You Went Where???

Got plans to head to Europe this summer?  Alitalia is having a special 20% off sale this weekend.  The only caveat is you must book on Alitalia’s Italian site here, and put “SPECIAL20IT” in the promo code box after selecting your fare.  Not only is the sale good for transatlantic flights, but also short-haul trips within Europe.
Translation courtesy of Gary:

USE THE CODE: SPECIAL20IT

This week you reserve an offer not to be missed. Buy online between 12:00 on 18 May at 12:00 on May 21, 2012. For you a special discount of 20% of all destinations of the Alitalia network. Discount of 20% applies on the total ticket price (taxes, surcharges and service sales included), all of the destinations of Alitalia network purchased in Classic classes of service – Economy, Great and Magnificent – Business, Premium Economy with the exception of – Classic Plus Offer ‘valid for flying from May 22, 2012 April 15, 2013.

Pretty easy.  Just go to this Facebook page and “like” SPG if you don’t already, and fill out the form.    You’ll get 100 points automatically, and be entered to win 100,000!

HT: Lucky

On Thursday evening, I found out I needed to be in DC for a Monday 9:30am court appearance.  Although I could theoretically take an early morning Monday flight, that would be cutting it close and exhausting (and expensive).  Since I live in midtown Manhattan, 2 subway stops from Penn Station, the roomy Amtrak is always a fine option.  But the fact that I intended to spend Sunday afternoon with my mother and family at my parents’ house on Long Island added a wrinkle.  Looking at the schedule, I figured I could head to Long Island for the afternoon, then back into Penn Station, and grab a train getting me into DC at around 10:30pm.  Not appealing but doable.  I knew that last minute Delta and U.S. Air Shuttle flights from LaGuardia to DCA are very pricey, but, on a lark, I looked at flight prices on Kayak.  Sure enough, many flights out of Kennedy were going for less than the train from Penn Station.  And Kennedy is about a 30 minute drive from my parents’ and I knew they’d be happy to drive me.  So my two months of no flying looked like it was about to end.

But the only flight with sensible times flying into DCA as opposed to Dulles was on American.

I have often before blogged on my lack of love for American.  On the most basic level, I have had unenjoyable flying experiences- with delayed and cancelled flights, and old equipment without modern industry-standard experiences.   Admirals Clubs in the US are cash restaurants with free coffee, water, and carrot stacks.  American’s upgrade policy for lower tier elites is nonexistent.  And American consistently improves premium cabin offerings while degrading or neglecting the back of the plane. As a result, I tend to avoid American (and it doesn’t hurt that OneWorld is the one of the big three alliances I don’t have status in), and thus hadn’t flown it in about 16 months.

I was optimistic, though.  The short hop down to DCA can’t be that bad.  I posted a tweet about my ambivalence of returning to American, and American soon after tweeted me to offer assistance and wishing me a good trip.  This was particularly impressive since earlier in the week I tweeted United after needing to call three times with calls of well over twenty minutes each just to get a simple online booking ticketed – and received no response.  Also, American had added a number of perks I hadn’t yet had a chance to experience.  For holders of the AAdvantage Platinum Mastercard,  American recently added free checked bags, priority boarding, and discounts on in-flight purchases.  None were really of particular value to me on a short flight on a short trip but its nice to have some perks on an airline I don’t have status on.   But one new perk was.

The TSA has started a pilot “Pre-Check” program  , by which registered can not only bypass the regular and traditional elite security lines in favor of a dedicated lane, but also keep their shoes on and liquids and laptops in their bags.  The program is only currently available at select airports and select terminals at those airports for travelers on American, Delta, and Alaska Airlines.  As a Global Entry member, I am automatically eligible to use Pre-Check by associating my TSA number with my American and Delta profiles.

