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Today's the last day to enter the Andaz trip to London sweeps. If you're game, click HERE.
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I just got an email from Last Minute Travel stating that there's going to be another $1-a-night window today. Apparently there was already one this morning, per posts on FlyerTalk and Slick Deals. Reminder: For the latest on the promotion, go to the LAST post and work your way back.
Here's a snapshot of the first four days, from the promotion's blog:Since the beginning of The World for $1 sale, 928 reservations have been made for less than the cost of a movie ticket! And 48% of these reservations were for high-end, luxury hotels! The 2,197 people going on these vacations are headed to 224 different destinations with Orlando, Las Vegas, New York, Cancun and Honolulu topping the list!
This promotion is making some people crazy. I'm chill.
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I missed the window again. There was one at the crack of dawn this morning, followed by speculation that there would be another window later in the day. I haven't checked the threads on FlyerTalk or Slick Deals to see whether one materialized, but I suggest you do for the latest. I will as well, when I get home later this evening.
Remember to click to LAST for the most recent posts and work backwards for the latest and greatest. Here's to Last Minute Travel for concocting a provocative promotion!
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I predict the D.C. Marriott-Schrager Edition hotel will move forward despite some neighborhood opposition. I live two blocks away from the site, and almost daily walk or drive past the church that is going to be transformed into a ballroom and restaurant. Interestingly, the church has not been designated a landmark so the D.C. bodies that govern preservation decisions technically do not have jurisdiction over the project. Though their opinion holds sway. Here are details from an article in TheInTowner, a neighborhood weekly that covers development projects in great detail.Ironically, an earlier proposal for restoration and redevelopment of the church site that called for simply extending the rear of the building into and over the church’s adjacent surface parking lot and recasting the resultant structure as a condominium with townhouse residences facing Champlain Street was rejected by the historic preservation process because — it is asserted by the developer — the expansion structure looked too much like the old church building and DC building code required punching windows on the two rear sides of the church. The height of the expansion structure would have followed that of the existing church building — which would have been proposed for inclusion in the Reed Cooke Zoning Overlay.
Even more startling to note, neither HPRB [Historic Preservation Review Board] nor HPO [Historic Preservation Office] has any legal jurisdiction over this site — no part of which is in an historic district. Moreover, the church building itself has yet to be designated or declared an historic landmark. Thus, federal tax credits and façade tax easements, as well as property tax relief, remain hypothetical benefits to the project. More importantly still is the fact that the hotel project requires approval by the DC Zoning Commission of a Planned Unit Development (PUD) that would serve to override the restrictive Reed-Cooke Zoning Overlay and the site’s underlying zoning regulations.
Unfortunately the hotel is not slated to open until 2012. I hate to wish away the years, but this is something I'm really looking forward to seeing happen, espcially since it's practically in my front yard.
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Apparently the window has come and gone. But maybe not. According to trusty posters on FlyerTalk and Slick Deals, Last Minute Travel can sneak in a second window. Caveat emptor: There are also posts from successful bidders (note that I did not call them winners) that LMT is sending out 1099 for the value of the rooms, as though this were a sweepstakes. That is absolutely bogus. If you snag this rate through this promotion, do not fall for that! NOTE: When you click on the links to these to threads, go to the last post page and work backwards. These threads are moving targets.
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Some disgruntled posters at FlyerTalk and Slick Deals are up in arms about the way Last Minute Travel’s promotion is playing out. At least one person is threatening to contact their state’s Attorney General's office for assorted transgressions, including lack of availability and assertions that the Terms and Conditions keep changing.
