I used to be a huge proponent of Marriot Rewards but last year I decided to make a change and try out Priority Club hotels http://www.priorityclub.com.

The availability of hotels from this group is just as good as Marriot, at least in the cities that I am visiting.

Here is a tip if you are going to be staying at these hotels.

Register yourself as a Priority Club member. It costs nothing so you have nothing to lose. Go to the priorityclub.com website, go to the word offers, and you will get a drop down menu. The last item on this menu is my offer status- click on this. It will ask you to login if you are not already.

The next page will be a list of offers you qualify for- typically by staying some number of nights you will get X thousand additional points.

Here is the tip: Sign up for all of the offers. Then forget about it. And try to stay at Priority Club hotels.

I wouldn’t change any of my travel patterns to get extra hotel points but this way you are covered if you do happen to stay.

If you are a Marriott fan, there is a new site available now called the Marriott Rewards Insider

For tips about specific Marriott hotels, and nearby activities, this could be a good place to look. Typically I prefer to use tripadvisor for things to do if I have time to look around a city, but I can see how this might have good info when you are making a short stop somewhere and just have time to find what what is close to the hotel.  Check it out.

If you are into collecting Marriott points- this is just a reminder that there are a few changes happening to the program starting January 15th.

• No Blackout dates. Marriott is touting this as an important feature- but this does not guarantee that standard rooms will be available. However, for people wanting to stay at a particular hotel who have a lot of points this could be good.
• Redeem for 4 nights and get the 5th night free.
• For Platinum members, increase of points bonus from 30% to 50%. This is good if you happen to be a Platinum member (you have to stay 75 nights in a year to achieve Platinum)

I’m a bit late on this one but if you have not seen it yet, you should register for the Spring 2008 Mariott Megabonus.

If you are staying at any Mariott (or related brand hotel) before May 15th, you will want to sign up for this promotion.

Register here and get yourself up to 7,000 extra Marriott points for free.

I take a lot of weekend trips to different places and I am always looking for ways to find the best deal.

After much practice- I now use a three step approach to hotel reservations.

First, if you know the city and area you want to stay at, but not the exact hotel, your best bet is to try one of the big travel websites such as Expedia, Travelocity, Hotels.com, or Orbitz. This will help you to narrow down to a few hotels which will meet your requirements in the price range you need. At this point it is not necessary to check all of the sites- just try any one.

Next, once you have a few hotels that think you may want to stay at, go to Tripadvisor and find these hotels. For each of them you should click “Check Rates” and a popup window will appear, where you put in your travel dates. Tripadvisor will then show you a bunch of websites which it will be checking you only have to click on “show next offer” to get the next one- saving you the time of going to each individual website.

The third and final step is very important. When you have chosen the dates of your travel and the hotel you will be staying at. Before you make your reservation on any website, find the website of the hotel you have chosen and see if they have an even better rate- or maybe a special which includes something else, like breakfast for example.

If you find the same price on the hotel’s website or think you may need to change your plans I would reserve directly with the hotel. If you find a better price on another website and are 100% sure that you will not change your travel plans, then go with the other site. It is generally possible to change reservations made directly at the hotel, but extremely difficult any other way. See my previous article Travel Websites.

Hope some of you find this helpful.

As reported in Upgrade- Travel Better, there are two new websites for people wanting to figure out the best deals they can get with their frequent flier miles or hotel points.

MileMaven helps travelers find the most number of frequent flier miles for your flights. PointMaven does the same thing, but for hotel points.

I often find it is difficult to find information about ways to earn extra points and these guys consolidate it pretty well.

There is a lot of info available- check them out!

Well, I just had an interesting weekend. On Valentine’s day my girlfriend announced that she was taking me to the Ice Hotel, I knew this was going to be a very different experience.

The Ice Hotel, as the name implies is made of completely of Ice. It has around 30 rooms for guests, two bars, a chapel, and an area with a sauna and hot tubs for the hotel guests. During the day- until 8 o’clock, visitors are allowed to walk through the entire facility, but after 8 the guest rooms and sauna area are off limits.

Once you have checked in, you are given an information session which explains how the sleeping works.  When you enter your room you find a bag which contains four items: your sleeping bag, a pillow, a blanket, and another thin nylon bag. First, you get into the nylon bag, then you get into the sleeping bag.  Then you go to sleep. The sauna and hot tubs are open all through the night so if you do need to warm up you can go back there.

In each room there is a bed made of ice. On top of this is a thin mattress, reminiscent of a gym mat. On top of the mat there are a couple of furs. That’s what you put your sleeping bag on.

I slept very soundly. The combination of fresh air and the warmth of the sleeping bag were magic. My girlfriend on the other hand did not fare so well. She woke up several times complaining about the cold. Then finally, at around 6 am, went to the hot tub.

Would I recommend the experience- yes. Would I do it again? Not for a while…

Check out my photos of the place here.

For the hotel website go to http://www.icehotel-canada.com/

I just logged into the Marriott Rewards website and saw that Marriott has a new Megabonus promotion which you can register for. This Megabonus lasts from March 1st until May 31st.
The way it works is that you get a certain number of bonus points for a certain number of stays. In my case, I got offered 5,000 bonus points for every third stay. Every time you check-out, one stay is counted- regardless of the actual number of days stayed at the hotel. This can add up pretty fast, especially if you are going to be staying at several different Marriott hotels.

It costs you nothing and takes a couple of seconds to sign up for this offer, I strongly suggest signing up.

There are a few new limited time hotel offers from Aeroplan

Hotel Offer #1

At Intercontinental hotels- Between January 15 and April 30, 2007, earn 1,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles for every third qualifying night—up to 10,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles at any InterContinental^®, Crowne Plaza^®, Hotel Indigo^TM, Holiday Inn^®, Holiday Inn Express^®, Staybridge Suites^® or Candlewood Suites^® Hotel worldwide.

Hotel Offer #2

Earn up to 500 Aeroplan Miles every stay with two new partners Sofitel and Novotel. Better yet, celebrate this new partnership with Double Aeroplan Miles at eight hotels in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa until June 30, 2007! That’s 1,000 miles per eligible stay at the Sofitel Montreal and 500 miles per stay at all Canadian Novotels

Hotel Offer #3

Triple Aeroplan Miles with Choice Hotels

Earn triple the miles for every eligible stay** starting with the second one between February 1 and April 30, 2007. That includes stays with Choice Hotels^® at:

• Comfort^TM, Comfort Suites^®, Quality^®, Sleep Inn^®, Clarion^®, Cambria Suites^TM or MainStay Suites^® hotels in Canada, the U.S., the Caribbean or Mexico
• Econo Lodge^® or Rodeway Inn^® hotels in Canada

As it happens, I will be staying at a Comfort Suites hotel next week so I will make sure to sign up…

For more Aeroplan offers check out my Aeroplan page

Here are a couple of ideas related to planning and booking your next vacation, as submitted by one of my faithful readers:

1. I try to always book hotels directly on their own website once I have been to expedia to check out hotels and prices in the area I’m going to. The BIG advantage is that your credit card is not charged until you check out of the hotel. All the travel companies charge the credit card immediately.
2. Another tip is to use google earth to see exactly where the hotel is especially for holidays as “on the beach” can be a stretch. This way I choose the location first and then find hotels in the vicinity. Also I always check a hotel in a new location with Tripadvisor.com as they normally have comments from guests that are current.

Thanks to my father for these tips.

There was a good article in the New York Times this week explaining how the major hotel chains are increasing the points required for a free room stay by as much as 40%!!

Basically it is showing how several of the major hotel chains are increasing the number of points required to redeem for a hotel room across their locations. So for people saving their hotel points for a vacation- it may end up taking them a lot longer than they expected.

The article specifically mentions that Starwood, Hyatt, and Hiltons hotels are doing this. It does not mention Marriott. Way to go Marriott!

This has already happened in the airline industry- it cost me 80,000 Aeroplan miles to get from Canada to Scotland earlier this year when it used to be a lot less.

I don’t understand how large companies think that this is a good practice as the biggest collectors of hotel points are usually the hotel chains’ best and most frequent guests. Everybody understands an increase, but not a huge one as seems to be the case.

My tip for today is to count the points you have and use as soon as needed, because if you wait- your next chance to use them may cost you more.

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As reported here, some Hilton hotels (the Homewood Suites) are starting a new program where you will be able to see a floorplan of the hotel you will visit, and choose your own room prior to checking in.

This is a great idea if you have particular preferences such as not being near the elevators.