American’s Terminal 8 at JFK just joined the program.  I don’t know what the indication on my boarding pass indicating I was eligible was, and had been prepared to just go through regular Priority Access since I didn’t see any special indication.  But sure enough, upon presenting my boarding pass to the agent at the entry to the Priority Access lane, I was directed to scan my boarding pass, and then go into a special Pre Check lane.  While the line for general passengers had hundreds of passengers, and the Priority Access lane had at least two dozen, I was the only one on the Pre-Check lane- which had 3 dedicated TSA agents.  Passing through was like travel in the days of yore.  I could leave my liquids and laptop in my briefcase, and didn’t have to take my shoes off.  Amazing!

Once through security, I headed towards the outer reaches of the terminal where American Eagle flights depart from, passing the growing number of non-AA tenants at Terminal 8, including Air Berlin, LAN, Royal Jordanian and Qatar Airways aircraft.  I made a quick stop at the crowded Admirals Club where, after waiting on a long line, I was at least able to have some snack mix and coffee for free.  (I had been tickled by the fact that, at check-in, I was offered the opportunity to buy a day pass at the Club for an outrageous $50.)   After twenty minutes, I hiked the rest of the way to the gate, and prepared for boarding.

The flight was on a full tiny, well-worn American Eagle RJ, with several deadheaders, and a number of others clearly connecting from international travel.  The only notable issue was a not-particularly-friendly Flight Attendant in her 50s, with blue eyeshadow, blue earrings . . . and blue hair.  Not something you see that often.  I’d dozed off as we waited to take off, and woke up for the short beverage service.  It’s been awhile since I’ve flown into DCA in the daytime, and on a beautiful spring day, the approach was amazing – following the Potomac from Georgetown University to the Watergate and Kennedy Center, to a sweeping view of the Mall and monuments.  Then a 20-minute Metro ride to an un-noteworthy hotel stay at the serviceable Hampton Inn Washington Downtown (the Courthouse is not in great hotel land).

Happy Mothers’ Day to my readers… I hope to pick up the posting pace as I have a busy summer travel schedule coming!

Hard to believe, but Memorial Day is just a few weeks away — meaning the start of the peak summer travel season is upon us.   And while airfare deals and promos are generally hard to come by in the summer, hotels are competing for your dollars by offering a lot of points and discount specials.

Rather than rewrite the book, I highly recommend checking out this post at Loyalty Lobby which fairly extensively covers current points promotions at the major hotel chains.   But many of my readers are not just concerned about points accumulation, but about actually spending less money to start with.  First, you should check out my post from about a month ago laying out generic booking tips.   In addition, there are a number of special time-limited promos running this summer that can help you save some dough.

1) Hilton’s “Go Out” Promo:   Select Hilton Hotels are running a summer promotion for Gay Pride season, providing discounted rates, double HHonors points, free high-speed internet access, a one-year digital subscription to OUT magazine, and late check-out where available.  There is obviously no requirement that you be a member of the LGBT community or even an ally (though, if you’re neither, please stop reading my blog )

1a) Starting May 10, Hilton is launching its Great Getaway promotion, with up to 40% off on prepaid stays for the summer,

2) Hyatt’s “Free Time” Promo:  Several Hyatt properties are offering a free night on multi-night stays now through December in the US, Canada, and Caribbean, and through September 8 elsewhere, as well as free breakfast and late checkout.  Simply enter the code “FRTIME”

3) Starwood’s Beat the Timer:  This isn’t a new promo, or one special for the summer, but I somehow neglected it in my earlier post.  Starwood runs the “Beat the Timer” program, which offers pre-paid, heavily discounted rooms at properties throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.  The list of properties changes every 72 hours, hence the program’s name.

4) Joie de Vivre Hotels Anniversary Specials:  Joie de Vivre is a boutique hotel chain with locations throughout California, as well as Arizona and Chicago.  I’ve stayed at several and they’re perfectly lovely.  In recognition of the chain’s 25th anniversary, they are running special rates and packages at select locations (which appear to be rotating).

5) Also in boutique land, Small Luxury Hotels of the World has several promos running.  SLH is a marketing group of hundreds of independently-owned luxury properties around the world- many in places without major chains.  Check out their general promos, but especially their 33% discount for 3-night summer stays at select properties.   Similarly, the Preferred Hotel Group, which is a similar marketing group though one with larger properties, has a promo of 20% off select summer stays.

With all of these promos, there’s no guarantee any of these will provide any savings at the properties you want to stay at on the dates you want to stay at them.   There’s also no guarantee the promos will continue, so act fast.   It’s an easy way to save a few books in the expensive summer travel season! See you on the road or in the air!

Again i find myself apologizing for 2+ weeks sans posting.  To be fair, I haven’t travelled or booked a ticket in that period, and I broke a finger in the intervening time.

So, slightly delayed, I give you a few different ways Priority Club has been giving out points like crazy of late.  A few things to note about Priority Club, which is the frequent guest program of the Intercontinental Hotels Group (Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Staybridge, Candlewood):

1)  Status is very easy to get, as any points earned qualify, including those from giveaways like those listed below.  This is a plus and a minus, as you will get status easily, but so will everyone else in the world.

2) Status doesn’t count for anything at their flagship Intercontinental Hotels, which have their own Ambassador program

3) Properties generally do not recognize status on award stays

4) The breadth of IHG’s properties means there are few places in the world that don’t have an IHG nearby

5) IHG’s PointBreaks program can provide excellent value for 5,000 points a night.

Now, onto the free points!

Have a Visa Card?  Sign up here to receive text messages (which you can cancel at any time), and get 1,000 points automatically, and another 5,000 if you complete a stay at a US property by 7/31/12.

“Shop, Dine, Cruise”-  Get another 2,000 points for a combination of (1) signing up for cruise emails (500 points); (2) signing up for shopping emails (500 points); (3) registering a credit/debit card with PC shopping (500 points); and (4) signing up for Priority Club dining (500 pts).

I’ll actually be using Priority Club Points in a few weeks at the Intercontinental de la Ville Rome, spending a total of 30,000 points for a room that is going for 345 Euro a night. Not bad. I’ll explain how in the next few weeks.  Happy Free Points May Day!

A while back, I posted about the Oneworld MegaDo as a colossally irresponsible event for American, a company in bankruptcy trying to get rid of its benefits obligations to its employees, to partake in.

Today comes word that the event raised $50,000 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and American was on hand to celebrate.

Even before the recent kerfuffle over Susan G. Komen’s anti-reproductive freedom stances, I have long found it an unworthy charity, that from both a public health and a social justice perspective does serious harm.  It had previously defunded stem cell work, and is responsible for “pinkwashing” America.  For some pre-Planned Parenthood criticism, see Barbara Ehrenreich’s great essay here, this piece on Komen and KFC, and this great exploration on Pinkwashing.

I know its hard to find a charity that everyone likes or one that is conceivably apolitical.  But since I already despise the event, self-congratulatory posts about supporting an organization I dislike are not helping.

Accor Hotels (Sofitel, Novotel, M Gallery, Ibis, Pullman, Mercure, et al.) recently changed the name of its loyalty program from A-Club to Le Club Accor, to make sure you know they are French.   The chain isn’t the most amazing for points gatherers, but can provide some very affordable options, particularly in Europe.  I had a decent stay at an Accor property in Amsterdam in January, and last year had a great stay at the Sofitel in Lisbon.

They’re running a promo on Facebook where you simply enter your Le Club number to see if you’ve won up to 1,000,000 points.  Of course, only one person wins 1,000,000 points. But 10 people win 25,000 points, and the first 25,000 people win 500 points.  I got 500.  Hey, it’s good for free!

HT: Loyalty Lobby

After a long hiatus, Stupid Article of the Week is back.  This week’s article comes from the Consumerist,  a site which has a more realistic pro-consumer bent than the oft-illogical Chris Elliott, but still often makes blunders.

