The 50% bonus for first-time transfers from American Express Membership Rewards to Delta Skymiles (with bonus of 25,000 elite qualifying miles for transferring 50,000 or more) ends today, but they’ve already come out with the next bonus and it’s available to anyone who registers.

Transfers of up to 99,999 miles earn a 25% bonus, and transfers of 100,000 miles or more earn a 40% bonus through June 30.

My general advice remains, however, don’t be tempted by bonuses, don’t transfer your American Express points without a specific award redemption on the horizon.

I came across an old post from 2004 and wanted to share it again. As I noted in the original post, the ideas in this list are not original to me but were culled from various contributors.

You know you think about miles too much when…

… you hear the words “mile a minute” and find yourself pondering the concept of earning bonus miles as a function of time.

… you answer the question, “How many miles per gallon do you get?” with “It depends on what credit card I use.”

… you unthinkingly ask your non-frequent flyer friend why she is taking the nonstop flight to London instead of the connection through Syracuse.

… one half of your brain keeps trying to calculate the cost/mile value of a mileage run against a baseline of a $24.98 SFO-CDG ticket, leading to a temporary conclusion that a $507 JFK-SIN trip is “expensive”.

… you criticize your spouse for not spending enough (“doing your share”) on the credit card last month.

… you see a lone shopper in the grocery store place a box of Nutrigrain bars in his cart — and you have to bite your toungue not to ask him if he will be using the 100 miles on the box.

… your teen learns that the best way to ask for something is “It’s on sale, and you’ll still earn miles for it!”

… when all your friends are in debt to you because you always pick up the check at lunch.

… one of the first things you do with the person you are training is to go over the airlines and routes out of their local airport, and which mileage programs will work best for them.

… when you have not only YOUR frequent flier and credit card numbers memorized, but also the numbers for family and friends that you book travel for.

… you know all your mileage balances within 50 miles, but can’t remember your phone number.

… even though the “low fuel” light on your dashboard has been on all day, you drive past half a dozen gas stations and ten extra miles to the Shell that takes Diners Club.

… the only thing you use Excel for is tracking miles, and you write to Microsoft asking them to include class-of-service bonus spreadsheet function to the next version of Office.

… you walk into a meeting at the office and people ask, “So where did you go LAST weekend?”

… you buy flowers for your wife so you will get your [shopping promotion] partner. What’s worse is when she asks you if the florist is a partner.

… a loved one passes away and you think that the funeral home accepting your miles-earning credit card mitigates your loss.

… you book an international trip because you don’t want to waste a Systemwide Upgrade domestically.

… you plan day trips to cities you find boring just because there’s a websaver and you can get free booze in the lounge

… you get a big goofy smile when you hear “Rhapsody in Blue”

Any of these hit a bit too close to home for you?

In most cases throughout South Asia, VIP immigration meet-and-greet is available, reasonably priced, and utterly gratuitous.

It’s wonderful to have when included free, such as provided by Thai Airways for all of their first class passengers in Bangkok – you’re met at the jetway and escorted (depending on distance, either walked or taken by golf cart) through VIP immigration with no lines, assisted with baggage, and turned over to your driver if one is waiting for you.

The first time I experienced this was back in 2006, Thai used to identify first class passengers at Don Muang airport with a card they would give out and since my wife and I were both given a card and I admit I turned back only one, I still have one. It was really need to be taken to a desk where my wife and I sat down and had them process our immigration. A Thai rep stood over the immigration official with a stern look insisting they tap away on their keyboard faster.

When I went to Bali in 2008 the service was supposed to be included with club level accomodations at the Intercontinental, but the hotel was transitioning databases and apparently my record and a handful of others got mixed up in the data migration so they didn’t have my arrival information in their system properly. No one met us. As an apology we were given spa credits. (We also hadn’t been pre-blocked into the promised particular suite, but that was rectified.)

The Intercontinental no longer offers the service, when it was discontinued they explained it as changes in laws and expiring contracts that could not be renewed, but plenty of private firms continue to offer the service and quite inexpensively.

