on the road to status: mattress run mar 30 - apr 1

a friend of mine from wisconsin was telling me over coffee last december about his usual summer ritual. during the spring/summer semesters, he goes back home to wisconsin to work. because it's not the most exciting place in the world, he takes weekly roadtrips to nearby chicago for the weekends. and because he consolidates all of his nights at hilton properties (he has a corporate discount with them too), he was bragging to me about his hilton hhonors diamond status. he hints at his room upgrades: "i usually get a suite with a jacuzzi," he said to me one time, sighing as if it were a burden to have.

and that's when i decided to make my own drive for status. i fly enough to know to consolidate my flight miles with asiana airlines, a star alliance partner. now every time i fly a star alliance partner, especially air canada, i don't have to worry about luggage fees, don't have to worry about trying to cram my luggage in the overhead bins, and i usually get to stock up with goodies from the lounge before flights. i used to not care about my hotel stays. until this year that is, after my friend made me realize that actually, i should probably be doing the same strategy with my hotels.

starwood preferred guest is the hotel program for westin, sheraton, four points, aloft, W etc. it's one of the smaller programs out there with just over 1,000 properties (compared with the intercontinental hotel group that has over 4500 properties over 100 countries, and where you can buy top tier for just 120$ a year). starwood's program has three tiers: preferred, gold, and platinum. the higher you go, the more benefits you get.

1) preferred: base level, no stays or nights required
2) gold: 10 stays or 25 nights per calendar year
3) platinum: 25 stays or 50 nights per calendar year

if i look at my travel patterns, i think i could easily get gold status in a year. if i am strategic enough, i may be able to get platinum. a stay is defined as the number of check ins. so if you stay fewer nights a year but take lots of road trips (which is my typical profile), it makes sense to qualify for status on stays. if you take long trips many times a year, it makes sense to qualify on nights. but just to make things difficult, check-ins at the same hotel on consecutive nights are all consolidated into a single stay. another caveat is that you have to book directly with the hotel website, and not via expedia or hotels.com. therefore, no chance for a best price guarantee with expedia.

and so this brings me to the idea of a mattress run, defined in the travel world as trying to earn as many qualifying stays or nights for as cheap as possible. it's the sister of the frequent flier's mileage run. a true mileage run/mattress run would look purely at price and opportunity cost in order to maximize the qualifying miles, stays, and nights in order to reach status. i like seattle. i know people in seattle. so i'm willing to pay a bit more to earn my qualifying stays and nights.

so this weekend is seattle. i checked in to the sheraton bellevue last night, and got a complimentary upgrade to the sheraton club level, which included the club lounge, free wifi, and breakfast. tonight, i drive back to my trusted seattle hotel, four points by sheraton seattle. two hotel stay credits this weekend, bringing my total for the year up to 4. and i do this again in a few weeks with the bf. i have a few free hotel nights which also count. rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. do this enough times and you'll be gold. do this once a month, and you'll be platinum.

let's see how this year turns out.

saving an additional 5-6% on hotels using bigcrumbs and greatcanadianrebates

when i was young and new to the internet, i signed up for a program called mypoints. at the time, you would earn points by clicking on links and then redeem those points for gift cards. i was 17 at the time, and i lied on the application form so that i would be 18 and thus eligible to participate. it was semi-lucrative for a high school student. there were months where for 10 minutes of clicking action a day, you'd earn a 10$ gift card. 10+ years ago, that was worth it for me.

one of the things that they incentivized was online shopping, where you'd earn x amount of points per dollar spent on online shopping. i wasn't a huge adopter of online shopping, and to be honest, i'd say that the vast majority of my purchases remain offline. even now, unfortunately, the earning potential of mypoints remain quite limited -- better offers for online purchases can be had elsewhere.

these days, there are two websites that i go to mostly for my online shopping, and i choose these particular sites because their referral bonuses are generally the highest. for canadian shopping, i go to great canadian rebates (GCR). for american based shopping, i go to bigcrumbs. (please note, both of these have my referral information in it -- if you'd prefer not to be referred, just type in the name of the website with a .com at the end). retailers pay the above mentioned websites a commission for sending traffic and sales their way. bigcrumbs and GCR then send a portion of that commission back to you. both of these sites pay via paypal, which i use all the time. there are lots of retailers that they pay rebates out for, but i mainly use it for travel.

in my previous post, i talked about using the best price guarantee on expedia to reduce the cost of one's hotel by 50$ a night. if you use bigcrumbs or GCR, then you can get a percentage of your base spending (after coupons but before taxes) back as a rebate, thereby reducing costs even more.

i typically use either expedia.com (for their best price guarantee) and hotels.com (although i change the currency to canadian dollars to avoid the exchange fee). via bigcrumbs, expedia gives you back 5.6% back in hotels, and hotels.com gives you back 4.55%. via GCR, expedia.ca gives you back 1.50$ back per air ticket (i book two one-way tickets instead of return), or 4% for hotels. these are all rebated back to my paypal which i then cash out to my bank account.

when we include this rebate, that 80$ (base fare) hawaii hotel is no longer 90$ all in.