I do not know if a stitch of this is true. I did not attempt to enter this promotion today. Apparently the 15-minute window came and went this morning EST. If you’re interested in trying to snag this $1 rate, keep on trucking. I’ll post updates if I see/hear anything interesting. UPDATE: This poster on SlickDeals cadged four nights at a Las Vegas hotel. His tips:1. Sign up and create an account on LMT before you start refreshing the browser (even the 15 seconds you will save by doing this in advance may make the difference between getting the deal and being angry because you ran out of time)
2. Log into LMT with your newly created account
3. Load Check4Change or whatever add on you desire
4. Set C4C to refresh the main LMT page
5. Open another tab for the hotel page
6. Research your hotels in advance - and open another tab with whatever hotel(s) you desire. I had one tab for the LMT main page, one for my first hotel choice and one for my second hotel choice
7. Listen carefully for the clock to start ticking. My Firefox browser with C4C plug in did not play the song as some others mentioned. I was made aware of the deal by the clock ticking and the flashing tab on the main page being monitored by C4C
8. When the ticking begins, navigate to the first choice hotel tab, refresh, and you'll only have to see the movie once (based upon my experience)
9. Book the hotel dates, room type, etc as quickly as possible
10. Fill out your personal info ASAP
11. Answer the two question survey and confirm your reservation
12. Enjoy the fact that you just got a marvelous deal for FREE!
I might give this a whirl tomorrow.
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I’m such a Girl Scout. Yesterday I clicked through all the recommendations on The Daily Beast’s BUZZ BOARD to see if anyone besides Sophie Dahl had recommended a hotel. It turned out that people have been recommending hotels, restaurants and, get this, entire countries (New Zealand and Nicaragua) since the site's inception.
In November, comedian and all-around wit Mo Rocca suggested The Stonebridge Inn & Spa in Batesville, Indianapolis. (I bet he was in the area for a wedding.) Last month, pollster Douglas Schoen raved about the new Canyon Ranch in Miami Beach.
More recently, Radha Arora, regional V.P. and General Manager of Beverly Wilshire, a Four Seasons Hotel recommended the Four Seasons Hotel George V. Okay, the Hotel George is part of his company, so there’s self-interest in getting the name of another hotel in the Four Seasons chain out there, but at least the connection’s obvious. Four Seasons is in the title of his current hotel post.
Not so clear is a recent recommendation from Shane Krige, General Manager of the Plaza Hotel, for Fairmont Mayakoba. Nowhere in his entry or bio do he or The Daily Beast mention that the Plaza also is a Fairmont-managed property. Not owned, but managed. I know this because of my hotel proclivities. For most people to realize there was any connection, they’d have to click on the Plaza link, which goes to the Fairmont website. So, we’re not talking cover-up. But the disclosure, if you could call it that, is embedded, to say the least.
I can’t help but wonder if Krige was slightly conflicted over this; he hardly pulls out all the stops. He writes, “The combination of impeccable service and luxurious accommodations gave my wife and me an incredible sense of well being. It was the perfect place to recharge from the fast pace of New York City.” Now, as General Manager of one of the world’s great hotels, he’d probably get impeccable service at any hotel, Fairmont or not, the moment the staff detected his status. (Have you ever gone out to dinner with a chef? Wild!) At a hotel in the same chain, the staff’s jobs depend on his approval! Plus, besides being anything but anonymous, I’m sure the Kliges got an employee discount. Even if they paid full price, plugs like this are free advertising – which in my book are only acceptable if the reader knows about the connection.
This is one of my biggest bugaboos about the blogosphere, New Media’s repudiation of basic journalistic standards about disclosure. This just undercuts its credibility. Maybe it’s not Watergate. But still.
Tsk tsk to the Daily Beast.
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Today's the first day of LastMinuteTravel.com's $1 a night hotel promotion. HotelChatter reports in this post that today's 15-minute window was between 10:39 to 10:54 A.M., EST.
I missed it by a mile, okay, by several hours. Oh, and if it was even 15 minutes. Some of the folks posting at Slick Deals say not. Though apparently people who were successful are being charged $0 a night! I do not for the life of me have a clue which clues in the promotional video pointed anywhere in the vicinity of this time frame.
Some observations from the folks at Hotelchatter:
1): After entering your details to find your hotel, the website subjects you to an agonizing 2-3 minute video about the features of their new website. Since we thought the page was malfunctioning by taking us to that, we kept refreshing and missing out on booking.
2): Prior research does very little good as not all properties are available during the time limit. For instance, we'd searched for a hotel in the Central district of Hong Kong. Outside of the 15 minutes, LMT shows four available properties. Inside of the 15 minutes, we were only shown two.
3): Before completing your booking, more time is wasted with a survey you must fill out regarding your online travel purchasing habits.
