From Continental’s promotion page:
Earn Elite status twice as fast when you earn double Elite Qualifying Miles for eligible flights from March 20 through June 15, 2009. Simply register for the promotion with the code provided and you’ll earn double Elite Qualifying Miles for all qualifying travel.
Terms and Conditions:
- Offer valid for all OnePass members.
- Registration is required. Account must be registered by June 15, 2009 to be eligible for the offer.
- Offer valid for qualifying travel flown between March 20 and June 15, 2009.
- Bonus Elite Qualifying Miles will be credited weekly after the segment has posted.
- Offer valid on flights operated by Continental, Continental Express*, Continental Micronesia and Continental Connection and is not applicable on code-share flights operated by other carriers.
- Offer valid for all paid, published fares.
- Offer not valid on government fares.
- Elite Qualifying Miles cannot be redeemed for award travel.
- Double Elite Qualifying Miles in this offer is for two times the Elite Qualifying Miles posted to your account for qualifying flights taken during the promotional period.
- This offer does not apply to Elite Qualifying Points, class-of-service bonus miles, elite bonus miles, redeemable bonus miles or promotional EQM.
- OnePass number must be provided prior to flight departure for trip to qualify.
- All other terms and conditions of the OnePass program apply.
From a recent US Airways press release:
“US Airways (NYSE:LCC) is returning complimentary beverages to the coach cabin on all US Airways and US Airways Express Flights beginning March 1st. Passengers will be offered free soda, juices, tea, water, and coffee in flight. Beer, wine, and cocktails will still be available for purchase for $7.”
You really have to wonder why US Airways would issue a press release just to highlight a service which is already provided by every other airline except theirs. Perhaps it was issued to highlight the fact their other programs have really squeezed the dollars out of the frequent flyer.
“The company still expects to generate from $400 to $500 million in 2009 from a la carte items like checked baggage fees, Choice Seats, and our new blanket and pillow offering – the US Airways Power-Nap Sack ™.”
The press release’s target audience are the investors, but were I an investor, I’d question the strategy of increasing profits by sticking it to your best customers. Seems to work well when everyone else is doing the same thing, but once the economy turns, flyers will jump ship as long as they have a choice. Frequent flyer programs no longer have the stickiness they initially started with due to the devaluation of points.
My advice to airlines - stop playing to your investors and focus on your customers. Smart investors realize customers are the ones paying the bills.
MTP is proud to announce the availability of your Personal Travel Assistant (PTA). You can access the PTA through email or through a Jabber-compatible client such as Google Talk . Just add morethanpoints@gmail.com as a friend and type ‘help’ for available options. You can also send an email to morethanpoints@gmail.com without a subject and your command in the first line of the email body.
Weather can be the bane of our traveling experience. Bad weather is the cause of delays and canceled flights. As travelers, we sometimes need to pack in preparation for the entire week. Forgetting a warm jacket or umbrella in bad weather dampens our already weakened immune system.
Getting the weather through your PTA using a instant messenger client like Google Talk is as easy as typing:
weather SDF
This returns:
You can also just send an email from any device to your PTA as follows (remember – do not put anything in the subject line):
This returns:
You can use airport code, zip code or a city,state to identify the location. If you put a number at the end (1 through 5) it will forecast the number of days specified – the default is 5 days.
Going forward I will continue to highlight another useful command made available through your PTA. MTP is always looking for ways to make life easier for the road warrior. If you have comments or suggestions on PTA or anything else relevant to frequent travelers please send them our way.
I think we can safely say (most) airlines are lacking in the customer service department. If it were a contest, I’d give Southwest first place but let’s be honest, the competition isn’t very tough. I think as travelers we’ve grown pretty used to mediocre treatment at best and assumed rude and impersonal interactions have become status quo. Josh just sent me the following email he received after been dropped into the middle although he had Gold Medallion status with Delta:
Dear Mr. Josh,
Monday’s are tough, and we’re sorry yours may have been less comfortable when you ended up stuck in the middle seat.
While we strive to give our most loyal customers our best seats, unfortunately that’s not always possible. To thank you for your flexibility and understanding, we’ve credited 500 miles to your SkyMiles® account.
It’s just one of the ways we’re expressing our appreciation for your loyalty to the SkyMiles program. And we’ll continue to take care of you—from booking to baggage claim and everywhere in between.
So thanks again. Next time, we hope to see you in First.
Josh’s comment: “Though miles aren’t worth what they used to be, it’s a smart move to recognize the opportunities where the customer experience was not optimal and do something about it.”
I agree – 500 miles aren’t very much but recognizing your best customers even if it’s the equivalence of a handshake and an apology trumps the typical experience we’re used to receiving. Keep it up, Delta.
