adventures in hotel bookings -- random updates

1) when i was talking about points hound the other day, i had said that it might be a good alternative because the rebates via great canadian rebates and big crumbs weren't reliable for the actual hotel websites. if you wanted hotel chain points and stay credits, you had to book on the actual hotel websites. after completing my stays at various sheraton hotels in march and april, i had yet to receive my 2.1% credit for my stays on either website. frustrated, i booked on points hound instead.

and then, in my e-mail this week, i find out that i was being too impatient:

great canadian rebates

big crumbs

so perhaps i spoke too soon. i'm definitely happy that my rebates came through!

2) i did actually book a starwood "double dip" stay on points hound. these "double dip" rates offer a few miles / dollar spent in addition to hotel chain points and stay credits. but what i completely forgot about was that there was a 500 point first booking bonus. it's credited to my points hound account and simply needs to be assigned to a partner program (like united mileage plus or american aadvantage). it's a super easy process.

you'll notice that my sign-up bonus was credited to united mileage plus -- that's because they were the only program to offer points initially. from here on out, i think i'll work on my american aadvantage account. i already have a small sum in aadvantage points, and i need an aadvantage account to dump all of my occasional oneworld points in. i still need to weigh whether 2 miles / dollar is equal to whatever big crumbs and great canadian rebates can offer me, though.

3) i was planning on doing another seattle mattress run during the august long weekend when i suddenly remembered that that is the vancouver pride parade weekend! it's always fun, and on a travel related note, during the parade over the last few years:

• westjet was distributing %-off vouchers
• flight center was distributing $25 off coupons for domestic airfare

and anyone who really knows me knows that i love my free stuff.

4) oh, and i just randomly found out that starbucks is having a $10 card for $5 from groupon. use bigcrumbs in order to get 5.6% cash back too.