With 2010 quickly coming to a close, I’ve started to reflect on what an amazing travel year it has been for me on many levels. Not only has the year been filled with some incredible promotions, but I’ve also had some amazing travel experiences this year. Here are just a few of my highlights, starting with promotions and moving on to travel experiences:
Best Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus
Every year I assume that credit card sign-up bonuses couldn’t get any better, though year after year I’m proven wrong. Citi has offered 75,000 mile sign-up bonuses for much of the year for their American Express and Visa co-branded credit cards, which is just an amazing offer. All that's required to get the bonus is $1,500 in spend within six months. Get approved for two of those cards and you’re looking at a first class trip to Europe, Asia, South America, or Australia!
Best Debit Card Sign-Up Bonus
It has only been recently that a substantial number of miles can also be earned through debit card sign-up bonuses. I’d say this was the best year ever on the debit card front. As in the past, Chase has offered 25,000 Continental miles for opening a personal and business checking account, for a total of 50,000 miles, potentially. Even more exciting, SunTrust has offered 25,000 Delta miles per business checking account, with the added benefit of an additional 25,000 miles for each authorized user added to the card. In other words, if you open a business checking account and add four authorized users (each of which comes with a $55 fee), you can earn 125,000 Delta miles per account. Let’s just say I made off with over 500,000 miles this year through debit cards.
Best Airline Promotion
The one area where this has been a weak year is on the airline promotion front. This is probably because the airlines didn’t need very many promotions, given the decrease in capacity we've seen, which has led to higher prices and higher load factors. Credit definitely goes to American, though, for offering double elite qualifying miles and triple redeemable miles for all trips originating in Nashville, Pittsburgh Raleigh, or St. Louis. While it wasn't catering to the masses, with a bit of creativity the potential through this promotion was huge. Just nest a ticket from one of those cities to a destination such as Tokyo or Shanghai, and you're looking at quite a few miles, both elite qualifying and redeemable.
Best Hotel Promotion
While the year has been weak on the airline promotion front, this was the year where I really started taking advantage of hotel promotions, in particular Hyatt’s amazing promotions. Hyatt offered their “Big Welcome Back” promotion around the second quarter, whereby one could earn one free night at any Hyatt in the world after every two stays. Let’s just say I spent more time at my local Hyatt than at home during that promotion. My local “mattress run” stays cost $80/night, so that means a free night anywhere in the world costs a mere $160/night. That doesn't even account for qualifying for Diamond status and the well over 100,000 points and 50,000 miles I earned during the promotion. As if the promotion wasn’t awesome enough as is, Hyatt gift certificates could also be bought from Costco for 20% under face value. I ended up using my free nights for hotels like the Andaz Wall Street, Park Hyatt Seoul, Hyatt Regency Clearwater Beach, and Andaz West Hollywood.
Best Hotel Stay
It’s funny, my best hotel stay was just two nights ago at the InterContinental San Francisco, which I’ve raved about continuously. Between exams, work, and other commitments, I’ve had a rough couple of weeks in terms of my schedule, especially late last week. In the 72 hour period leading up to my stay at the InterContinental, I got a total of maybe 8 hours of sleep. I was basically non-functional. Sadly my stay at the InterContinental wasn’t even for fun, but rather a (brief) commitment that evening, with a flight at 5:30AM the following morning, meaning I had to get up at 3:30AM. In theory there’s nothing fun about that, though even a few hours at the InterContinental San Francisco relaxes me.
I’ve stayed here probably a dozen times, though for some reason my most recent stay was the most memorable. First of all, I got upgraded to the Bay Suite, which has breathtaking views of San Francisco. Actually, this proved to be a hindrance more than anything else, because I just couldn’t bring myself to close the curtains and shield myself from the amazing views. Instead I spent almost all night laying there just looking out over the city.
Even better, though, is the service at this hotel, especially among the guest relations and Club InterContinental employees. While I stay here once in a while, I'm by no means a frequent guest (I visit maybe four times a year). Well, I'm always amazed by the fact that as I walk into the Club InterContinental for check-in, they immediately address me by name from memory. Not many hotels have that level of service!
I was also blown away by the level of service on my last stay, involving almond croissants.
Best Flight
While I flew about a dozen segments in international first class this year, my most memorable had to be on Asiana from Seoul to Frankfurt back in June. I guess it’s all a function of managing expectations. I flew ANA and Singapore Airlines on the same ticket, and had very, very high expectations of both carriers. In both cases, my expectations were met. For whatever reason, my expectations weren’t quite as high on Asiana, but I was absolutely blown away. The food, in particular, was the best I’ve enjoyed in the sky.
Best Customer Service Experience
I’m going to have to split this award three ways. One of my best experiences had to be on a flight from Washington Dulles to Seattle back in April in first class on United. The purser, Terrence, just couldn’t have been more professional. Again, it all comes down to managing expectations – you don’t expect service quite to this level on United. Terrence was the most polished, professional, and happy flight attendant I’ve ever had. He actually wanted to be working, which is something you don't see all that often nowadays.
The award is otherwise split two ways between Captain Denny Flanagan and Captain John McFadden. I’ve flown with Captain Denny many, many times before, so it was hardly a new experience. Flying with him, though, never gets old. His customer service skills are second to none, and he really is the perfect ambassador to the airline industry. He makes a gate announcement for passengers to tell them about the flight, greats all passengers at the door with his aircraft “trading cards,” and that's only the beginning!
I also flew with Captain John by chance this year. He’s a good friend of Denny’s (and I’m actually having dinner with him in Chicago this week), and he has a very similar approach to service. I had the chance to talk to him for a few minutes after the flight, and was happy to see just how many people approached him to thank him for the excellent flight, saying they had never had a pilot like him before.
Just for fun, I’ll also have a “worst of 2010” post before the end of the year. Stay tuned for that!
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