It’s nice not to have long waits at immigration when arriving behind a number of large aircraft, and for inexperienced travelers it’s nice to have someone guiding the way. For more experienced travelers, though, it’s usually a service that’s hardly worth the price even when the price is modest (e.g. under $100 for two people). And I won’t usually pay for it.

But I’ve still had occasion to do so, for instance I wanted to try out JetQuay in Singapore before using them for my wife’s parents who hadn’t traveled in Asia before, plus it was reasonably priced when booked as part of a transfer package with the Intercontinental, less expensive than booking separately on my own.

And I’ve done it in Bangkok as well, I used Image Limo for the first time in April 2009 when I wanted to test out the service before setting up arrival services for a co-worker on a honeymoon and for some other good friends making their first trip to Thailand the following month.

Since we weren’t arriving in Thai Airways first, and since it wasn’t clear to me that we’d be getting fast track passes, I decided to try out one of the VIP escort services at Suvarnabhumi. In particular, I booked a meet-and-greet as well as round-trip car transfer with Image Limo. The car service was 1200 baht each way (this was billed as a ‘special’ rate but seemed in line with what I’ve paid for a car service on arrival in the past, though quite reasonable for something pre-booked). The meet-and-greet was impossibly expensive for a relatively unnecessary service in most cases at 3000 baht for two people (it’s less expensive for just one) but I was curious to see how it would work as I’ve only gotten escorts in the past from Thai.

A well-dressed Thai man was at the entrance to the jetway with a sign with my name on it when we arrived. He walked us through the terminal (no buggy ) to an special passport control area with no line that was walled off from the regular lines, I didn’t notice it as diplomatic passport control per se but may well have been. He clearly knew the officer on duty and nothing had to be said or paperwork handed over to justify our eligibility for the line.

Right on through passport control, our bags were already on the belt. I pointed to them, our escort put them on a luggage cart and walked us out to a waiting car (he rang them from inside baggage claim). The car was a Nissan Teana, they had the obligatory cold cloths and waters and mints, the day’s papers, etc. in the car, and we were off onto the expressway to head down to the Royal Orchid Sheraton. The driver did get himself a bit turned around once he exited the expressway, but the back streets at night can be confusing.

I’ve had nothing but good experiences with Image Limo, whether for VIP meet and greet or just airport transfers, which aren’t cheap but compare favorably to booking through a hotel of course or to grabbing an AOT car. If you don’t want to cab it or use public transportation, they’re a good alternative.

Bangkok Flight Services (which I never used personally) was a lot cheaper for the VIP meet and greet, but they’re apparently no longer offering the service.

Meanwhile I’ve been hooked in again to pay for the service myself because through June 4, Image Limo is offering “free” VIP meet-and-greet at aircraft door and fast track through immigration at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport when booking a roundtrip car transfer. (The deal isn’t on the Image Limo website but was included in their e-mail newsletter, just ask for it if you’re interested.)

Now, it isn’t really free. Their ‘normal’ roundtrip airport/downtown pricing is 2600 baht and the price was bumped to 3000 baht with the free offer. And the ‘free’ service includes only one person, additional people are charged at 1200 baht apiece. But if you’re solo, you’re paying 400 baht (~ US$13.20) for the service, which is phenomenal on top of getting a reliable car transfer. For two people it’s nearly $53 over cost of just car service to include the VIP immigration service, that’s a price point I’m comfortable with even recognizing that I don’t need the service.

Now, you have to book with them by June 4 but it can be for any date after that. They’ll bill you right away (in Thai baht, so I gave them my Hyatt Visa which has no foreign currency conversion fees), and it’s non-refundable, but you can change plans or cancel and use the funds as a credit. I’m not too worried about it in my own case as I go to Thailand with some frequency, and also send plenty of friends there, I can always use it.

I don’t get anything at all for the recommend, but I’ve found them to be a good reliable car service and this is pretty good pricing. Anyone have other suggestions, either for immigration fast track services or good car services in Thailand? I do know of course that you can manage to get cars cheaper, and it’s not for everyone, some will just prefer to cab it and do so at the cheapest cost, strategizing routes for the driver to take to reduce meter cost. That’s fair, not how I’m usually traveling, but I recognize this isn’t for everyone – I’m interested in all manner of deals, so share your thoughts?

