Baltimore tourism on the upswing

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Fellow Gadlinger Grant Martin was right. Or, at least, he’s found a lot of people who agree with him. Baltimore‘s tourism business is on the rise. The city’s tourism bureau reported that it’s already passed the halfway point to its hotel booking goals for the next fiscal year.

The city has a goal of 475,000 future room nights, and the bureau’s sales team has already taken care of 301,800 of them. That’s 63.5 percent of the target amount with half a year to go. In a brutal economy, and in a city that isn’t usually seen as a top destination. The opening of the new Hilton Convention Center in August, which brings 757 rooms with it, is a big part of the city’s success. Another five hotels are expected to open as well.

So, what does this mean for the city of Baltimore? The 2008 bookings are expected to have an economic impact of $422 million.

Traveling on a budget? Add Baltimore to your agenda.

[Via USA Today]

More ways to earn miles: Hilton offers 6x mileage bonus

by Grant Martin on

Mileage promotions from Delta are coming in hot and heavy, and those on the ball with some of their most recent promotions are set to make quite the killing in a pretty short time.

Their latest promotion is in collaboration with Hilton‘s points program, HHonors. From now until the end of February, each time you spend more than two nights at a Hilton hotel they’ll give you six times the miles that you would normally earn.

Right now, HHonors is set up on a tiered program where you can earn any variety of airline miles based upon how much you spend at their hotel — but most members earn a fixed 500 miles per stay at a hotel. With this new promotion, you’ll now earn 3,000, or, just under 1/8 of a domestic round trip ticket.

You might not immediately think that’s very much, but combine that with the partner bonus promotion or any other of the generous offers that the airline is currently putting up and your miles can accumulate pretty quickly.

Sign up for the promotion at Hilton’s website here.

Take a shortcut to Hilton Honors Gold Status

by Grant Martin on

Reaching the upper tiers of any travel related rewards program almost always takes money, time, effort, money and money — the rewards reaped should only be for the profitable consumer, right?

Occasionally, however, programs release shortcuts — ways that guaranteed high-dollar users can skip up a tier and enjoy the benefits — so that they can lock in a particular demographic or company. And when those shortcuts get published? That’s when people like you and I can sneak in from the back door.

Apparently, Canadian Aeroplan members were offered just this for the Hilton Honors program. From what I hear, by going to this link at the HHonors website, they could plug in code “CTHC”, sign up for an account and be catapulted all of the way up to Gold status. What a great shortcut. Not that I’ve tried it. But I hear it works great.

In case you’re wondering what the benefits of Gold status are at the Hilton family of hotels, membership gets a few nice small perks at checkin. Among the goodies are two of my favorites: access to the concierge level (where available), its free snacks and drinks, or free wireless internet among the network of hotels. Those alone are worth trying to get Gold status.