There’s tons of stuff going on in the miles and points world, but I’ve never been one to post often and about everything. I’d rather save that and only post when I have something good… I figure that way when I post, people read it because (hopefully) they expect something good.
However, there are a ton of promotions, and there’s a ton happening, so I decided to try out a post giving mini-scoops on some of the deals and things going on. If it appeals to people, maybe I’ll do it regularly, but in one post. This way people who want to know about the deals can, and the people who only want important things only have to skip one post. But… I’m just thinking out loud here. On to the deals…
The top part will be deals, and the bottom part will be other related things.
Hotel Promotions
Club Carlson (Radisson)
I saw this 5,000 points promo for two stays, and although you were supposed to register by Oct 15th, it appears registration is still open.
This appears to be an either/or with the last AA promotion, so I couldn’t register, but Carrie’s account could. It seems you can also choose a couple other promotions: triple points in Europe, double miles in the Americas.
Then I noticed a bunch of location dependent ones, like get 10,000 points for this one hotel in Orlando, which I found for $100.
Then tack on 3,000 points for booking via the app.
Let’s run the numbers on my potentional stay in Florida. If you do the 5,000 points for two stays: that’s 2,500 bonus points (half of the 5,000), 10,000 points for the hotel itself, 3,000 for the app and 2,700 points for the paid stay (27 points per dollar of $100). That’s 18,200 points for a $100 stay. Look at the list, and see if anything’s right for you.
Accor
Accor also has a decent promotion giving 5,000 Air Canada Aeroplan miles per stay.
It says that you’d get 10,000 points then automatically convert those points into 5,000 Aeroplan miles. This isn’t something I’d admit to normally, but I’d rather have the points. If I’m not mistaken, that’s 200 Euros in hotel stays with Accor. I wonder if I can call after the stay and try to get them to freeze the transfer. Thoughts? 1 cheap stay = 200 Euros. But I’d be fine with 5,000 miles too.
IHG’s Into The Nights mega-meltdown
This is infuriating for many, I know. Many people had a task on their Into The Nights promotion switched this week. Just over night they may have added something to make it way more difficult. Like my account went from booking “a stay” on the app to booking “9 stays”. Now that’s a big difference.
Frustrating yes. But, also it’s freaking illegal. I did some stays with IHG expecting to get 2 free nights after 3 stays and now it’s 9 stays. In other words, I gave them money because of a promotion/promise on their part, and they switched it after they got my money. How is this not a bait & switch?
How are more people not more upset by this? People are upset about their IT department, but what about the business practices from IHG? And the email I got basically said, “oops” we’ll give you some extra points. Um… I could have gotten 34,000 points AND 2 free nights at any hotel in the world and now you’re giving out 10,000 points? That’s a joke. However, I plan on giving more than their fare share in payback, and will help anyone who really wants to stick to IHG, stick to IHG.
The Good News: In the meantime, it appears new accounts still have the same easy promotion of 10,500 points & 2 free nights after 3 stays. Super awesome and I recommend this to everyone.
Airline Promotions
$100 to Europe
In case you hadn’t heard, discount airliner WOW Air (yes, that’s the actual name) is opening new routes from Boston, and DC (although it’s really BWI) to Iceland, London, and Copenhagen oneway ranging from $100 to $150 oneway. Although it appears the return flight is slightly more expensive. But a roundtrip to any of the destinations for under $300 is totally possible. Unfortunately the route doesn’t begin until summer, so a bit far in advance.
100€ voucher for 10€
First I’ll show you the one alive, and then tell you about the similar one I got.
If you know German, or can figure out how this works, please let me know! I will get more if this is a good deal.
Basically, you can use this 100 Euro voucher for packages and “last-minute” travel? I’m not too sure, but I’m skeptical. Please check it out here.
The one I got is now dead, but I’ll tell you about it anyways… I was about to go into a session at the Chicago Seminar when I noticed a deal on the German Groupon to buy a 100€ voucher for 10€. That’s a good deal, but the lengthy terms and conditions are all in German. So I bought one, took the PDF and started copying and pasting into translate.google.com and it turns out to be a good deal but doesn’t work on hotels. That’s okay, there are plenty of flights I could find for 100€, and I would gladly pay 10€ for a 100€ flight.
However, the Groupon was expiring that hour, so I bought another one. Half tempted to buy 100, I just didn’t want to get stuck not realizing it’s only good for giant packages or something. I just didn’t have enough time to go through a book process.