Posted on Milepoint by AutoSlash:

Just came across this great deal for weekend rentals in New Orleans with Hertz for $15.50 total including tax. Seems to work for the weekend of 6/17 and the weekend of 6/24. After clicking through, you can change the dates and times to suit your needs.

The best part is that this deal is available for *ANY* car type from economy right up to Luxury, any SUV or Minivan.

Via Destination David, it’s the last day of American AAdvantage’s 30 Deals in 30 Days to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the program.

And today’s deal is worth mentioning, a 30% discount on coach saver awards within the Continental U.S. and Canada for bookings made by June 10 and travel between September 7 and November 8.

That means 17,500 roundtrip for awards that would usually cost 25,000 miles. Registration is not required for this one, mileage discount will apply automatically, whether booking one-way (3750 mile discount) or roundtrip (7500 mile discount).

Scott McCartney writes about this year’s IdeaWorks study of award inventory, but the underlying work isn’t all that useful and I don’t think Scott does a good job of framing why. Some of Scott’s takeaways are true, others true ‘as far as they go’, and still others quite misleading.

Last May Scott covered the study as well.

The problems that I identified with the study last year remain.

1. They’re just querying airline websites. As a result you get pretty big disparity between US Airways (‘the worst’) and Continental (‘in the top half’) even though they are dealing with virtually the exact same award availability as Star Alliance carriers. The US Airways website doesn’t show partner availability (yet), the Continental website does.

2. Route selection bias. They handpicked 20 routes per airline, remember these are different routes for each airline. This isn’t like comparing American and United out of Chicago on routes where they have similar numbers of seats offered. Or comparing American and United on the JFK – Los Angeles route. This is picking different routes for each airline, and saying that they are somehow equivalent. Now they’ll say that picking ‘the busiest routes for each’ is somehow equivalent, but then you get…

3. The Greyhound Road Rewards problem. Greyhound has a frequent rider program, every 10 bus rides gets you… a free bus ride. In other words, hardly an aspiration award that anyone wants. You may fly Delta from Atlanta to Detroit a lot, but then that doesn’t suggest at all that it’s the route you want to redeem your miels on as a reward for all those trips! Which brings us to…

4. Partner flights are not considered. US Airways ir quite rightly quoted in the piece saying that their customers love to redeem their miles on international Star Alliance awards, rather than US Airways domestic flights, and they’re penalized for that in this study. Meanwhile, US Airways also suffers because…

5. They’re looking primarily at domestic coach awards. Again, the Greyhound Road Rewards problem, this is a great thing for folks who want another bus trip or who want to earn a free Southwest Airlines ticket as a reward for flying Southwest Airlines (the ‘low cost carriers’ are said to fare especially well in the study). But if that’s not your goal, then the study tells you nothing that is useful to you. Meanwhile, in addition to premium cabin international partner awards, US Airways suffers on its own metal because they tend to have excellent, outstanding award availability in first class on their own flights. But the study isn’t looking at this. Now maybe I don’t want to redeem for US Airways first class from Los Angeles to Charlotte, but it’s sure great when you want to fly from a US Airways city to an international gateway, the first class domestic seat is basically ‘thrown in’ and US Airways can get you there — something that’s frequently not the case with United or Continental (or Delta).

6. Calendar bias. They picked fourteen dates between June and October and check those dates during March and April. But different airlines make award seats available at different times, some tend to release seats early when schedules open, others release them much closer to departure. I give Delta Skymiles a really hard time on this blog for their award availability (and that of many of its partners), and rightly so I think, but Delta’s award availability is pretty decent last minute, their revenue management folks tend to hold back releasing award seats until late, very conservative not wanting to give up seats for awards that they might sell. I’d argue they are too conservative and that it speaks poorly of their abilities to predict loads if they really believe they need to do it. But it says little about award availability to check during a specific defined set of dates rather than to search broader sets of dates during a braoder period of time.

I’m also a bit skeptical of the methodology here when they (a) pick GOL as one of the airlines to test and (b) give GOL a 100%. Funny, they don’t include Brazilian carrier TAM in the equation, how did GOL weasle itself in and especially with such an unlikely result?

