I would guess Vriesea as well. It blooms on that red bract growth. The actual flowers are likely not very interesting. It's the red bract spike that is the 'main event'.

As for care, much information can be found online. I would just say that the more sun it gets indoors, the more humidity it will need. Better to keep in lower light indoors. Keep water in the 'cup'. Soil can be allowed to dry out quite well between watering, in fact you don't really need to worry too much about the soil -- just don't keep it wet-wet. You can feed the plant in the summer by spraying with fertilizer-water diluted to a quarter of the recommended strength or less, in water, primarily spraying the leaves.

I have one and it goes outside in a tree for the summer after nights are consistently mild (55+ degrees F), where it gets dappled shade - never full sun.

Hi everyone.

Ben – Your plant is in fact a Vriesea and judging by what
you say, it’s one of the many thousands mass-produced annually by tissue
culture for sale as an alternative to cut flowers. These usually just have a
generic name tag of “Bromeliad” and sometimes a few basic cultural notes on the
back of the tag.

These plants were originally mass-produced mainly in Belgium and Holland
in their millions for distribution (in flower) to countries all over Europe where the outside environment isn’t suitable to grow these plants without an expensive temperature
controlled green house. This idea eventually spread to many other countries around the world who are now "doing their own thing", such as U.S., Australia, China and several South East Asian countries to name just a few.

The idea is that you buy the plant as an alternative to
a bunch of flowers; after the flowers have died and the bract colour has faded,
the plant is tossed in the bin and a new one purchased. This is a much more
attractive financial proposition than
buying a bunch of flowers as the bract colour of these plants usually lasts
several months as opposed to the life of cut flowers which is just a couple of
weeks.

Your plant is one of the two different main types of
Vrieseas and is the plain leaf type that is sold primarily for the flowers. The
other type that does not produce showy flower spikes usually has interesting
foliage and is commonly known as patterned foliage Vrieseas. It is rare that a
Vriesea would have both unique foliage and a distinct flower spike.

The sites below have some basic information about your
type of Vrieseas and the type of care required.

http://www.bromeliads.info/bromeliad-vriesea/

http://www.balconycontainergardening.com/plants/220-grow-care-vriesea-bromeliad

As for your other question about blooming, it’s a bit
hard to say as each plant is an individual; but to complicate the issue even
further, with these mass produced plants, they have been treated with either a
liquid or gas to make them come into flower at a specific time (usually to coincide
with special days such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day etc. and because this
causes interference with the genes of the plant things don’t occur as they
normally would if grown naturally).

Just looking at the development of the bracts on your plant,
and based on what I’ve experienced with these types of plants myself, it seems
to have a bit more growing to do yet; but just how much is hard to say. This is
due to the fact it has been chemically manipulated which as well as speeding up
flowering, can also sometimes cause problems within the natural development and
the blooming time of the actual flowers
by sometimes slowing down the flowering time or even sometimes producing
deformed flowers.

The main selling point of these plants are the colourful
bracts; these aren’t the flowers as many people believe, the flowers will
appear one or a few at a time along the length of the bract (See pictures below). They do come in different colours although the main colour is usually yellow.

The flowers themselves are short lived and only last for
a couple of days or so, after which they die and change to a dirty grey colour
and then to black which detracts somewhat from the bract colour. (See picture below)

To keep things
looking tidy, it is possible to “pluck” these dead flowers from the bracts with
a small pair of forceps; it doesn’t harm the plants and does improve the
appearance.

As for the spots on the leaves, we really need a picture (or
several), preferably close-ups so that we can give accurate advice on whether
it’s just some sort of physical damage or perhaps an insect pest.

One final piece of advice; never leave your plant standing in a saucer of water as it will
cause the potting mix to become water-logged and possibly start your plant
rotting.

All the best, Nev