best anywhere for elite status recognition.

Lucky reports that Starwood Platinum members will begin receiving complimentary in-room internet worldwide on March 1.

Hyatt added free internet as a benefit for all elites last year, at the same time they added four confirmed-at-booking suite upgrades per year.  This is a good move to match Hyatt, but I still consider Hyatt’s Diamond upgrade program better than Starwood’s, although Starwood Platinums do have the chance of more suites than Hyatt Diamonds (quite rare for a Diamond to receive a suite without confirming it, in my experience).

I’ve long been saying that Starwood hsa needed to ramp up benefits to stay competitive.  What was once an industry-leading program has been matched and even surpassed.

Starwood’s unique selling propositions were two-fold:

True Redemptions: No capacity controls on awards.  Hilton and Hyatt now both offer this. 

Upgrades including suites: Marriott explicity got rid of suite upgrades from their program a few years back.  Hilton doesn’t offer suite upgrades as a benefit of elite status (occasionally it happens at the discretion/generosity of the hotel, but it isn’t a benefit of the program).  Hyatt used to give Diamond members one suite upgrade certificate per year, and it wasn’t always easy to use.  Priority Club doesn’t offer suites as a program benefit, either.  Only Intercontinental Royal Ambassador status had a meaningful suite upgrade program, and it’s too small to count. (Ok, Fairmont too, and Omni, but again not relevant.)  Now Hyatt trumps Starwood on suites by letting a member confirm the suite when they really want it rather than hoping and pleading at checkin.

So free internet, good start, thogh I think Starwood still has some distance to go — although Starwood Platinum remains superior in my mind to Marriott Platinum, Priority Club Platinum (by a long stretch!), and Hilton Diamond.

Best Western is offering to match elite status.

To match your ELITE status in any other hotel program you can either email our Customer Care team at BWRelite@bestwestern.com, or call 1-800-444-7646.

Just tell us you want to upgrade your membership with Status Match…No CatchSM, provide us with proof of elite status with another hotel program and we’ll take care of the rest!

If you hold elite status in another program, and you might stay at a Best Western, great. Me? I have no Best Western plans in my future, so probably won’t take advantage of the offer.

(HT: Frugal Travel Guy.)

Hyatt is offering instant platinum status (valid for 180 days) and a fast-track to retaining Platinum and achieving Diamond.

The key benefits of Platinum status are avoiding the worst room in the house, free internet, and a 15% bonus on points earning.

The offer is valid through December 30. New members receive their status instantly via the online link, current members need to call to register for the offer.

The elite status fast track component of the offer is 5 nights during the 180 day trial to requalify through February 2012, or 15 nights to achieve Diamond status until then.

Hyatt Diamond, in my estimation, is the best top tier of any major program at the moment (Intercontinental Royal Ambassador doesn’t count for the comparison). Hyatt matched Starwood on award redemption, so Hyatt points are at least as valuable as Starwood points for hotel stays. Diamonds get free internet and lounge access or breakfast, Starwood Platinums only get these at Westin, Sheraton, and Le Meridien properties (usually) that have lounges. Starwood Platinums may get more suites at checkin, but Hyatt Diamonds get 4 confirmed-at-booking suite upgrades per year.

(Via Loyalty Traveler and Musings fo the Global Traveller.)

Register by April 30 and then every two stays — with Sunday through Thursday checkin — through May 13, 2010 will earn a $100 Amazon gift card. The bonus can be earned up to 3 times.

No reason not to register, of course, even if you aren’t sure you’ll net two Westin stays.