This post/rant is only for those who travel. If you don’t travel for business, this blog might bore you and you may think this post sounds entitled or even a bit spoiled. Those who travel will get it. If you want to learn how to travel HACK, check out this blog - http://learntravelhacking.com/
Traveling takes years off your life. My friend, David Dean, has agreed on this. The grind of the airport, the waiting, the flights and the delays. We often joke as speakers that you don’t pay us for the 1 hour on stage-you are paying for the 2 days of travel it often takes to get to one place via plane. Friends that don’t travel always think it’s strange that I would rather drive then fly. I can leave on my time and return when I want to and there are never any delays. If I drive somewhere in 7 hours or less, I will do that any day of the week than hop on a plane. Even though on paper it could only take an hour via plane. So with that, here are some thoughts on flying/traveling when it comes to rewards and loyalty programs.
If you are going to travel for your job, I would at least recommend you trying to stick with a hotel chain of your choice and be in charge of booking your own hotel rooms instead of somebody else booking the hotels. Let me start with hotels, then I will get to airlines and then cars.
I am a Starwood guy. My friend Eric is a Marriott guy and the other big option is Hilton. I can speak on Starwood, which I have platinum status on. If you are going to travel and spend nights in a hotel, pick one brand of hotels and try and just stay at their properties.
Starwood has Four Points, Sheraton, Westin, The W, Element, Aloft, Le Meridien and The St Regis. I like the Aloft and W hotels just for the look and feel of the places. If you have gold status, which is pretty easy to get with an AMEX from Starwood, you get 4pm check-out at all hotels. This is great because it seems like check-outs are getting earlier and earlier and it’s less stressful on the traveler. When you have platinum status, you get the same 4pm check-out and you don’t ever pay for Wifi. On paper, it says you get automatically upgraded to the best room/suite that the hotel has. Plus you get free breakfast for 2 in the morning, a welcome gift or extra points.
If you have stayed at one of their hotels for 75 nights in a year, you get 10 automatic suite upgrades and you can stay for 24 hours. So, if you want to check-in at 6am for your stay, you can. Their reward program is pretty great. You get points every time you book and like I said I have an AMEX for Starwood that racks up points.
You can even transfer points from any American Express account for Starwood. I can make all reservations for my hotel rooms and staff under my name and the day of just add someone on our team name to the reservation and I don’t ever have to go. I keep racking points even if I am not traveling and that person gets the benefits of the upgraded room, breakfast, etc.
If you stay 100 nights in a year, that gets you an Ambassador. I had this in 2015, which gets you an “AMBASSADOR” from starwood that handles all your reservations and is your contact for everything Starwood. This is a nice perk but really since the hotels are all owned individually, your ambassador can’t do that much.
Marriott Hotels are generally not that great. Nowhere as nice as Starwood hotels but their points program is easier to gain free nights than Starwood. But to go to a higher level tier in Marriott is very hard and rare. Marriott just merged with Starwood and in 2018 will have a joint program, which who knows how that will look.
For now, your status on either hotel is matched by the other for 2016-2017, which is cool. I don’t know much on Hilton as I have never got more then silver with them. Starwood and all these I listed let you get more points by hooking up rental car companies and even Uber to your account.
My only beef that bothers me about Starwood is that on paper their rewards benefits are better than anyone, but sometimes that paper doesn’t matter. All of their hotels are privately owned and so they only share a few of the same benefits. Some may have the 24 hour check-in rule, while others don’t. Or you are supposed to get a room upgrade to a suite automatically and they all of a sudden don’t have any suites available (but it says I can book it online). I can’t tell you how many times this happens, even when I have an ambassador to fight for me, it doesn’t matter. You have to be firm and kind of make a scene every time you check-in. It goes something like this:
"Okay Mr. Gross, we have upgraded your room to a higher room with a view."
"Cool, were their no suites available?"
"I am on the SPG app right now and it shows me that you have 3 different suites available for tonight only and I am only in one night, why didn’t I get the upgrade to one of those?"
"Oh! Our system is updated more than the app."
"Really...how is that since you have no suites but I can purchase one on the app right now and you say you don’t have it."
"Ya, we are sold out on suites."
"Really...it is Tuesday night at 10pm, are you really sold out? Or you just don’t want to give me the upgrade and you want to sell the room instead? Isn’t your policy that I should get the best room available?"
"Yes that is Starwood’s policy but we don’t have it."
"Can I speak with a manager?"
“Okay...let me look…OH guess what I just found!!! A suite. Sorry about that."
That has happened 30 plus times to me. Less that 5% of the time do I get an email saying I have been automatically upgraded like I should. You have to fight for things that are promised and when I am tired of fighting, I will call my ambassador and she will get on the phone and fight with them. If you are too passive and nice they will just lie to you over and over and over. I wish the hotels, which are independently owned, would value the top tier loyal customers.
Now, on busy weekends or holidays when they are truly sold out, don’t expect the upgrade or if you are staying multiple nights in a row it is tougher. One last thing…you can’t use Expedia or other sites to book hotel rooms anymore, you have to book directly on the hotel chains app or website for ALL the upgrades-this is key.
I have been with Starwood for over 10 years and 2 times out of 400’s of stays, I have been upgraded to the Penthouse Suite. Once in San Diego with my family and once in Beverly Hills. This is amazing and technically on paper should happen more but just 2 times. They get a bit stingy now with the suites they upgrade you to and most of the time just upgrade you to the next tier of room not the highest tier like their program states.
