A Cold Shower Turns Into An Important Travel Lesson

On Saturday morning, I awoke to take a shower at the Hilton. After a long night, all I wanted was a nice hot shower. What did I get? Ice cold water.

Photo Credit: http://gettingstronger.org

On my way to breakfast, I sent this tweet:

I meant to say.... "brrrr....no hot water this morning at @hiltonhotels Stamford."

Less than 15 minutes later, I got this response from Hilton Help

I sent them my confirmation number and I got this response:

Shortly after this tweet arrived, I received a call on my cell phone from the on-duty manger. She wanted to explain that the engineers had informed her that hot water was slowly going back to normal levels. I explained to her that the tweet was joke, but I appreciated the call.

In less than 90 minutes from my initial tweet, I got a call from the manager. Even though the call was not necessary, it was cool that @hiltonhelp got management to call me. Hopefully, I could get the same attention when I actually need something.

Most other hotel have twitter accounts as well:

Hyatt - @hyattconcierge

Starwood - @starwoodbuzz

IHG - @ihgcare

Marriott - @marriott

Kimpton - @kimpton

I think its important to follow all of them. You never know when you might need them.

Social Media, how did we exist without you? Oh, that's right, we had to complain in person.
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                                                  Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints!

Most Addictive Game

La Quinta has made a splash in the points/miles world. La Quinta is a hotel chain no one ever talks about. However, now La Quinta is getting major positive press. Why? They have introduced a game to earn free nights and/or points.

Click, Spin & Win is a slots game that can earn you, La Quinta Return Points.

You win points when you get three (3) matching symbols. After matching 3 symbols, you are able to earn more points by answering a trivia question and sharing your win on either Facebook or Twitter.

Important: Share Your Wins on Facebook & Twitter. When they post a win, it includes a link for others to join. When they join under you link, you earn 30,000 tokens.

1,000 tokens = 1 spin

Therefore, 1 referral = 30 spins.

In addition, the number of referrals and tokens you earn moves you up levels. Each level gives you a specific number of daily tokens and bonus spins:

Here is what a Facebook notification looks like:

My recommendation is to add a message encouraging people play. Similarly, change up the twitter message:

You can earn addition tokens for liking La Quinta on Facebook and Twitter:

La Quinta claims that they are giving away 80 free nights each day until January 31st. To win those free nights, you need to match three of the following symbols:

The question you might be asking is Why Play? I am never going to earn enough points for anything. You are wrong, with 31 days left, you have plenty of time to earn. Also, free nights start a 6,000 points:

If free nights are your thing, $25 gift certificates for over 75 different national chains only cost 7,500 points:

Still not your thing, 6,000 points can earn 1,000 miles on countless airlines:

My goal is enough points for 2 nights at the Manhattan La Quinta. Limited Credit Boy raves about doughnuts there...all he talks about is the free doughnuts:

Are you ready to play? Here is my referral link.

Please feel free to post your own referral link in the comments.

Now get in the game. You can't win, if you don't play.
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Update: Should I Pay for Ambassador Status?

Earlier this week, I wrote a post asking for people's opinion on paying for Intercontinental Ambassador Status.

I never though I would ever get the responses I did. One of my goals of this blog is to ask questions of those who are smarter than me. For that reason, I am going share some of the responses I got.  Much thanks to @InterConHotels for retweeting my question. 

Here is a direct link to the article that Head for Points talked about. Head for Points is a great UK based blog that is a must read even if you live in the US. 

@Svenluckermans left the following detailed comment on the blog post:

I would like to thank everyone who gave me there insight: 

@thepointsguy, @Svenluckermans, @loyaltylobby, @patmikel, @josephamay, @hulagrll210

Conclusion:

After reviewing all the comments, Ambassador Status makes sense if you are going to have at least 3 paid stays at Intercontinental Hotels. Upgrades have been report on award stays, but they aren't guaranteed. The BOGO weekend cert can make up for the $200 enrollment fee, but some say the cost of the first night might be more than paying for 2 nights.

What am I thinking about paying for Ambassador Status?

I am leaning towards yes. I know that I have at least 2 paid stays at Intercontinental Hotels in the next year; however, $200 is alot of money. If I do apply for Ambassador Status, I think I might use points, as I just earn quite a few from a recent stay. 

Are you thinking of getting Ambassador Status? If so, points or cash?

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 Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints! Have a question for me? E-mail me at jd@doitforthepoints.com

FTUDC TweetUp!