Anyways, guess I’m just bragging… but that was an awesome deal.
Two more things about the Chicago Seminar before telling you about BAcon.
The Craziest Taxi Driver ever
Recently I talked about the dumbest taxi driver in NYC, well I one-upped that with Uber last weekend. So I had a night layover in ATL and got a hotel a little bit away from the airport and missed the free shuttle in the morning to the airport. Frankly, I wasn’t worried about it, because I’m shamelessly working Uber right now. And a ride under $30 is free, and the estimate was $8 because we were close to the airport.
So we got in the guy’s car and he plugged ATL into his GPS and away we went. He had it so it went through his speakers and right behind my head his GPS was shouting directions. “Turn right” and he… just didn’t. “Recalculating”. “Turn right”, and again he missed the turn.
I started thinking to myself, “is he trying to run up the Uber meter?”, when again it said “turn right” and he looked panicked and at the last minute crossed lanes and turned right. It was 6am with no traffic and he couldn’t get into a turn lane? This guy wasn’t scamming me, he just can’t drive.
I mean, he really can’t drive. The entire time I couldn’t tell what lane he was in and he was mumbling to himself, “international, international”. And the sign clearly said “international to the left” and he was clearly not turning, so I said something and he got over, to which he replied, “there are no signs!”
For whatever reason, at this point he turned off the GPS… because we were there. And really we were inside the airport, but we weren’t there.
Then it came to a T and while I wasn’t paying attention it seemed we needed to go right and he took a left… which led to the domestic terminal. He got very upset about the signage again and we almost got in a wreck when he changed lanes really quickly to exit the airport.
The weird thing is that he was now going the right direction and the only sign we saw said to go straight but at every single intersection he turned right, and I’d say, “I think we’re supposed to go straight”, to which he again expressed his frustration with the lack of signs. I take a lack of a sign to mean, don’t turn at all until you get to another sign. He took it to mean, investigate every street. We pulled off and stopped at every street, turn-off, parking lot, and dirt road to check for signs.
I kid you not, what according to Google is a 4 minute ride, was actually 24 minutes. And look at the route he took.
I’m just not too sure what to say about that. Definitely my worst Uber experience yet, and the second time I had to give directions. Except this time it was just the last little bit and really I was just pleading to stay straight. We would have been in a field.
Apparently Spirit Air Charges for Carry Ons
What I learned at the airport is both Spirit charges for carry ons, and judging by the website, they charge more at the airport. $50 a bag for checked bags, and $40 carry ons at the airport, I think.
I decided to handle this like I handled RyanAir’s Carryon policy: not caring. Although when I got on the air side of the terminal, bag prices went up to $100. Are you kidding me? I hope we don’t get caught now.
The key here is walking on with authority, and being in the midst of the boarding hustle, I suppose. Or it’s just about having relaxed agents. Anyone get turned down at boarding until having to pay?
Anyways, it worked out.
![Nick of FM on #40kFarAway [TIF Podcast]](https://travelisfree.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/travel-is-free-podcast-nick-40K-120x86.jpg)
Nice post. One thing in particular caught my eye. Admittedly, I’m not very familiar with Accor, but this deal sounds pretty tempting. How do you figure the 200 Euros, and any thoughts on how best to work this advantageously? Thanks.
Accor gives points toward cash. So 10,000 points would get you 200 Euros toward accor hotels.
I got my family of 5 a one-way from Boston to London for $800 after the bags and fees on WOW!!!! I am going to use United points to fly back! I am SO excited!!! 🙂
Congrats. It’s really a great deal/sale. Gotta love new promos. Unfortunately you’ll have to pay the same coming back with LHR’s airport taxes! Unless you fly out of somewhere else, and even then… So may consider doing wow back lol.
Also, when we stayed with my mom we used ClubCarlson points for the Plaza on the River and it’s a suite with a kitchen already, but they gave us a two bedroom suite. very grateful to only pay for one room. But now I think about it, they jacked up the price to 70,000 points, which is a bummer. Still might be worth it for two nights (with the credit card bogo) if you get two rooms. YMMV.
Hope all is going well for ya.
Did you contact uber? They will almost always adjust the fare if your route from point A to point B looks THAT bizarre.
I mean… it was free. The only adjusting would be how much the driver got paid, and that would be justified, lol.