Now, I suppose this study is useful if it describes how you would actually use your miles:

• You want to fly domestic coach, and on your own airline’s ‘busiest routes’
  
• You will only look on an airline’s website, you will not do your own research or even call the airline
  
• You make your bookings in March for summer travel

If that’s the case, perhaps the results are valid, at least as far as they go, but I’m still skeptical about some of the outlier data points like GOL at 100% availability, Southwest at 99.3%, Singapore 90.7%, and Air Canada over 80%. These results almost have to be attributable to biases in the research design noted above.

But for anyone who wants to travel in international premium cabins, on partner airlines, or checks for award space either early or last minute, this study tells you absoltely nothing. And other than ‘someone is trying hard’ I really don’t get the continued news angle here.

Goodness knows I give Christopher Elliott a hard time about his columns when I think they’re wrong. I gave him a piece of my mind just this past weekend. But he’s got a pretty sensible column in today’s Washington Post, where he explains why it’s a bad idea to write tarmac delay rules into law.

A bunch of ostensibly pro-consumer lobbying groups want legislation to address tarmac delays, when regulation has already done so — long tarmac delays were exceedingly rare to begin with, almost nonexistent now, and the costs of rules extracting massive fines for such delays have simply led to more flight cancellations instead (which don’t obviously make consumers better off, to say the least).

Oddly, these groups want legislation in absence of a problem and when consumers themselves are hardly up in arms over the issue. Perhaps they need legislation for fear that lack of a problem, and a counterproductive ‘solution’, will lead to the eventual undoing of their wins?

These groups want more consumers to complain to government, so they also want legislation to include a single source phone number for consumers to do so and they want to require airlines to advertise it. Elliott rightly chastises the creation of a new telephone bureaucracy in a digital age.

And post-legislation, an entirely new round of rulemaking would be required to that rules would match legislative language. Perhaps that additional bite at the apple is what the groups are looking for?

If anyone has insight into the game that Consumers Union and Public Citizen are playing here, I’d love to hear it. But kudos to Elliott for calling them out on it.

There’s been a ton of battling back and forth over Hawaii fares the past few weeks, mostly it’s been Delta coming into other airline hubs and dropping price down to the $450 level, for example DC or Chicago through Atlanta to Honolulu. US Airways has gone into Delta hubs and done the same thing.

Yesterday Delta dropped Philadelphia – Atlanta – Honolulu down to $450 or so, it’s gone now unfortunately.

This morning I woke up to United offering these fares out of its own hubs with fares as low as $518 from the East Coast. Two-day minimum stay, fares are in the G and T buckets, and June/July/August seem to come in about $100 more. But I found Labor Day Weekend from DC for $538.

Naturally, I don’t expect the fares to last long, certainly not until tomorrow but it could be gone come early afternoon.

The point isn’t to jump on United’s Hawaii fars, though of course if you live in DC or Chicago or Houston it’s a great deal and you may want to grab it if you have any interest in Hawaii.

The point is, rather, that these fare sales pop up all the time especially with Hawaii, at least a couple of times a year. Be on the lookout for them, they make great mileage run fares but also a great opportunity to pop over or if it’s a destination you’re interested in for a trip especially with a family they make great purchase opportunities — just keep your eye open for fare sales and that’s when you have your short window to jump on ‘em. The United fares, for instance, are available through end of schedule so if it’s winter 2012 you’re interested in you can grab those now.

Hesitate and you’ll be back into the $800s or $900s…

I previously reported that Milepoint was offering $25 towards your microlending at Kiva.org.

Specifically, that the first 200 members to join Milepoint.com’s ‘lending team’ on Kiva would receive $25 for their Kiva account after making $25 in loans.

Well, Randy Petersen has upped the ante.

If 200 people join during the month of May (and we’re over halfway there), then one person will be drawn at random to win an iPad2. That’s in addition to the $25 that each person will get for their Kiva account. So it’s a roughly one-in-200 chance to win an iPad.

