September 20 Update: Rewards Canada Podcast, Awesome Best Western Rewards Customer Service, Marriott takeover of SPG receives final approval

News, Tips & TricksOf course for us the big news is the launch of our new Rewards Canada Podcast series! Check out our first episode here.

 

Over summer the RC family completed a stay at the Best Western Plus Tuscan
Inn in San Francisco and they had an SPG like GO Green feature where
you would get 1,000 points for each day you declined housekeeping. For
one of our two rooms we declined four times. Less then a week later the
points for the actual stay posted but nothing for the housekeeping. I
waited a couple more weeks and nothing. I decided to submit a missing
points request with Best Western and what happened next surprised me.
Within 7 minutes of time pressing the submit button on the request form
the 4,000 points were posted to my account and I had an email from BW
apologizing and saying the points were posted to my account. This has
got to be a customer service record for me! Never have I seen that quick
of service. Most times the automated response email stating they got a
request doesn’t even come that fast! This was the first time I’ve had
to deal with BW Rewards customer service and if they are like this all
the time then they are a program other programs should strive to
emulate!

Marriott has received approval from Chinese regulators for their takeover of Starwood Hotels. The deal is now expected to close on Friday and Marriott will be the official owner of Starwood! Wow, I can’t believe that it is really happening now!  (Source View from the Wing)

They may not fly to Toronto anymore and we really don’t cover them on
Rewards Canada because of that reason but thought we should let you know
about this anyway! Virgin America is offering two FREE
points offers for their Elevate members of 500 points each. You simply
need to subscribe to two different email newsletters. That’s an easy
1,000 points for those of you who may use Virgin America within the
States or can add to existing balances to redeem on one their partners!
The offers end on Sep 30. Here they are as pulled from FrequentFlyerBonuses

500 FREE Elevate Points when you sign up to receive Virgin Sport news emails. Full details

500 FREE Elevate Points when you sign up to Virgin Hotel emails. Full details

Congrats to Marc M. who won the Canadian Points University ticket we were giving away last week!

Posts since our last update:


Bonus Offers

Alitalia MilleMiglia

– Earn up to 5,000 Bonus MilleMiglia Miles for each flight on Alitalia between Rome and Havana. More… Nov 29 – Jan 29, 17

American AAdvantage

– 25% Bonus AAdvantage Miles when you convert Hyatt Gold Passports points to AAdvantage miles. More… Until Oct 14, 16

Best Western Rewards

– Double Rewards Points for stays at Best Western Hotels in Asia. More… Until Nov 30, 16

United MileagePlus

– 50% Bonus MileagePlus Miles when you convert IHG Rewards Club points to MileagePlus miles. More… Until Oct 10, 16

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