News and notes from around the interweb: Pizza in Motion follows my advice when a taxi in Paris tries to scam him: wait until you’ve reached your hotel and your luggage is out of the vehicle, then get the hotel’s assistance. You – not the driver – are the hotel’s customer, and they know what a taxi should be charging you. Indispensable if you travel internationally with a child under age 2: Guide to booking award travel with lap infants In the fall when Emirates Skywards became an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner, I noted that one of the best features of that program is international upgrades from any fare without cash co-pay (although some fares are upgradable only at the airport). Unfortunately that is apparently changing, effective May 1 some Emirates economy tickets…
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Vietnam, Cambodia, Macau and Hong Kong Trip Report: Cathay Pacific First Class New York JFK – Hong Kong
Index: Introduction, Positioning Flight to New York, and the Hilton JFK British Airways First Class Lounge, New York JFK Cathay Pacific First Class, New York JFK – Hong Kong The Pier First Class Lounge and Cathay Pacific Business Class, Hong Kong – Ho Chi Minh City Park Hyatt Saigon Lunch at Pho Hoa, Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam Airlines Business Class, Ho Chi Minh City – Danang Hyatt Regency Danang Resort & Spa Vietnam Airlines Economy, Danang – Siem Reap Park Hyatt Siem Reap Angkor Wat and Other Temples Dragonair Business Class, Siem Reap – Hong Kong Turbojet, Hong Kong Airport – Macau and the Sheraton Macao Hotel The Venetian, Fernando’s, and the Ferry to Hong Kong Grand Hyatt Hong Kong Harbor View Suite Bo Innovation, Hong Kong Amber Restaurant, Hong Kong Cathay Pacific The…
Chase Comes Out With a New IHG Rewards… MasterCard?
There has long been an 80,000 point signup bonus for the IHG Rewards co-brand card. Points and Pixie Dust points out that the new card on offer appears to be an IHG Rewards MasterCard. IHG Rewards promotes it here. Here’s the offer: This is one of those cards that is ‘good to have but not very good for spending money on’ and never hits the top of my list because IHG Rewads points – while very easy to earn through stays – frustrate me to actually use .. not because of availability but because there’s no option to use points for better than a base room, and because while some hotels may go above and beyond the terms and conditions of the program do not require most elite benefits to be honored when using points…
Just Issue The Darned Tickets!
There are two ways to issue tickets — instantly, or queuing them for someone else to do later. I like when tickets I’m buying or changing are issued immediately. I like the transaction to be done. I don’t want to have to think about it again, worry that it hasn’t been done at all, or that something may muck up my reservation along the way. When I book an award ticket with US Airways, they issue tickets immediately. United used to issue tickets immediately, before they combined operations with Continental Airlines and adopted Continental’s vastly inferior computer system. United no longer does instant ticketing. Book an award ticket, though, and usually your ticketing is done after just several minutes. First, United sends you an email: We are processing your reservation and will send you an…
American-JetBlue Frequent Flyer Partnership Ending March 31
JetBlue and American have had a reciprocal mileage-earning partnerships. This ends March 31. Since November 18, 2010, it has been possible to earn miles in each airline’s program by flying the other carrier on specific routes out of New York JFK and Boston. Earning in American AAdvantage for flying JetBlue was permitted on: Earning in JetBlue TrueBlue for flying American was permitted on: (Of course the Boston transatlantic flights and New York JFK – Tokyo Haneda do not exist any longer.) But this comes to an end. American and JetBlue were the subject of merger rumors when American was seeking to chart its own path out of bankruptcy rather than getting acquired by merging with US Airways. The explanation offered by American for the termination of this partnership is US Airways’ strength in the Northeast,…
Clearing Up Misperceptions About Booking Korean Air Using Delta Miles
Points, Miles, and Martinis wrote about Korean Air’s Houston flight and how new routes are often an opportunity for award booking. Korean is a partner of Delta Skymiles (in the loosest sense of the term). But there are many misconceptions about booking Korean Air space using Delta miles, so I thought I’d try to clear some of those up. You need to call Delta to look up availability The Points, Miles, and Martinis blog notes that searching for award space on Korean at Expertflyer.com find “plenty of days where you can pick up 2 award seats in First Class.” However Delta does not allow mileage redemption in international first class. Business class is the top cabin permitted. He goes on to say, “Business Class is harder to find. I couldn’t find it on Expert Flyer”…
Another Prepaid Debit Card I’m Using to Earn Miles
Prepaid cards are marketed mostly at the unbanked, and at consumers who can’t get credit cards or at least can only get cards like this. I find them useful, but if I’m going to use them my patterns are going to be different than the typical customer. I might load higher dollar amounts. I also may tend to make large transactions, like buying money orders (small money orders, too, I find myself having to buy money orders for obscure travel visas sometimes). Activity out of pattern for the typical customer can raise alarms on the part of issuers, these cards aren’t just popular with the unbanked they’re also popular with drug dealers and others engaged in illicit activities and banks can be quick to pull the trigger on a customer who looks like a risk.…
How to Assign Seats on Cathay Pacific (It’s Harder Than You’d Think)
Cathay Pacific is strange (though not unique among Asian airlines, see also ‘Asiana’) in blocking many of the seats in their first class cabin. With only 6 seats in their first class cabin on the 777 though that can be frustrating. It makes it tough to assign seats together (as if such a thing exists on this aircraft) when traveling together. In addition, Cathay Pacific will only assign seats 6 months in advance on its website, through airline partners, or if you call the US call center. But you can assign any seats you wish if you call Hong Kong. And they will do so more than 6 months in advance. That’s useful for getting first class seats together, or getting your preferred first class seats. It’s also useful as a business class passenger, because…
I Have Nothing to Add About the Malaysia Airlines 777 Tragedy
A couple of readers have emailed me to ask why I haven’t written anything about the Malaysia Airlines MH370 Boeing 777-200ER flight that disappeared enroute between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. There are two reasons, and I think both are straightforward. I really do not have much to add to the discussion, that others better qualified to speak aren’t already saying. It’s really hard and I don’t do emotion well, let alone in public on the internet. I am not an expert on the mechanics of aviation, on the engineering details of how planes fly or don’t. I don’t have better sources that give me insight into what’s going on before the rest of the media gets their information (although there are of course plenty of ill-informed commenters on television talking about this). I think Scott…
Think Delta SkyMiles Will Be Less Rewarding Next Year? That Was On Purpose.
A week and a half ago Delta announced its revenue-based changes to how miles are earned through flying. And then this past week they shared some of the details on how mileage redemption will change next year. Since then there’s been much electronic ink spilled (much of it by me) trying to make sense of it all, combing through the details, explaining what it all means. But it’s really not that complicated. We were told far in advance what to expect. Delta has been working on these changes, in one form or another, for more than three years. Early planning was leaked two years ago. In fact, three and a half years ago Jeff Robertson, the head of the Delta SkyMiles program, stated clearly that they thought they were too generous with the program and…