From Randy’s email,

Called MilepointMonday, it highlights a membership drive among frequent flyers on the milepoint.com website. Their month-of-May membership drive is to recruit 200 new members to their Kiva Lending Team. Kiva.org if you don’t know is a global micro-lending initiative which loans money raised by it’s members to help empower people around the globe. The milepoint Kiva Lending Team since formed 3 months ago uniquely has finished in the top ten among move than 2,600 common interest teams each month and that’s attributed to the generosity of frequent flyers to give back. Some have figured out that they can charge these loans via their miles/points earning credit card to earn miles all while helping others.

MilepointMonday highlights the last week of this membership drive in which a random member of the team will win an iPad if the membership drive of 200 new members is met. Good cause, good chance—since the odds for the iPad will be roughly 1-in-200 (though there could be more than 200 new members by the end of May).

So join Milepoint and Kiva if you haven’t already. If you’re already a member of both, just associate your Kiva account with the Milepoint.com lending team, and make $25 in loans, you’ll get your $25 matched in new money to loan and also have a (very good) shot at an iPad!

Via Milepoint, Continental is eliminating their offer of double miles for shopping through the Onepass portal for customers with the Continental Mastercard.

On July 19, 2011, the ShopOnePass Twice the Miles program will be ending. Although you’ll no longer receive double miles on purchases made with your Continental Airlines Chase credit or debit card after the program ends, you will continue to earn valuable miles when you shop at ShopOnePass.

I loved double miles for online shopping via the Onepass mall for having the Continental Mastercard, it’s why I kept the card.

This benefit was one of the few differences between Chase’s offerings between United and Continental, none of the United cards had this feature. Although in nearly every other case where United and Continental have been different, the two carriers have gone with Continental’s way of doing this, I worried that this benefit wouldn’t last because the United relationship with Chase was the stronger one so the default seemed to be however the United-Chase deal was set up. Continental was able to have an American Express relationship but that disappears with the merger because of Chase’s influence on the combined entity which exceeds their influence over just Continental.

Now, I’m not cancelling my Continental Mastercard right away. I have no other real use for it, I even still have a United Visa primarily (or even exclusively) because it is by far my oldest line of credit. I knew I wouldn’t ultimately keep both cards, I’ll cancel this one eventually in order to make room for some other Chase product that comes with a nice signup bonus. But I’m waiting to make that decision. I’m interested to see what kind of offers if any Chase puts on the table for Continental Mastercard holders to keep their cards when those cards become co-branded with United instead. Next year the Onepass program should be going away, Chase doesn’t want to lose customers who are emotionally connected to the Continental program but not United’s. So there could be bonuses, and I want to hang around in case they’re good… plus my annual fee doesn’t come due for over 6 months, so there’s no rush.

Via Bruce Schneier, hotel towel theft is a much bigger issue than I had ever imagined, though my impression was based solely on the fact that I don’t ever take hotel towels. (I suppose it was especially irrational to hold this impression after Priority Club held a towel day in 2003.)

I would have expected the incidence of towel theft to have dropped now that most travelers pay for checked bags, extra towels in the luggage presumably spill over into a need for more checked bags and thus hardly remain free.

Apparently in Nigeria last year someone was sentenced to 3 months in jail for stealing two towels. The hotel that was victimized was a Hilton, not a Priority Club property, the culprit should have waited for the next amnesty and selected hotels more carefully.

Schneier notes one hotel that has saved $16,000 per month by reducing its towel thefts each month from 4000 down to 750 by attaching washable RFID tags to its towels. I assume that they aren’t actually tracking down towel thiefs, rather by letting guests know that the towels are tagged this serves as a deterrent. Presumably the deterrent would work just as well by telling guests that the RFID tags are in the towels, without any need to make the actual investment, at least as long as they are able to keep their lack of technology investment a secret.

My favorite comment from Schneier’s blog came from Dirk Praet:

It would be way more fun to embed a slightly more complex chip into the towel that either blows up or sets fire to the luggage. And then have the thief arrested on terrorism charges.

A towel is, indeed, a practical and highly valuable tool.

Christopher Elliott interview’s the TSA’s Blogger Bob though unfortunately he tosses mostly softballs like,

• [What are the] qualifications for working at TSA. Also, how much training do agents get?

• [H]ow do you like working for the TSA.

• What are the most unusual items TSA officials have discovered in a pat-down?

• How do you feel about alliteration?