You can find more information about this project at the Hilton Homewoods Suite page here.

I guess it won’t be long to see a website like Seatguru for hotel rooms

Thanks to Upgrade: Travel Better for finding this

From CNET News. Getting consistent, reliable access to the Internet at a hotel can be a challenge for business travelers; according to The New York Times.

I think this is something that most business travellers have come across- and the article hits the nail on the head- with more people using applications which use more bandwidth, you do get problems with access.

Just a few weeks ago I was using free internet access at a Faifield inn in Texas. I had major problems accessing my company VPN. But you know what they say about free… you get what you pay for.

One time a couple of years ago- when Wifi was not as widely available as it is today, I paid $50 USD for a day of wireless access at a hotel in Moscow. Unfortunately for me the hotel was so well built that the Wifi worked everywhere in the common areas- but not in my own room.

See the original article here

According to an article in Monday’s Globe and Mail, the previously rumoured Marriott credit card for canadians has now come out. Read the full article here

The credit card is being issued by JP Morgan Chase which is partnered with Marriott for their other credit card offerings.

Interestingly, they quote a Chase executive named Sherri Silver that “Initially, you will get 15 points for each dollar you spend”

15 points per dollar is a very good amount and would get lots of people interested in this card.

Unfortunately they did not give any other details of card benefits but I will find out more about this.

Last week I stayed at the Best Western on 48th street in New York City.

Overall, the hotel was average, rooms were small like every other hotel I have stayed at in New York, but the location was very good- just a short walk from all of the action at Times Square. My first impression of the hotel was not very good though…

After checking in, I was given a room right next to the elevators on the sixth floor. I knew this was going to be a bit loud but I was ready  for it. What I was not ready for was the foul odour in the room.

In the corridor I smelt a faint odour but thought nothing of it. When I initially entered my hotel room there was an overpowering smell of wet towels. It was so bad that I almost started to gag. I have stayed in hundreds of hotel rooms even in third world countries and have never smelled anything like this. I couldn’t take it for long and within a couple of minutes was down at the lobby asking for a new room. All that they had left was smoking rooms which I took willingly compared to the alternative of going back to my first room…

It is impossible for anyone to enter the room without noticing the smell- I can’t believe that they even try to rent the room out…

Today I would like to offer another tip about frequent flier miles.

Previously I have talked about collecting frequent flier miles here and here. I have also discussed additional ways to find miles in unexpected places. Today I found another way to find miles. This is something that I have been doing for a while, it just happened to come in handy today.

My tip for the day is to subscribe to the e-mail newsletter of the points program you are a member of.

As I am an avid collector of Aeroplan miles, I get the Aeroplan newsletter sent to me. Every so often I go through my e-mail and scan the newsletters. Today was such a day. I was scanning through a bunch of these e-mails when I saw the title: Stay with Best Western for Triple Aeroplan Miles from an newsletter I received November 10th.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I am travelling to New York next week. What I did not mention is that I happen to be staying in a Best Western hotel. I usually prefer to stay at Marriott hotels but this one is very well located for where I need to be.

I was not a member of the Best Western hotel program. However, upon seeing this e-mail I followed the instructions and joined. The best part is that now I am registered to get three times the number of aeroplan miles that I would normally get. The entire process took less than 5 minutes.

It’s nice to see that sometimes things work out well.

Here is a tip to help you save money with your hotel bookings. If you have made your plans well in advance, double check the hotel rate the week before you travel.

I am going to New York City next week. As I have known the dates of the tradeshow for a long time my hotel was booked a couple of months ago.

Yesterday I went to the hotel website just to make sure that they have high speed internet (they do), and just for fun I put in the dates next week that I would be staying there, to see how much more the last-minute planners have to pay.

I was very surprised to see that the price shown on the website to me was cheaper than the price on my original booking. In fact over the 3 days of my stay it is $100 cheaper. And as we have three people from company my staying at this hotel, the time I took to double check (5 minutes) allowed my company to save $300.

So do make it a point to double check your prices- it might save you some money.

Once you have collected some miles there is the question of what to spend the points on. Hopefully you went through some of this process when you started to collect points. To make sure you are getting the best value for your points you need to figure out what they are worth. How to do this? There is some excellent information on how to value your frequent flier miles or points on Gary Steiger’s website freefrequentfliermiles

Using the formula Gary recommends, I end up with my British Airways and Aeroplan miles being worth 2 cents each, my airmiles miles at 12.5 cents each, and my Marriott points at 1 cent each. This is going to be helpful for the next time I look at whether or not to use my points for something.

I find that having points is like collecting change in a piggy bank, it takes a while to get anything useful, but over time it is definitely possible. In most cases it is worth using the miles when you can because the managers of these loyalty programs can, and do, change the rules at any time.

In one of my earlier posts I talked about mandatory documentation when you travel. In this post I would like to address what I call “secondary documentation”. This is the kind of thing which will could cause you some difficulty if you do not have it, but will not ruin your trip.

1. Maps (especially for road trips). I am often one of the first to give out advice to others, and also one of the first to ignore my own advice. The last time My girlfriend and I went to New York city I thought I just needed to print out a Google map of where we needed to go. Google maps are pretty good if you are going to a familiar area- the big problem with the directions that you get from Google Maps is that it often does not show surrounding streets. What ends up happening on a long trip is that if you miss one exit, you have to backtrack until you can find the latest reference point. Unless you are familiar with the place you are going- bring a street map if you are driving, or a train schedule if you are taking the train, etc…. So what happened when we went to new york? Well, let’s just say that a drive from New York to Montreal which normally takes 8 hours took us 15.
2. Copies of your frequent flier numbers. It has happened so many times to me that I have checked in for a flight, or checked into a hotel, and they do not have my number in with the reservation. Now I keep a card in my wallet with the most common ones written down. You can always collect miles /points later if they do not get posted to your account but I find it much easier to ask the question when I check in.
3. Receipts- reason #1. if you are traveling internationally, you may need these when you are coming back into your home country, to prove the prices that you paid. It is helpful when the customs duty does not believe the great deal you just got on an item purchased outside. I am not sure about other countries, but here in Canada if you owe tax on an item purchased outside of the country I have seen two things happen. Sometimes they will charge you tax on the price you actually paid, other times they use the standard tax value of what you would have paid for this item in Canada.
4. Receipts- reason#2. In many cases you can also claim tax back by submitting your receipts. Sometimes this only works for things you are bringing back to your home country but in other cases it can include things like hotel bills too. Tax refund forms can be found at most airports and must be handed in before you leave to go to your home country.
5. Receipts reason#3. If the airlines lose your luggage (as British Airways did on my last trip), you may need the receipts to claim back money for replacement items you purchased.

Any thoughts on this?

As I mentioned in my last post, Marriott does not currently have a parner credit card in canada.

However, the word from the Flyertalk forums is that one is coming soon…

GregWTravels writes that he got the following info from Marriott Customer Service

“…We should be announcing a Chase Marriott Rewards Visa available to the residence of Canada with in the next couple of months. Please watch the mail for this announcement. It will also be posted on the Marriott website at Marriott.com….”

You can check out the entire thread here

This is definitely very interesting… I am a big Marriott fan, but I have found that one of their limitations has been the fact that I cannot collect points with a credit card (as I can with Starwood)

In my last post I discussed one of my favorite hotel programs- Marriott Rewards.

In this post I would like to point out the advantages of my next favorite hotel program: Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG).

Starwood has fewer properties than Marriott (around 800 compared to Mariott’s 2,700), but on average I think they are nicer hotels.

There is one huge benefit to Starwood’s Preferred Guest Program. In terms of flexibility to exchange points for airmiles, you will not find a better program than SPG. You can transfer 20,000 points into 25,000 airmiles on most major airlines . This is incredibly useful if you need a few extra points to take a free trip somewhere.

Additionally, even though there have been rumours about one, Marriott does not have a partner credit card in Canada. For Canadians, MBNA has a Starwood Preferred Guest Mastercard. Here are the features of this card:

For a credit card with No Annual Fee this adds up to a lot of bonuses on this card. If you spend a total of $30,000 per year on the card, you will end up with 35,000 points the first year, and 30,000 points in subsequent years. As you can usually fly anywhere in North America for 25,000 miles, you can exchange your points for 3 flights in North America every 2 years.

In fact- if you were to get this credit card and use it just once, it woudl be well worth it, because on your first use you get 5,000 points which is enough for a free night at a category 2 hotel.

The 2 hotel point programs that I have used to a good extent are Marriott and Starwood. Each of them has their own individual advantages and disadvantages.

In this post I will go over some of the important aspects of Marriott points.

What do I like about Marriott?

Firstly they have over 2,600 locations so you can find one almost anywhere. Internationally this is not always the case, but I have found these hotels in a lot of places that I have travelled to.

Secondly, they have a wide range of properties ranging from the higher end Marriott hotels to the lower end Courthouse and Residence inn chains of hotels.

Thirdly it is pretty easy to earn enough points for free nights. After having spent 10 nights in a year at a Marriott hotel you get Silver status. This does not give you much in terms of service, though it can sometimes get you access to a special club lounge. The important point is that it gives you an additional 20% of points earned.

The most important tip I can offer about Marriott points is that you must make sure to always sign up for the bonuses on the hotel website. There is always some kind of promotion going on, and it is very easy to sign up. You just go to the rewards section on the Marriott website, and click on the promotion to sign up.

As an example, the current promotion is something called Mega bonus, which gives you an extra 5,000 points for every third stay that you pay for with a Visa card. Last week, I stayed last week at three different Marriott hotels, over a five-night period, and during this time I earned enough points for a free night at a category three hotel (or two free nights at a Category one hotel).

Let me start by saying that travel websites are one of the best things to happen on the Internet. With a few mouse clicks anyone can be his or her own travel agent. This is good for people who want to find the best deal. However, these websites are good in some situations but not so good in others.

Here are some examples of when travel websites can be the right booking choice:

When your dates are inflexible. This is because once you make a booking it is next to impossible to change it.

• I used to book all of my hotel rooms with Expedia- they had a great selection of low-cost rooms, and I could trust that I was saving my money for my company. However, the first time I needed to change something it became evident that low prices come with limitations. I had booked a seven-day stay at a UK hotel. Upon arrival I got a message that I needed to travel in 3 days to Saudi Arabia so i had to cut my UK stay short by three days. First, I called the hotel lobby- sorry; your reservation is with Expedia. Ok, so I called Expedia. Sorry, no changes permitted. Several hours were spent on the phone with customer service agents who could not tell me why. Finally they explained to me that if I had made 7 individual reservations I could have cancelled the last 3 days, but having made a single 7-day reservation nothing could be done. 
  
• When your plans are flexible- that is, you are not stuck on staying at a particular hotel brand, etc… this is important because various hotels may give special prices for a whole variety of reasons. I once had the good fortune of booking 5 nights at the millenium hotel in central London for 99 pounds a night, this is a really fancy boutique-style place, since then the cheapest I have ever seen it has been 300 pounds a night.
  

It also pays to check all of the major websites, I have a few listed below… one of them may have a better deal on the flight or hotel you are looking for.

Keep these things in mind when you book from a travel website- if your travel meets these minimum criteria there are some very good deals available. Just remember to read the fine print.

Here are some links to check out and compare for your next trip …

www.travelocity.com
www.hotwire.com
www.expedia.com
www.orbitz.com

In my last post I talked about frequent flier miles and some basic rules to consider. Aside from the obvious, which is collecting frequent flier miles directly from the airlines, there are many other ways to collect miles. Here are a couple of ideas:

• Car rental agencies have their own programs, but they will often also give you frequent flier points as a bonus for renting with them.
• Credit card companies are probably the best way to collect additional miles; many cards will allow you to collect one mile per dollar spent on the card. If you travel for business this can add up to a lot of miles. I have averaged 50,000 spending per year in the last few years which is enough for 2 short haul flights in North America or one flight to Europe ever year. Even if you do not travel for business if you put most of your expenses on credit cards it will add up to a lot.
• There is a third category which will also give you miles but in actual fact you are probably better off signing up to their own programs and that is hotels. Hotels usually have points programs of their own which can be very useful. Starwood hotels has a very good program called preferred guest which allows you to collect points to use for hotel rooms, but it has one other special feature- these points can also be converted to points on most major airlines- so if you are missing some points for your next reward ticket you can transfer it from your preferred guest account.

If you get a credit card which is partnered with Starwood preferred guest you have the best of all worlds- you will collect a lot of points for hotels which can be transferred to airlines if needed. In Canada we have the MBNA MasterCard and in the United States there is the American Express for this.