Program Changes, Youtube videos, Promotions, & The Great Firewall of China

First off, let me say that the ban of internet sites in China has gotten a lot tougher since I was last here. The VPNs/proxy-sites that used to work don’t. So for now social media and even anything google related (like my Gmail, or youtube) is very tough to use. Plus, the hotels so far have had slow internet. Just wanted to get that out there.

However, I’ll come back to some Beijing tips after discussing some important news and promotions.

Youtube Videos Coming Soon

I’ll have no way of knowing if the code I just used actually works but I want people to know that we will be rolling out more videos just like the Zakynthos video, but we won’t be posting all of them on travelisfree.com. So if you want to see them, subscribe to our youtube channel.

(Someone comment if the button shows up and works, can’t see youtube/google things in China).

The plan was to release these videos every week, last week being week 1. However, given that we are still in China and youtube is blocked, we will already be skipping week two. Darn China!

Obviously, we travel quite a bit. But we hadn’t really documented our travels with video until two years ago when we decided to at least carry around a cheap gopro 2 I got off ebay. This is stage 1. There is much less footage to edit with this stage of travels, so there are only 5 videos or so like this. Then we upgrade a little. For example our GoPro transforms into the HD gopro 3+ black (which is awesome (it’s what most almost the entire intro video is filmed on)), and we have way more video to edit. More work, but the videos are way more rewarding.

More to come in a week.

 

British Airways Devaluation

Business and First Class tickets when using Avios will go up a lot in price next week. If you want to book at the current levels, book before April 28.

Here is the current award chart:

Here is what the new one will look like:

Read more about it here and book before April 28.

 

IHG Category Changes

This too is mostly a devaluation, there are only a few hundred properties changing award price, but most of them are going up. Most of the changes are by 5,000 points, but a number of hotels are going up by 10,000 points.

Many would have been on my list for too good to be true. Like the Holiday Inn Riverside Glasgow is going from 10,000 points to  20,000 points. We’ve stayed here and the hotel is downtown in Glasgow, Scotland. A great deal for 10k.

Another is the Holiday Inn Kiev going from 10k to 15k. Or what will be really sad for a lot of people is the InterContinental Koh Samui, IC Danang, IC Hau Hin, all incredible Asian beach resorts, are going from 25,000 points to 35,000 points.

There are so many more and if you want to see a well made sortable chart of the changes, Dan from pointswithacrew has one. Check out IHG Points Category Changes.

 

IHG’s big promotion

Unfortunately they’ve decided to make the promotion incredibly less generous than 50,000 points in 3 paid nights, like the last many promotions were. This time our requirements are like 30 paid nights. No. Way.

Why would anyone live in a hotel with a chain that offers no real benefits like breakfast and lounge access?

… Oh wait…

But really, this promotion is decent if you already plan to spend a third of the next few months in IHG hotels.

The new promotion is Share Forever; check out yours here.

 

Best Western Promo

Stay twice at Best Western hotels get a $50 coupon; see promotion details here. Stays have to be by May 25th, but I think it’s finally time I gave the ol’ Best Rate Guarantee with Best Western a try.

 

Club Carlson Devaluation + 30k

If you have the Club Carlson card, you know that your time is coming to an end for being able to book free nights.

However, as some kind of consolation, they are offering 30,000 points for using your credit card for a stay. For this I just wanted to report that I did a cash & points stay a week or so ago and the 30,000 points definitely posted. This is interesting because I didn’t actually get an email that stated I’d get 30,000 bonus points on my next stay, if I used the card. I saw on twitter that everyone with a card is eligible and tried it.

 

Beijing is China-Lite and yet…

Here we are in Beijing due to a $400+ business class AA mistake fare.

Beijing is certainly China. But having been to many other parts of China, I was expecting something much more intense. I wasn’t expecting to see a Maserati, a ton of Audis, and a big shiny Apple store. I was expecting more ricksaws and lots of people staring. Staring to an extent that is kind of freaky on your first day (but is actually completely harmless).

I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the location of the Crowne Plaza Wangfujing a ton more than the Radisson Blu though. Even though Wangfujing is where the apple store is and a ton of upscale shops. But it’s also walking distance to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and People’s Square.

South of Tiananmen on the way to the Temple of Heaven is a walking mall area that is made to look like a traditional Chinese village.

A replica of China… in China.

It looked like an Epcot version of the old part of Hangzhou. Hangzhou-like in that it’s traditional Chinese style, and Epcot-like in that the buildings were obviously decorative and not functional, and they weren’t housing traditional Chinese tea shops, they were housing a Starbucks and Hagen Das. And the people visiting looked a lot like me…

But China is always China when it comes to food. Unless you’re going really upscale, you can’t miss out on an adventure. Personally I love the adventure of trying to order despite the language barrier and trying new foods in farflung places, but China sometimes gives me some shocks. Cooked in a boiling pot of intestines where the broth hasn’t been changed in too long… this is the smell of China. Sometimes even the smell overwhelms me, but it’s an adventure every day.

On a side note, I seem to have serious problems with quantities in China. I successfully busted out enough Chinese words to order 3 vegetable steamed buns, and the receipt itemized 3 of the same thing so I thought it’d been a success. However, what I didn’t realize is that 1 order includes 4 buns. This happened another time I ordered dumplings during a previous trip. If I remember correctly, I had attempted to order 4 but my Chinese 4 sounded like a Chinese 10. I think I gave some away, and even though I was even cheaper at the time, I’m pretty sure in that town the total had to be a few dollars at most.

 

The Great Firewall of China

But the most infuriating thing about Beijing is the internet. Somehow things have gotten way more restricted and yet I read that 80% of smartphones are rooted to get around this crap. What kind of idiots run this country? Not only do the people not want it, they still get around it.

Maybe I’m the idiot because I haven’t found a single way to get around this ban on the internet besides data on a smart phone.

And the internet is so slow. I started my stay at the Radisson where it didn’t work at all and a manager offered to send an engineer to look at my computer. No, it’s not my computer (we each have a laptop and a phone and no internet was working).

Yet, a guy who spoke no english showed up at my door and talked my ear off until awkwardly I explained again that I didn’t understand a thing he said.

Then the manager told me that they discovered the problem and fixed it. Although TripAdvisor seemed to confirm that internet was decent in the lobby and practically non-existent in the rooms.

It’s tough for the hotels that all internet speeds are slower (I assume) because of the great eye in the sky filtering everything. But internet in the lobby was great. Therefore I have no sympathy for all the hotels having such slow internet. Clearly they just need to pay for more bandwidth to power a hotel full of people, but don’t want to because it costs money. But I expect decent internet when I stay in Crowne Plazas and Radisson Blus.

Need. Working. Internet.

 

Conclusion

To bring it full circle, we are doing 3 paid Holiday Inn stays in Beijing to complete the IHG “Set Your Sights”promotion that ends this week. 50,000 points for 3 paid stays. Apparently IHG has a 50% off sale on Fridays but last Friday the hotels offering 50% off ended up having nearly the same price as the not 50% off. But that would count towards a promo if you needed it and can book 5+ days out.

No upgrades at any of the IHG properties we stayed at including the Crowne Plaza, but they all have lounges. So if you want that benefit stick with a chain that offers it. The DoubleTree is only 10,000 points.

Always lots of changes. And speaking of which we are still adding in features for the website. There will be a sidebar with a search tool, more navigation, and a more extensive resource page. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know and we’ll pick up on the redesign as soon as we get back from China.

Thanks