- IHG and Radisson Won’t Honor Award Booking If Hotel Leaves Chain by Points Adventure. Ugh, not honoring these bookings is terrible. I would have thought that IHG & Radisson would have put this in the individual contracts with each hotel allowing them to honor the bookings, but I guess not.
- Get Entertainment Books For $3.20 After Cashback by Frequent Miler. Not sure what the value proposition is like for entertainment books these days, but at $3.20 it’s certainly not expensive.
- Undercover Tourist is now selling Disneyland tickets. They code as travel on most credit cards, so something to keep in mind. Sometimes we also see AmEx offers as well, fingers crossed those come back.
Deals expiring at the end of today (view the full deal calendar here):
- [Targeted] AmEx Offer: ChowNow, Spend $25+ & Receive $5 Statement Credit
- Citi ThankYou Points 30% Transfer Bonus To JetBlue (1:1.04)
- Meijer Mperks: Purchase $50 In Qualifying Giftcards & Get $5 Off Next Purchase
Deals expiring at end of tomorrow:
- [Targeted] AmEx Offer: Kimpton, Spend $300+ & Receive $60 Statement Credit – Stack With 10,000 IHG Points
- [Targeted] Select Banks: $100 Back For Spending $44.99 at Comcast Xfinity [BofA, Regions, Suntrust & More]
- [Targeted] AmEx Offer: RaceWay, Spend $20+ & Receive $5 Statement Credit/500 Points
- Chase To Release New Chase Ink Business Unlimited Card – 1.5% On All Purchases (Replaces Chase Ink Cash?)
- eBay: Free Google Mini with $150 in Purchases
- Newegg: $50 Lowe’s Giftcard For $45
I doubt its YMMV. Booked a Park Plaza last summer with points and the hotel quit the program before our arrival. Apparently, there’s no email or any correspondence informing us, and the hotel did not honor our reservation. We called Club Carlson and was offered a room in Radisson Blu. Also, the Radisson Blu was sold out that night, and the representative secured us a room somehow. We got upgraded to a large suite.
So basically, we paid the points of Park Plaza and stayed in Radisson Blu which required much more points. But it’s really bothersome that no advance notice was given and calling Club Carlson was annoying.
Award reservations really need to be honored: just like paid reservations. Late last year, I was holding a reservation at the Iguazu Falls Sheraton for several months. It’s a very unique hotel, the only one in the Iguazu national park. I planned an entire South American vacation around that reservation, including flights into Iguazu. About a month before my arrival, the property left Starwood, which had represented it for decades, and became a Melia. There was a couple weeks of uncertainty, but they honored my award reservation. Had they pulled this “sorry we switched chains” stunt on me, I would have been placed a very bad position.
Ya, I went there 5 years ago. Very nice stay. Sorry to hear it is no longer Sheraton.
The Iguazu Sheraton is obviously an extreme example. It’s truly a unique, irreplaceable property. If a typical Holiday Inn Express reflags and you lose your award reservation, you might be inconvenienced, but it probably won’t be the end of the world. Still, there’s no reason to treat your customers this way. There will, obviously, be inconvenience, even to “pedestrian” reservations. It’s a no-brainer that the contracts should be written to require all reservations to be honored.
yea. the losses suck but people shouldn’t be that upset from trading naked options. thats how i view the points and miles game. unknown and unlimited risk. u dont own shit and the banks/hotels dont owe u shit either. crap gets canceled and shut down. forfeited and taken away. thats what makes this game so dangerous.
heres a simple example. people are always surprised to learn that theres no federal law to protect consumers when airlines want to randomly cancel flights. everything is governed under the airlines contract of carriage. which pretty much means they write their own rules. u guys remember what BS airline Sun Country did in mexico a month ago? google it. cancelled their last flight of the entire season. left all their passengers stranded. wtf. fuk that airline. and UA probably also has some rule to allow airline PO to beatup passengers too.
whenever possible, have backup strategies for important bookings.
I had no idea IHG/Radisson did that, thanks for the heads up!
Just an FYI I had the same issue with what was the w at Petersburg (Russia). Reservation was cancelled
Note that the linked FQF post for the Entertainment Books has been updated to explain the $5 cancellation fee if you cancel your auto-enrollment for next year’s book. So not really just $3.20 per book.