I'm going to keep plugging away for this, I have my heart set on Paris, but I'm keeping my expectations low. This sounds like a real crap shoot.
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Forbes released its list of top hotels today, 400 in toto. Topping the list as America’s Best Hotel is San Ysidro Ranch, which is owned by Ty Warner, who, when he isn’t busy owning Four Seasons Hotel New York, Las Ventanas al Paraiso and Four Seasons Biltmore and Coral Casino Beach & Cabana Club, both in Santa Barbara – ownership can be exceedingly time-consuming – runs Ty Inc., the company that released those controversial First Daughter Dolls (Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha) over the weekend and then lied about there being any connection to the Obama girls.
How intellectually dishonest can we get here?
The ranch has quite a history, more fortunate than today’s inconvenient coincidence. From the PR Newswire release:
San Ysidro Ranch - A Brief History: The story of San Ysidro Ranch, named after San Ysidro the patron saint of Madrid, is intertwined with the history of Old California. Originally part of land titled in 1769 by the King of Spain, the Ranch served as a way station for Franciscan monks in the late 1700s, a working citrus ranch in the 1800s, and hosted its first guests in 1893. In the 1930s, Hollywood discovered the Ranch, transforming it into a hospitality haven for celebrities. Famous guests over the years range from Audrey Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby and Groucho Marx to Winston Churchill, Somerset Maugham and Sinclair Lewis. Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier were married at the Ranch, John and Jacqueline Kennedy honeymooned there and John Huston completed the script for African Queen during a three-month stay.
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The Daily Beast, Tina Brown’s website, runs a celebrity-dominated feature called BUZZ BOARD: Smart People Recommend. Most of the recommendations are books. This morning was the first time I noticed a recommendation for a hotel, from Sophie Dahl, who is described as a former model, book author and contributing editor to Men’s Vogue. (I had to stop and ask myself if Men’s Vogue was even still around. Apparently yes, but not as a stand-alone and only twice a year and it’s been folded into Vogue.)
She conveniently (though correctly) leaves out that she was Mick Jagger’s paramour for a stretch. That’s how many of us came to know her name.
In any event, her pick is Hacienda de San Antonio hotel in Colima, Mexico. Here’s what she has to say about it.It doesn't feel like a hotel, it feels like you borrowed the house of an unspeakably grand and stylish friend who disappeared in the night, leaving a warm seamless staff, acres of wild mountain beauty, and ambrosial food. Add to this mix a Saint and a dormant volcano, horses to ride through fields of wildflowers, an on-site organic farm producing the food on your table, heavenly sheets, and a brilliant giggling mariachi band and that explains about half of it. It would be selfish not to tell others about this hotel. It's THAT lovely.
After clicking around the hotel's website, I have to agree. The hotel is listed on Mexico Boutique Hotels, a great resource if you're looking for lodging in Mexico.
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Here are some photos taken by Huffington Post's Annie Groer from the Mayflower Hotel on Inauguration night. Check out the voluptuous woman from Baltimore. She looks like she's on the precipice of a wardrobe malfunction. She evokes the French expression, "Il y a du monde au balcon." (When an ample rack meets a low neckline, the effect is that of a crowded balcony.) Mae West would approve. If the Mayflower rings a bell, here's why: It's where Eliot Spitzer had his fateful rendez-vous with that Jersey Call Girl.
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Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City is sponsoring a video contest and the entries are surprisingly funny. Folks submit a video about why they deserve a post-holiday spa getaway. The prize is two nights in a Red Door Suite, a full day of spa treatments at the Red Door Spa.
Yes, this is the same Red Door affiliated with Elizabeth Arden’s day spa, which evokes a little spa cognitive dissonance there, but hey this a new era and I am trying my best not to be narrow about anything anymore.
To watch the videos and/or to enter the contest, click HERE.
I haven’t made up my mind about whether I’m going to enter this one or not. I shy away from contests in general; travel sweepstakes are my thing. Plus, I’m decidedly not videogenic, so that’s giving me pause. On the other hand, I’ve been pining to visit Atlantic City and I could always use a spa getaway. Maybe I’ll consult my Magic 8 Ball.
The deadline to enter is January 30.