George asks:
Point Man – I recently booked a trip using Marriott points and am looking to upgrade my room. I’ve offered to pay cash for the upgrade but they declined. Assuming there are vacancies, any ideas?
George, I recall a few instances when I was upgraded due to my Platinum status with the Marriott even when I used points to book the room. It’s always at the hotel’s discretion on whether they want to upgrade you if you haven’t actually paid for the top floor suite. I have not come across any way to pay additional money on top of points to get a better room. In my experience point-based airlines also follow the same rule - if you use frequent flyer points to book a flight, you cannot pay to get upgrade. You need to spend the points to get the first class seat. I don’t believe hotels are setup to handle that type of transaction.
I do recall staying at the W in Montreal and getting upgraded from an already amazing room to the "WOW" suite (and quickly understanding why it was given that title). The reason? Construction from the building next door kept me up all night. I politely explained the poor circumstances to the front desk manager and was quickly upgraded.
Your best bet is to be polite and friendly - perhaps pay the front desk manager a compliment while he/she is checking you in. If it isn’t a busy weekend, you might get a free upgrade since rooms are a fixed cost. I suppose you could complain about your room, but without proper justification that would be lying :-)
Any readers have better suggestions - feel free to comment. Great questions - keep them coming.
Compared to the other hotel chains, Hilton’s promotion is pretty straight forward. Stay at a participating hotel and get double points.
Sign up here.
Details from the email:
- Offer valid for stays completed between January 6 and April 6, 2009.
- To participate, you must first register at www.HiltonHHonors.com/globaldoublepoints before you make your reservation.
- Offer is not applicable to any bookings made prior to the promotional period. Offer cannot be combined with other offers or discounts. "Double Base points" means you will receive a bonus equal to the number of Base points earned during a stay. Bonus points earned on Base points do not count toward VIP tier qualification.
Simple is good.
Not to be outdone by the other hotels, Starwood has initiated their own promotion.
Sign up here.
Details from the website:
- An SPG member favorite is back and richer than ever. Earn nightly rewards with our SPG® Night After Night promotion. Register now and you’ll earn 500 bonus Starpoints® with each night, plus an additional 5,000 with every 10th night. That’s 10,000 bonus Starpoints every 10 nights — all to celebrate our 10th anniversary.
- One night here. Two nights there. Each individual night adds up to unlimited bonus Starpoints at any of our over 890 participating Starwood hotels and resorts worldwide through April 30, 2009.
- To earn bonus Starpoints with every night, register by March 31, 2009, and stay between January 7 and April 30, 2009.
Don’t stop - get it, get it.
We know they’ve already devalued the Marriott points by raising the required points for stays at various higher-end Marriott hotels, but signing up only takes a few minutes if you’re already a member. There’s no point in missing out on extra points.
Sign up here.
Details From the Promotion:
- Register by March 31 to Earn up to 50,000 MegaBonusSM Points
- You’re not dreaming. This is real and a really good opportunity to earn thousands of extra Marriott Rewards® points. Just register for the MegaBonus promotion and receive 35,000 bonus points when you stay 20 paid nights at Marriott hotels. Plus, you’ll receive an extra 15,000 bonus points when you stay a total of 25 paid nights - for a grand total of 50,000 bonus points toward the vacation of your dreams.
- Stay: At any of more than 2,900 participating Marriott brand hotels between February 1 and April 30, 2009.
- Earn: 35,000 Marriott Rewards bonus points when you stay 20 paid nights. Earn an additional 15,000 bonus points when you stay 25 paid nights. You can receive up to 50,000 bonus points overall.
Happy New Year :-)
AT&T just announced the availability date for the new BlackBerry Bold. If you’re an avid BlackBerry user, this is happy news. I currently use the BlackBerry Curve and have been quite jealous of the 3G speeds and the beautiful browsing experience of the 3G Apple iPhones. That said, I still prefer a full non-virtual keyboard and the better Enterprise integration of my email and address book. With the introduction of the BlackBerry Bold, at least one of my high priority items are being addressed (3G speeds).
As a road warrior, among all the features, I’m most excited about the new speed benefits from the 3G support and the beefed up processor. The processor is about twice as fast as the previous generation phones (e.g. Curve, Pearl, etc.) so the screen should be more responsive to navigation and load times should decrease for applications. 3G speed will play into anything you do which requires real-time connectivity (browsing, IM chatting, etc.) The higher resolution should also help with access to better fonts for readability.
There are plenty of reviews out there comparing it to the iPhone and previous generations of BlackBerry’s. If and when I get my hands on one, I’ll post an in depth review based on real-world experience as a road warrior. It won’t cover the lab tests of "academic" reviewers, but it will do a better job of covering real-world usage in airports and various cities :-)
I’ve copied the press release, but no need to read it unless you’re interested in hearing from the AT&T marketing machine.
