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The most desirable hotel awards are nearly impossible to find….unless you have the tools you need to find them. On this week’s Frequent Miler on the Air, we discuss the tools you can use to snag amazing hotel awards that you may have thought were impossible to book.
Elsewhere on the blog this week, Tim offers a great post about buyers groups, I tally up the costs for my current trip to Europe, Stephen shares some great finds with Lindner hotels, and Greg serves up the July 2023 version of his top picks. Watch, listen, or read on for more from this week at Frequent Miler.
00:00 Intro
01:10 Giant Mailbag: Don’t Hilton free night certificates have a big drawback?
04:25 Card Talk: Hilton Surpass and Hilton Business cards
12:20 What crazy thing . . . did Chicago Seminars do this week?
15:06 Award Talk Double Header
15:26 Cathay Pacific Asia Miles devaluation
19:38 JW Marriott Safari Lodge Availability
25:06 How to find impossible hotel awards
51:02 Question of the Week: Is the 95x / 95% back LifeLock deal worth doing for the Membership Rewards points?
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This week on the Frequent Miler blog…
The cost for a family of travel hackers to go to Europe for 2.5 weeks
I am in the midst of a ~2.5 week trip to Europe. This trip certainly hasn’t been “free”, but we’ve spent less cash than the cost of an “average” week-long domestic US trip for a family of four and we’ve gotten business class flights, an incredible hotel, and a 10-night cruise around the Mediterranean thanks to leveraging our miles and points.
Hyatt’s new Lindner hotel collection has these exciting options
The nice thing about many of these Lindner properties is that many of them are very reasonably-priced from an award chart standpoint since they are lower-category hotels. While I’ve been known to complain that Hyatt’s footprint is too limited-service friendly (there aren’t many benefits for Globalists at most Hyatt Place / Hyatt House properties), the opposite is true of Hyatt’s footprint in Europe. Many of Stephen’s finds here balance things out pretty nicely for those traveling to Europe.
A return to the Hyatt / SLH Grand Hotel Victoria, a dream within a dream
I spent last week at the Grand Hotel Victoria Concept & Spa, and it was even better the second time around. I hadn’t discovered the spa on my first trip there, but I’m thrilled that we not only realized it was there but got to use it every single day of our stay for free. Read all about why I love this redemption so much in this post.
Using Buying Groups to Increase Credit Card Spend
Buying groups are a very popular way to increase credit card spend (and get most of it back). While I dip my toes in this pool, I’ve cut way back ever since the demise of The Plastic Merchant (I only narrowly missed a catastrophe by pulling way back at just the right time). A reader once likened a buyer’s group to the idea of extending your line of credit to a stranger. There are some reputable groups, but consider the risks and go slow.
How to get free cruises by gaming casino status matches
Ocean casino updated its status match on July 1st and now it is possible to get a 10-night MSC cruise anywhere in the world through that match. Gone is the complimentary Wynn stay, but in its place is a complimentary Resorts World stay that I’ll be happy to try to use as I stayed at both the Conrad and Crockford’s at Resorts World this spring and liked the property very much. This post is updated with the latest info.
Greg’s Top Picks for July 2023
Wondering what the best current credit card offers are as of July 2023? Greg offers his analysis of the best offers on the market — including which you need to jump on right now, which you might want to consider, and which ones might be worthy of a snooze button for now.
Wyndham Golden Suites, Foz do Iguacu: Bottom Line Review
The Wyndham where we stayed near Igauzu Falls was a weird mix of two worlds: the lobby felt reasonably upscale, the breakfast was far better than the price point would suggest, the rooms and hallways felt like you should sleep with one eye open. I wouldn’t rush to stay again, particularly on the hard beds they had there, but neither would I choose not to go to Iguazu Falls if this were my best option. Carrie’s review has more detail.
Bottom Line Review: Hyatt Place Atlanta Downtown
As a Category 2 Hyatt in the downtown area of a major US city with free parking for Globalists (with in/out privileges!), I’ll definitely keep this place in mind if I visit Atlanta thanks to Stephen’s review.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Don’t forget to mark your calendar for this week’s last chance deals.
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Searching for Grand Hyatt Kauai in November, MaxMyPoint shows a bunch of 30k point availability that doesn’t exist per Hyatt. StayWithPoints only shows occasional single dates, which seems like it’s probably accurate. This makes me have serious doubts about MaxMyPoint in general. Plus, I agree that the ads are horrific!
MaxMyPoint shows when its data for a particular hotel was last updated. My guess is that you were looking at old data. You can get new info (with either tool) by creating an alert.
I hesitate to post this and draw extra attention to this tool, for fear of competing with other FM’s “in the know”, but I have to say openhotelalert.com actually works!
We are traveling to Paris this summer, and there was no points availability for our dates (which were fixed). I placed an alert at all of the Paris hotels by Hyatt for what seemed like standard rooms, and a couple weeks later, I got an alert. Snagged our nights at L’Hotel which looks like a fantastic place, good location, with a private pool / sauna. It is a little buggy (some hotels release cash prices but seemingly not award nights for what seems like standard rooms), but it’s definitely worth putting in the time to tailor your alerts.
There seems to be an issue with the download of the July 8 podcast on ITunes. It doesn’t play after the first 12 minutes. Not sure if it is my issue or a broader issue affecting others as well. Maybe worth checking. Thanks
I’ve tried re-downloading several times, and it always shuts off after 12 minutes.
On Spotify it has the duration as 11 minutes, 58 seconds
Same issue here using Podcast Addict on Android.
They published a fixed version (at least that’s what I see in PocketCasts)