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The folks at LastMinuteTravel.com are hosting a nifty promotion that could net you a $1 a night hotel stay at a top hotel. Emphasis on could. This is not a sweepstakes or a contest. It’s an online temporal scavenger hunt. Starting Monday January 26, LastMinuteTravel.com will offer its entire 15,000 hotel inventory for $1 a night, with a maximum stay of seven nights, to the first 500 clicksters that nab a reservation. The catch, besides the usual room availability, is that fantastic-hotel-deal aspirants will only get this steal of a rate during a 15-minute window, and the window will change every day.
Folks can sign up HERE for emails that promise to give clues as to which time which day for these 10 days: January 26, 27, 28, 28, 30, February 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, i.e., Monday through Friday for the two-week period starting January 26.
The promotion seems to be a tie-in to LastMinuteTravel.com’s taking its hotel component "undercover." Details on that to come. UPDATE: So, yes, this $1 a night promotion is linked to LastMinuteTravel.com's hotel component going "undercover," sometimes known as "opaque." You get plenty of details about the hotel itself, amenities, approximate location (i.e., you won't think you're booking in midtown Manhattan and end up in the Bronx). I used to know more about this. I think Priceline started this way, then added a transparent component as well? Help me out here! As for LastMinuteTravel.com, for $50, you can join its club, and book hotels transparently and get up to 65%. For details, click HERE.
I’m game. For rules, click HERE.
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Hilton Hotels is moving its headquarters to Washington D.C. later this year. From today's Washington Post:After Hilton's move, three of the six top hotel companies in the world by number of rooms would be based in the region, controlling more than 1.5 million rooms, according to Hotels magazine. The figures are based on rankings at the end of 2007.
"Washington is becoming the hotel capital of the world," said Frederick V. Malek, chairman of the Annapolis-based Thayer Lodging Group and former president of Marriott Hotels.
Interesting development. The full article is HERE.
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This is the hallway off the lobby of the Willard four days before the Inauguration. This is a most storied hotel. The word "lobbyist" was popularized because of schmoozing in this very hotel's lobby. And from Wikipedia I share these oh so relevant facts:
From February 4 to February 27, 1861, the Peace Congress, featuring delegates from 21 of the 34 states, met at the Willard in a last-ditch attempt to avert the Civil War. A plaque from the Virginia Civil War Commission, located on the Pennsylvania Ave. side of the hotel, commemorates this courageous effort. Later that year, upon hearing a Union regiment singing "John Brown's Body" as they marched beneath her window, Julia Ward Howe wrote the patriotic "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to the same tune.
On February 23, 1861, amid several assassination threats, detective Allan Pinkerton smuggled Abraham Lincoln into the Willard during the weeks before his inauguration; there Lincoln lived until his inauguration on March 4, holding meetings in the lobby and carrying on business from his room.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in his hotel room at the Willard in 1963 in the days before his March on Washington.
This would be my first choice of hotel for this weekend. Of course it sold out licketysplit.
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Coming soon.
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Celebrity hotel reports for the inauguration are starting to trickle in. Dionne Warwick is staying at the Marriott Wardman Park per TMZ.com. She’s also hosting the American Music Inaugural Ball there. This hotel is ballroom city.
As ever, TMZ is long on snark, short on details. It claims she's staying in one of the best rooms, then leaves it at that. Okay ... Here's the item.
Ms. Warwick better pay attention to where she’s staying. With over 1,300 rooms in several interestingly configured buildings, it is really easy to get lost in this hotel. I know.
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Hotel packages can be over the top in their desperation to lure guests to the fold. This one breaks new ground: A shoe lover’s package at Trump International Hotel for six. That’s right, six. It’s for one night; it comes with a late 4 o’clock checkout, so you might squeak in a full 24 hours. It includes shopping at Bergdoff, an after-hours party at the store and a pedicure. The cost: $6,325. This include $250 gift cards for each person from Bergdoff.
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Maddening. There's no date for this interview with General Manager Kiaran MacDonald on the Canadian website Gremolata. It seems recent, given the reference to the Savoy closing a year ago. It's supposed to reopen in May.
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I'm going to follow this one over at FlyerTalk: How did you start your habit of staying in luxury hotels?
