I like new pricing models for airlines. Cathay is doing something interesting (announced today).
Cathay Enhance
Enhance – make an offer for an upgrade to the next higher cabin class.
During the trial period, they invite passengers booked on Economy Class and Premium Economy Class to place an offer for a chance to upgrade, with the following criteria:
Passengers travelling on 1 of our 9 selected routes: Perth, Toronto, Newark, Moscow, Paris, London, Surabaya, Cebu or Seoul.
Enhance is only available for selected flights and applicable fare classes on these routes where tickets are issued at specific countries/regions.
Bookings made after 12 May 2014, for travel between 20 June and 12 November 2014, on cathaypacific.com or dragonair.com, or with our local reservations office and hotlines.
Bookings must be confirmed.
Bookings with infant fares, waitlisted, redemption and prize tickets are not eligible.
After you book your Economy Class or Premium Economy Class ticket, you may be invited to participate in Enhance, based on various factors, including seat availability.
How to make an offer
Book your ticket.
Book on our official website, and if you’re eligible you’ll receive an instant invitation on the booking confirmation page.
Book with your local reservations office, and if you’re eligible you’ll receive an email invitation 7 days before departure of the first sector of your flight booking.
Follow the steps on the invitation, submit your personal information, and make an offer.
If your offer was accepted, we will contact you 2-3 days before your flight to confirm the upgrade.
Would you ever pay after using a bidding process to upgrade your flight?
Hotel costs are a major cost for frequent flyers – I don’t like to redeem a lot of hotel points as I find they are not a good value for many places.
I am a big Priceline fan but I have found a new website that uncovers price mistakes, low room rates and extreme hotel specials!
I consider around $100 a fair price for a room but this site uncovers gems at under $50 a night!
Extreme Hotel Deals
Some things about how the website works – they send email alerts but you can’t filter by region (so I get deals for Europe even though I live in Vancouver Island). Sometimes they even send one-day deals and that simply doesn’t work for me.
My favourite deal is when they posted the Four Seasons Vancouver at a rate of $160 – they seem to find all the great consolidator rates as well.
Having a Platinum card is expensive ($699 annual fee), but the benefits for me are worth it (at least for the first year).
Being a Platinum member gets you invites to interesting experiences where you can’t actually get from TicketMaster or get on StubHub or Craigslist.
AMEX Canada emailed me today with an amazing experience (high cost by tax deductible or I could use my Membership Rewards).
Here is a screenshot of the offer.
David Foster Promo with American Express Canada.
Platinum Cardmembers are invited to join world-renowned music producer David Foster and the David Foster Foundation for an afternoon at DeerFields Stables Country Inn. Upon arrival guests will be welcomed with a champagne reception before having the unique opportunity to join David Foster for a musical experience as he shares stories of some of the music industry greats.
David is a 16 time Grammy award winner (including 3 for producer of the year), has received an unprecedented 46 Grammy nominations, and earned 7 Canadian Juno Awards, an Emmy and a three Oscar nominations. David’s extensive career producing some of the world’s greatest musical icons such as Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Madonna and many more has led to a lifetime of fascinating and humorous stories to share.
All proceeds of the event will be going to the David Foster Foundation.
WHEN: Tuesday, July 8, 2014 from 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
WHERE: DeerFields Stables Country Inn, 17084 Duffys Lane, Palgrave
(northern Caledon), ON
PACKAGE FOR TWO (2) PEOPLE INCLUDES:
Invitation for two (2) to a welcome champagne reception
Lunch for two (2) catered by North 44 Restaurant
Access for two (2) to an intimate afternoon with David Foster, including one-on-one time and photo opportunities
Cocktails, wine and beer for two (2) throughout the afternoon.
Airfare, accommodation and transportation are not included in the package price
PACKAGE COST FOR TWO (2) PEOPLE: $2,000 CDN per package (guests will receive a $1,600 charitable donation tax receipt issued by the David Foster Foundation)
Or you can redeem 200,000 Membership Rewards® points per package.
If you had the Membership Reward points would you use them?