• If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? (Ok, just kidding about that one)

When he does let a ‘tough question’ get through, he doesn’t ask any follow-ups. So he passes along a reader question, “Does the TSA believe it is making America safer? Can you name any specific, recent threats that TSA has stopped?” and lets Blogger Bob get away with “[Federal Air Marshals] have interceded on many flights to stop aggressive actions by passengers” and offers no follow-ups on how many of these ‘aggressive actions’ were by, you know, [i]terrorists[/i] and how many were drunk passengers? And why let Blogger Bob take credit for air marshalls even, instead of pressing for the number of terrorists they’ve actually every caught (zero)?

And when Blogger Bob argues that the “335 Transportation Security Officers [who] have been terminated for theft” represent just a few bad apples, he gets away with it.

Christopher Elliott, meet Larry King.

When I wrote about changes already announced and those still pending with the United-Continental merger last week, I meant to mention ‘Channel 9′ and simply forgot.

United has long offered one of my favorite onboard features, at the pilot’s discretion, the ability for passengers to listen to air traffic control (on channel 9 of inflight audio). Pilots don’t always turn it on, some explicitly don’t like it and will not, but I’ll often ask a flight attendant whether channel 9 will be on for the flight and if they’ve learned during preflight briefing that it will not be I will politely request that they ask the pilot to reconsider, frequently they will when a passenger is requesting it.

Look, I don’t care about the tulip. I suppose I do care about the Blue Carpet replacing the Red Carpet since it appears to support all elites boarding together (mayhem) even though they appear to still be calling top tier elites first. But channel 9 is a real differentiator, something that makes United United. Like Rhapsody in Blue which thank goodness they are keeping.

It appears that they are indeed keeping channel 9 at least according to United’s twitter feed.

Now, that doesn’t mean that they will roll it out to Continental’s aircraft. And it doesn’t mean that it will remain in the future to the extent that the overall inflight entertainment product should change. And Continental pilots may well be less inclined to turn it on, since they aren’t used to it, it isn’t part of the Continental culture. So I suspect that it may become less available than in the past, especially as the fleets integrate and the pilots operate across the entire fleet — you’ll need a legacy United aircraft and perhaps a legacy United pilot as well.

I do hope it doesn’t die a slow death, at least it appears it will not die a fast one. It’s a real customer-pleaser, and product differentiator, in a world where those are few and far between.

(HT: Infinite1K on Milepoint)

Air India was invited to join Star Alliance in late 2007, and all sorts of problems with the carrier have continually pushed off the joining date.

Apparently, however, now that Air India and Indian Airlines are operating jointly under the Air India code, they’ve finally met the minimum joining requirements.

Last May Air India’s entry was put off – yet again – “until March 2011.” That deadline unsurprisingly passed.

It sounds as though their joining may finally be imminent, which is all well and good though I’m not especially excited about the prospect of reciprocal earn and burn with them (though more options are certainly better than fewer). I am somewhat non-plussed because it suggests that Jet Airways may be less likely to become a Star Alliance member as a result. Though with Kingfisher tying in with oenworld, they could well find a home in Skyteam. Jet is fairly stingy with premium cabin long-haul award space, at least for more than one passenger at a time, so that may well be fitting..

Nonetheless, no joining date for Air India has yet been announced.

When Radisson hotels announced the end of Goldpoints plus and its replacement with Club Carlson, I said that I really hoped they retained their “Our World, Your Lounge” benefit. One of the most interesting, innovative offers by hotel programs, their hotels in Europe, Middle East, and Africa offered elite members complimentary coffee, tea or hot chocolate for two people and use of free wireless internet any time, whether they were registered guests or not. It was a really a nice benefit that didn’t cost the hotels much at all but really created a feeling of belonging and a special relationship with the chain for its elite members. It’s one benefit that I really hoped other chains might pick up on, instead it’s been discontinued.

British Airways is ending its Open Doors Policy for Gold member lounge access on June 17. Previously, Gold members could use British Airways lounges (no guest access, member only) regardless of what airline they were flying. BA says it’s based on expanded lounge access when flying BA or oneworld airlines (i.e. they have more partners) and “based on feedback we have received from Executive Club members” (which strains credulity, how many British Airways Gold elites complained about receiving lounge access?). Back when I was BA Gold eons ago (2007) it was a wonderful respite in Milan to use the BA lounge instead of the bloody Alitalia Botticelli lounge despite flying Alitalia.

