I had a bit of time on my hands, and found that there is a ton of new Hilton Family Hotels opening in Europe this year and next. Here is a little list I made for you Hilton Fans out there..

Germany:
Hilton Frankfurt Airport - 4th qt 2010 or 1st 2011
Hilton Garden Inn Frankfurt Airport - 4th qt 2010 or 1st 2011
Hampton by Hilton Frankfurt Airport - Late 2011
Hampton by Hilton Berlin - Late 2010
Waldorf Astoria Berlin - Mid 2011
Hampton ...

Thanks to a UNITED reward ticket for 25,000 miles I was able to fly up to Northern Finland for a week of fun in the Snow. Got to fly Blue1 a part of the SAS group and also a member of the Star Alliance. When booking this reward ticket I had a hard time getting multiple United agents to book a reward on Blue1 as a part of a Star reward, they kept telling me that Blue1 was a partner but not part of the Star Alliance. After 4 or 5 calls got an agent to look Blue1 up.. and she said, “our ...

Lufthansa owned BMI is now set to take over more of its parent’s UK routes. Starting on March 28th, BMI will be responsible for Lufthansa’s three times a day service from London Heathrow to Cologne.

BMI will also be operating an additional service for Lufthansa between Heathrow and Hamburg. Lufthansa will now operate four times a day on this important route. BMI will keep operating all three daily flights on behalf of Lufthansa between Heathrow and Berlin Tegal. I'm told ...

From Lufthansa.com

Information on the pilot strike

We confirm that the strike of the cockpit association Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) is discontinued and a peace obligation agreed to until March 8 (24:00). The VC rescinded points of disagreement regarding LH Italia as part of the compromise before the Frankfurt labour court. In this way a basis is achieved for constructive talks at the negotiation table regarding questions concerning the basic agreement (Manteltarifvertrag) and ...

A few weeks back I traveled to Belgrade , Serbia and when looking for a hotel I noticed there was not many 4 or 5 star international chains in the city. There is a Holiday Inn, but the reviews were not too favorable and the location was not the best. I did find some small hotels with good reviews in good locations, but the Hyatt Regency Belgrade was getting the best reviews but also the highest rates. So I joined Hyatt Gold Passport and emailed them for a status match from my Hilton Diamond ...

Next week should be a mess in Germany and all over Europe for many Star Alliance travelers who are flying the dominant European Star carrier Lufthansa, as the Pilots of LH strike for 4 back-to-back days. Many travelers might not think this will effect them but check your bookings as many UNITED, USAirways and Continental flights within Europe are operated by Lufthansa. LH could be totally shut down for 4 days. Pilots at Lufthansa voted on Wednesday to go on a four-day strike Feb. 22 until ...

Today is the launch of Hilton Hotels 1Q promotion, and it is one of Hiltons biggest giveaways yet. Free nights at any Hilton Family hotels, including The Waldorf Collection. Just days before the number of points for a free night increases at Hilton they launch this free night give away.

Jeff Diskin (VP HH marketing) has promised a boatload of fantastic public promotions this year, and this is not a bad way to start.

Here is ...

Here is a copy of an email UNITED sent to passengers of UA900 for not having the IFE turned on. The funny thing is that UA900 was SFO-FRA and the IFE with Maps were on for the full flight. There was a missed approach coming into FRA, but the letter states the goodwill was for having the IFE system turned off. The offer was $200 E-cert/ or paper, 10% off Y ticket on UA, or 9,000 miles. It is good to see that UA is sending these emails with goodwill out. I hope the flights that did not ...

UPDATE BELOW RE: JAN SALE HAS STARTED

After Hiltons massive devaluation of HH points, Jeff Diskin (VP HH marketing) has promised a boatload of fantastic public promotions this year. But what will they be? It is rumored that Hilton will be doing a 1qt free night give away, starting on Jan 4 or 5 2010. The rumors are that after 4 stays or 10 nights at participating Hilton Family hotels (between January and the end of March) you'll receive a free night ...

Today a Lufthansa A340-600 was at LHR performing LH4724/4725 from FRA-LHR and back. Normally an A321 runs the FRA-LHR route. Tomorrow a B747 will be heading to LHR. All this was done announced a week or so ago when BA was going to strike. But from what I’m told this could have not worked out better for LH, with all the weather problems in London and in Europe BA was over booked on most London – Main Land Europe flights. To make matters worse the EuroStar service has been down for ...

Last year I did my first cruise and I’m well on the way to becoming addicted to it, as my second cruise I really started to get to know the perks of cruising. Princess Cruise line is the line that I have picked and I’m please with their product.

This cruise started in Rome (Civitavecchia) and I had to deal with FCO airport. And I have to say It has to be one of the worst capital city airports in Europe. I hate it, dirty, crap service and painfully long waiting for ...

As I posted on Nov 4th and many Hilton guest already know, Hilton will be devaluing the Hilton Honors program in 2010. More

Other hotel chains are now saying they will NOT follow Hilton and were very harsh in the wording they used, when asked about the Hilton chain.  Mostly InterContinental Group really ripped Hilton a new one. It would be nice to see Hilton change their mind.. but I do not think that will happen! 

"We are not making changes that would ...

Winter time is coming, why not be crazy and go to the northern most commercial airport in the world. (LYR) Svalbard Airport, Longyear. In 2008, the airport had 138,934 passengers, up 7.4% from 2007.  SAS Scandinavian Airlines daily flights to Tromsø and Oslo on mainland Norway.  Last year in February I decided to use my  miles to get a within Europe reward ticket for 20,000 miles (now would be 25,000) to fly up to the top of the world. This was the best miles I have ever ...

FRA is my home airport, and I really want to be on the first A380 Lufthansa flight. We know today that it will be FRA-JFK, but do not know a date or what flight. LH has 2 non-stops a day FRA-JFK now served by a B747 & A333. At times both flights are on a B747.

Wolfgang Mayrhuber said today that LH will inaugurate its Airbus A380 service between Frankfurt and New York next year.

Chief Executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber said the German airline had evaluated 12 markets from ...

Today UNITED new service starting in 2010

United Airlines will inaugurate its first-ever service to Africa in 2010, with one daily, same-plane service from Washington to Accra, Ghana, and Lagos, Nigeria. I would say that not may saw this coming. It is very good to see UA starting service to Africa.

The airline also will extend its existing daily Washington-Kuwait flight to include Bahrain, and will offer a new non-stop flight between Chicago and Brussels, Belgium. ...

Hilton family Reward categories have been updated along with point redemption rates, These changes go into effect January 15, 2010.

Updated reward category 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...

I was lucky to be on board the first IAH-FRA CO flight. There was a nice "party" at IAH, with some German food and a German band. Jeff Smisek was there and also took the ride to FRA. The flight was very nice and the crew was very good.. The big boss was on board and you could tell. First round of drinks were on Jeff for everyone on board. We had to delay departure by around 20 min so we would not get to FRA too early. We had some very strong tail winds and even with the delay got in ...