 |
| This is how it feels after Hilton Honors devaluation today! Image at arrestedmotion.com |
ON MY MIND
What else? The gutting of the Hilton Honors program! We all know devaluations will always happen but the degree of the devaluation today was just massive! To me, Hilton points have joined the Skypesos hall of shame! And that so saddens me as we have had our most amazing travel moments in Hilton hotels! I always preferred Hiltons as they took good care of us as Golds for many years. We always felt we were appreciated while at Starwoods (as Golds) we often felt like the hotel was doing us a favor for letting us stay there! I have about 320k HH points and have no idea what to do with them as workload has been so heavy this year…I have a real problem of sitting down and doing this award booking thing. And the time is really short here, must act before March 28th!
Oh, there was also another devaluation by Wyndham today. Who cares?
This game is getting harder and slowly and steadily reaching the point of where I may be better off with a 2% cash back and Priceline! I am NOT kidding! I think the peak was during the Nightline show days. Other than the 5x and Bluebird/Vanilla excitement, everything else has been going to hell! The airlines are almost there, now it is the hotels turn.
I decided to NOT attend FTU. Why? I do not want to contribute to Mr Diskin’s (the guy who runs Hilton HHonors) treadmill. I will miss you guys, you know it.
The only way to teach companies like Delta, Hilton, Wyndham, etc. a lesson is to hurt them in the pocketbook. Otherwise, they will continue to attack our birthright of hacking this travel stuff:-)
I am thinking about retirement and moving on…
MILES/POINTS
All the gory details of the Hilton bloodbath at Loyalty Traveler. At the end of the post there are several helpful links.
PointChaser continues the excellent Club Carlon redemption series. Category 4 The Radisson Blu in Tunisia looks stunning!
TRAVEL
30 Amazing and Breathtaking Surfing Photos. Mega WOW! From Francesco Mugnai Blog
Seeing the World Through an Airplane Window. From Twisted Sifter. Older post I came across it from Vagabondish. WOW!
Paddling canoes 2,600 miles across Canada. From Matador Network. Awesome video & pics!
A day in India video. From Vagabondish. Love these HD videos!
tnooz has a breakdown of the most popular travel websites: Expedia (Agencies), Trip Advisor (Destinations), Southwest (Airlines), Travel Blogger Buzz (Blogs). Just kidding on the last one:-)
An amazing story how someone was thrown off a United flight for taking pictures! At upgrd’s Matthew on live and let’s fly. Wow, what can I say? The FA must have had a really bad day. There is a lesson here: Never mention the word terrorist on the plane, NEVER!
Remember what my 10 year old daugher said about United flight attendants the other day “They are kind of snobbish”. She can even spot them! And the pilot’s attitude, wow. I wonder what Captain Denny F. will do in this situation? Matthew: Please do not contact Chris Elliott about this:-)
British Cycling Couple Die in Thailand Crash. OMG, so so tragic. Rest in peace!
ODDZ & ENDZ
#hiltonsucks
Hilton is dead to me. I think Priceline and a 2% cashback card are good ideas. With all the recent devaluations the property specific Hotel cards are much less attractive. Devaluations are always gonna happen, but still, seems like more so everyday…
I totally agree. Hilton is joining the Delta/PriorityClub/Wyndham/Marriott camp as far as I am concerned!
I like the image above of the bunny stabbed in the back by carrots. Perfect image to represent whats going on. You should add the caption: “Et tu, Hilton?”
This is just effin’ insane man!!!
Hilton has totally lost it’s marbles. (well…whatever it had left, that is.)
We need to really get on their cases about this…and also write letters to Citi and Amex.
Just did a Hilton AOR too! :facepalm:
Now I think I’ll just keep the Hawaiian Airlines miles from BoH and BoA as HA miles.
Goddamn.
I share your feelings. I have avoidede the Hilton Reserve card so far! I put my no fee AMEX in the drawer.
You can still come to FTU and not stay at the Hilton…I was hoping to finally meet you!
Looks like I am not going to make it. Hard to gauge what workload may be at that time. I did the FTU in LA less than 2 weeks before it happened…so I may make it. Having in held at a Hilton sure does not make me go buy my ticket tomorrow!