Neither benefit could possibly be especially costly for the programs to provide, and were aimed at their best customers, so it seems strange to me to pull back here. Perhaps I’m missing something that readers can help explain to me.

Since last summer TopGuest has been offering points for check-ins on Foursquare at various hotel chains.

They started with Priority Club, added Hilton and some others. And though I was initially skeptical, I quickly made it a part of my daily routine. I check in at the Holiday Inn a couple of blocks from my office each day, and also at a Doubletree a few miles away as well. And I get 50 Priority Club and 50 Hilton HHonors points daily. Unfortunately though I do this frequently I cannot become ‘mayor’ of either property, because I travel too much, there appears to be someone checking in at each hotel who literally does it every single day without fail.

Yesterday it was reported that Best Western Rewards has been added to Topguest. That prompted me to link my Best Western Rewards account to Topguest and test a checkin at a relatively sort of kind of nearby Best Western property, it worked and posted quickly to my Topguest account. And it also prompted me to link my Choice Privileges account.

There’s much discussion of the ins and out of Topguest and receiving points for free at Milepoint. The gist is that you sign up for a Topguest account and then link a social media platform like Foursquare to it. Then you also link your frequent guest programs, and each time you ‘check in’ on Foursquare at a participating hotel property, Topguest knows it and awards you points. Some points, like HHonors points, post instantly. Other points, like Priority Club, post later on in batches. But while the points for any given checkin are modest (50 Priority Club points are worth about 30 cents), the fact that you can do this day after day, and during true downtime (I do it walking to my office usually, when I’m not otherwise going to be very productive), I’ve found it worthwhile.

The Topguest partners that I find worthwhile are:

• Priority Club, 50 points per day for checkin at an Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza or Holiday Inn.
  
• Hilton HHonors, 50 points per day for checkin at a Doubletree.
  
• Best Western Rewards, 50 points per day for checkin at any Best Western hotel in North America.
  
• Choice Privileges, 50 points per day for checkin at any Quality Inn, Comfort Suites and Cambria Suites.

Ones I’m not personally doing:

• Virgin America Elevate, 25 points per checkin at a Virgin America airport terminal or baggage claim. Seems an easy one but I’ve not been engaged in Virgin America’s program.
  
• Kimpton InTouch, one stay credit for your first checkin. If you’re into Kimpton’s program, it’s a free stay credit… but I don’t really do the Kimpton program.
  
• Wyndham Rewards, 50 points per day for checkin at any Wingate by Wyndham. (There just aren’t any nearby Wingates for me.)
  
• Total Rewards, 50 points for checkins at Caesar’s in Vegas.
  
• Voila Rewards, 50 points per checkin daily at one of their network hotels.
  
• Clubhotels, a personalized reward for every 5 checkins.
  
• Avis, 10% off a rental for UK checkins.
  
• Additional offers from Standard Hotels, Viceroy Hotels, and Thompson hotels.

All in all, a whole bunch of points just a few points at a time via social media, although Starwood caught on with a recent promotion and actually required bonuses for checkin be done in conjunction with an actual reservation. That’s thinking! The bonus was also more lucrative (250 Starpoints), so it’s hard to fault them for being more restrictive. But I’ll take the free points for checking in with my phone while I’m not doing anything else, while it lasts.

After a week in which United Airlines resurrected retired flight numbers United 93 and United 175, the two flights that were downed on 9/11 (and quickly corrected the error), it was quite the capper to find themselves needing to remove a billboard similarly inappropriate in light of 9/11.

A United Airlines ad across the street from ground zero that read “You’re going to like where we land” has been removed after NBC New York reported that some found it inappropriate.

Some New Yorkers said it was insensitive because of its proximity to where United Flight 175 struck the south tower on 9/11.

In fairness, United didn’t place the ad there themselves and acted quickly to have it removed once it was called to their attention.

