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The Most You Should Pay for a Hotel: Hilton

January 19, 2016 / / 1 Comment

This is the third in a series of posts on how to save money on hotel bookings by purchasing rewards points. For a more detailed explanation and walk-through of the theory, see the first post on Hyatt hotels.

The Nuts and Bolts

Disclaimer: This is a big fat dud. Tomorrow’s on Marriott should be interesting, though, as there are a couple of angles from which to approach the hack.

I’m somewhat loathe to talk about Hilton hotels, since their HHonors program is one of the worst around in terms of redemption rates, and that’s if you can actually find award availability in the first place. That said, it is one of the largest chains in the world, and there is some value to be had if you look hard enough, so here it is. Continue reading →

The Most You Should Pay for a Hotel: IHG

January 17, 2016 / / 3 Comments

This is the second in a series of posts on how to save money on hotel bookings by purchasing rewards points. For a more detailed explanation and walk-through of the theory, see the first post on Hyatt hotels.

The Nuts and Bolts

IHG Rewards Club is a slightly special snowflake since they offer two ways of buy points from them. Since there have been plenty of posts giving detailed explanations (see here for a good one), I won’t go into detail on how to purchase the points, other than to say that that the second method utilizes the points and cash option on bookings and IHG’s unique mechanism of refunding the total points cost if you cancel your booking. In practice, the purchase costs are: Continue reading →

Elite Status Roundup: What I’ve earned, and what I’ve learned

January 5, 2016 / / 1 Comment

As 2015 was my first full year of travel/travel hacking, it was also the first year in which I achieved status with airline and hotel loyalty programs. In the spirit of being analytical in my decision-making, I figured it would be worth doing an accounting of the statuses I attained and the benefits that they ended up offering me in practice (I only have about three months of data since I qualified for most of these in October or November). So, without further ado: Continue reading →

Cute gift from Hilton HHonors for being a Diamond member

December 24, 2015 / / 0 Comments

I got a cute gift from Hilton HHonors in the mail recently because of my HHonors Diamond status (gained through status match.) It’s a set of playing cards, as well as some instructions for card games from various countries with Hilton properties.

Thanks Hilton HHonors!

(Targeted) Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Red/Silver: 1000 AAdvantage miles for adding an authorized user

December 6, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Via Reddit, some people are getting targeted offers for the Barclays Aviator Red offering 1000 AAdvantage miles for adding an authorized user by December 31, 2015. There seems to be no spending requirement attached to this offer.

I personally also received an email title Earn More Miles this holiday for my Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Silver with the following:

There doesn’t seem to be any date restriction on my offer, but there’s no reason not to take advantage right away. So check your email! It’s an easy 1000 miles. Continue reading →

Back to Aegean Silver… but still Star Alliance Gold!

November 30, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Back in 2013 when Aegean was still offering an extremely easy route to “lifetime” Star Alliance Gold by only earning 19,000 qualifying miles, I took advantage of this to get Aegean Gold status. It was great times with priority boarding, security, checked bags and Star Alliance lounge access, even domestically!

In September 2014, after realizing that people were heavily taking advantage of this route to gain Star Alliance Gold easily without much effort to renew the status, Aegean made it harder to obtain Gold this way, requiring 24,000 qualifying miles flown on Aegean or 48,000 qualifying miles flown on Aegean and Star Alliance partners. Furthermore, Aegean notified existing Golds that their status would actually expire at some point. All existing Gold customers would be transferred to the new Gold Tier when the program changed in November 2014. Continue reading →

Waiting to show your hand

November 10, 2015 / / 2 Comments

On our way back from Travelcon, Esther and I stopped by the Virgin America Loft at LAX for breakfast and refreshments t-shirt before our leg home to San Francisco. I have Virgin America (VX) Gold status from the Membership Rewards promo they are currently offering, so I get lounge access as a benefit of that status, but in any event, both of us have Priority Passes (me from my Amex Plat and she from her Citi Prestige), so we would be able to get free entry through that. Continue reading →

Status makes your points worth less

October 10, 2015 / / 6 Comments

As many followers of Miles Per Day will know, Virgin America is offering a promotion where transferring 80,000 Membership Rewards points to the Virgin America (VX) Elevate program will grant you VX Gold status until February of 2017. For frequent VX flyers, this could be a great deal because it offers free Main Cabin Select upgrades (typically $50 a pop) and increased earnings on cash fares. Continue reading →

Free 150 Starwood points for updating your security questions

October 9, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Via View from the Wing, you can get 150 free Starwood points for updating your security questions by October 31, 2015.

With several high profile hacks of loyalty programs in recent years, like the Hilton HHonors hack, it’s a good sign to see that loyalty programs are adding additional security features to accounts. I recommend using randomly generated passwords from a program like 1Password to fill in your security questions, or at the least not making answers to questions something that could be easily looked up from public records or just by knowing a little about you. Continue reading →

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