Double Starpoints At Select Starwood Properties

Another great post from *wood highlighting a double points promotion at 28 Starwood properties celebrating their 1st year anniversary in the Starwood Hotels & Resorts portfolio. The promotion runs through October 31, 2008, and requires registration prior to booking.

Free Hotel Room Using The 'Best Rate Guarantee'

By Mike Grasso

What's better than finding a good quality hotel at an inexpensive price? Finding the same hotel and paying nothing for it. Not talking about working for a hotel, not speaking of becoming a hotel secret shopper, you simply check into your hotel and pay nada for it. Have I hooked you in yet?

Here's how it works:

Many hotels have a 'best rate guarantee' (BRG) policy on their website. After you purchase the room from the hotel if you find an identical room at a better rate from a competitor, such as Orbitz or Travelocity, many hotels will refund your money and give you the room at no charge. The 'best rate guarantee' of course is a way for hotels to drive customers purchase directly from the hotels website, rather than them having to pay commissions when you book on other travel websites. While many hotels offer 'best rate guarantees' not all of them give you a free room. Others will give you a discount or hotel points.

A'las a blog that seeks out best rate guarantee deals has arisen. Each day the good folks at best rate guarantee hunt for free accommodations using hotels' BRG policy. Recent posts include free nights in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Susanville, Redding, Reno, Burbank and Anaheim.

Most of the BRG opportunities (the fully refundable ones), you don't actually need to prepay - all you need to do is enter a credit card. Then, your rate is changed, without real money ever being involved.

In addition to finding these slick deals, they provide step by step instructions on how to properly submit a BRG claim to the hotel.

Two thumbs up to this site for providing travelers another useful tool when planning their next journey.

Hidden Hotel-Room Dangers

Although this video from ABC News & Good Morning America initially comes on strong, showing just about everything you don't want to see of a hotel room, it concludes with some pretty good tips all of us can employ on our next hotel stay. Enjoy.

Attitude Hotels: A Collection of Gay Friendly Stays

The official launch of Attitude Hotels took place last week in Berlin during the ITB International Tourism Fair. Attitude represents unique hotels, Inn's and B&B's from around the world that identify as friendly and accommodating to gays and lesbians.

The founder of Attitude, Pedro Castro, says the Attitude brand will guarantee service and quality standards that make for a "gay natural" experience. Castro asserts a need for higher standards than simply a"gay friendly" approach used by larger hotel chains.

Attitude Hotels has 3-defined categories of hotels:
-Attitude Premium : luxurious accommodation; exceptional ambiance and unparalleled service. e.g. Royal Palms, Berns Hotel, Masia Casanova
-Attitude Comfort : superior accommodation; sophisticated ambiance and gracious service. e.g. Legends Hotel, Haus Romeo, Hotel Königshof
-Attitude Value : attractively priced; casual ambiance and practical service. e.g. Stars Guesthouse, Liberty Hotel, Connection Guesthouse

Currently 25 properties throughout Europe and one property in the United States are available. Castro has aspirations to expand to over 100 hotels worldwide by next year.

For more information visit http://www.attitudehotels.com/

Sheraton Hotels going smoke-free by year-end

Sheraton Hotels & Resorts and Four Points by Sheraton will ban smoking at more than 300 properties throughout the U.S and Canada.

This policy matches that of Westin Hotels and Resorts which became smoke-free in 2006. Both Westin and Sheraton are owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

Some 8,000 rooms at the hotels will be cleaned, including treatments for air conditioning, walls, rugs, upholstery and hard surfaces.Smoking will also be banned in public areas in the hotels, but there will be a designated outdoor area at each property for guests who smoke.

Both hotel brands expect to be completely free in the U.S and Canada by December 31st.

Worst hotel ever?

While they certainly aren't the official ratings or rankings, hotel guests have long used tripadvisor.com to post reviews and experience ratings. Contrary to the prestigious T+L hotel ratings, some hotels are at the top of the charts in less admirable ways.