I received this email promotion from Aeroplan (so YMMV), they have a refer a friend promotion on right now where as a new member you can earn up to 15,000 bonus Aeroplan Miles.
Aeroplan Bonus.
You’ll earn 1,000 bonus miles for joining Aeroplan, which only takes a few minutes. If you don’t have an account and join I appreciate it!
Joining Aeroplan will allow you to earn miles with a network of over 75 world-class partners, representing more than 150 brands in the financial, retail and travel sectors. And you will be able to redeem those miles for travel to more than 1,300 destinations worldwide.
Then, you can earn an additional 1,000 bonus miles for each flight segment you fly with Air Canada (up to a maximum of 14,000 bonus miles).
1. Gain 1000 miles for suggesting contacts (1,000 bonus miles for inviting one or more of your contacts.)
2. Gain up to 7000 miles for those who join (1,000 bonus miles per contact who joins Aeroplan).
3. Gain up to 7000 miles for those who book (1,000 bonus miles for every roundtrip or two one-way segments flown on Air Canada by your Connections contacts.)
You can earn Asia Miles by flying on any of the Oneworld alliance flights. But for the most part, Asia Miles is associated with the Cathay Pacific airline.
Asia Miles Guide
Earning Asia Miles:
The reason why Asia Miles can be valuable for Canadians is because you can use these points to fly on any Oneworld alliance member flights, even Alaska Airlines.
As a Canadian, you can earn Asia Miles through:
If you have American Express Membership Rewards point, you can transfer a minimum of 1,000 Membership Rewards Points for 750 Asia Miles, and increments of 100 thereafter.
Whenever you fly on a paid ticket with a partner airline, quote your Asia Miles membership number on your reservation. Points are earned as follows:
First Class = 150% x actual miles flown
Business Class = 125% x actual miles flown
Premium Economy Class = 110% x actual miles flown
Economy Class = 100%, 50% or 25% x actual miles flown (depending on which type of ticket you bought)
For example, if you flew on a round-trip between Hong Kong and Toronto on Cathay Pacific, you would earn the following number of points:
First Class = 23,388
Business Class = 19,490
Premium Economy Class = 17,152
Economy Class 100% = 15,592
Economy Class 25% = 3,898
If you collect Petro Points, you can transfer your points to Asia Miles. Conversions must be in blocks of 10,000 PETRO-POINTS at a ratio of 10:1. 10 Petro Points to 1 Asia Mile.
Earn a 10,000 sign up bonus with the RBC Cathay Pacific Visa Platinum. You will also earn 1 point for every $2 spent on Catha Pacific plane tickets purchases on their website and 1 point for every $1 spent on all other purchases, (though this card comes with a $150 annual fee).
Convert your RBC Rewards® points (earned through RBC Visa Infinite Avion, RBC Royal Bank® Visa Platinum Avion, RBC Royal Bank Visa Business Avion) to Asia Miles at a ratio of 1 RBC Rewards point to 1 Asia Miles.
You can transfer Starwood Preferred Guest points at a 1:1 ratio.
Problems with Asia Miles:
Asia Miles expire 36 months after the day it was deposited into your account. So you will need to use your points within 36 months of when you earned them. That could be a major pain if you cannot accumulate points quickly enough.
I recommend on using Asia Miles for certain trips but in many cases it would be better to use AAdvantage miles. A trip from YVR to LAX on Alaska would be 20,000 Asia Miles.
I found that Asia Miles charged 15,000 miles to go from Victoria to Seattle, unlike 9,000 with Avios. So not the best value, it gives you other options if you are an RBC Rewards customer and it is always good to have options when redeeming frequent flyer miles.
Asia Miles are earned in the OneWorld alliance so you can have some good values.
As much as I love flying, I loave taking a train! I don’t know – I had a poor experience in Europe while on honeymoon (another post for another time).
Via Rail frequent traveller.
Via Rail is the most popular train company in Canada. If you travel with VIA Rail, you can sign up for free with VIA Preference to earn loyalty points.
In Canada we have some of the most beautiful train routes in the world!