Are you heading to #FTUDC this weekend?

Do you love talking points and miles on Twitter with other points and miles junkies?

Would you like to know what those people actually look like in real life and maybe have a conversation with them?

Well do we have an idea for you!

If you remember last year in December Travel Summary and us each wrote a set of blog posts (Travel Summary's here and here and ours here) about how important social media tools like Twitter can be in the points an miles game. It allows you to meet like people across the United States while sitting in your living room, well most often in our case, in a hotel room right ;).

Well with FTU DC happening this weekend in DC what better time to finally meet your Twitter friends in real life!

That's right...it's time for a #TweetUp. For those of you that have never attended at TweetUp all you need to know is its a chance for Twitter enthusiasts who share a common hobby, in our case travel, points and miles to get together in person and have a great time.

Our #FTUDC TweetUp is going to be an informal event in the hotel bar at the host hotel, the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner after all of the scheduled events on Saturday.

So come on down to the hotel bar after 5:30 pm and we will all finally get to meet everyone that you share 140 characters with on a regular basis and meet new people to follow in the process! I promise not to look at my phone and speak in #hashtags all night, if you do.

Hope to see you at the TweetUp!

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Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints! Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com

A Look Back: Your and Our Favorite Posts

When we first started blogging back in August, we made a goal to make one post per day, for at least the first month. Now six months and 210 posts later, we are proud to say that in our blogs short life, 6 days went by without posts.

Today, we wanted to share your and our favorite past posts.

The top five posts by page views:

   1) Young People and the Chains of Credit Card Debt

   2) Great Article on Twitter in Posts/Miles

   3) Share a Journey: Win 1,000,000 miles

   4) Exit Hilton, Enter Club Carlson?

   5) Why I (Respectfully) Disagree That A AA/US Merger is All Bad For Frequent Flyers

Now our personal favorite past posts:

JD's two favorite posts:

      1)  How I Became Addicted to the points game.

      2)  Will Travel for College Football - Penn State. Be prepared for more football posts in 2013.

Chris's three favorite post:

      1) It's JD Fault (Someone keeps finding our blog with our search term and I love it)

      1) London Day Two

      2) Perfect Day in Seattle

As a reminder, don't forget to enter our contest (here) that ends tonight at 6pm.

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Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints!

Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com

Six Months and Counting

On our Memorial Day weekend trip last year, an idea was tossed around to start a points’ blog. It was the type of idea friends throw out over beers: let’s start a band, let’s open a bar, let’s start a blog. Normally, those ideas don’t go anywhere.

Our idea to start this blog was headed in the same direction until a dinner in July. JD brought up the idea of starting a blog again. We agreed that the blog would be about best practices of earning and spending points, but also a place to document our travels and exploits. We would write about the trips we take, but more importantly how we earned the miles to pay for the trip.

Now 6 months into this experiment, looking back we have had some success, some failures, but through it all fun has been had. Writing Do It For The Points has been one of the best experience. Not only have we been able to contribute to the community that has given us so much, but it has made us even closer friends.

When we started our little blog we wanted it to be a place that we could talk about our travels, pass along some tips and tricks and throw out crazy ideas we have. We've done most of that so far and we can't wait to do more of it in the future. 

At first we figured that just our moms and a few of our friends would read us, but we have been overwhelmed with all of the support and new readers. You guys and gals are the best and you make this little project so much more fun. We would like to thank our readers for your support.

In the meantime....if you are on Twitter and you don't follow us...come on over, we want to chat with you! We are also launching our new Facebook page today, so if you aren't on Twitter but still want to keep up with us and chat, give us a "like." We also have new e-mail addresses, so if you have any questions, want to meet up in DC or just want to say hi give us a shout! (chris@doitforthepoints.com and jd@doitforthepoints.com). Thank you again and we look for to more friends, more posts and more travel.

PS - Stay tuned for a big 6 month giveaway later this morning!


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Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints! Have a question for us?
E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com

Great Article on Twitter in Points/Miles and How it Helps All of Us Learn More

I just read a great article from Travel Summary on why it's important to have a tool like Twitter in the points game. Travel Summary has a great description of why Twitter is important and useful in the points and miles game: "quick information and pictures, with reviews." It's also an easy way to "meet" new people from all around the world who enjoy the same hobby that you do!