Let me just explain Expedia, which I use a lot for my travel and others on our team do as well. It's a great site and super easy to use. Their rewards program is garbage. You get $100 towards travel for every $10,000 you spend or something crazy...hardly worth it. The reason you have to stop using Expedia.com and similar sites is because airlines and hotels treat you more like crap when you book on these sites. I have gold status with Delta and I booked my mom and I on Delta for a recent trip with Ron Jeremy for a debate. I tried to select a seat and Delta, even though I have gold status, said the fares on Expedia don’t come with seat assignments. You have to wait to get to the gate to get a seat. That is crap. You hotel rooms and flights are not eligible for upgrades if you book from these sites as well. Use expedia.com and find the cheapest fare and then go book directly with the airline. On the flight home with my mom, the Delta plane was broke and there were only 54 out of 152 seats taken. So many empty seats in comfort and first class and even though I am gold, they would not upgrade me because I bought my ticket on-you guessed it-Expedia. So, the airlines don’t value the loyalty of the customer, they just care how much you paid for the flight.
All the airlines used to be way more amazing than they are now. Since travel is so tough, I no longer care about getting upgraded or if my luggage is free. The biggest thing I look for when booking flights is who can get me there on a direct flight with no stops. If I don’t have to change flights, I will pick that flight. Recently, I flew SPIRIT (the worst airline imaginable..well, maybe a tie with Allegiant and US AIRWAYS) because they did direct from LAX to New Orleans. If I can’t get direct, then I will look at Burbank. Burbank and smaller airports are so much better than huge airports like Atlanta or LAX. Everything is easier.
If I have to pick two airlines to talk about, I am going to go with Southwest and Delta. Here is why:
Southwest is still the best airline when it comes to being most friendly. Many people don’t like the cattle call for boarding but since when is getting on the plane early really that great? If you check-in to your flight 24 hours in advance, you will get a decent boarding pass number and won’t get stuck with a middle seat. If you wait too late to check-in- you are screwed and sit in the middle. Their rewards program used to be amazing. It used to be based on trips taken, not distance flown. So, a trip from LAX to LAS VEGAS was worth the same amount as a trip from LAX to NYC. There are still some great benefits left, like no change fees and 2 bags fly free. Even though I will never check bags when flying. Get a smaller suitcase and never pack multiple bags, ever. Way too many problems. One of the coolest things with Southwest, unlike many other airlines, if you get a Southwest Visa card from Chase you get 50K miles plus 10K as a bonus. You only need to rack up 50K more miles and you get a companion pass from Southwest for the whole next calendar year. Let me explain. I got the Chase card and had a huge number of purchases I was making on a credit card and earned a companion pass in 2 months. I don’t even have A-list on Southwest right now which tells you I don’t fly with them a ton but I earned a companion pass for the rest of this year and the whole 2017 year. Anywhere I fly on Southwest, a companion flies free with me. I can change that person up to three times a year and it's all done online. Pretty awesome! No strings attached and super easy to book. Nothing else like this with any airline. One more thing-their in-flight internet is $8, which is cheaper than any other airline.
You can’t find a better airline than Southwest. Even how they fly is smarter than any airline. You don’t stop in hubs out of the way you stop at places that are on the way to your destination most of the time making for shorter trips.
Moving on to Delta. After I earned the Southwest companion pass, I thought let me work on Delta since Southwest doesn’t fly everywhere. I would use Delta as my back-up. The American Express Delta card says it gives you 50K points and gold status. I signed up for that card and got the 50K points, which will get you two roundtrip tickets anywhere in the USA and gold status. I get that because Starwood hotels are independently owned that they may not fully participate in the rewards program. Delta owns all their flights, so this is why I have a bigger problem with Delta.
I am flying tonight at midnight. Gold status says 3 days prior to your flight, you can be upgraded to First Class on a fare you purchase. It also says that upon booking, you get upgraded immediately to Delta Comfort Plus. I bought the ticket and Comfort Plus was not an option. It's not first class but the next section of the plane where there is more leg room. Delta doesn’t care that you have status, all they care about is how much you paid for your ticket and if someone else paid more. The higher priced ticket would get the upgrade first. Comfort Plus is now it’s own category, which is hilarious. It's not that nice and inches more of leg room and now it is it’s own category.
*Update-on a Delta plane today. Booked on Delta.com and was upgraded to Comfort Plus-big deal. When asked about First Class, I was #10 of 27 on upgrade list for first class. Seems like a lot of us got that AMEX and have zero chance ever of getting upgraded.
*Update from yesterday -Flew from Raleigh Durham to LAX and was magically upgraded to First Class. This is not that popular of a flight and was shocked when I got that. First time I have been upgraded so far on Delta.
Never fly American. Horrible and their planes are like Holiday Inn’s from 1984.
I love Jetblue and Virgin. They do things right and non stops across the country or over to Australia on Virgin is pretty awesome.
Out of the major players, the only one I ever want to deal with is Hertz. All the others ones make you wait in line, fill out paper, talk to your new best friend at Enterprise and so on. Sign up for Hertz Gold membership and your car is waiting for you.
If you want to avoid the major players, I have used this company once and was awesome!
• If you want to fly First Class and know you will never get upgraded, email this guy-Gary Ginzburg at [email protected]. He has a great way of offering first class tickets for CHEAP. The way he does it is brilliant and I used him only once to fly to Australia for the weekend because I had to get some sleep on that flight.
• The Travel Hack blog is great. I get the emails from this guy and find out the best ways to earn points-http://learntravelhacking.com/
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