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Written by Darren Ho

Created: 01 August 2014

In terms of the major hotel brands – the Hilton Gold Status is probably the best mid-tier status and the easiest to obtain.

I have explained in my previous post the benefits of having this gold status.

For most people – they will never stay 40 nights or spend $7,500 in a Hilton hotel per year.

Therefore I am going to reveal how you can get the Hilton Gold status much more quickly:

1. Hilton Macquarie Credit Card – By obtaining this credit card – you automatically become a Hilton Gold member. The annual fee is $295. But is worth it if you do travel a lot and want to get the perks quickly.

2. From time to time - there maybe a promotional code where all you have to do is enter a code in a Hilton website - and you instantly become a Gold member! This happened to me about 5 years ago - and have been able to maintain the gold status from different methods. There is no current promotion for this – but stay tuned to my blog or sign up to my newsletter. I will be sure to inform you if there is such a lucrative promotion.

3. Joining Frequent Flyer forums (e.g. www.Milepoint.com) - from year to year - they offer Hilton Gold status for $49 for a bit more than a year. So definitely worth it.…

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Written by Darren Ho

Created: 01 August 2014

My favourite hotel loyalty programme has been the Hilton HHonor’s programme over the last 8 years.

My first experience was in 2007 staying at the Tokyo Hilton. It was then that I started learning about this particular programme. When I first started – I had no idea that Hilton had promotions every 3 months to increase your points. We stayed 10 nights at this hotel costing me more than $3000. If I had only known back then what I knew now – I would have been more strategic in my hotel planning to maximise my points.

So for those 10 nights at the Hilton – I was able to accumulate around 30,000 Hilton points. So I then looked at what I could redeem it for. Back then the Conrad Hong Kong only required 40,000 Hilton points to redeem for 1 night. I thought – sweet! The Conrad Hong Kong averages around $500 a night and is a high end hotel. I only need 10,000 points!.

We then stayed at the Hilton Angel Hotel in London 3 weeks later – so was able to earn another 10,000 points from the stay. So I now had enough points to redeem 1 night at the Conrad Hong Kong!…

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Written by Darren Ho

Created: 31 July 2014

IHG Loyalty Programme

In regards to Hotel Loyalty programmes – my recommendation if you are a frequent traveller is to stick with 2 programmes – 3 at most.

The reason being that you want to accumulate points at a more accelerated rate than having all your eggs in different baskets.

My current go-to Hotel Loyalty programme is the Hilton HHonors programme. Though I would have to say that the Hyatt Gold Passport programme is definitely catching up.

But my back-up programme I would have to say is the IHG programme.

The IHG Hotel Group consists of the following – Intercontinental Hotels, Crown Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express. These are probably the main hotel brands of this group.

From my experience over the last 5 years – the IHG group has been the most generous in regards to accumulating points. There is at any one time multiple promotions that you can sign up for.

They also have a “Point Breaks” programme where you can redeem your points for just 5000 points. Usually on average rooms cost about 20,000-25,000 points. The top brand – Intercontinental Hotels – usually requires more than 40,000 points.

For example my family stayed at the Crowne Plaza Canberra 3 years ago for 3 nights. Costed me about about $550 AUD for those 3 nights. After that stay – from all the promotions I had signed up for – I received 22,000 IHG points!

For the Point Breaks programme – every 2-3 months they release a list of hotels around the world where the 5000 point per night is available.…

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Written by Darren Ho

Created: 30 July 2014

Air Asia Flight Review

Date: 1^st July 2014

Route: Sydney to Kuala Lumpur

Price: $500 per person

Seat: 45A Economy

Duration: 8.5 Hours

Seat:

The seat was actually better than I expected. I was lowering my expectation on my first international budget airline. I would compare it as the same size of a Domestic Virgin Australia flight in terms of size. So I did struggle a bit with using my Macbook Air 13’. But it is manageable.

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Written by Darren Ho

Created: 29 July 2014

Dates: 1^st-8^th July

Room Booked: Standard Room

Upgraded: Grand Suite

Cost: $200 AUD per night

Floor: 29

Suite:

There is a large spacious living room. It includes top to bottom windows looking out over the city. Everything is very grand and luxurious.

There is a 3 seat sofa and 2 individual leather seats. 1 large round coffee table sits in the middle.

There is a 42 inch TV with around 30 channels.

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Written by Darren Ho

Created: 08 May 2014

I did some research on a reward seat for Qantas for a business class seat between Sydney to Singapore return.

The number of points required is 120,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer points which I already knew. This is high compared to if I was to use Asia Miles Frequent Flyer Programme which only requires me 80,000 miles to fly on the same plane and the same route.

Now what I was really surprised of was the amount of tax that was charged for booking an award seat. It costs $650 just for tax! Now compare that to if I was to buy a Scoot economy ticket for $400 return from Sydney to Singapore – which already includes tax! Or if I used US Dividend Miles Programme which costs me only $250 tax to buy a ticket to South-East Asia.

Qantas is also reducing the number of flights from Singapore to Sydney as well which means less availability for award seats.

You also do not have the option to buy points the way you buy it with US Dividends Miles or American Advantage programme.

As I have written about the Qantas programme before – most Australians only know either this programme or Virgin's Velocity programme – which means they can charge high tax and charge a high number of points to fly anywhere.…