Category: Hotels

Act Now If You Want Two Free Nights at a Swanky Hyatt Hotel

News started to filter out this week that Chase was going to change the sign up bonus for the Hyatt Credit Card. The current offer is:

Earn 2 free nights at any Hyatt hotel or resort worldwide after you spend $2,000 on purchases with the Hyatt Credit Card in the first 3 months from account opening.

Before applying, remember the following disclaimer:

This product is not available to either (i) current cardmembers of this credit card, or (ii) previous cardmembers of this credit card who received a new cardmember bonus for this credit card within the last 24 months.

This sign up bonus is extremely valuable because it’s good at any Hyatt. You can read posts online of how people have stayed at the Park Hyatt in Sydney (it overlooks the Sydney Opera House), or the Park Hyatt Tokyo (it was featured in the film “Lost in Translation”) or the mega-Instagrammable Park Hyatt Maldives. You know, that place with those bungalows that stretch out into the never-ending blue sea.

If you were dreaming of a trip like that, you need to act NOW!!!!

Continue reading “Act Now If You Want Two Free Nights at a Swanky Hyatt Hotel”

How Logging Into A Website Can Make Your Booking More Expensive

I’ve read plenty of online articles about how websites give different pricing to people based on which web browser you are using. Originally I saw posts that if you were using Apple’s Safari browser, you’d be shown a higher price because Apple customers tend to have a higher income and wouldn’t notice a few more dollars.

I’ve never noticed this myself so I figured that websites learned that people were smarter than that and would just use a different browser.

Flash forward to the present and when I tried to make booking thru Expedia.

Continue reading “How Logging Into A Website Can Make Your Booking More Expensive”

Great Deal! Stay 3 Nights For The Price of 2 at Hilton’s Waldorf-Astoria, Conrad & Curio Brands

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Lobby of Waldorf=Astoria in NYC

Ah, the Waldorf Astoria. The name alone conjures up thoughts of exquisite accommodations, unparalleled service and high end everything. Joe and I were lucky enough to stay at the original Waldorf=Astoria in NYC earlier this year, just before it closed for a 3-year renovation, thanks to what was, essentially, an offer that we think never should have been approved (from a business standpoint) before it was published. That was when they advertised “Stay two or more nights and get one night free, AND receive a $75 Visa gift card” and we grabbed the offer before it was pulled :-). So we stayed at the Waldorf=Astoria for 2 nights, got one of the nights for free AND got a $75 Visa gift card, because yup, that’s how the ad could be interpreted. WINNING!

Almost unbelievably, the offer has been introduced again, and
Continue reading “Great Deal! Stay 3 Nights For The Price of 2 at Hilton’s Waldorf-Astoria, Conrad & Curio Brands”

How To Get Elite Hotel Benefits Just By Having A Credit Card

Elite benefits from hotels are nice. These are the benefits that frequent guests of the hotel chain are given as a thank-you for being good customers. While each chain has different benefits for differing levels of membership, the things you’ll usually see offered are a welcome gift, free wifi, early check in, late check out, an upgraded room and a variety of other perks.

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Pferdschwemme (Horse Pond), as seen from our (upgraded) room at the Goldener Hirsch

While I’d like to think that we are traveling all the time, we actually aren’t. We stayed outside of our home for 33 nights in 2016. The breakdown of our stays looks like this:

Continue reading “How To Get Elite Hotel Benefits Just By Having A Credit Card”

Should you stay in a chain or independent hotel: Key West

When booking a trip to a city you’ve never been to before, it’s easy to first look at the hotel chain you’re the most comfortable with. That may be because you have some sort of status with them or maybe you have a bunch of points in a loyalty program that you want to use. If this is your one and only search criteria, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. Now, I’m not saying chain properties can’t be nice; they can be very much so. In fact, sometimes a chain hotel can be the best hotel in town. It’s just that if you NEVER search beyond that, you’ll potentially miss out on some wonderful places to stay.

Continue reading “Should you stay in a chain or independent hotel: Key West”

Make sure to sign up for the summer hotel promotions for extra points!

It’s after Memorial Day! That means it’s now OK to wear white pants (except in Florida where it’s always is acceptable), and the hotel chains are out with their summer hotel promotions. These offers give you bonus points for your hotel stays and you need to actively enroll for them, as they’re not automatically activated. You also really should read the fine print to make sure you don’t lose out on points because of a technicality.

I always recommend signing up for these offers even if you don’t expect to stay at any of these hotels. You never know when a last-minute hotel stay will happen. (Note: I’m already signed up for some of these but for those where I’m not, I’m doing so for each offer as I write this post.)

Here are the offers for the major hotel chains this summer:

Continue reading “Make sure to sign up for the summer hotel promotions for extra points!”

Cuba’s First Luxury Hotel Is Opening In Havana – What Will It Mean?

A friend on Facebook posted an article earlier this week, originally from the AFP, that the “Gran Hotel Manzana” (I took Spanish for 8 years…The Great Apple Hotel???) recently opened its doors to guests in Havana (According to this article, it soft opened on May 22, with a grand opening schedules for June 7). Jointly owned by the (Swiss) Kempinski Hotels and military-controlled Cuban tour operator Gaviota, it’s said to be Cuba’s first ultra luxury hotel, with rooms and suites going for $440 to $2,485 per night.

If it’s the country’s first “ultra luxury” hotel, what will it mean? Will it be a game changer Continue reading “Cuba’s First Luxury Hotel Is Opening In Havana – What Will It Mean?”