Earlier this week, Consumerist posted a story entitled “U.S. Airways May Make You Check Your Bag Even if the Plane Isn’t Full,”   the essence of which is as follows:

Man is boarding U.S. Airways flight with carry-on bag of unspecified dimensions.
Man is asked to check bag, along with several other customers
Man is outraged that there ends up being empty overhead bins on the flight at take-off.

Consumerist suggests its crazy for gate agents to ask passengers to check bags before they are 100% sure that there is no room for those bags.

This is idiotic.  The whole point of proactively asking passengers to check bags is to avoid delaying a flight so every Tom, Dick, and Harry can try to cram their oversized rollaboard into the overhead, along with their briefcases, coats, and third and fourth items, fail, and then check some of the bags.  Delaying a flight for everyone is a far greater inconvenience than asking you to check your bag.  Waiting to see if the bins actually fill up is far less efficient than a proactive stance.

It is also close to impossible to know for sure whether overhead space will fill up, given the range of people’s baggage habits.  Many business travelers, for example, will know the rules and only have a personal item and a regulation-size rollaboard.  But I’ve seen many other business travelers with three (and sometimes four) pieces, all of which they try to stow in the overhead bins.  I’ve also seen plenty of flights with empty seats but full bins.  Therefore I’m not surprised that sometimes gate agents are incorrect about their predictions of whether bins will fill up.

But there’s also a second issue at play here: passengers are assholes.  Gate agents know that if they ask people to check their carry-on luggage, very few people will respond.  Everyone thinks their time and luggage is more important than everyone else’s.  There is no individual incentive to check one’s bags.  And even if the gate agents specifically “force” individuals to check their bags, rude passengers will argue and fight about their fragile precious cargo (which won’t be fragile anymore as they try and cram it into the bin or as they smack me with it as they walk down the aisle),  and many will get through.  So the variability in response rate will mean that there is no magic way to know how many passengers will actually check their bags versus persist in carrying them on.  Maybe the customer that wrote to Consumerist had a flight with nicer than average passengers.

There are plenty of cost-saving measures passengers can complain about.  This simply isn’t one of them.  If each passenger followed the rules and only brought one personal item for the seat in front of them, and one carry-on that could fit in that smaller-than-you-think sizer, this would not be an issue.  So, instead of blaming the airline, blame your fellow passengers who are acting in their own self-interest, and not those of the greater passenger whole.

Hyatt is offering free Platinum status in its Gold Passport program for 90 days to holders of Visa Signature cards through May 11. Just go here to sign up.  Note that Platinum status is the lowest elite level for Hyatt.  I have this status just by holding a Hyatt Visa, and the free internet and late checkout are certainly worthwhile.

HT: Lucky

Recently, a reader and friend asked me for some tips on finding cheap hotel rooms.  I put together a list of some of my hotel booking resources, and realized I could share them with you all.   In this post, I’ll start with promos offered by major hotel chains.

1) Starwood Properties:

Starwood Properties (Westin, Sheraton, W, Le Meridien, Luxury Collection, Four Points, St. Regis, Aloft, and Element) have a number of promotions that can save you a lot of money.   First, many organizations have special relationships with Starwood that will provide you with an SET code that gives you a discounted rate  (for example, professional groups, employers, etc.).    Second, Starwood has a number of promo codes that provide for discounts on multi night stays, some of which are prepaid.  These include the Better Tomorrows promo, these promos for hotels, and these promos for resorts.

2) Hilton Properties:

The Hilton Family of properties (Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn, Waldorf-Astoria, Doubletree, Conrad, Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites, Home2) has a publicly available MVP discount program that sometimes has deals, sometimes doesn’t.

3) Intercontinental Hotels Group:

IHG (Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites) has a few programs to note.  One is the  non points earning friends and family rate, which can get you severely discounted rates.   There are also  two-for-1, 3-for-2, and 35% off  prepaid rates at European, Middle East, and African properties for weekend stays.