We weep over the news that Marriott buys Starwood, visit Bora Bora and Moorea for free, go inside the Star Wars Plane and 9 Iconic Hotels & much more!
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The day was dominated by the horrible news that Marriott will be buying Starwood. I mean, if this isn’t going to kill your week, I don’t know what will! You all know I am no fan of Marriott which I call the Delta of hotels with an incredibly sucky loyalty program and a hideous approach of member “friendly” policies! Anyways, I went on a major rant on Twitter all day long pretty much, you can check here for entertainment and moral support because I really feel your pain! What is equally bizarre about Marriott is that you find many Marriott fan boys just like you find many Delta fan boys who keep getting slapped around and turn the other cheek to…oblivion! I think this is a watershed moment for The Hobby and a huge knife in the back that has now reached the bone! Blame bloggers, they raved so much about SPG this and SPG that and now…BANG! I could go on…I could do a whole post but I already spend way too much time on this site for way too little of a reward so I didn’t. So there 🙂
MilesCards had a decent analysis of this transaction.
Travel Is Free shows how they did 2 weeks in Bora Bora, Moorea & Tahiti hotels for FREE. Pfft, we did a week there in…2004. See pics below. Yep, all FREE too! Yep, 2004!
Frequent Miler on how to redeem points for Broadway tickets with Delta & SPG. I guess if you are into this kind of stuff and feel defeated every time trying to find that elusive saver level award screwing around the Delta website…
My $300,000 vacation was just awful. This is hilarious!
We go inside the Star Wars Theme plane
Some Pretty Crazy Things Have Gone Down in These 9 Iconic Hotels. OMG, how creepy!
Awesome definition of 13 Wall Street terms. These are incredibly funny! Such as: “Thrift”: The obsolete practice of spending less money than you earn; once believed to be a virtue, now regarded as a disturbing form of deviant behavior.
Why Is Everyone Else So Much Better Than You? MUST read (short). Excerpt: “The good news is that even a week away from Facebook results in a sizeable reduction of loneliness, stress and dissatisfaction with life. Unfortunately, you probably won’t let yourself take a week away from Facebook, because you suck so bad. No wonder everyone else is doing so much better than you are. Loser.”
Here are some pics from our trip to Tahiti and Moorea (it was a Sheraton back then!):
Looks like the days I have the credit card links are numbered. And the day this blog turns to a once a week rant is closer. While we search for a new hobby because this one is just not worth it anymore #hitskeeponcomingnonstop
And I leave you with this…
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1st–the kids were so cute back then!
My daughter was a crying machine back then…but thankfully developed to be a sweet young lady since.
I originally interpreted the headline as Marriott was buying a Star Wars plane and 9 iconic hotels in addition to Starwood.
Speaking of Star Wars and Starwood, how long will it be until Disney opens a Star Wars-themed hotel?
I think it’s already in the works, but not publicly discussed yet. Also in the works, but not in public- Avatar land in Animal Kingdom.
300K vacation piece=Priceless.
Canceled personal SPG Amex. No retention offer. Prepare for long hold times due to “unusual heavy volume”. I guess no go for 2nd retention. Getting $80.25 annual fee recently paid as a credit and refunded soon. Frees up an Amex card slot.
Amex Everyday 25k card minimum spend done, took a trip to the local mall and Wal Mart.
I finally closed my BankDirect account as I drained it down to less than $10k to pay off the mortgage next week. Bye bye AA miles every month and $12 fee.
I opened a DiscoverBank account to use as a pure emergency fund. Boy, the transfer times back and forth from/to regular bank checking are longer than the Capital One 360 accounts. Interest rates 0.95% vs 0.75%. Capital One 360 accounts still work absolutely flawlessly imho.
I have 53k SPG points left. If there was ONE property to stay in which would it be?
I looked at the “amazing” travel for free trip, his secret is instant noodles and wasting
half a day to go around the island to avoid a boat charge. Absolutely amazing.
He did have a pizza in the hotel once, but “it wasn’t great”. To avoid the $12 delivery fee,
he picked it up himself!
I would love to see the front desk lady, when he fights that charge during the checkout…
It looks like he also just spent 2 months in Egypt “for free”. Would like to know
what he ate there LOL. Fascinating.
At some point this hobby becomes a sickness…
“At some point this hobby becomes a sickness…”
Man, that is some line…I think we are all sick. We are getting pummeled left and right and we keep going back…for more 🙂
Why the hate, Andrew?…life’s too short!
As well, Drew (TiF) makes no bones about being an unapologetic budget/cheapie traveler.
And Travel is Free is one of, if not *the*, best travel hacking blogs in existence.
Definitely still one of the best, no doubt! But I am not sure if is worthy of the Love list anymore, but definitely on top of the Like list. One day I will make the change when I get around to it 🙂
Why not Love?
