(This is a Continuation of “Trip Report – A Private Jet Experience: Alone in First Class on ANA and Thai, Plus Singapore First, a Suite, a Villa, and Some Incredible Food Porn”) The Intercontinental’s shuttle dropped us off at check-in for ANA and Lufthansa. We quickly walked up to the red carpet, first class and Star Gold checkin. Bags were tagged all the way to Singapore, even though we were on separate tickets for the Tokyo – Singapore segment. It took the agents a little while to figure out how to do it, the biggest challenge being my explaining to them that the Chicago – Tokyo flight arrived the next day and so they needed to enter the Singapore – Tokyo flight for that day. They kept entering a same day departure and getting a response…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for February 2011.
Marriott Rewards Increasing Points Requirements for Redemptions at 350 Hotels in a Week — They Just Won’t Tell You Which Ones
Last week I wrote a fairly extensive analysisof Starwood Preferred Guest’s award category shifts. Every year the hotel chain moves some hotels up and other hotels down in reward category, changing the number of points required for redemption at each. When more hotels go up in category than down, it’s a devaluation in the program. On the whole Starwood moved as many hotels down as up, in fact a handful more went down than went up. So really just tinkering at the margins with a fairly small percentage of hotels. They gave us a full list of the changes in advance, meaning astute readers of this blog could book hotels in advance if those hotels were going up, or wait until March 1 to book those hotels going down in price. A nice little window…
Fairmont Honors Lifetime Platinum Status Mistake Offer
Loyalty Traveler reviews the saga of the lifetime Fairmont Presidents Club offer that I posted the other day. It does turn out that the lifetime status was included in the Presidential Suite and Penthouse Living Social packages in error. I’d be really curious to know how the error transpired, someone wrote the copy and presumably thought that’s what was intended. They pulled the offer early, it was supposed to run until Tuesday. But though it was unclear for a bit how Fairmont was going to handle things, perhaps they would have cancelled the deal and refunded folks’ money? In the end they decided to honor the promotion. Some folks got their status especially cheap, you could even go in on these things as a group and get a discount for referring people, so the cost…
Washington Dulles – Chicago in United First Class and the Greatest Airport Hotel Ever, the Intercontinental O’Hare
Intercontinental OHare Hotel: (This is a Continuation of “Trip Report – A Private Jet Experience: Alone in First Class on ANA and Thai, Plus Singapore First, a Suite, a Villa, and Some Incredible Food Porn”) I kept checking for a first class award seat on Washington Dulles – Chicago, my seat was booked in business and my wife was in first. It’s a short segment and doesn’t much matter, but why not try to upgrade to the international first class cabin on a 767? Unfortunately not only did another first class award not pop up, but the aircraft was downgraded. To an Airbus. Now we were together in the same cabin, at least. Though the whole reason for heading out to Dulles was blown to bits. I really do despise Dulles and will avoid it…
Trip Report – A Private Jet Experience: Alone in First Class on ANA and Thai, Plus Singapore First, a Suite, a Villa, and Some Incredible Food Porn
Prologue: The decision-making and booking process I’m just back from South Asia, where my wife and I had a nice pretty par for the course first class redemption. But there were some high points, and some lessons in award redemption that I hope to be able to share. Some things I’d do again, some things I’d do differently, so it seemed worth writing up a trip report and hopefully it’ll be worth reading and even helpful to a few folks. I started out looking for first class transpacific award seats on Star Alliance, planning for a trip that was a little bit less than two weeks. The plan was a getaway towards the end of the cold winter season, maybe miss the final snow (we lucked out and did!) and to come back as DC…
Lifetime Fairmont Presidents Club Platinum Status for $2000 (and a free Presidential Suite Night too)
Via Whitedoor on Milepoint, there’s a Living Social daily deal that will give you lifetime Platinum status in the Fairmont Presidents Club program and a one-night stay in the Presidential Suite at the Fairmont San Francisco for $2000. Platinum is the top tier in the program, it gets you suite upgrades and free nights plus bonus miles and early check-in and late check-out. Since it’s being offered on a permanent basis it could even be worthwhile just for the status, at least for those with plenty of years ahead and a likelihood of staying with Fairmont regularly in the future.
Dropbox Free Cloud Storage
Fly Gracefully describes the usefulness of the free tool, dropbox.com. It’s not new, but some folks may not be aware of it, it’s like having a hard drive full of data anywhere you go. The young’ins call Dropbox shows up as a folder on my desktop. I place a file in there. It uploads it to dropbox land. I go to dropbox on my phone or nook and download the file and transfer it where I need it. Dropbox will let you alone have access to files, or let you share files as well which is great for passing along powerpoint presentations that are too large to email. It’s also a handy place to keep travel documents like copies of passports. I’ve long kept scanned copies on my laptop, but this is great because my…
Get 10% Cash Back on Your Travel Spend with the Travelocity American Express Card
As a travel junkie and someone who booked not just travel for myself but for all sorts of friends and colleagues, I like the American Epxress Premier Rewards Gold card which earns triple Membership Rewards points on airfare purchases. And I do like my Membership Rewards points, especially for transfers: To Continental, which will hold Star Alliance awards when you don’t have enough miles in your account. Points transfer instantly, as well. This partnership ends September 30. To Aeroplan, because of their favorable award chart (e.g. 80,000 miles for business class from the US to much of Europe, or 120,000 miles for first class from the US to as far South in Asia as Singapore. Points transfer instantly. To British Airways, because of their 100,000 mile business class awards on Cathay Pacific from the US…
Delta Finally Publishes Their Award Chart for Destinations Outside North America – And It’s a Doozy!
Delta has finally published their award charts. Yep, you read that right. Previously how many miles they were supposed to charge you for travel that didn’t begin or end in North America was a secret. They didn’t actually publish an award chart. You had no idea how many points you were supposed to need for an award, and had no way to know if an agent was prciing something correctly or not. After many years of haranguing (by me, though of course by others) they’ve gone ahead and actually published their award pricing. And they’ve taken the opportunity at the same time to bump up the price of several of their awards. TM Travel World points out that they’ve increased the cost of awards from US to North Asia from 60,000 miles in coach to…
100 (or More) Free AAdvantage Miles for Liking American Airlines on Facebook
Via Ben, American Airlines will give between 100 and 100,000 miles to everyone who likes them on Facebook. Most, including me, will get 100 miles. Go here, hit Like, and then the next screen will ask you for your AAdvantage number.
