When it comes to hotel loyalty programs I "trust," Hyatt Gold Passport is at the top of that list. However, there have been a couple of situations lately that leave me scratching my head.
Most of the major hotel chains nowadays don't have blackout dates on free night redemptions. That means as long as a standard room is for sale, you can redeem points for it. In the past it really was that straightforward, though back in July I wrote about an interesting situation at the Park Hyatt New York, whereby they simply weren't selling standard rooms, and therefore you couldn't redeem points for them.
Technically they were acting within the rules, since all standard rooms available for sale were also available on points. ;)
I gave the Park Hyatt New York the benefit of the doubt when they first opened since only a limited number of rooms were operational. And the situation has gotten a little better. A year out they seem to make a couple of Park King rooms available for sale, but that's the extent of it. It seems like snagging a standard room award at the Park Hyatt New York is the equivalent of snagging a Qantas first class award seat between the US and Australia.
The post Is Hyatt Playing Games With Award Availability? appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
Starwood Preferred Guest has been on a tear over the past three years. First they introduced a whole new suite of elite status benefits including suite night awards and free breakfast along with 24 hour check-in for top elites. Then a year later — in early 2013 — they introduced additional points-earning and elite recognition […]
The post Starwood: Soon You’ll Have More Upgrade Transparency, and Suite Night Award Update appeared first on View from the Wing.
Through December 10, 2014, Hyatt is offering Gold Passport members a 30% bonus on all points purchases of at least 5,000 points.
If you max out the promotion and purchase 55,000 points you’d receive a total of 71,500 points at a cost of $1,320, which is ~1.85 cents per point. Earlier in the year, Hyatt increased the maximum number of Gold Passport points you can purchase per year from 40,000 to 55,000.
How does this stack up to past promotions on the purchase of points?
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Through December 20, 2014, Alaska is offering up to a 35% bonus on the purchase of Mileage Plan miles.
The bonuses are tiered, meaning the more miles you buy, the bigger the bonus you get, as follows:
-- Buy 5,000 – 19,000 miles: get a 20% Bonus
-- Buy 20,000 – 34,000 miles: get a 30% Bonus
-- Buy 35,000 – 40,000 miles: get a 35% Bonus
You can purchase up to 40,000 miles in one transaction, so if you purchase the maximum allowed 40,000 miles you’d get a 35% bonus, for a grand total of 54,000 Mileage Plan miles. At a cost of $1,182.50 including tax, that comes out to ~2.19 cents per mile.
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Alaska Airlines is offering up to a 35% bonus on purchased miles. Limited Time Offer: up to 35% Bonus Give the gift of miles to yourself and earn up to 35% more in Bonus Miles. For a very limited time, you can earn up to 14,000 extra Bonus Miles when you buy miles by December […]
The post Up to 35% Bonus on Purchased Miles.. One of the Few Buy Miles Offers to Consider appeared first on View from the Wing.
Several weeks ago, Marriott announced that they would be updating their global hotel cancellation policy as of January 1, 2015.
Through this new policy, guests will have until 11:59PM the day before arrival to cancel their reservations without penalty. This was both good and bad news, depending on the property.
Some hotels previously required you to cancel by check-in time the day before arrival, while other hotels let you cancel all the way through the day of arrival. About three quarters of Marriott properties fit in the latter category, so overall it's a negative change, in my opinion.
Not surprisingly, Marriott isn't the only hotel chain to make such a change. Hilton will also be updating their global cancellation policy as of January 1, 2015.
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Saudia might not be the Middle East's most glamorous airline, but they are the one that releases among the most first and business class award space between the US and the Middle East. Of course that's for good reason -- their premium cabin products can't even begin to compete with what the other airlines of the region are offering, like Emirates and Etihad.
Still, Saudia is a way to redeem Delta SkyMiles for travel to the Middle East/India, no matter what time of year you want to go. As a reminder, Saudia's North America destinations include Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and Washington.
In the past, ExpertFlyer was the best place to search Saudia award availability. However, reader CG notes that ExpertFlyer is no longer displaying Saudia business class award availability. They are still displaying Saudia first class and economy class availability, though.
As a reminder, the fare classes for award travel on Saudia are as follows:
The post How To Search Saudia Business Class Award Space appeared first on One Mile at a Time.