Oh schnapps, just checked and my IHG thing went from one stay booked on the app to FOURTEEN!!! What the?!?!
Still even trying to get a stay posted from before. They keep telling me I didn’t register before the stay, but the only reason I booked the stay was because of the promo. These guys better get it fixed, and fast!
Should be back to normal.
But hey Dizzy, do you have an email showing when you registered? Like when it first launched, it was buggy, but check to see if they sent you an email with the promo. That email time stamped would be proof that you did indeed register.
I tried sending them a couple emails and it was like they were responding to a different person- they were literally answering questions I hadn’t asked at all. Then I called. After being cut off (hung up?) from the first 2 I got through to someone that was hard to communicate with because his English was so bad.
I do have an email from 9/4 but weirdly enough I have another one from 9/11. But when I emailed before they said I didn’t register until later date, they said earlier one was “invalid”. Also guy is claiming that they fixed the issue of 9/5 stay as per my email- I kept saying no, it was credited to my account, but not the promo. As the email person said also- that it didn’t qualify.
In the meantime it now says I have to stay 11 times instead of 1, then 14. The guy on the phone offered 15k points for them messing up, but that 11 times offer stands. I tried to point out that this was illegal, ie bait/switch but he said that’s why he is giving points. He said they were posting immediately, but of course there is nothing on my account at least 24 hrs later (he said I should be able to log in right away and see them). I also asked for an email confirming what he was doing with the account and haven’t gotten that either.
Really, really frustrated with this.
Drew, This is my story about UBER. My daughter, 4 grand kids and I visited NYC for 6 nights (10/11-17/2014). I signed up (using your link). I thought UBER was such a good deal that I asked my daughter to sign up. We wanted to get the best bang for our buck so we thought we would use them for our longer trip ie airport, Brooklyn (to eat at Peter Luger’s Steak House.) OK, please correct me if I am wrong. I should have 2 $30.00 rides. one for signing up (through your link and one for after my daughter rode with UBER. Well, I couldn’t get my phone to work it kept saying “change settings”. 1st ride driver said we should have ordered a larger car. 2nd ride Brooklin was to far to drive. 3rd ride (trip back to airport) never happened. I kept trying to order xl suv. 2 different rides did respond to our request however, could not transport 6 people and luggage. Long story short. The hotel’s car service drove us to the airport ($90.00 charge) and we almost missed our flight. UBER is a great service for 1-4 people but not 6. All this points and miles are wearing me out. I enjoy your post.Keep em coming.
Well, I’m sorry to hear about that. But so the first time you must have not known to slide it over to a large car right?
So to change the car to a large one, you just slide over from uberx to large “SUV” before ordering the car. It sounds like that may have been the problem?
Maybe your Uber driver used to drive a cab in Atlanta. Some years ago my colleagues and I wanted take advantage of a few hours in between the end of a conference and our flights to go visit the MLK National Historic Site. No problem, except the cab driver appeared to never have heard of the MLK Site before (!) and took us to the Carter Center instead. So I took out my phone and tried to direct us to the MLK Site from there–however, somehow in the process of turning around he brought us back to the Carter Center! He just could not withstand the allure of exiting off the road into the Carter Center parking lot.
At that point in time we decided to cut our losses, call an Atlanta colleague, and get a ride from her to the MLK Site.
Actually, most of these folk used to be taxi drivers. If anyone is that bad of a driver… it could be him. Sultan?
100€ voucher for 10€
Drew, even for me being German the terms and conditions for this deal are not 100% clear. It says it can be used in “Urlaubsreisen” and “Lastminute” only on their website. “Urlaubsreisen” only contains full packages incl. flight and hotel while “Lastminute” has two interesting sections:
“Last Minute Fluege” are flights only. The other one (probably not for Americans) is “Last Minute bis 299 Euro”. These are full trips for less than 300 Euros, but departure airports are limited to European airports and Dubai.
I just noticed your blog yesterday and it is absolutely awesome! Thanks so much for the work you’re putting in!
Thanks, glad you enjoy it!
I think I figured out from testing it. It’s these last minute travel deals that are on sale. They are packages for the most part, I think. So hard to find a 100E voucher, but I bought one to test, because I bet they’ll run some more.