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Poor Alexandra Penney. First she loses nearly everything by investing with Bernie Madoff. Then she finds an outlet, Tina Brown’s Daily Beast, to write about her post-Madoff existence. Boy does she get slammed for not playing the redemptive victim. Truth be told, she deserves some of the negative feedback. She got off on the wrong foot in her first post by kvetching about having to give up her maid who, among other tasks, ironed her 40 white shirts. And she's not teetering on the precipice of destitution. She's got a house, jewelry, art. Penney doesn’t seem to grasp that yes, despite everything -- her bestselling author status (she penned How To Make Love To a Man), her magazine editor credentials (EIC of SELF), and, of late, her success as an artist -- she is one of us. Some comments are overly harsh, even blaming Penney (aren’t the names in this saga RICH?) for putting all her eggs in one basket.
In her third installment, Penney spends a night in a Hampton Inn as she drives to Florida to sell what she calls her "shack." She doesn’t provide coordinates except to note that she’s 400 miles from her destination, the Palm Beach area. So, that’s probably Georgia. Her dispatch is a hoot.
I can’t believe the Hampton Inn. It’s my new Ritz-Carlton! The room is warm and comfy and inviting, with fluffy white duvet covers. There’s even a board with a pen handily tucked into a slot and you can rest a book or laptop on it.
The sink is real granite (!) and the towels are extra-heavy. The place is immaculate and breakfast is absolutely free! A sweet scent wafts down the hall and someone knocks on the door and offers freshly baked chocolate cookies. Can I be dreaming?
Her delight at the Hampton Inn’s standards reminds me that hotels are like wine. There are a lot of decent inexpensive ones out there. When Penney was flush, she was no hotel spendthrift. She was shocked by the $2,100 a night rates at the Ararat Park Hotel in Moscow when she was there for a work project several months ago. She’s got good check-in instincts: She negotiated down the Hampton Inn’s $89 a night rate by $10.
As for the nasty comments, I hope she isn't taking them to heart. She might be getting the last laugh. Her posts are the Most Read for days after they’re originally published. For her, like for so many of us, blogging well might be the best revenge.
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President-Elect Barack Obama is our first narrative president. That keeps him attuned to narrative politics and their resonance. To wit, when John McCain made Sarah Palin his vice-presidential running mate, Obama commented on her amazing personal narrative. As if it were a commodity. So Obama's recent grousings about having to stay in a hotel before the Blair House, the official White House guest quarters, becomes available come off as whiney. The word "petulant," which I used in another post just the other day, comes to mind. Many people have to live in a hotel when they relocate for a new job.
Here's what he told reporters last evening, per an article in today's New York Times:
After arriving at Andrews Air Force Base about 7 p.m. Sunday, Mr. Obama entered a presidential limousine and was driven to the Hay-Adams Hotel near the White House, which will be the family’s home for the next two weeks.
For all of the luxury of the Obamas’ temporary home -- Hay-Adams suites cost as much as several thousand dollars a night -- Mr. Obama clearly was not looking forward to the short residency there after nearly two years on the campaign trail. "Well, living in a hotel for two weeks, I kind of did that for two years," he said.
On one level, I empathize. I'd be mighty tired of hotels after two years, too. And I do appreciate his openness. On another level, I wish he'd censor himself, especially when he emits evidence that suggests he is not the perfect stranger we take him to be. I mean, the economy, two wars, the Middle East. The Hay-Adams is hardly a hardship post.
The blocks around the Hay-Adams have been closed off by cement barriers. That's not stopping locals and tourists from gathering there, to try and get a glimpse of the new First Family. It's very exciting to be in Washington these days.
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I did not intend to make the focus here so sweeps-oriented. But I also didn't expect to discover so many new hotel-specific sweeps. So for now, as I develop other story ideas, I will post choice hotel-specific sweeps here and cross-reference them accordingly on Travel Sweeps. Pourquoi pas?
Here's Tablet Hotels' January offering: Five nights at the Hotel Pont Royal, in Paris, in the Septieme, and dinner at the hotel restaurant, which just happens to be Joel Robuchon's Michelin-starred L'Atelier. To enter, sign up for Tablet Hotel's newsletter HERE.
The location looks splendid. For a satellite view, click HERE. Bonne chance!
