February 24, 2006
Airline and hotel reward program experiences
Peter King from Sports Illustrated complains about: frequent-flier and hotel-reward programs.
I tried to make some arrangements last week for a June wedding and a King brothers Midwest baseball trip. I was taken aback by how many restrictions there are on travel and hotel rewards for some non-holiday dates. Flights have so many restrictions, it's almost worthless to get all those points. How about this one: I could not redeem any Northwest points unless I stayed over a Saturday night. That probably means I'll have those points a long, long time. I'll probably die with them in my account. And in some case, like on Continental, I can book a free trip, but a round-trip ticket in the U.S. basically costs what it takes me about 14 months, flying regularly, to earn. I give credit to the Hyatt Gold Passport program: A three-night stay at the Park Hyatt Chicago took exactly half the points it took to stay at a nearby Marriott Fairfield Inn in Chicago. I don't know whether to applaud Hyatt or to tell Marriott it's out of its mind.I've only used up frequent flyer miles on Korean Air and Japan Airlines, but both have been fine. We once tried to upgrade on JAL and found that we couldn't because we had the cheap tickets. To me that's pure insanity - we were on a waiting list because they didn't have any seats in economy and we were'nt allowed to upgrade because of the ticket class - it was annoying to say the least. One time we upgraded to business class, and my wife is going to Tokyo free in about a month, using up a few miles. Posted by James Trotta at February 24, 2006 12:48 AM
Try using Delta. They have been great. Your Northworst miles are good with them. I took a trip over Thanksgiving to Alabama. No luck with Northworst. Delta got me there and back. Although they were not the best flights, it was a holiday weekend. Had to go Wednesday and back on Monday. OK, Thanks Delta..
Posted by: Bob P at February 25, 2006 4:42 AMI've had good luck with Cathay Pacific. I usually use the points for upgrades but when I've wanted them for flights, I've had no problem. I've also had good luck with United although, I haven't tested them recently. I flew my son out to Asia 3 times with my United points and got all the flights I wanted. Northwest has always been stingy. A friend with many NW miles found thru detective work that on flights from Asia to the U.S., NW only had two award seats available per flight. He's stopped flying them.
Posted by: Ed Hahn at February 26, 2006 11:14 AM