That’s in contrast to the true gaffe of placing United codes on Continental flights that shouldn’t have been re-used. After a flight is lost, the flight number is retired. United has apologized for that mistake as well.

Still, I don’t think this even qualified as the Worst. Airline Ad. Ever.

GoRemy (whose Arlington Rap is an all-time favorite of mine, but then I live in Arlington) brings us The TSA Pokey Pokey.

In most cases, travel insurance makes little sense. You want to insure against large losses, incurring which would be catastrophic. You don’t want to buy insurance against small losses, against those you ‘self-insure.’

And small losses are rarely worth the cost to recover, remember that a covered event doesn’t just generate a check, you have to navigate the bureaucracy of the insurer in order to obtain payment, which at the very least is going to involve filling out paperwork and waiting.

Travel insurers offer the policies because they’re profitable. Travel websites and travel agents sell them because they’re profitable to them, in fact commissions can exceed 40%.

Further, most of the benefits of travel insurance are relatively modest, it may not make snese to buy a policy on the chance you need to spend up to $200 on meals during your delay, or even with $10,000 in emergency medical coverage. (Check whether your existing coverage applies to your trip, it often does, and if you’re buying insurance it’s probably for peace of mind against ‘really bad things’ and for which $10,000 may not hack it.)

As Scott McCartney reminds us, travel insurance is rife with exclusions.

This week’s Middle Seat looks at the gotchas and pitfalls of travel insurance, including a chart with some recommendations on how best to protect yourself from particular worries. Standard travel insurance policies are heavy on exclusions –- reasons a trip gets canceled that aren’t covered. Unless you read those exclusions, you may be buying a policy that doesn’t cover the very instance you want covered.

Consider a travel insurance policy for a ‘trip of a lifetime’ that’s costing you in excess of $10,000 and being booked a year out. Although most folks booking such trips could and probably should self-insure (i.e. don’t buy the insurance, as if you’re booking $10,000 trips you can likely afford to do so more than once). But we often buy insurance for reasons that are not logical, calculating, but instead emotional.

Rather than the adverse selection problem identified by economists, that people who are most likely to need the coverage are the ones most likely to buy it, it turns out frequently that the most risk adverse consumers are the ones most likely to buy it. And as much as buying insurance, they’re buying the comfort of knowing they won’t be out a lot of money when unforeseen circumstances arise. They’d rather be out a medium amount of money now instead.

Barbara De Lollis reports on her conversation with Westin’s new brand chief and asks about elite recognition.

“We’re working closely with SPG to figure out how not only to deliver SPG awards, but a branded award as part of that,” Brian Povinelli, the newly named brand chief for the 179-location chain told me the other day.

“Mid-year 2011, we expect to roll out some new platinum amenities and preferred member amenities that will be more in a brand voice,” he says.

Now, Starwood definitely needs to improve their elite offerings. What was once a market leader has seen competitors catch up and even surpass them, while Starwood’s elite offerings have remained fairly constant for years.

Starwood Platinums do get good space available upgrades, best available room at checkin up to and including standard suites. Marriott and Hilton top tiers specifically exclude suites although hotels sometimes still deliver them. Of course Hyatt offers confirmed suites four times a year to Diamonds. But at hotels where Platinums don’t get a meaningful upgrade, and that have no lounge, there’s really no unique benefit to being a Platinum member other than the 500 point check-in amenity. (Ok, internet, but that’s quickly become standard across chains. And of course welcome amenities are common as well.)

So some new recognition is due. I was disappointed once I heard ‘more in a brand voice’ because I read that as ‘meaningless.’

Now, I could be wrong, but what clues Barbara does offer aren’t exactly encouraging.

While he declined to reveal specifics just yet, he did hint that one possibility might involve New Balance fitness gear.

This wasn’t exciting when Westin was “Powered by Reebok” and it isn’t exciting now. Hope they can get more thoughtful…

Truth be told, I still have faith, and I don’t think that what Westin has up its branded sleeve is the extent of what’s cooking up in White Plains. They currently have the most lucrative hotel promotion in the market, so they haven’t forgotten how to leverage their loyalty program. And they do know that the rest of the world has been catching up. It might just be basing expectations on hope over experience but I still expect something big out of Starwood and sooner rather than later.