One of my favourite programs is the IHG Best Price Guarantee (BPG). This program will, subject to a number of terms, provide you with a free night at any IHG hotel if you can find a rate from a competitor that is lower and matches or beats the terms of the booked rate on IHG’s website. I have received many dozens of free nights with this program, from $1000/night rooms at Intercontinental hotels, and cheapo Holiday Inn hotels.
It’s always great to have some competition! And the only great deal I found this weekend is with A Small Orange [this is an affiliate link], a web-hosting company. They’re my host for a number of other websites I run (I have quite a few, but those are secret 😉 ). Today is the final day for their Black Friday deal, which is 75% off their hosting. I don’t normally advertise products (I believe this is the first time I’ve done so on DCTA), but this really is an amazing deal.
Under the Privacy Act, if the government holds personal information on you, you have the right to receive that information (with some security exclusions) free of charge. This information includes those records held by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA). I recently requested records held by the CBSA. It’s a simple and free process, and the results can be absolutely fascinating!
This is a short series in response to Canada’s federal election. Harper’s government has done a lot to harm travellers, and this series will explain why a traveller should vote to get rid of Harper, among other reasons.
Travelisfree wrote an article a week or so ago regarding Trampolinn, a French-based home sharing network, similar to AirBnB. Unlike AirBnB, the active currency is points rather than money. You can easily earn points just by signing up, and could buy a set of 3500 points for as low as $99 euros (for reference, you could get a nice apartment in an ideal city location for around 400 points). It looked like an incredible opportunity for us travel hackers. I tried it out, and my experience shows that it sucks.
Several months ago, my award booking service, Awarding Canada, was covered on CBC’s The National. Today, a news article on CBC, Aeroplan says ‘blackouts are gone’ — but what about those fuel surcharges?, quotes Aeroplan as taking issue with me. The article notes:
