As reported by the The Flight Deal, there are some seriously cheap fares out there from the West Coast –> Hong Kong over the next few months.
The Deal
Book flights from the West Coast, US to Hong Kong for as low as $548 from August 31 to October 25, 2014:
San Diego-SAN: $548 Las Vegas-LAS: $562 Seattle-SEA: $657 Portland-PDX: $567 Sacramento-SMF: $742 San Francisco-SFO: $548 — this is one of the few non-stopsWhile the tickets are technically issued by Malaysia Airlines, there’s no need to worry because all of the flights are code-shared and operated by Cathay Pacific.
Most of the flights are operated by their Boeing [...]
Fresh out of the Lufthansa First Class lounge at Frankfurt’s Terminal B, we headed around the corner to board the flight we’d been looking forward to the most: Thai Airways Royal First on their new Airbus A380-800.
CHECK-IN
We took the train in from Frankfurt after having spent the night in the city for a ~24 hour layover (read: Bratwursts Galore! Sightseeing around Frankfurt, Germany and Westin Grand Frankfurt Hotel Review – Frankfurt, Germany). The good news is that Frankurt’s airport is a short and very easy 15-20 minute subway ride from the center of town.
Thai Airways actually has 2x daily non-stops to Bangkok: a 9pm/10pm departure on [...]
Note: These are bookable now. Don’t miss out on Flying Blue’s summer promo, which allows you to book Air France/KLM awards for 25-50% less than normal in October & November 2014:
The DealAward bookings on Air France/KLM routes have been reduced by 25-50% for travel between October 1 – November 30, 2014.
For those of us sitting in ‘Merica, we’ll be most interested in:
REGION—- USA CITY————————– Chicago-ORD to Europe—– CABIN—– Economy— 1-way— 12,500— Round-trip 25,000 USA Houston-IAH to [...]Booking
I had a conference here and booked a 3 night stay about 4.5 months in advance. I was able to get a corporate rate of $125 per night.
Check-in
I booked a 2 Queen room and, despite there being a large conference for the next few nights and the Coachella music festival starting on the weekend, rooms were still available for for the length of my stay. The agent said that they were able to give me an “upgrade” to a Deluxe golf course view room (Deluxe golf, non-smoking: 2 Queen Beds, 525 sq ft / 49 m²) but, after I asked, said that a suite upgrade wouldn’t be possible due to the high occupancy. I confirmed this on the Starwood app: a [...]
I get a few emails a week from hotels, airlines and credit card companies pushing me to “buy” things with my hard-earned miles. Like this one from American Express:
Perfect, I’m somewhere between a Dyson Vacuum and a MacBook!
Or this one from Chase:
I won’t be fooled, Chase–100 points for $1 is a horrible trade!
Or this one from United:
I can think of nothing more horrible to own than a Racsal Flatts album or “NOW 50”
Why ordering [...]
I stumbled across a cool website the other day: Rome2Rio.com.
Rome2Rio is basically a multimodal transport search engine. It answers that nagging question: “what is the best way to get from point A to B?” But the “best way” is still left for you to decide, taking into account travel time vs cost.
The great thing about the site is that it gives you door-to-door approximations including estimated fuel cost for driving and fares for buses, planes, taxi, trains, ferries, etc…
Use it to explore all travel options with total times and prices
So, here’s an example of how it’s useful: I’ll do a search for a [...]
As we wrote about on Friday, IHG released a preview list of their PointBreaks promotion which allows you to book select properties for just 5,000 points per night. Well, The IHG/PriorityClub PointBreaks list for August and September 2014 is now live and you can head here to book it: IHG PointBreaks. If you don’t see the new properties on the site immediately, you should go directly to the property’s website and attempt a booking.
Check out the full list and easy to use map but heading to our post from a few days ago here: Preview: IHG/PriorityClub PointBreaks List Aug-Sep 2014.
Some of the better deals include the 5 Intercontinental hotels on the [...]
While in the Lufthansa First Class lounge in New York-JFK, we had to scurry and find a place to stay in Frankfurt the following night. Since we had just switched our flights hours before take off, we didn’t have very much notice but were very glad to have an opportunity to visit Frankfurt–a new city!
Booking
Because I have Diamond status with Hyatt and Platinum status with Starwood, I preferred to book a property at either one of those chains. When I jumped online, I found that my only Hyatt option for “Frank…” would be Franklin, Tennessee:
The good news is that Starwood has a few more options:
Update 7/28, 9:30am: The list is now live. If you don’t see the properties on the main PointBreaks list, try an award booking on IHG.com for the hotel and you should see the 5,000 points/night rate. If you still don’t see it then the PointBreak availability might be gone.
The Priority Club PointBreaks preview list has been updated through September 30, 2014! Below is a list of all of the hotels that IGH/PriorityClub Rewards is offering for just 5,000 pts a night. Since this is just a preview, we expect more hotel to be added when the list goes live on Monday. Don’t forget that you can buy 5,000 points for just $35, which basically allows you to book [...]
Don’t miss out on Hilton’s late Summer/early Fall 2014 promo “Triple Your Trip“:
The Deal
Hilton is offering double points on weekday (Mon-Thur) nights and triple points on weekend (Fri-Sun) nights on all (eligible) nights at (participating) properties from August 1 through October 31, 2014.
The normal base rate for Hilton HHonors points is 10x points/$ spent (Home2 Suites by Hilton is only 5x), so, with this promo, you’ll be getting 20x or 30x points/$ spent.
How to Get It
Register here: Hilton HHonors “Triple Your Trip” before your first Hilton stay during the promo period of 8/1 – 10/31 Book [...]