• with expedia.com, that same hotel is 80$ - 50$ BPG (expedia.com) - 5.6% (bigcrumbs) + 10$ taxes - 1% (expedia rewards) = 37.92$ a night. 
• with hotels.com, that hotel becomes 80$ - 4.55% (bigcrumbs) - 10% (welcome rewards) + 10$ tax = 86.36$. 

the former is a big win. the latter, if nothing else, is a little bit of extra pocket change for the journey.

checkout 51 -- a rebate app in canada

one of the apps that i've really started to enjoy on my iphone is checkout 51. this is downloadable on your iphone via the apple store. it's a canadian app for real canadian savings. here's the deal:

every thursday, they post a list of items that have rebates associated with them. this week, the quantum finish had a 3$ rebate, and the dole salads had a 1$ rebate. they have different specifiers (i.e., sizes, flavours etc.) that you have to meet. the list looked like this before i had the foresight to do before and after shots:

the weekly list

then you buy the item and you scan the receipt. you have to scan all of the receipt, and the program on the app lets you cut-and-continue in case your receipt is too long.

i bought my quantum dishwasher liquid, 20 count, which was already on sale at superstore

then you take photos of your receipt as per the specifications on the app ... they even have the lines on the side to help you focus your picture

note that as per my receipt, you can use manufacturer coupons and still get your rebate. once you take the picture, you just have to send it in via the app. this does use data, so i try to do this when i'm back at home or in a wifi zone.

 

your account page after the receipts have been processed. i originally had 1$ before, and now they've added 4$.

you get a check mailed to you after you reach 20$. i haven't actually gotten that far, but we will see how this turns out. if i do actually get paid, i'll be playing with this app quite a bit more in the future.

for those of you keeping track: my 20 count dish washing liquid was 5.97$ + 12% tax = 6.68$. minus the 2$ manufacturer discount and the 3$ checkout51 rebate, it was only 1.68$. last week, they had glad products where after coupons and rebates, you actually earned 0.03$.

(note that there are no referral links in this post)

how to use expedia's best price guarantee

when it comes to hotels, i don’t really need the expensive, fancy places. i’m content with the regular two-star hotels that are close to things and that are clean. in expensive cities, the brand name groups (intercontinental, marriott, hilton, etc.,) are usually priced out of my range, so i don’t mind booking these two star hotels.

this is where expedia.com’s (not expedia.ca) best price guarantee comes in for me. most websites have a best price guarantee (BPG), but expedia’s is particularly generous. within 24 hours of booking, if you find another hotel on a different website for a lower rate, expedia will match it. but more than that, they will also “drop” a 50$ coupon into your account for use immediately for your next hotel purchase. that’s like a 50$ reward for reporting a lower price.

of course, there are some rules involved. the competing website must be in English and in USD. the room that is offered on the competing website must be exactly the same as the one you’ve booked on expedia.com. in other words, they have to have the same terms and conditions. refundable vs. non-refundable? breakfast included vs not? city view vs. mountain view? king bed vs. queen bed. special memberships required vs not?

it’s not always easy finding cheaper rates on competing websites. i find that you’ll typically get lower rates on smaller, independent hotels’ own websites. some markets have lots of these, others don’t. the aqua resorts in hawaii, for example, typically have lower prices on their own website than on expedia.

step 1: find a hotel on expedia.com that has a competing website with a lower rate. remember, this is where your small, independent hotels come into play.

step 2: if you have a multi-night hotel booking, break it into individual nights.

step 3: purchase your first night.

step 4: go to expedia.com and fill in the BPG application online.

click on the best price guarantee on the lower left hand corner

select the BPG application

fill in the details -- takes 3 minutes to do

step 5: you will get a partial refund (price match) and a 50$ coupon will be dropped into your account. use this coupon to book your second night.

step 6: repeat steps 4-5 for your second and third nights.

note that you can only get 3 BPG within a calendar month. so for longer trips, i typically wait until near the end of the calendar month so that i can do 6 within a short period of time. i did this just yesterday, and within a few hours, i received this e-mail:

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Thank you for contacting us about the Best Price Guarantee for your reservation. We have great news!

We have approved your request and initiated a refund in the amount of USD17.90 to the original form of payment used during your purchase. The time it takes to post to your account will depend on how quickly your credit card company processes this fund.

Meanwhile, due to system restrictions, we are unable to issue a Best Price Guarantee $50 Coupon via email. In this case, please call the Expedia Customer Service Team at the numbers below at a suitable time. Please have your itinerary number and email address available when you call.

If this does not answer your question or solve your problem, feel free to reply to this message or call us at 1-800-EXPEDIA (1-800-397-3342) or 1-404-728-8787 (for callers outside the U.S. and Canada) and reference case ID: x-xxxxxxx.

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i normally book my hotels in hawaii for 80$ base, or 95$ after tax. with this trick, i end up booking hotel room nights for 45-50$ a night. clean, safe, convenient, and all in hawaii. that’s a deal worth celebrating.