Category Archives: Hotels

Forget Airbnb, Celebrity Homes You Can Rent

a house with a large balcony
Harry Houdini’s Home

Airbnb has opened up a ton of possibilities to us when it comes to places to stay while traveling. Sometimes traditional hotels can be way too pricey, not that exciting or budget options just seem plain bad.

With Airbnb, we’ve found some great places to stay at a very fair price. Check out my post about Our Awesome Experience during our first stay using Airbnb in Singapore. Continue reading Forget Airbnb, Celebrity Homes You Can Rent

SPG 5th Night Free, What To Do For 6th Night?

spgI am writing this post as we enjoy our last night at the Le Meridien St Julians Hotel & Spa in beautiful Malta.

More than anything, my mind is always focused on finding the best deal. And even after I have made my decision/purchase I continue to wonder if my choice was the best one. So now that  our time in Malta has come to an end I’ve been thinking about the value of our hotel stay. We’ve had a great trip and we thought that we got a very nice deal on our accommodations but now I am wondering if it could’ve been an even better value.

While looking for a hotel on Malta not too many places caught our attention. Budget hotels didn’t seem to be much of a bargain and a few places that we did consider probably wouldn’t have been good for a 2 year old.

I decided to look into options using points.

Continue reading SPG 5th Night Free, What To Do For 6th Night?

10,000 Gold Points Or Club Carlson Welcome Gift

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On our trip to Germany back in September we stayed in two Club Carlson properties in Berlin. We stayed at the art’otel Berlin Mitte and the Radisson Blu Berlin. Being a Club Carlson Gold member, I expected an In-Room Welcome Gift during our stay. I didn’t think that we received a gift at either property and was a bit surprised.

On previous stays at Club Carlson properties, we’ve received gifts like fruit plates (delivered to our room) and gift bags filled with a generous amount of snacks and water.

This made me wonder if the In-Room Welcome Gift was only available for stays in the United States. I am pretty sure that we received a gift during our stays in Russia (Moscow & Saint Petersburg) earlier in the year but I wasn’t positive.

Continue reading 10,000 Gold Points Or Club Carlson Welcome Gift

Book Stays With New Hilton iPhone App, Earn 1,000 Bonus Points

HHonors

I received an e-mail from Hilton a couple of days back about an easy way to earn 1,000 bonus points per stay if you have an iPhone.

For booking directly through the new Hilton HHonors iPhone App (now through December 31, 2013) you will earn 1,000 bonus points for each of those stays.

To earn the bonus:

  • Download the HHonors app to your iPhone for free
  • Book your stays through the app
  • Stays must be booked from now until December 31, 2013
  • Stays must be completed by December 31, 2014

There is no limit to the amount of bonus points you can earn.

Find out more about this offer HERE

Check out the new Hilton HHonors app HERE

Reminder to Register Your Cards For Dining & Shopping Portals

a hand holding a credit card
I’ve been meaning to write a post regarding earning extra miles and points for doing things that we do on a regular basis- Shopping & Dining.

I went online to update my AAdvantage Dining Program account. When I logged in, I saw the image above. This got me thinking- It’s time to write that post!

We are now well into 2012 and I’m sure that many of us have received lots of great, new credit cards. The main chunk of miles and points come from signup bonuses but let’s remember that every mile counts! Take a few minutes to go through you wallet and double check that all of your new cards are registered in airline, hotel and credit card Shopping & Dining portals. Just about everybody has one.

Also- if you have any airline and hotel accounts with expiring miles, an easy way to extend the date is by earning miles by shopping and dining.

Fodors: World’s Smallest Hotel To Open in Copenhagen

a building with a sign on the front
I came across this article recently in an e-mail from Fodor’s and thought it was pretty interesting.
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The world’s smallest hotel will be opening soon in Copenhagen, Denmark. The hotel will have only one room. It will have about 130 square feet of space and have a bed, shower, sink and toilet. The nightly rate will be about $250US per night, including breakfast at a cafe down the street.

Continue reading Fodors: World’s Smallest Hotel To Open in Copenhagen

A-Club: 3 Nights For the Price of 2

a close-up of a logo
A-Club is offering 3 Nights For the Price of 2 in over 1200 Accor hotels around the world. 
  • A-Club members can book between March 6 and April 9
  • General public can book between March 13 and April 9
  • Good for stays between March 9 and April 15
  • A-Club points can be earned during the stay

Free night is calculated by applying a 33.33% reduction per night- baseed on the normal, unrestriced rate 

A-Club Accor Hotels include:
Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Novotel, Suite Novotel, Mercure, Adagio, Ibis,
All Seasons, Etap Hotel, Formula1, HotelF1, Orbis and Thalassa sea & spa

Book your stay here

Earn Up To 500 Bonus Miles with US Airways Hotels

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For a limited time you can earn up to 500 miles by booking your hotel stay on the US Airways website.


Here’s how to qualify:
  • Book February 20 – March 31, 2012 and earn 500 bonus miles
  • Book April 1 – 15, 2012 and earn 250 bonus miles
  • Offer valid for hotels stays of 2 or more consecutive nights
  • Stay by April 30, 2012 
**US Airways Vacations bookings don’t earn miles**

Book your stay here

Some Interesting Travel Articles

Here are a few interesting articles that I read during the week. Since Valentine’s Day was last week, these articles seemed to fit the occasion.

  1. America’s Most Romantic Hotels – Travel + Leisure: slide show of America’s top 20 romantic hotels. These places are way out of my budget as I am more into hostels and budget accomodations.
  2. Worlds Most Romantic All Inclusive Resorts -another T + L slideshow: the world’s most romantic all inclusive resorts.There are 13 on the list and they all sound amazing but once again they are very pricey.
  3. Places Not As Romantic As You’d think– this T + L article was posted on Yahoo. I was surprised to see Paris'” Iconic Sites” and Venice’s Canals on this list.

Club Carlson: Triple Points, Faster Nights

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Earn Triple Gold Points Worldwide with Club Carlson.

All you have to do is fill out the online registration and complete your stays by March 16, 2012 at any of Club Carlson’s 1,000+ hotels worldwide.

Hotels include:

  •  Radisson
  • Country Inns & Suites by Carlson
  • Park Inn by Radisson
  • Park Plaza

Free nights start at 9,000 points with no blackout dates on standard rooms
Register for the promo here