From Hilton: "More Nights, More Points"

The latest winter hotel promotion to be announced is Hilton's "More Nights, More Points" for stays during the first quarter of 2011.

Offer Details

Between January 3 and March 31, 2011, Hilton HHonors members can earn up to quadruple points for qualifying stays of two or more nights at Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, Hilton, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton, and Homewood Suites hotels.

The bonusing works as follows:

• Double points for stays of two nights
• Triple points for stays of three nights
• Quadruple points for stays of four or more nights

The promotion's terms and conditions indicate that 3,600 Hilton family hotels offer the bonus. That's most, but not all, HHonors hotels. Helpfully, Hilton provides a list of the more than 300 non-participating properties. Do check to confirm that your hotel is not on the list before booking on the basis of this offer.

There's no limit on the number of bonus points that may be earned during the promotion, but "standard Base Point earnings on any single stay may not exceed 100,000 Points."

Registration is required.

Deal or No Deal

This is a decent deal for two-night stays, and a better-than-decent deal for four-night stays.

Of course, promotions have to be evaluated in comparison to alternatives available from competing hotels.

For context, Hilton's offer compares favorably with Starwood's first quarter bonus (double points for all nights, plus 500 extra points on weekends). However, Marriott's winter MegaBonus promotion, which we haven't reviewed yet, will offer a free night after two paid stays between February 1 and April 30, 2011. And no doubt there are promotions from other major hotel groups in the pipeline as well.

So, depending on your priorities, there may be comparable or better deals to be had for those who can delay booking until the winter bonus landscape comes into sharper focus.

Reader Reality Check

Will this offer be a difference-maker when booking your winter hotel stays?

More generally, are you expecting next year's hotel promotions to be as generous as those of the past couple of years?

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R.I.P.: Alfred Kahn, The Father of Frequent Flyer Programs

Among airline marketers of a certain age, there are more than a few who would lay claim to having fathered airline frequent flyer programs, and by extension the modern theory and practice of loyalty marketing generally.

But really, frequent flyer programs are the product of airline deregulation; and the father of deregulation—and hence of travel loyalty programs—was the economist Alfred Kahn.

It was Kahn who, as Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board under Jimmy Carter, oversaw (and vigorously promoted) the deregulation of the industry, leading to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. The rest—discount carriers, mileage programs, convoluted pricing schemes, labor discord, financial instability—is history.

I had the pleasure of interviewing him several times over many years, and he was unfailingly kind and accommodating—in spite of the fact that I sometimes challenged his unwavering faith in the free market.

Kahn died on Monday, at age 93, his legacy left to be debated—as he would have wanted it—but secure.

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Frequent Flyers, Share Your New Year's Resolutions

It's been an interesting year for loyalty program aficionados. And next year promises to be every bit as eventful.

Looking ahead, I'm working on my list of miles- and points-related resolutions for 2011, and expect that many of our readers are as well.

Please post your resolutions for more rewarding travel next year in the comments section below. Assuming there are enough responses—and I anticipate there will be—next week I'll compile them in a new blog post, together with some thoughts and observations of my own.

Thanks for sharing!

Point Stretchers: Hilton's Discounted Award Nights for 2011

Got Hilton HHonors points? Want to get the best value when redeeming them?

Hilton's recurring Point Stretcher Rewards may be just the ticket.

Offer Details

With the latest iteration of Point Stretcher Rewards, HHonors members can book award nights for 40 percent fewer points from January through June 30, 2011, at more than 1,800 participating hotels, including Conrad, Hilton, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Hotels, and Homewood Suites.

Deal or No Deal

Six months of significantly discounted award nights at about half of Hilton's family of hotels—that's an enticing proposition.

But don't expect all hotels to have discounted nights throughout the published promotion period.

For each hotel, there's a table on Hilton's website showing which dates are available for booking at the Point Stretcher rates. And the available dates are spotty.

In the U.S., for instance, many hotels have discounted nights available during January and, to a lesser extent, in February—but nothing during the rest of the promotion period.  Example:

Still, 40 percent is a substantial savings and adds significant extra value to HHonors points.

If you can find dates and hotels that coincide with your upcoming trips, these deals are well worth taking advantage of. You might even want to review the list of participating hotels and plan a trip around one or more of them.

Reader Reality Check

Have you taken advantage of past Point Stretcher discounts?

This time around, are there enough participating hotels and available dates to make this viable for you?

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Marriott Extends Elite Rollover Nights Through 2011

Elite status is normally awarded for flights or room nights earned during a calendar year. Elite-qualifying points (EQPs) earned during 2010, for instance, count toward 2011 status. But EQPs earned in excess of one elite threshold but below the next-higher threshold are superfluous.

Example: You earned 35,000 EQPs during 2009. Your program awards silver status at 25,000 points, and gold at 50,000. So on the strength of your 35,000 EQPs, you enjoyed the perks associated with silver status throughout 2010. But the 10,000 EQPs you earned over and above the silver qualification requirement? They're wiped off the books. On January 1, 2010, the EQP clock reset to zero for earning 2011 status.

There has always been a contingent of frequent travelers who railed against that policy. Why, they argued, should those 10,000 EQPs disappear into the ether? Shouldn't they count ... somehow ... toward something?

Marriott Steps Up

Marriott heard them loud and clear, and in 2009 broke with the prevailing standard, introducing its elite rollover nights. The name said it all. Using our example, with rollover nights, those 10,000 EQPs earned during 2009 would be rolled over into 2010, giving you a head start toward reaching elite status for 2011.

Marriott extended the rollover policy for points earned during 2010. And they've just announced that the policy will apply to points earned during 2011 as well.

For context, it should be noted that, compared to other major hotel programs, elite status in Marriott Rewards is especially difficult to achieve, especially for middle- and higher-tier status.

Marriott's entry-level Silver status is awarded after a reasonable 10 nights, but Gold level requires 50 nights, and Platinum isn't reached until 75 nights.

Status in Hilton's program also kicks in after 10 nights, but mid- and high-level status is earned after just 36 and 60 nights, respectively. InterContinental and Starwood's programs only have two elite tiers, the highest of which is reached after 50 nights.

It could, in other words, be argued that rollover nights are needed to mitigate the difficulty of earning higher-level elite status in Marriott's program.

Whatever Marriott's motivation, the end result is a good one.

The Next Step

As I've noted elsewhere, Marriott Rewards members are well served by elite rollover nights. They would be better served, however, if Marriott made it a permanent program policy, instead of coyly extending it a year at a time, keeping Rewards members guessing.

Just as Marriott is looking for long-term loyalty from Rewards members, members are looking for long-term program benefits. Rollover nights should be among them.

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Earn Sign-Up Bonuses for Dining Miles Until December 31

Remember when the airlines' dining-for-miles programs were big?

Big promotions. Big opportunities to add lots of miles to your account. Big excitement.

At the end of 2008, I tallied up my dining miles and found I'd earned more than 25,000 miles for the year -- enough for a free ticket.

For reasons best known to Rewards Network -- the company that operates the dining miles programs that the airlines brand as their own -- the constant stream of offers has slowed to a trickle. And what few offers there are tend to be weak ones.

These sign-up offers for members of several programs are no the exception to the new rule.

Offer Details

With the exception of the Southwest promotion, which has no published end date, all the following offers are in effect through December 31:

• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan members who haven't signed up for Mileage Plan Dining, or who haven't yet established a dining profile, can earn a 500-mile bonus for, first, enrolling or setting up a profile, and then logging one qualifying dine of $25 or more within 30 days of registering.
• Delta SkyMiles members who haven't signed up for US Airways Dining, or who haven't yet established a dining profile, can earn a 1,000-mile bonus for, first, enrolling or setting up a profile and opting in to receive marketing messages, and then logging one qualifying dine of $25 or more within 45 days of registering.
• Southwest Rapid Rewards members who haven't signed up for Rapid Rewards Dining can earn a quarter (0.25) credit bonus for enrolling and then logging one qualifying dine of $25 or more.
• United Mileage Plus members who haven't signed up for Mileage Plus Dining, or who haven't yet established a dining profile, can earn a 1,000-mile bonus for, first, enrolling or setting up a profile, and then logging one qualifying dine of $25 or more within 30 days of registering.
• US Airways Dividend Miles members who haven't signed up for US Airways Dining, or who haven't yet established a dining profile, can earn a 500-mile bonus for, first, enrolling or setting up a profile and opting in to receive marketing messages, and then logging one qualifying dine of $25 or more within 45 days of registering.

Registration is required for all the above bonuses, except Southwest's.

Deal or No Deal

While no longer a rich source of miles, dining miles still have value, especially if you live in a city that has many program-affiliated restaurants.

So if you're not earning miles for eating out, you're missing an opportunity to earn miles for something you'd do in any case. And getting a bonus for signing up is better than the alternative.

Reader Reality Check

Do you participate in the airlines' dining-for-miles programs?

Has your level of engagement with dining miles changed over the past few years?

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From United: a 1,000-Mile Stocking-Stuffer for Mobile Check-Ins

'Tis the season for stocking-stuffers, and here's one from United: an easy 1,000 frequent flyer miles for sampling the latest check-in technology.

Offer Details

Through December 31, Mileage Plus members can earn 1,000 bonus miles for checking in for a United or United Express flight on a smartphone, using the airline's new mobile check-in app.

The process, as described by United, is simple:

• Use the smartphone or other mobile device's web browser to access mobile.united.com.
• Check in for your flight.
• Have your boarding pass sent to your smartphone via email, where it can be scanned both at security checkpoints and at the boarding gate. (Most airports, but not all, are equipped to accept mobile boarding passes.)

United's mobile app also allows travelers to check flight status, choose seats, and review their Mileage Plus accounts.

To earn the bonus, registration is required.

Deal or No Deal

This is the future of managing travel, just as online booking from a home computer was more than a decade ago. So you might as well get used to it.

Plus it's very cool.

There's no good reason not to earn a bonus for test-driving the new technology.

Reader Reality Check

Have you used a mobile device to check in for a flight?

Any issues with the airline's scanners reading the boarding pass from your smartphone's screen?

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Foreign Transaction Fees Are an Endangered Species

Last week, American Express issued a news release announcing that, "towards the end of the first quarter of 2011," the company will eliminate the foreign currency transaction fees for U.S. consumer and small business cardholders who make international purchases with their Platinum and Centurion cards.

Currency conversion fees have long been a standard feature of charge, credit, and debit cards. The fees range from 1 to 3 percent, with 3 percent the de facto industry standard.

Here, for example, is the relevant verbiage in the cardholder agreement for Citibank's Simplicity card:

Transaction Fee for Foreign Purchases. The pricing information table shows the amount of this fee (3 percent of each purchase transaction in U.S. dollars), which is a percentage of the U.S. dollar amount of the purchase. We add this fee for each purchase made outside the U.S., whether made in U.S. dollars or in a foreign currency.

In other words, when you use your credit card to purchase a Hermes handbag from that snappy little boutique along the Champs-Elysees, the purchase price in Euros will be converted into U.S. dollars, and that amount, plus a 3 percent surcharge, will appear on your next statement.

What did the card issuer do to earn the extra 3 percent? Certainly it didn't incur any extra costs that are being passed along to the consumer. Can it be justified as a convenience fee? Perhaps.

In any case, American Express's move is part of a developing trend among card issuers to put the fee to rest, at least for select sub-categories of cards.

Chase is leading the way here, now offering several of its travel-rewards cards -- those linked to the loyalty programs of British Airways, Hyatt, and Intercontinental -- with no currency conversion fees.

And Citi recently announced that its new ThankYou Premier and Prestige cards -- with annual fees of $125 and $500, respectively -- will be free of conversion fees.

The above-mentioned cards are among the priciest in the market. American Express's Platinum card carries a hefty $450 annual fee; and the company doesn't disclose the fee for the Centurion card, but it's known to be much higher. That might suggest that card issuers can only afford to waive the conversion fees on their higher-profit cards.

That argument unravels, however, when we add Capital One to the list. Capital One has long issued credit cards with no conversion fees, and its travel-rewards card, the VentureOne Rewards card, comes with no annual fee as well.

Ultimately, consumers will decide which credit cards deliver the best value for their needs. But for anyone traveling overseas, a card that saves 3 percent on every transaction has a clear advantage -- both in financial and goodwill terms -- over comparable cards that continue imposing conversion fees.

If I were in the business of issuing credit cards, I would choose to be a leader in rescinding these fees -- and not just for my high-annual-fee cards.

Reader Reality Check

How do you feel about paying an extra 3 percent for overseas purchases?

Do you have a strategy for avoiding or mitigating such surcharges?

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For US Airways Loyalists: Lifetime Elite Perks

Until this month, US Airways was the only major U.S. airline that didn't offer its most frequent customers an opportunity to earn lifetime elite status.

Lifetime status is typically awarded after earning 1 million miles, which explains why it's come to be known as million-miler status.

I said "until this month" because, ta-ta!, this month US Airways finally joined its legacy-carrier cohorts in adding lifetime status to the Dividend Miles elite program.

Dividend Miles members are likely to have mixed feelings about the new addition.

On the positive side, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, which is what they were getting previously.

But on the down side, US Airways' version of million-miler status is both harder to come by and less valuable than other airlines'.

On the earning side, only actual flight miles on US Airways count toward million-miler status—not miles earned for flights on partner airlines. United also only considers its own flights when awarding million-miler status; but when that threshold is achieved, Mileage Plus members receive Premier Executive status, United's mid-tier status, rather than the entry-level Silver status on offer from US Airways. And United offers progressively more rewarding versions of lifetime status after reaching 2 and 3 million miles as well.

Like United, Delta offers three versions of lifetime elite, with qualification thresholds of 1, 2, and 4 million miles. But unlike United and US Airways, Delta also counts miles earned by flying on airlines that co-participate with Delta in the SkyTeam alliance (Aeroflot, Aeromexico, Air Europa, Air France, Alitalia, China Southern, Czech Airlines, Kenya Airways, KLM, Korean Air, TAROM, Vietnam Airlines) and Alaska Airlines. That makes for significantly easier qualification.

And making qualification easier still, American counts any and all AAdvantage miles—bonuses, credit card miles, shopping miles, whatever—toward their version of lifetime elite, which features two tiers for 1- and 2-million milers.

So US Airways' new million-miler status is a step in the right direction. But it's a small step, and a grudging one. Dividend Miles members will wonder, rightly, why their program chose to value their loyalty less than competing programs would have.

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Delta Lays Claim to "Most First Class" Title

By the summer of 2013, Delta will add more than 1,200 first-class seats to its fleet. That's over and above the recent addition of first-class seating on all Delta Connection regional jets with more than 60 seats.

For context, that amounts to a 13 percent increase over the airline's current supply of first-class seats, which account for 11 percent of Delta's total seating. Here's the breakdown:

Bottom line: According to Delta, the airline already has more first-class seats than its competitors, and it's adding even more. In addition, "Delta also is the only U.S. carrier to offer a First Class cabin on every domestic flight longer than 750 miles, or approximately 2.5 hours."

The seating upgrade represents a significant shift in focus for an industry that has been stuck in shrink mode for the past few years.

Not only have the airlines reduced capacity overall, they have also disproportionately reduced the number of first-class seats. That's because part of the recession-fueled seat-shedding has taken the form of equipment downgrades: switching from wide-body jets (B747 or B777, for instance) to narrow bodies (B737, A320), and from narrow bodies to regional jets. Generally, the smaller aircraft not only have fewer first-class seats, but a smaller percentage of first-class seats, with many regional jets offering no first class at all.

More Upgrade Opportunities

While Delta surely has its eye on the bottom line—first-class tickets are highly profitable—the move is as much about appeasing elite-level SkyMiles members as it is about selling more first-class tickets.

In fact, the subhead of Delta's news release addresses that goal directly: "Airline increases First Class seating by 13 percent, creating up to one million new upgrade opportunities annually for SkyMiles members."

An upgrade to first class is the featured benefit of elite status; and elite status is the key to recognizing an airlines' best customers—and, critically, locking in their highly profitable business.

So whether Delta sells its first-class seats or gives them away, there's a financial upside for the airline.

Of course with business travel on the rebound, the demand for paid first-class seats will increase, which means that not all of the additional seats will be made available for elite upgrades. But some will, and the net effect for would-be upgraders should be a positive one.

Reader Reality Check

Can any SkyMiles elite members comment on their success rate in obtaining complimentary domestic upgrades?

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