Hotels, Resort | featured news

Meadowood lives up to its billing as one of the Napa Valley’s best country resorts. Even though some of its competitors are hipper, younger, greener, and newer, one person’s throwback is another person’s classic.

A luxury resort in San Diego is offering rooms for $19 a night - if you don't mind sleeping in a tent. The Rancho Bernardo Inn boasts three pools, a spa and golf course. It typically charges more than $200 a room. But business is down. So from Aug. 16 to 31, guests can get a "Survivor Package" that charges them less for each amenity they give up. For $19, guests give up breakfast, air conditioning, lights, sheets and even the bed. Staff will remove the mattress and headboard and leave a small tent instead.

Slowly but surely, AARP's hotel discounts - once a prime feature - are becoming less and less useful. Unfortunate though it may be, AARP's decline as a discount source simply mirrors the decrease in big-organization discounts, generally.