Choice fails in its hostile Wyndham takeover, no more cheap Hyatt Globalist and are bed bugs really taking over Paris? (Saturday Selection)

Choice fails in its multi-billion dollar attempt to rob us of Vacasa joy, Frontier refuses to refund a man who missed his flight because he stopped breathing and, are the Euro bedbugs as bad as everyone says? All that and more in this week’s Saturday Selection, our weekly round-up of interesting tidbits from around the interwebs (links to each article are embedded in the titles).

Choice tries (and fails) to take over Wyndham

Anyone who reads Frequent Miler knows that we’re big Wyndham Rewards fans…and it’s not just because of their industry-leading, creepy, South American hotels. No, the reason is that using Wyndham points to book Vacasa vacation rentals is one of the best deals going in points and miles today (especially combined with the 8x bonus categories on the Wyndham Earner Business card). You can imagine, then, our horror to discover that Choice Hotels attempted a hostile takeover of Wyndham this week, making three offers of cash and stock that represented a 20% premium over Wyndham’s current share value. All of us on the FM Team saw the death of Vacasa flash in front of our eyes, but luckily Wyndham held strong and rejected the offers. Unfortunately, the rumor is that a suitor isn’t necessarily unwelcome, and that Wyndham may simply be holding out for a better offer. Gather ye beachfront Hawai’i vacation homes while ye may.

Frontier refuses refund to man who stopped breathing at gate 

Frontier isn’t just known as the airline where you have to pay for seats, bags, snacks, drinks and air. No, the most unpopular airline in the US is also reputed to be a grouch when it comes to refunds as well. How much of a grouch? Well, a local Phoenix TV station reported a situation where a woman was waiting at the gate with her father for the their flight to board and, suddenly, her father passed out and appeared to stop breathing. Emergency services were called and the man ended up spending three days in a local hospital before returning home. The gate agent gave her an incident number, assuring her that, when she called for her refund, it would already be in the system. However, when she did just that, Frontier refused to do anything of the sort, saying that the flight “hadn’t been cancelled” and that the woman and her unconscious father were “no-shows.” Frontier finally relented after being contacted by the TV station and asked to explain itself, but it gives us another valuable data point in the oft-asked question, “what the heck do I have to do to get a refund from Frontier?”

Are beds bugs really taking over Paris?

Anyone who travels, and probably even those who don’t, lives with a certain baseline dread of bedbugs. I think it’s primarily the idea: while you sleep, these little prehistoric beasts emerge from their daytime lair to feast upon you while you’re sleeping like little creepy-crawly Draculas. I’ve been their victim at least once that I know of, at a grimy airport hotel in Wichita, KS. Those 12-15 itchy bumps on my lower legs freaked me out way more than the hundreds of mosquito bites that I’ve had over the years. Currently, there’s an almost a hysteric level of panic regarding a bedbug “infestation” that’s happening in Paris. A brief search on YouTube will turn up videos of little creatures in hotels, on chairs…even in the metro. But are they really as bad, or maybe as unusually bad, as all the coverage seems to indicate? Loyalty Lobby shares an interesting article from Scientific American where a couple of “bedbug experts” say, effectively, “not really.” Their general point is that bed bug infestations may have been unusually low during the COVID pandemic and now folks are really just starting to notice them again. As a case in point, seven hotels on the Las Vegas Strip were reported for bed bug infestations a couple of months ago, indicating that Paris isn’t the only place where the critters have a certain “joie de vivre.”

MGM leaves World of Hyatt…bye-bye cheap Globalist

Earlier this month, MGM ended its long-standing partnership with World of Hyatt in favor of a new fling with Marriott that’s supposed to begin later this month in late 2023 in early 2024. We’ve already poured one out for the end of this partnership, which gave us the MGM/Hyatt status merry-go-round and waived resort fees at MGM properties. Probably the biggest hole left in some Hyatt fans’ lives will be the dirt cheap mattress runs made possible by Sunday-Thursday stays at Excalibur. By combining sub-$20 weeknight rates, comp stays and mobile check-in, enterprising folks were able to get elite nights in 4-5 nights chunks for a few bucks per night. It was all made even better by the fact that you never had to step foot in the Excalibur, thereby adding several hours to your life expectancy. Alas, all good things eventually come to an end…and so it is with one of the cheapest ways to manufacture Hyatt Globalist status.

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