I don’t remember a single post that pimped.
I don’t remember a single post that was filled with aspirational pics (like FM’s today)
I’d really like to know who’s better IYHO?
We did the Bora Bora IHG award trip back in 2009 and it was still much the same deal although I didn’t have the IHG free nights then. I remember being really pissed that the Thalasso & Moana went from 30k a night to 40k. French Polynesia isn’t a foodie destination. The cuisine is simple, mostly seafood based and if you really want to try it, the Papeete market (pictured above) and the roulottes in Papeete & Moorea will give you chances to try the local cuisine on a budget. Food in Bora Bora is targeted to a wealthy tourist clientele and priced insanely high. We lived on ramen noodles, fruit, baguettes (grocery store near Le Moana) and water flavoured with Crystal Light and still have a great time in Bora Bora. Both hotels gave us a bottle of wine as I was a PLT and we made it last a couple days.
I do think an island night is a must as the dancing is amazing! Drew has some good ways to avoid the boat transfer fees. The boat between Moana & Thalasso is free to guests of either resort. Another option: Since most people want a snorkeling trip, book it on the last day and have them drop you at the airport at the end.
BTW George, really cool “classic” Tahiti pictures 🙂
Our first trip was when Thalasso just opened. Only one fork was finished.
Amazing times. Can’t wait to get back to the magic island 🙂
I can’t wait to find me a way to KUL via NRT so I can go on with my life after burning miles for return trip already 🙂
Thanks.
AA changes the award chart effective March 22, 2016. Wow, that did not take long now, as warned here repeatedly!
AA award chart after 3/22/2016 https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/redeemMiles/american-airlines-award-chart2016.jsp
One World & other airlines award chart after 3/22/2016 https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/redeemMiles/all-partner-chart2016.jsp
I am sitting like a stupid duck with 1 million AA miles—–>loser.
I am retiring from this scam!
I actually don’t think the changes were awful, at least for the way that I use AA miles typically between the US and EU in J. Back when they created the 50K mileage requirement everything was angled lie flat and you always had a seatmate. Now, if you’re savvy and plan ahead you can get window/aisle lie flat seats. And the price is only going up by 7500, which I think is still fair honestly. I would pay a 15% increase for a lie flat every single time. I guess if you’re used to redeeming for first class this devaluation is pretty ugly. I just want to get there comfortably so J is always fine for me Internationally. I still fly coach all over North America and it hasn’t killed me yet 🙂
I guess I was expecting far worse and don’t feel the need to burn quickly anymore. Maybe I’m in the minority here.
Additionally, I thought the partner rates for premium class redemption was what was going to get slaughtered in their new award chart. At least for Business class, AA is still lower than or the same as both UA and DL for almost all regions.
I think this move is a temporary band aid while they all get their systems ready to go full revenue based in the burning side. Not an easy switch. I think they are working on it and waiting for Delta to make the first move lol. Which they have done in a way in typical assholish style, deleting award charts and all…
So I need to make time to book some trips before I retire from this scheme. Tired of playing this game, it used to be so much more worthwhile, now the BS threshold is too high!
You could be right on the temporary band-aid thing. I’ve already scaled back the amount of effort I’m willing to devote to this game. The problem is I’m still addicted to a certain degree after about 8 years. Maybe another hobby will come along. Perhaps I’ll take up basket weaving, lol.
We have one vote for basket weaving?
Any more?
How can anyone go cold turkey in this hobby. Nobody warns people how addictive this darn thing can be!
For those seeking a new hobby, I highly recommend bird watching!
If it’s any consolation Aussies have it even worse as we are about to lose our only route to most airline programs: Amex MR – SPG – AA & others. At least Americans can still churn Citi cards every 18 month.
It’s bad for aspirational awards. It’s tough finding transatlantic business class seats with limited fuel surcharges.
This.Was.Bad.Really.Bad.
I think you may be losing it, Buzz.
Delta’s deval with dynamic pricing much worse
United’s deval on partners was much worse
Most other airline devals were worse, or same
The Hotel devals have been much worse
They didn’t do an instant deval like last time, so that’s an improvement.
In fact (and just to show u I’m not a fanboy) I think this deval was small enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if they did another in 1-2 yrs. You read it here first.
I think the next one is coming in less than a year….you know, slow cuts to the bone or however that saying goes…
We are under retreat…
Only the Chase Sapphire Preferred card can save us all
LOL.
Present.
Me too….
not sure for how much longer though 🙂
Seth-
I too was surprised that the new AA chart for premium TATL does not have higher amounts. But the lack of availability compared to UA and DL is as important.
The price of awards you can’t book is only an intellectual execise.