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1.03.2009 | I can't help myself. The occasional poster on this forum can get so petulant, with such an off-the-charts sense of entitlement and disconnect, that some days I can't bear to read more than a few lines. But I keep returning. Because most of the posters seem rather nice, and many posts are informative, with tidbits about deals, renovations, concierge movement, restaurant and spa developments (including, in the case of the former, rumored closings. Some of these folks really know their stuff, and will start a thread with an incisive question. For instance, several days ago, someone asked, Does it matter who the gm [General Manager] is? The consensus seems to be that yes, it did. Though one poster disagreed, noting:
They are like officials in a sporting event...all things being equal they should be invisible.
Which suggests this poster is not a soccer fan. So I refer this FlyerTalk Luxury Hotels Forum with a grain of salt. Oh, and that would of course be artisanal sea salt from, let's see, let's make that Ile de Re.
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1.03.2009 | I have a loud neighbor. He talks loud, he walks loud, he slams his door loud, he plays his music loud. It's the music, with its endlessly thudding bass, that pushes me over the edge. We share two walls, between our kitchens and between my entry, which is where I've set up my home office, and his living room. I've written him two letters, I've pounded on his door, I even called the police once. (And they came. It was six in the morning.) This time, I called the front desk. Carolyn, my friend and neighbor, said she'd call and ask him to lower the music, if he had a proper phone line. But he's only got a cell phone, and he didn't give the number to the front desk. Get this: He claims he can't turn down the bass, that there's no button for that. What? This guy should be charming. He looks like Sean Penn. And he works on the Iraq desk at the State Department. (Part of me wonders how he passed the Foreign Service exam.) But he is loud. And unresponsive. Anyway, right now, I wish I were in a hotel, say, the Ritz-Carleton Georgetown. I bet it's lovely. And not loud.
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1.03.2009 | Duh. I didn’t make the connection between the guy I’ve read about in places like USAToday and HotelChatter, the one who reads aloud to you in your hotel room, and the sweeps I’ve been entering for weeks until last night when, lo and behold, there he was on Nightline. The Bedtime Reader! And he’s at the Andaz on Liverpool. (The Andaz is Hyatt’s latest line.) Yes, the Bedtime Reader! And I had no idea. And I’ve been entering a daily sweeps for a four-night stay at the Andaz on Liverpool, with airfare, since before, like, Thanksgiving. The fellow’s name is Damian Barr, he’s a journalist, and he got the idea when he was on a business trip to some place like Stockholm. He seems nice enough. But, as I learned on the Nightline segment, he’s a bit like the maid who doesn’t do windows. He doesn’t do voices. Party pooper!
To enter, click HERE. This is a daily entry that runs through January 30.
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1.02.2009 | Wouldn’t this be cute? When the Obamas check into the Hay-Adams this weekend, one of the girls asks one of their parents, "What’s a concierge?" And they’re so busy multitasking in the lobby that they brush off their inquisitive daughter and tell her that they’ll explain the concept later. And when they’re up in their room, after they’ve marveled at the view and fluffed their pillows, they Google the word "concierge." Remember, this is a family that practices thorough research. And there on How Stuff Works is none other than Jack Nargil, the concierge at the Hay-Adams! Here, he explains all about being "part Merlin, part Houdini," which is how Les Cles d’Or describes the full service concept. (This is where we cue "Ain’t No River Wide Enough.") And Nargil is quoted thus:
No matter how strange the request, concierges rarely turn down a client or guest. "We always say that if we can't get you a white elephant, perhaps we can get you a pink elephant," says Nargil. "The word 'no' really doesn't exist. It's a word concierges rebel against."
I’ve been trying to come up with a clever line about a pink donkey, get it, the Republicans are the elephants, the Democrats are the donkeys, but I’m drawing a blank. Anyway, Nargil’s a registered Democrat, so this experience should be one of the highlights of his career.
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1.02.2009 | Here's a clip. Here's an article.
Noteworthy:Local legend holds that Henry Adams' wife, Clover, committed suicide in 1885 and now haunts the hotel. The story goes that she appears most frequently in December on the hotel's fourth floor.
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1.01.2009 | Here's a Washington Post article about the Hay-Adams.
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