AT&T Customers to Enter a ‘Bold’ New Wireless World
Waterloo, Ontario — AT&T customers will be entering a bold new wireless world with the launch of the BlackBerry® Bold™, a breakthrough 3G BlackBerry® smartphone that operates on the nation’s fastest 3G network and is the first to support HSDPA networks around the world, including in Japan and Korea. AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and Research In Motion (Nasdaq:RIMM; TSX:RIM) announced today that the highly anticipated BlackBerry Bold smartphone will be available in the United States for as low as $299.99¹ on Tuesday, Nov. 4, in AT&T retail stores nationwide, through www.att.com and select national retailers, as well as through AT&T’s business-to-business sales teams.
The BlackBerry Bold smartphone, which is being introduced in the United States only for AT&T customers, can be used in the most countries abroad, including more than 60 with 3G networks. AT&T is the world’s leading provider of BlackBerry services.
Bold Design
The BlackBerry Bold smartphone’s design and performance live up to its name. The elegant smartphone features a lustrous black exterior, satin chrome-finished frame and stylish, leatherette backplate with a stunning half-VGA (480 x 320 at 217 ppi) color display for eye-popping visuals and a newly designed full QWERTY keyboard for exceptionally fast and easy typing. On the inside, the BlackBerry Bold features built-in GPS and Wi-Fi®, a powerful new 624 MHz mobile processor that provides impressive performance, more storage memory than ever before — 1 GB on board and up to 16 GB via its microSD/SDHC expansion slot — and a rich set of multimedia capabilities, including an advanced media player for music, videos and photos and a 2 megapixel camera with built-in flash, zoom and video recording, as well as an optimized Web-browsing experience with desktop-style depiction.
"The BlackBerry Bold is the best BlackBerry smartphone ever, backed by the nation’s fastest 3G network and the hands-down best international coverage of any carrier," said Ralph de la Vega, president and chief executive officer of AT&T Mobility. "The BlackBerry Bold is the complete package, providing customers with an absolutely outstanding mobile experience whether doing e-mail, browsing the Web, viewing streaming video or simply making a phone call. And it is being introduced in the U.S. only from AT&T."
Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO at Research In Motion, said: "The development of the BlackBerry Bold smartphone was an ambitious undertaking, and we focused intensely on the things that are most important to mobile customers when developing this best-in-class smartphone for HSDPA networks around the world. The BlackBerry Bold exudes quality in everything from its stunning display sharpness and incredible keyboard to its premium phone performance and sophisticated software applications. It provides an extraordinary mobile communications and multimedia experience, and we are very proud to introduce this breakthrough smartphone in the United States together with AT&T."
If you’re a Marriott Rewards member, you may have recently received an email titled "Introducing No Blackout Dates" with a link to this promotion. In mid-September, we posted an article referencing a leaked Marriott promotion that was the precursor to this promotion. It looks like most of the original promotion items are true, but there are a few additional changes which actually makes this bad news for Marriott Rewards members. Before you get all excited about new benefits like, "Redeem 4 nights and get the 5th night free!" and "Enjoy a 50% Platinum Elite Bonus" take a behind the scenes look at what they have done to the points required for stays.
TABLE 1: Changes in Required Points (Each cell represents the INCREASE or DECREASE in points required, NOT the total points)
| CATEGORY | 1 night | 2 nights | 3 nights | 4 nights | 5 nights | 6 nights | 7 nights |
| 1 | 0 | 1000 | 2500 | 5000 | 0 | 2500 | 12500 |
| 2 | 0 | 1000 | 3000 | 5000 | -3000 | 0 | 15000 |
| 3 | 0 | 2000 | 4000 | 8000 | -3000 | 2000 | 23000 |
| 4 | 0 | 2000 | 5000 | 10000 | -3000 | 5000 | 35000 |
| 5 | 0 | 4000 | 10000 | 20000 | 5000 | 20000 | 60000 |
| 6 | 0 | 5000 | 12000 | 25000 | 10000 | 30000 | 80000 |
| 7 | 0 | 5000 | 15000 | 30000 | 10000 | 35000 | 95000 |
As an example, you will now need 25,000 more points to stay 4 nights at a Category 6 hotel at an increase of 26% over the original required points of 95,000 points for a total of 120,000 points! To stay 7 nights at a Category 7 hotel will require an additional 95000 points - that’s an increase in required points of over 63%!!!
Looks like Marriott is going the airline route and devaluing their points as well. Shame on Marriott for trying to pull a fast one. MTP advises you to use those reward points this year if you can help it because on January 15th 2009, they will be worth a lot less.
All that gold is not glitter.