VIA Préférence offers a Welcome Bonus of 500 points for all new members who travel and spend $250 on VIA Rail within six months of registration. With free travel starting at only 550 VIA Préférence points, a first reward trip could be just around the bend!
You can start earning points as soon as you become a member. You will get a membership number once you sign up for the program. To earn points, you must have your membership number on hand every time you buy a ticket. You can also use your membership number to sign in to your account at viapreference.com so you can update your profile and access personalized content and special offers created just for you.
Your membership card will be sent to you as soon as you spend $250 on travel with VIA, or take two one-way trips with VIA.
The qualifying period for each status runs from April 1 through March 31 of each year. You will enjoy the perks of the new status between May 1 and April 30 (i.e. 31 days after the qualifying period ends on March 31).
Here are the highlights of the elite statuses:
Préférence
Basic membership
When you spend between $0 and $999 (before taxes)
Earn 1 point for every $1 spent on VIA Rail (before taxes)
Privilège
Achieved when you spend between $1,000 and $1,999 (before taxes)
Earn 2 points for every $1 spent on VIA Rail (before taxes)
Selection 2 exclusive coupons
Access to a priority ticket line in major stations
Personalized luggage tag
Premier
Achieved when you spend $2,000 or more (before taxes) and complete at least 8 segments (a one-way trip counts as a segment and if you change, it counts as a new segment)
Earn 3 points for every $1 spent on VIA Rail (before taxes)
Selection 4 exclusive coupons
Access to a priority ticket line in major stations
Personalized luggage tag
Unrestricted reward travel (except December 23 and 24)
Priority boarding in Montréal, Toronto and Quebec City, Business or Economy class
Access to Business lounges when travelling in Business or Economy Plus
Priority meal selection on board when travelling in Business class
Priority access to the VIA Rail Service Centre
Are any readers frequent Via Rail travellers? What should be my first trip on Via Rail?
So I signed up for another American Express card. Currently the AeroplanPlus Gold Card miles has a new offer of 30,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles when you charge $500 in purchases for the first three months of Card membership. You also do not pay no annual fee for the first year ($120 value).
American Express AeroplanPlus Gold Card Bonus
The regular offer is just 25,000 Aeroplan miles so you are earning a nice bonus for using our link! This offer expires July 14, 2014.
You only need 30,000 Aeroplan points for (2) round-trip short haul flights (could be BC to Oregon or Ontario to New York or North Carolina even) or 25,000 points for a free round-trip flight to anywhere in North America!
Here is the award chart for 25,000 Aeroplan Miles:
Aeroplan North America awards chart.
Here are some ideas for destinations for short-haul flights with Aeroplan:
Earn 1 Aeroplan® Mile for every $1 of Card purchases up to $10,000 annually, and 1.25 Aeroplan Miles for every $1 of additional Card purchases over $10,000 annually.
No annual fee for up to two Supplementary AeroplanPlus Gold Cards. The annual fee for additional Supplementary AeroplanPlus Gold Cards is $50 each.
Flight Delay Insurance:
Charge your airline ticket to your American Express AeroplanPlus Gold Card and receive up to $500 coverage (aggregate maximum with Baggage Delay Insurance) for hotel, motel, restaurant expenses and other sundry items.
Baggage Delay Insurance:
Book a flight with your American Express AeroplanPlus Gold Card and receive up to $500 coverage (aggregate maximum with Flight Delay Insurance) for reasonable and necessary emergency purchases.
Lost or Stolen Baggage Insurance:
When you fully charge your airline tickets to your American Express AeroplanPlus Gold Card you can receive up to $500 coverage for loss or damage to your luggage or personal effects while in transit.
Buyer’s Assurance Protection Plan:
Automatically doubles the manufacturer’s original warranty up to one additional year when you charge the full purchase price to your American Express AeroplanPlus Gold Card.
Purchase Protection Plan:
Automatically, without registration, insures your eligible purchases against accidental physical damage and theft when you use your American Express AeroplanPlus Gold Card.