Recently I have been focusing more on cashback cards (while still taking advantage of sign up bonuses). Monetary inflation isn’t high. Hotel and frequent flyer points are very rapidly loosing value. At a minimum, you can frequently buy airlines points for ~2c/point directly from the airline. Alternatively you can just buy the ticket for cash (some have discounts such as TYP premier and Flex perks) but you won’t get to stay upfront with this approach unless you can be upgraded. However, you will get from A to B and you have greater flexibility with cash (in coach). My name is not Lucky nor Gary. For me points are a cheap way to bring family together. I don’t NEED to fly in business nor 1st class.
Judging by FTG’s lack of a post this morning, I’m going to guess he originally had tons of Hilton aff links in there, and had to scramble last minute to find a way to make this “Churning Challenge” work with SPG, CSP or some combination thereof…. sing you can’t really stay anywhere anymore with a 60K HHonors sign-up bonus
The longer FTG goes without his “Churning Challenge” post, the more convinced I am that he originally had the Hilton Surpass or BofA Hawaiian card in there and was going to tell someone to stay at some Cat 7 for 50K
…. and I was completely wrong. He gives them advice that exists in a different reality than the one we live in:
“With the BofA card, they each get 20,000 miles, which converts to 40,000 HHonors points each. The category 4 Hilton Garden Inn costs 30,000 points per night.”
I don’t want to see he has contempt for his readers…. but he certainly has extreme apathy towards them. Certainly, bad advice should never get in the way of affiliate links
What else can I say? Amazing!
Anon, you’re not even close to being correct. You should get your scam-dar checked. It’s well past malfunctioning.
FTG is a greedy douche.
For a guy who constantly brags about how he has plenty of money, he sure seems apathetic about completely ruining a family’s financial situation just to collect some affiliate $$$
And just to add insult to injury? They won’t even have enough points to do that trip which he promises
And yes, I know fully well my comment on his website stands zero chance of not getting censored
Sounds like we’ve got a bunch a anonymous jealous jerks.
Troll, troll, troll… All Internet users know that comments without names attached are never to be taken seriously.
No need for name calling please.
Regarding the 3.54 pm comment: I do not censor here. A human being has taken the time to comment. Yes I would prefer it comes with a name…hey, I do not censor here! The comments STAND ON THEIR OWN MERIT, MY READERS CAN DECIDE IF THEY AGREE OR DISAGREE. DISMISSING THEM SIMPLY FOR BEING ANONYMOUS IS CRAP. Hey, wait a minute, you are anonymous too:-)
Thanks for chiming in Rick. Must kill you not to be able to censor comments here, lol. Ah, so it’s jealousy that drives the negative comments? Then why aren’t bloggers like Frequent Miler taken to task? Could it be the lack of censorship, the focus on original content, caring more about his readers than a payday?
I am not in my 50s nor do I have a gentleman’s sausage between my legs, so kindly redirect your negativity. Perhaps it would benefit you to do some research and craft an argument supported by facts (not some rubbish based on emotion) before hitting that submit button…
I’ve been happily away from the Internet for 7 days trout fishing in chile on miles and points and have not checked in here on tabloid blogger buzz with angry and ungrateful crowd. I have not commented here so it appears here is a troll using my name.
agree George the game is changing for the worst not only the participants but the promos as well. glad I sold the blog over one year ago. hope your readers figure that out at some point. I just post once a week under the name Rick
Rick
LOL, FTG saying the Westin Las Vegas has a value of $299/night
Of course when you actually look it up on SPG.com, they have rates on those nights for $139
And you can find 5 star hotels on the strip for that price
It’s amazing how much this family can save when the numbers are taken out of thin air!
When I did my trip report from my cross country Amtrak cabin/Seattle/NY/Santiago/Buenos Aires adventure, I must admit I bumped up the “value”. Then again that was posted in my own family blog which has the same ads as the one here:-)
I too have many Hilton points and recently singed up for couple so I’m not pleased by this devaluation at all. However I don’t believe the sky is falling. I contend that there will be a slight lag in time before banks realize that 50,000 points don’t mean a lot to people anymore so you’ll start to see more 75k or even 100k offers, etc. After all, they still need to bring in customers. As far as airlines switching to revenue based programs, well, when a $1200 business fare sale to Europe comes up, people will be able to cash in their points that way and still get a decent value. The game is changing for sure but I think us points folks will find a way to adapt. Just my opinion.
The game is changing fast and the direction of the change is, imho, horrific! I am not retiring yet but I sure have been thinking about it the last couple of years. There are nowhwere near as many as true values in this game…they are disappearing right before our eyes.
I hope I am wrong!!!!!
I agree that things definitely aren’t improving but I’ve been in the game for only 2.5 years, probably arriving late, but have taken more trips (virtually free travel!) in that period of time then the previous 28 years of my existence. I think we’ll all just need to work a little harder going forward but then again at the end of the day it is just a hobby for a lot of us especially me:- )
It’s a hobby for me too…just not fun as it used to be.
Hey, George. I thought that you were going to get a REAL writing job? Why are you still here instigating trolls and trashing others? Is writing for a major publication not as much fun as being malicious on the internet?
Instigating? Trashing? The only trashing I have done lately is them bastards at Hilton!
Malicious on the internet??? Ok anonymous u hiding behind the keyboard:-)
You don’t play innocent very well, nor do you have any hope of continuing this blog without the instigating and the trashing. Posting a comment to the contrary is just insulting to your readers.
I was bored last night (nothing on tv) so I pretended I had some friends who wanted to go to Disney, Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I came up with each spouse getting the UA Explorer (50k + 5k AU; Club Carlson Visa (85k), Priority Club Visa (60k) and Chase Ink (50k). That would get 4 people from anywhere USA to LAX and return from PHX, 4 nights at Radisson Buena Park (28k per night and one free per spouse, free shuttle to Disney), 4 nights at Candlewood Suites (20k per night) Vegas, 4 nights at Radisson Flagstaff 38k per night and 1 free per spouse. UR points from Ink Bold can be used for Disney passes and car rental. Each spouse would only have to do a $9500 spend over their usual household budget or Amazon Payments to each other.
Maybe you should apply to do the churning challenges at FTG?
Hey, why only 60k for Priority Club? Is that 80k gone? Have not checked since wife bagged the 80k a few weeks ago or so.
You should probably re-think your churn after FTG wowed his readers with that 30K AA miles!
I took FTG off my blogroll months ago so I don’t even know what you’re talking about 🙂 It just became too painfully obvious of the motive there and I couldn’t take it anymore. Right click, delete!
Hey, Miles… feeling clever and creative? Start your own blog. I dare you. No really. Post a link to it here. We’re all going to want to read it. I expect to see you create a churning challenge post once a week. Chop, chop. Get started!
LOL Unless you are into birds and eco-tourism my blog is pretty basic to experienced FTers but it is useful to people who want to go birding but thought they couldn’t afford it and are not already in the miles & points community. On the other hand if you want to use your miles to get to exotic places and then move on to remote eco-lodges (no elite perks but you can see wonderful birds nearby) feel free to add me to your Google reader!
I only chimed in because the CC Visa and PC Visa are such excellent value and are usually overlooked on most blogs.
@TBB, I think that 80k link is targeted. My non-American husband has been getting invited to the 60k PC Visa, never the 80k one. I got mine way back during the Crack the Case promo.
Miles, what happened? You’re backing out? You came in here so confident that you could do a better job. Was it something that I said? Did you perhaps come to the realization that those post which you were so quick to negatively critique aren’t that easy to write? Did you experience a terrible vision of the churning challenges that you could write in the future being torn apart by rabid wolves? No. No. Life is not this simple. There are consequences for the words that you type in the same way that there are consequences for your other actions.
I WANT TO SEE YOU WRITE CHURNING CHALLENGES. Now.
Post a link to your blog and start churning. Don’t pussy out.
Anonymous, thank you for your advice. Have a nice evening.
For the record, neither my wife nor I were targeted, and we both got the 80K Priority Club by following the Flyertalk links…. just two months ago.
harvson3
Miles, write a churning challenge for the rest of us to critique. Don’t think your work would survive? Come on. Bring it.
Just read that FTG post.
Man, he’s totally lost it.
:shakes head in disgust:
What can you possibly find fault with in his post?
(the 23 affiliate links, recommendations to open a 30K AA card, recommendations to open up a Hilton Surpass card, valuing the Westin LV at $299 a night, and telling them to use the CSP at 1 cpm notwithstanding)
Oh no… All that is just fine.
I didn’t like the font. 😛
Were there deleted comments?
Yes there were deleted comments! It was comments by people impersonating bloggers. Some had a problem with it and unless you are willing to donate to my legal fund these comments are not coming back. And I am really really sorry about that! Feel free to comment as anonymous, James Bond or Jeff Diskin (HHonors guy, yeah right he will post here!).
Please remove these anonymous comments impersonating me or my lawyers will be in contact!
Anonymous, is that you? 🙂