Regarding the IHG disaster, I saw that an IHG rep on FT created a thread stating everyone’s original offer will be honored, except if you haven’t already registered for the promo. We’ll see if that plays out in practice… Luckily my offer didn’t change and I’m just waiting for 1 stay to post for my 2 free nights.
I had registered when the promo was first launched, and the offer changed. I wrote to them to complain about it and they said that there was an IT issue but the NEW offer stands. This contradicts their public statements about honoring the old terms!! So infuriating!!
What should I do now?
@Victor!
What I said in my comment above supposedly materialized after they said “Sorry, deal with it.” From my understanding, they are honoring everyone’s old offers, although I highly doubt you’ll see the offer pages adjusted back anytime soon. IHG screwed up big time on this promo. Maybe try finding the thread on FT and reading about others’ experiences so far with them honoring it?
It appears that the drama is mostly over… at least for most people as all accounts have gone back to the old offer. Although in email, when I wrote this, I had just received a, sorry deal with it.
LOL, dude, you would’ve known about Spirit charges and how to deal with that conniving, but awesome airline if you had checked my series:
http://lazytravelers.net/the-definitive-guide-to-gaming-spirit-part-1-intro-and-easy-8000-points/.
About avoiding being charged, believe me, you did get lucky. It does happen sometimes, but more often they will make you fit you bag into the thingy and charge you on the spot. I would advise against trying it with Spirit unless you wanna gamble $100.
And btw, they still have that 8K free miles promo.
Well, I’m not going to take any more chances. I think I’m done flying spirit unless it’s way cheaper, bags included.
Although it sounds like I could have saved some money if I had just done the points thing. Although it was a last minute booking, like always.
While I had fun bashing UA in order to get the points (for this reason alone it’s totally worth it) you can’t actually redeem 8000 points for a flight unless you have their CC, which I didn’t realize until after. I probably would apply but I’m really early into the miles game and don’t qualify yet for cards. Too bad as there are some good value redemptions in the Carribean.
The IHG promo is a total shambles. I’ve decided that I’m not even going to play the game and bring stress onto my shoulders. Only business IHG will be getting from me in the future will the free night off the credit. If I have to use a IHG property I’ll be using a 3rd party. I’d rather accumulate airline miles thru Points Hound than IHG points after all who knows when they will decide they want to take them back.
Well, luckily they’ve gone back to the old promotion.
They are a mess of a company, but I love this promo too much to pass it up. lol
I agree with Andy that I wouldn’t try to “sneak” bags on Spirit. The odds of getting stopped are too high and the penalty too great.
I have “hid” oversized bags on other airlines, but those are things like my bag being a pound or two over a 15 lb carry-on limit, or my wheel sticking out of a sizer. Usually, I’m just trying to avoid the inconvenience of checking the bag (for free). But taking a carry-on when you have no entitlement to do so? Risky. They have to enforce that rule, because it’s part of their core business model.
That is a good point about the rules being part of their business model. However, once I saw how much it was on the air side, I wasn’t paying! lol
I mean, like Ryanair I think they mean to, but most agents don’t actually check.
Not something I want to do again, honestly I would have booked a bag online had I known. But I secretly enjoyed it. :-p
I am mad enough at IHG that I would be happy to stick it to them too. More details please.
Well they are back to normal, but if you got my last newsletter. Just know I’m doing that over and over.
Wait, what?… Sneaking bags onto Spirit and calling it a “free spirit baggage trick” is like if I were to help myself to some in-flight liquor from the stewardess’ quarters (while they’re busy helping other passengers) and call it a “free in-flight booze trick.”
haha. It was suppose to be some kind of a sarcastic drew humor thing. But since 1) sarcastic doesn’t come across at all on the internet and 2) I’m not funny, it’s was a fail.
But I like your free booze trick. I’ll try that next time I fly.
Have you all been living under a rock? IHG changed their terms on the promotion again, honoring the offers that you got when you registered. For those that haven’t registered, you are stuck with whatever offer that shows once you register now.
I’m not sure what rocks have to do with anything 1) as I said, I got an email saying that the new offer was valid. And 2) there was different information scattered across the internet and flyertalk.
But things are back to normal it appears.
I did get your newsletter. I am pissed b/c they sent an apology email and didn’t change a f***ing thing, it is still the much harder “new” one, and there is no credit given for the two of three stays that were done for the first/original offer.
So, now do I start over from scratch and forget about the two nights I’ve already had?