Triangle Trip

Priority Club, with Intercontinental Hotel as the flagship hotel, has joined Starwood’s (SPG) to free hotel nights after each hotel stay. Here’s the link to the Priority Club offer. In case you are interested in the SPG free night’s offer, here’s the link again.

The Priority Club offer is as follow:

* Stay 2 nights from May 4 to July 3, 2009 and get 1 night free
* Maximum of earning 4 free nights which can be redeemed from July 3 to December 26, 2009

The SPG free weekend nights offer is much better than Priority Club’s free nights’ offer. Below are the reasons why:

1.  SPG’s free weekend nights’ offer allows you to earn unlimited free weekend nights after two hotel stays from May 1 to July 31, 2009. In addition, SPG’s offer period is two weeks longer than Priority Club’s. However SPG is looking for two hotel stays which means you may need to check-in and check-out of hotels to maximize your rewards during the promotion period. For those who are not familiar with the hotel stay concept, an eligible stay is one or more consecutive nights at a particular hotel. SPG will not give you credit for a multiple hotel stays if you check-in/check-out on consecutive nights at the same property .

2.  There are no blackout dates for redemption. As long as it’s a Friday, Saturday or Sunday and rooms are available, SPG will allow you to use the free weekend night.

3.  SPG’s properties are generally nicer than Priority Clubs’ properties. SPG properties are also in metropolitan locations.

Here are a few minor setbacks on the SPG offer:  Priority Club’s 4 free nights can be redeemed on any day – not just weekends. Another minor downside on SPG free nights offer is SPG’s free nights expiration date: September 30, 2009 compared to Priority Club’s December 26, 2009.

Given the two minor setbacks, SPG’s free weekend nights’ offer is superior to Priority Club’s offer. Below are links to two other offers which may be attractive to you:

*  Hilton’s 1000 Bonus Point offer

*  Marriott’s Double Nights Offer

Here’s a link to my original post regarding the SPG offer.

Continuing its generosity, Starwood (SPG) is offering free weekend nights for every two stays at their hotels. You can redeem weekend nights (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) right after you have earned them but I think you will need to redeem it before September. This is a great excuse to go on vacation! Here’s the preview link for more details on the offer. Note this offer is not live yet, you will need to revisit SPG’s site to register later this month.

SPG’s current 500 bonus points per night will end this month (April 30, 2009). This follow up offer starts on May 1 and ends July 31, 2009. The SPG offer is still better than Hilton’s 1,000 bonus point per night offer (see previous post). For the next three months (13 weeks), you can potentially earn 10+ free weekend nights if you stayed at a SPG property every week.

For the traveling rookies/novices, each hotel stay means each time you checkin to a hotel. If you have the stamina, you can checkin and out of the same hotel to accumulate more SPG free weekend nights. However there’s a catch. SPG and most other hotels would not give you credit for a stay if you checkin on consecutive nights at a single property. This means you cannot checkin at the San Francisco St. Francis on Monday night, check out on Tuesday morning and re-checkin Tuesday night. SPG will only award you two nights and one stay in the scenario described above.

So if you want to maximize your free weekend nights, we recommend you checkin and out of different SPG properties throughout the week — that’s if you have the stamina to do it 😉

I don’t really understand the concept of banking airline miles on travel reward programs such as Asia Miles and Canada’s Air Miles. These programs seem like a consolidation of all your travel activities (miles, hotel stays, etc.) without the benefits from the airline or hotels. Another very minor advantage is you can also use your miles for other goods like travel gear and electronics, but many US airlines offer that type of redemption option.

What I am trying to say here is:  if you decide to bank Asian Miles on your Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver, you’ll only get Asian Miles but zero Marco Polo miles or benefits. I see the value in Asian Miles if you are flying all sorts of airlines throughout your life and want flexible redemption of miles/points. However, I don’t think you are getting the most out of the Asia Miles program if you only travel with one or two international airlines – say Cathay Pacific and ANA when you live in Hong Kong.

With the consolidation of US airlines and global alliances, all travelers should only need three frequent flier accounts to accumulate airline miles. Make sure your frequent flier account is on one of these alliances: Star Alliance, SkyTeam or OneWorld. Most of the major airlines in any country have membership with one of the alliances. For example, if you live in the Hong Kong, you will only need three accounts:  Cathay (OneWorld), China Southern or Korean Air (Skyteam), and ANA, Singapore Airlines or Thai (Star). You should bank all your air travel on one of the accounts. For redemption, you can easily book your flights on a member airline – i.e., use your Marco Polo miles to book a American ticket from Hong Kong to Chicago.

Once you have enough Marco Polo points in a year, you will get more benefits such as 25% to 100% more miles on every flight — something Asia Miles or Air Miles cannot offer. So forget the airline/hotel/car mileage consolidation programs and stick to an airline or alliance to make your miles pay off.