Remember that this is a charge Card with a whopping 30% interest rate so make sure you can meet the minimum spending and avoid putting too much of a balance on the card (just meet the minimum spending).
Disclosure: For referring you to this card, I would receive a referral bonus of 10,000 Aeroplan Miles for each approved referral. I appreciate your support of the blog!
Remember that once you sign up for this card, you can also refer your friends and family to receive the 10,000 Aeroplan mile referral bonus.
This Hilton Resort is been named a Hawaiian village for good reason.
This property is at the opposite end of Diamond Head in the heart of Waikiki Beach. This hotel resort is HUGE – has over 22 acres of property to cover (it even has two Starbucks on the property). It has over 20 restaurants and bars and on Friday evenings has a free fireworks show (great value and time at 7:30 for the kids).
View from our room in the Lagoon tower
At check-in because of my Hilton Gold status, I was upgraded to the Rainbow tower in a suite with a high floor with a view of the lagoon.
Our daughter enjoyed seeing the penguins and the turtles and the koi fish around the hotel.
Some problems I saw saw that the Super pool was freezing! Another problem is that since the children’s pool is connected – as soon as an accident happens – the pool is shut down. Good thing they have another huge pool at the Tapa tower.
Hanging out at the Hilton Hawaiian Village
The daily activities are too early for people on holidays – who wants to wake up at 6 am to take a yoga class – couldn’t they have it at 7 AM or 7:30 AM?
This was an accidental visit for us. It was a prepaid vacation that was offered months in advance (for a an unbelievable price) after searching for accommodation for our last holiday in New Orleans. As we arranged our stay in New Orleans it was offered as a Vacation Ownership promotion. To make a long story short we ended up purchasing a Hawaiian vacation that was never planned only because it was such a great offer. I’m glad we did too!
Breakfast time at the Hilton Hawaiian Village worked out well with a great breakfast of nice juices and coffee, tea, muffins, fresh fruit, and cereals (just what I enjoy).
Relaxing area in the Breakfast lounge.
Here are some photos of our suite. Our daughter had lots of room to run around.
No crib was needed but she enjoyed being able to run around.The room had a sectional to relax and enjoy a nice snooze in the afternoon.Busy checking out the complimentary PS3 in the room.
Hilton really knows how to provide top of the line service to their members. I am never disappointed with my stays at any of the Hilton Properties. Our room was LARGE, two balcony’s overlooking Duke Kahanamoku Lagoon, sofa and a lounging area where we ate lunches, bar fridge, spa bath with separate shower and an area to unpack move in for the week.
Travelling with a toddler can be a challenge in confined hotel rooms but here there was no issue.
Sand castles at the expansive Waikiki beach.
The Hilton Hawaiian Village also provided us with a coupon booklet to eat at the village’s restaurants. Some were small discounts like a free appetizer while some were 15% off at the steakhouses. We made the most of the coupon booklet and remained on the property for most of our stay. It has everything you need so you don’t really need to venture far if you just want to relax.
My highlight of the Village was the Friday night firework show that started a 7 pm – perfect timing with a toddler.
Enjoying seeing the penguins every morning (with Elmo).
I also enjoyed the Luau from our balcony 3 nights in a row. Watching the fireshow and the Hula dancers in the privacy of our hotel room was a real treat as well as a money saver. The first night we ordered pizza and hung out on the balcony watching the show.
Tapa Bar pool.
The wildlife in the village was a nice treat for my daughter although she always watched from afar never getting too close. The expansive tropical gardens are impressive.
Closeup of the penguins from South Africa
With all those pools only one was heated, the other 4 were like ice baths. Not many people hung out in those pools only around them. It made the heated pool with slides packed with parents and young kids running around until one kid decide to go pooh in the pool. Then the fun was over and he pool was closed.
Sign at the Hilton Hawaiian Village
We made our way to the Tapa pool which wasn’t heated but had a large shallow area that made the water warm and toddlers friendly. I actually enjoyed that particular area better.
This was another successful Hawaiian Vacation on the shores of Waikiki Beach.