For example, users of tripadvisor.com rated the Hotel Carter in New York City as one of the dirtiest hotels in the United States. Here's a few excerpts from some mildly opinionated guest reviews:

"All of the reviews you read about hotel carter are accurate. Police in the lobby, blood stained sheets, filth, horrid staff. Our room looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in about 18 years. I have never in my life seen anything like this."

"On arrival I found that there were various small bugs in the room and paint crumbling off the walls in the bathroom and bedroom."

"When telling the cab driver at JFK where we were staying he instructed us not to leave anything in our rooms. (bad start!) On arrival at the hotel at about 7pm there were 3 prostitutes standing outside."

"Four of us stayed in this so called hotel over the new years eve weekend. Our room was disgusting, filthy carpet with ash, ash in the drawers and even cigarette butts left around. The bathroom had hairs all over the place, and let me tell you they weren't all head hairs."

"This hotel is good for one thing that is burning downit is the most discusting place i have ever stayed in i checked out after one3 hour stay as the smell of stale sweat and grease is un bearable the rooms are filthey cold unheathy"

Top 100 Hotels in the World

Travel + Leisure magazine publishes an annual best hotels list as determined by its readers. For this poll, the magazine turns to its discriminating readers to determine the very best in travel, from hotels that go the extra mile to operators who make the journey possible. Many of the major brands have recognition in this list, but it seems like the usual suspects including the Mandarin, Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, and Four Seasons sweep the top spots.

After ringing in 2008 at the Westin Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles, I took a moment to reflect upon all the different hotels I had stayed at in 2007. I quickly realized that I had stepped foot in very few of the list's elite hotels catering to the elite wallet. But rather than feel discouraged, I simply made a new year's resolution to turn this 'best of' list into more of a 'to do' list.

So what are the top hotels in the world? The image above is a sample list of the top 20 hotels in the world. If you're looking for the complete list of the 12th annual poll, as well as the methodology used in the rankings, click right over here. You'll also find quite a few rankings in other relevant dimensions of travel.

Source: Travel + Leisure magazine

About those drinking glasses in your hotel room...

(Thanks JR) From Liveleak.com comes this hidden camera story about how some Hotels aren't cleaning the drinking glasses in rooms, cleaning them with glass cleaner, or using gloves they used to cleaned the toilet with! The suspects in this video: 1 Sheraton Suites property, a Embassy Suites, and a Holiday Inn. Lesson learned: Do some cleaning of your hotel room after housekeeping leaves.

HOT Orbitz coupons for International Travel
-Coupon 75INTL for $75 off a 3 night hotel stay
-Coupon 200INTL for $200 off a 5 night hotel stay
Valid through March 31, 2008.
Click here to visit Orbitz

Travelocity has extended their $50 off coupon which applies to selected hotel stays of 3 days or longer. Use coupon code HOTEL50 or click here. Must book by July 31st and discount is valid for hotel stays through October 31. I selected some random dates for hotels on the strip in Las Vegas and came up with a couple (decent) options priced under $75/night before the discount.

Travel focused credit cards with up-front perks

Several credit card companies offering first-use bonuses for signing up for their card have been around for a while; United & American have a 20,000 miles sign-up bonus, Delta 17,500 miles, Alaska 15,000 miles, just to name a few. But here are two gosh darn good (great) deals worth really checking out:

For a limited time, American Express is offering a FREE domestic round-trip ticket (25,000 membership reward points) after you are approved and use the Business Gold Rewards card.
No annual fee the first year.

A personal favorite of mine is the AMEX Starwood Preferred card, offering 10,000 Starwood points on approval and 1st purchase. 10,000 points is worth a few nights hotel stay at many Starwood properties throughout the world, with no blackout dates. Or you can transfer these points to airline miles. No annual fee the first year.

Hot Coupon
Travelocity $50 off 3+ night hotel stay
$50 off a 3 night or more hotel stay when booking at Travelocity.com and using coupon code
HOTEL50 or clicking this link. Offer expires June 30th valid for stays through October 07.
Must use a Mastercard for the purchase.