Triangle Trip

I signed up for the Starwood’s (SGP) free weekend night promotion (here’s a link to Captain G’s original post) and had two stays at two SPG properties.  According to the Free Weekend Promotion FAQ, you are supposed to get your Free Weekend Night credit after 3 to 5 days. My last stay at the SPG hotel was May 5, 2009 — more than a week ago.

I have been checking online at spg.com and waited for an email notification of the free weekend night (SPG is normally very good at emails).  After a few more days, I saw nothing so I gave Starwood a call.  The representative informed me I did indeed have a free weekend night, but I can’t see it online. The representative also told me SPG does not plan on sending out notifications.  I have learned the following:

1.  You have to call and find out how many nights you have earned – no status will be provided online

2.  You also have to call to redeem your free weekend night rewards.  When you call to redeem your free weekend nights, you should mention Award ID: 9FWFN to the agent in case he/she is not aware of your award status.

Normally I would find this a bit annoying, but Starwood representatives have been courteous and helpful most of the time.

AA has finally adopted Alaska Airlines‘ one-way reward model.  Passengers are no longer required to book a full roundtrip reward, but can segment out legs of the trip.  Think about the opportunities that you have missed in the past:

1.  While booking your reward ticket, you see that one leg of the trip requires an AAnytime  (50k) ticket, while the other leg only requires a MileSAAver (25k) ticket.  Instead of paying 50k, you now only pay 37.5k!

2.  While booking a normal ticket and comparing prices, you see that one leg of the journey was 3x as expensive as the other, but it still didn’t make economical sense to use your points on this one.

3.  You decide to extend your stay on a trip, but it’s prohibitively expensive to change your return ticket

4.  You’re running from the law and you’re not coming back stateside

No, this doesn’t excuse poor service and whatever other faults American Air may have, but it’s a great reach out to its core customer base.

American Airlines new Flex Rewards webpage

Video announcement by the President of the AAdvantage Program

-Terminal D

The iPhone has been out for a couple of years now and with it’s elegant touchscreen, GPS feature, amazing interface and 3G speed, I can’t rave enough about it. I have it next to my laptop as indispensable items for my travels. My goodness, how did us road warriors ever survive during flight delays? Long check in lines?

You may have seen lists of “Must Have iPhone applications” on many sites. However, I find them lacking in one true road warrior perspective. For us true road warriors, we all know that connectivity (and battery life) is king. What happens when you’re without connection 35,000 ft in the sky, for five long hours? Or in the middle of the lake on the ferry? Forget about it! And not to mentioned AT&T’s spottiness (in the US)?

Here are our top “offline” capable iPhone apps. But before we dive in, check out our rating criteria:

• Must work offline:  no duh, huh? But really, if it doesn’t work in airplane mode, forget about it!
• Must be free:  free is good. (check back for our paid apps ranking)
• Can’t look foolish:  Wii is fun. But you really want to bust out your wii moves in front of sleep deprive, uncaring, and impatient road warriors? Yeah, no good. Thus any app that attraction unwanted attention is out.
• Entertaining:  it’s got to keep your attention for at least a bus stop. What good does a flashing light do? (for you epilepsy inducers, that’s just disturbing…)

And without further ado:

1.  Stanza – OK, so you can download all sorts of books on the Kindle. But who the heck wants another bulk in the laptop bag? (think, thin is in!!) Plus why drop another three bills? Download Stanza! Stanza is the ebook for your iPhone. You can buy the latest best sellers, or better yet, download from over 50,000 free classic titles. I’ve downloaded all the books I ‘cliff noted’ in high school. Hey, better now than never!

2.  Sol Free – it’s was a toss up between Solitaire and Minesweeper. Remember passing the time on your old NT with these two games? Sol Free does this and more. I tip the scale to Sol Free because not only can you play Klondike Deal 3, there are also Klondike Deal 1, Baker’s Game, Demon, and Spiderette. This is sure to keep you numb for hours.

3.  iChess – if Solitaire is just too brain numbing, Chess can always spark that intellectual juice! It was also a toss up between Chess and Sudoku, but since Sudoku didn’t allow me to easily notate each square I kicked it down a notch. iChess is a nice chess game for you chess gamers. By no means am I ranked in any fiction or non fiction chess world, so I find that the level 3 (there are 5) quite challenging. Maybe some of you chessmasters might object to this app but for the normal folks, it was quite rewarding beating the computer at level 2 and moving myself to level 3. To date, I’ve still not won at level 3, but that should change with time…

4.  21 Pro – for you gamblers, this is your game! Not only does it feed the gambling need, it also helps you count cards with either the hi-lo or knockout strategy. The game is fast moving but it’s only you vs the computer. Still great for passing the time.

5.  Tap Tap Revenge – I debated putting this app here. It’s borderline foolish. Tap tap is akin to guitar hero on your phone. You tap to the music on a set of buttons like guitar hero. With headphones on and ‘easy’ tapping, I figured one can be discreet on this app. Just remember to download enough songs so you don’t run out during your offline play!

As iPhone applications are consistently changing and released, this list is by no means final. Check back here for our latest updates!

Coach