Tag Archives: Award Travel

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My Underwhelming Experience with MaxMyPoint, Awayz & StayWithPoints Hotel Award Alerts

Good evening everyone, I hope you all had a great Mother’s Day Weekend.  Last week, I wrote about my Summer plans to Europe, including stops in Dublin, Helsinki, and Stockholm.  We are starting in Dublin and wanted to stay 4 nights at the Hyatt Centric The Liberties Dublin.  The Hyatt Centric is centrally located and costs 18,000 Hyatt Points per night.  Unfortunately, there was a small issue… the 4th night of our stay was completely sold out on points and cash.

We booked the first 3 nights of the stay using a combination of Laura’s Hyatt Free Night Certificate and 36,000 Hyatt Points for the next 2 nights. I then set up hotel alerts for the last night of our stay in the hope that award availability would open up before our trip.  Here is my underwhelming experience with MaxMyPoint, Awayz & StayWithPoints hotel award alerts.

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Image source: https://www.hyatt.com/hyatt-centric/dubct-hyatt-centric-the-liberties-dublin/gallery

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4 Buy Miles / Points Promos Ending Soon: Air Canada (85%), Hilton (100%), Southwest Airlines (50%) & Choice Hotels (30%)

Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday!  I was working on my Buy Miles & Points Page and found 4 offers that end this week.  Always check the math to make sure that buying miles & points makes sense for you.  Do not buy miles & points speculatively unless you have a use in mind.  With that said, here are the 4 offers that end soon.

Up first, Air Canada is offering up to a 85% bonus, depending on the number of Air Canada Aeroplan Miles you purchase. This offer expires tomorrow – May 11.

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Transfer Limits & Times for Wyndham Rewards to Caesars Rewards; No Taxes on Hotels Booked with Points

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I am planning a trip to Las Vegas in the coming weeks and wanted to stay on the Las Vegas Strip at a Caesars Rewards property since I can use my Caesars Diamond Elite Status to get waived resort fees and easy access to the $100 Celebration Dinner voucher.  I am also planning on doing a few status matches to other casino programs and following the excellent guide created by Nick at Frequent Miler.

I also did some research on Caesars Rewards redemption options and you can use Caesars Rewards Points to pay for your hotel booking (during the booking process) and also during the hotel check-out process.  That lead me down the rabbit who to learn how the process worked and how long point transfers from Wyndham Rewards take to post to Caesars Rewards.

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3 Buy Miles / Points Promos Ending Soon: Leading Hotels of the World (60%), Etihad (25%) & Air Canada (85%)

Good evening everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  I was working on my Buy Miles & Points Page and found 3 offers that end this week.  Always check the math to make sure that buying miles & points makes sense for you.  Do not buy miles & points speculatively unless you have a use in mind.  With that said, here are the 3 offers that end soon.

Up first, Leading Hotels of the World is offering up to a 60% bonus, depending on the number of LHW Leaders Club Points you purchase. This offer expires on May 6.

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Comparing Alaska Airlines, British Airways & Qatar Airways Award Prices for 2 Finnair Flights (DUB-HEL & HEL-ARN)

Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday!  Last week on the Miles to Memories Podcast, I mentioned my upcoming Summer trip with Laura to Dublin, Helsinki, and Stockholm. I wanted to share my award booking strategy for 2 flights: Finnair flight from Dublin to Helsinki (DUB-HEL) and Finnair flight from Helsinki to Stockholm (HEL-ARN).

I found these flights using the Point.me award search tool and saw that there were many different airline programs that could book the same award.  So which airline program was best?  Spoiler alert: no single airline program was best for all economy and business class awards, but I will show you the various options available for each flight and tell you which program I picked for each flight.

Flight 1: Finnair from Dublin to Helsinki (DUB-HEL), 3 hour flight

I picked a random date in the Summer (June 5) and the flight was 257.64 EUR ($276.43 USD) for economy and 297.64 EUR ($319.35 USD) for business class.  I didn’t pick the cheapest option since I will have more than 8 kilograms (17.6 pounds) of carry on bags and would need to check a bag.

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