maem

It never rains when it pours, does it? At least that’s what Marriott’s thinking seems to be. After last week’s category changes that affected around 1200 hotels in the Marriott Rewards program, here’s some more disappointing news. Marriott will now start expiring points effective 1 February 2016.   To be honest, most of the other big programs (SPG, Hilton and Hyatt) already do this, ie, expire points after some level of inactivity. And in all fairness, Marriott Rewards’ terms and conditions always included a provision that expired points, but they never really enforced it. So here’s what’s going to happen. To quote Marriott Rewards: Starting February 1, 2016, members who do not have qualifying activity in the prior 24 months will forfeit all accumulated points. Since this takes effect 1 February 2016, you have until 31 January 2016 to have a qualifying activity, but equally importantly, here's what counts as a qualifying activity: Make a paid (or redemption) stay at a 3,800+ partic

Ever since I transferred some of my Citi PM miles to the Etihad Guest program, I’ve been on the lookout for good deals and offers with Etihad. Following Jet Airways’ Global Fare Sale offering up to 35% discounts, there was a similar (but not identical) offer by Etihad, which I dismissed at the time as not being extremely relevant for India. But I’ve received a couple of emails and Twitter messages, that this might be useful for the broader audience, so here goes. Etihad is indeed running a Global Seat Sale that’s offering up to 30% discounts on Economy and Business class tickets. The offer includes Etihad’s partner network too, which I suppose includes only the Etihad Airways Alliance Partners network and not all of their global partners (such as ___). You will need to book tickets by 3 March 2015, for travel between 3 March and 12 December 2015. Here’s the landing page for the offer . What makes this promotion sweeter is that it also offers double miles for all economy and business cl