Hotel & Lodging Deals tips

Enter the Expedia CruiseShipCenters “Dream Come True” sweepstakes by May 6, 2016, for a chance to win the grand prize: a four-night cruise for four aboard the Disney Dream ship, plus three nights at the Walt Disney World Resort, including air, hotel, onboard meals, and a $600 Disney gift card.

I just returned from a holiday-weekend stay at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. Predictably, there was nickel-and-diming aplenty, beginning with the hotel’s nasty, indefensible resort fee of $29 a night, for rooms that featured neither a mini-fridge (better to drive guests to eat at one of the hotel’s 13 restaurants) nor a coffee maker (better to drive guests to caffeinate at one of the hotel’s three Starbucks).

With around 638 properties in its network, Hyatt is one of the smallest of the major hotel chains.

For years, Marriott has been referring to its periodic systemwide promotions as MegaBonuses. Early on, when the offer was a free night after two paid stays, the name was apt. But recently, the offers have been much less generous; they were more mini than mega. The offers also became more complicated over the years, resorting to a targeting scheme that generated customized bonuses according to members’ stay histories and other factors known only to Marriott.

Enter the Pernod Ricard “St. Patrick’s Day” sweepstakes by April 30, 2016, for a chance to win one of six grand prizes: each a trip for two to Ireland, including air, three nights’ hotel, and a tour of the Jameson distillery in Dublin.

The Choice Privileges program has distinguished itself in recent years on both the upside and the downside.

To overseas observers, the U.S. must look like a pretty scary place right now. What with the breakdown in law and order represented by the recent string of shootings, protests, and more shootings, and the generally vicious tone of the nation’s politics (Google “Kill Hillary” or “Trump Nazi”), anyone viewing this country through the lens of media headlines could be forgiven for thinking America had devolved into an unstable banana republic.

Enter the Atout France USA “Lancome Paris 2016” sweepstakes by August 8, 2016, for a chance to win the grand prize: a one-week trip for two to Paris, including air, hotel, and a day trip out of the city.

With Marriott’s pending acquisition of Starwood, there’s reason to expect that as the former goes, so will go the latter.

Paris Hilton hasn’t been much in the limelight lately, and now we know why. The 35-year-old socialite and media magnet has been busy developing a new line of luxury hotels to open in Dubai, New York, and Las Vegas.

IHG Rewards today released its latest list of PointBreaks hotels that are available for booking for just 5,000 points per night.

IHG Rewards members can make their points go farther when redeeming for award stays at 21 hotels in Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

In the final stages of the duel between the Anbang-led investor group and Marriott to acquire Starwood Hotels & Resorts, two questions remain. The first is whether Marriott will counter Anbang’s latest offer with a higher-value offer of its own. The second is which of the two outstanding offers Starwood stockholders will vote to accept at the company’s shareholder meeting on April 8.

What’s better than free hotel WiFi? Free fast hotel WiFi, of course.

Never mind the high-profile battle to acquire Starwood, featuring competing multi-billion-dollar offers from Marriott and a Chinese investment group. Starwood’s marketing machinery remains in high gear, just this month churning out a bonus offer for the Starwood Preferred Guest credit card and a discount on award stays at Caesars Resorts in Las Vegas.

While it’s unlikely to ever become a standard hotel feature, flexible check-in and check-out is an obvious traveler-pleaser. Really, who wants to be locked into the hotels’ arbitrary definition of when a hotel stay can begin and end?

In the weeks-long bidding war for Starwood, Anbang’s latest offer was demonstrably superior to Marriott’s, at least in the short term. And it appeared that Marriott was standing pat, hoping that Starwood shareholders would buy the argument that a Marriott-Starwood tie-up could deliver better returns over the long term.

Over the past several years, Choice’s recurring promotional offer has been 8,000 points after two stays.

Looking for little ways to be a more sustainable traveler in 2018? You might want to take a look at your go-to hotel’s bathroom soap.

Wyndham has been on a roll recently, bulking up with the acquisition of La Quinta’s 900 properties, revamping its Wyndham Rewards loyalty program, and treating its customers to a series of especially generous bonus promotions. For all that, the company remained uncompetitive with other hotel chains in one respect: It didn’t offer members-only rates, discounted hotel rates available only to members of the hotel’s loyalty program who book direct.

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