U.S. Travel Association’s Daily Getaways sponsored by American Express is five weeks of travel offers, primarily hotel points and vacation packages at discount rates. The five weeks of deals are posted and include hotel loyalty points purchase opportunities with Best Western, Choice Privileges, Club Carlson, Hilton HHonors, Hyatt Gold Passport, IHG Rewards Club and Wyndham Rewards. An analysis of each hotel chain’s offers will follow in separate posts.
Daily Getaways Week 1 Offers May 19-May 23
Monday, May 19 = Wyndham Rewards points
Tuesday, May 20 = Hertz rental car
Wednesday, May 21 = Choice Privileges points
Thursday, May 22 = Alamo rental car discount
Friday, May 23 = Hilton HHonors points
Daily Getaways Week 2 Offers May 26-30
Monday, May 26 = IHG Rewards Club points
Tuesday, May 27 = Caesars Las Vegas
Wednesday, May 28 = City Pass travel attraction discounts
Thursday, May 29 = Diamond Resorts 5-night stay
Friday, May 30 = Sea World and Busch Gardens discount tickets
Daily Getaways Week 3 June 2-6
Monday, June 2 = Omni Hotels
Tuesday June 3 = Loews Hotels
Wednesday, June 4 = Hyatt Hotels points
Thursday, June 5 = IHG Rewards Club points
Friday, June 6 = MGM Resorts Las Vegas
Daily Getaways Week 4 June 9-13
Monday, June 9 = Marriott gift cards
Tuesday, June 10 = Best Western Rewards points.
Wednesday, June 11 = Universal Studios package
Thursday, June 12 = Avis car rental
Friday, June 13 = Venetian and Palazo Las Vegas
Daily Getaways Week 5 June 16-20
Monday, June 16 = MGM Las Vegas hotel offers
Tuesday, June 17 = Club Carlson points
Wednesday, June 18 = Universal Studios Orlando travel packages
Thursday, June 19 = Caesars Entertainment hotel offers
Friday, June 20 = Fairmont Hotels
Offers go on sale at 1:00pm ET each weekday from May 19, 2014 to June 20, 2014.
Who is eligible to participate?
Any resident of the U.S. who is 18 years or older may purchase an offer with any valid credit card.
When are offers available for purchase?
Offers are available for purchase each weekday from May 19, 2014 to June 20, 2014 at 1:00 pm ET, Quantities for these items are extremely limited and may sell out quickly. However, in the event that they do not sell out the day they go on sale, they will appear on the “All Available Offers” page. You may purchase offers featured on this page 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until the promotion ends, July 4, 2014, or until the offers sell out.
What are daily emails?
Daily emails are sent every weekday by Daily Getaways to let you know which offers are available that day. You can sign up to receive them from the footer area of the home page. Daily emails will be sent every weekday from May 19 – June 20, 2014.
What are alerts?
Alerts are emails you sign up to receive to inform you when individual offers go on sale during the Daily Getaways promotion from May 19 – June 20 2014. You can sign up for an alert on the detail page of any given offer.
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U.S. Travel Association is the official tourism bureau for the United States. The organization’s primary objective is to attract international visitors to the USA and lobby for regulations that improve the U.S. travel industry.
Daily Getaways started a few years ago as an opportunity to promote travel providers like major hotel chains, rental car companies and airlines among US residents. Seems odd that these deals are only available to US residents when the primary purpose of U.S. Travel Association is promoting the U.S. to international visitors, but I am not complaining about the discount deals.
Based on my experience of purchasing several of these offers each year since 2011, some of the deals require you to be on your computer and ready to make a purchase the second the deal goes live at 1pm ET.
I typically log on one minute before the sale starts (checking the atomic clock for accurate time) and refresh my browser until the sale page loads. Sometimes you will be unable to secure a good discount deal if you are even one minute late after the sale begins.
You will either see a purchase page with a time clock for how long you can hold that purchase while completing the form to buy the item or you see a message saying the item is no longer available. Since many people will not complete a purchase for whatever reason, simply try again and the item might become available. Some people report getting the purchase page to load after five or ten minutes into a sale, but I rarely have that kind of patience.
I prioritize which items I want to buy and I am successful 80 to 90% of the time.
That being said, the only real deal I see in the first two weeks of offers is the Choice Privileges points. Wyndham Rewards points used to be a very hot item, however, they changed their points-to-airline miles exchange rate this year and points are not nearly as valuable as they were in the past. Plus, the cost to buy Wyndham Rewards points doubled last year and at $5.40 per 1,000 points, the value of points for hotel rewards is limited to far fewer places than in 2011 and 2012.
Some items will not sell out quickly or even on the day of the sale. These items will remain available for purchase until they sell out or until July 4, 2014 when the promotion ends and remaining unsold items will be removed from inventory.
I have not checked out the Diamond Resorts participating hotels yet. That looks like it could be a good value for a 5-night stay this year. Each year there are generally some good value items from Loews and Omni hotels that do not sell out on the day those items are offered.
In upcoming posts this week I will analyze the hotel offers in depth. Next week I will be traveling and whitewater rafting in the Sierra Nevada, so I’ll cover these offers on Loyalty Traveler before I go on my trip.
[Update Monday, May 12, 9:50am PT: within minutes before or after publishing this post on the first two weeks of deals, all five weeks were posted. This is an updated version of the Daily Getaways post.]
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