Other than devaluations and hotel category changes, not much caught my eye this week. Â Here is what I found interesting.
- Club Carlson announced a pretty big devaluation. Â Many hotels jumped categories & they reduced points earning, but some of the benefits remained like the bonus free night for credit card holders. You can find my analysis and the full details of the changes here.
- SPG announced their annual shuffle of hotel categories. Some hotels went down and many went up.
- US Airways announced that starting on March 1, they will limit who can buy elite status based on how close they are to achieving it. Â Previously anyone could buy their way in as an elite. Â Gary has the details.
- The Barclay Arrival Card raised its minimum spending to get the bonus to $3,000 in the first three months. Â If you read a lot of blogs then you are no doubt sick of hearing about this card. Perhaps the only post about the Arrival worth mentioning comes from The Frequent Miler. Â He breaks down exactly what he thinks each point is worth.
- Capital One changed the terms and conditions on some of their cards to read that they can come knock on your door to collect a debt. Â The company says they won’t be doing it, but the whole situation seems a little shady to me. Â Not my favorite company.
- American Airlines is offering a 25% bonus when converting hotel points into AA miles. Â Deals We Like has all of the details including which hotel chains are participating.
- I posted about an awesome offline map app yesterday called City Maps 2Go. Â It is free until today and I highly recommend checking it out!
- Drew at Travel Is Free has a great post about doing a self drive safari and how it saved him a lot of money.
- Join the backpack revolution.
- The Columbus Dispatch has an interesting article about how the U.S. based airlines are ordering large numbers of new planes and getting rid of the older less fuel efficient ones.
That is it for this week. Â Not too much life changing news, but the Club Carlson devaluation stung a little bit. Â It was expected, but it still hurts. Â Coming up this week we will get back to our beginner’s series and I will share more of my quirky travel rituals. Â Have a great Sunday!
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