A few days ago I was staring to search for mileage runs for next year to try and knock out as much travel at the beginning of the year as I could. I quickly realized that I have a very light knowledge of searching for mileage runs on the ITA Matrix and so I took to Twitter to see if anyone with WAY more knowledge on building mileage runs could point me in the right direction, so I sent out the following tweet:

Do It For The Points@doit4thepoints

Trying to beef up my knowledge on building a good mileage run. Anyone have a good primer that helped them at first?

Quickly I had GREAT responses from people in the miles and points community that pointed me to their favorite blog post on how to construct a proper mileage run. Without Twitter it would have been a very trial by fire experiment on my part. I could have muscled through it and figured out a strategy that worked for me, but that extra bit of knowledge from those who have been doing this for years was a big help in helping me understand how to leverage the power of the ITA Matrix to search for great mileage runs.

In the end it paid off! Yesterday I booked a trip of BWI/ORD/IAH/PHX - PHX/CLT/BWI for around $.004 cents per mile and it currently includes a trip on one of United's 787 Dreamliner, which I have been pining to fly for months now.

None of this would have been possible without the help of social media. It's a great place for everyone to learn from people who have more knowledge and are willing to share it, a place to share successes or ask questions and most of all...a place to meet new people from around the world that have the same addiction to travel as you do.

Social Media and the Points/Miles Game

In my professional life I am a communications professional and a big part of my training has involved how to use social media to match the message that your company is looking to distribute to the audience that you are looking to reach.

That's why I read with great interest a post from Hack My Trip  on how networking can be one of the most valuable travel resources. As I have said many times over, I have only been in the points and miles game for about 6-9 months and I must admit that when I first started I was so confused....I had no idea where to even start!

Then I started adding blog after blog after blog to my Google Reader which finally gave me a great overview of the points/miles games and how everyone approaches it in their own way. But one of the biggest things I learned was how open and amazing the community really is, especially on social media!

I started to follow the bloggers I read on a regular basis on Twitter. From there I started following people that they interacted with on a regular basis. This allowed me to see the questions that others were asking and things they were curious about. I saw how everyone in the community was willing to help out with those questions and give everyone the chance to become a successful traveler using the tools that are available. Twitter is a great medium for this communication because our hobby is one that bring together people from around the country, and around the world, together to follow one game....and there is no better way to expand that knowledge than by learning from other people who have done it before and can lend a hand!

At first it was hard to reach out to people I have never talked to, let alone people I have never met in person. But I found out that everyone I have interacted with is nice as can be and willing to lend a hand. If you are willing to make an effort to get to know the people in the community you will find a great resource that is available to bounce ideas, learn from and travel by proxy with as we all go explore the world.

That being said....I am a person who LOVES to meet other people and know what they are up to. So...if you are willing...please follow me on Twitter here and here.

Plus...if you are in DC, drop me a line and lets meet up in person!

Upcoming Week & Social Media

With Chris on his trip to London for the next week, I will be in the driver's seat for the blog. Please check back every day, as I will not be putting Twitter notifications about blog posts. Chris is the social media guru of the two of us.

Honestly, I don't get Twitter. I don't have an account and I don't think I am interesting enough to post stuff everyday. Who would want to follow me? However, it seems that social media is becoming a very important part of the "game:"

• Airlines are releasing great fares only via Twitter. 

• Hotels are giving out points for "liking" them on Facebook or linking your accounts.

• Checking in on Facebook or Foursquare earned you 50 points at various travel partners.

• AMEX is constantly offering discounts and statement credits through Facebook and Foursquare

• Currently, you can get 250 points for checking on Foursquare when staying at a Starwood hotel

• Some of the best customer service can be found via twitter

Will you get point rich by doing some of these promotions? No, not really.

Will it help top off your accounts? Yes and open up opportunities to transfer points for promotions.

For example, Delta's New Member Promotion allows you to earn the 500 partner bonus by transferring hotel points into Delta Points. Club Carlson had a promotion in August that if you looked at a picture book, you would earn 100 Club Carlson points. The best part is the promotion last 6 weeks or a possible 4200 points. 2000 Club Carlson points can be transferred into 250 SkyMiles, triggering the 500 partner bonus for a total of 750 SkyMiles.

With hotels and airlines releasing their best promotions via email, tweets, and Facebook, it maybe time for me to join the bandwagon. Bandwagon jumping is not something I normally due, but as a points antic, I feel like I am losing out on points by ignoring the social media aspect.

Again, don't expect twitter posts with updates about the blog from me this week, but maybe shortly, you might see me in the twitter universe.

Happy Tweeting!