Musings of the Global Traveller discusses an offer that’s been fleshed out on Flyertalk: using an offer from Lufthansa Private Jet of 50,000 miles (which count towards status and HON Circle) per international segment that lasts through early June. You need to get a group together to make the costs work out, but it’s a ‘cheap’ way to earn the incredible HON Circle status level in style. HON Circle status perks include access to the fabulous Lufthansa First Class Terminal and Lounges, Senator status for partner, 6 upgrade e-vouchers, frequent op-ups, guaranteed seat availability and improved award availability (eg additional award seats on Lufthansa and Swiss plus all Miles & More customers can benefit from premium cabin awards on Singapore Airlines 77W and A380 aircraft) which will come in handy given the number of miles…
About Gary Leff
The KLM Lounge in Toronto Isn’t As Bad As Lucky Said
He thinks it’s rather mediocre but he’s wrong, it’s much, much worse. The SATA flight was delayed, the place is packed, barely a seat. At least they’ve decided to pre-print the codes they give you to access the internet. But you have to actually track down a staff member to get you one. The line waiting for codes became several people deep. They had tomato bisque warming in a pot with a big sign declaring, “Made Fresh Today!” Perhaps that’s even true, given that today began 23 hours and 15 minutes ago. There’s dim sum, but I get orders of magnitude better in the frozen foods section of my Asian grocer. Otherwise there’s a coffee machine, self-serve alcohol, and a limited selection refrigerator. And not nearly enough seating. It felt like the C7 Red Carpet…
Believe It Or Not, I have Yet Another Free Giveaway in the Queue
Already mentioned, a chance for a trip to Australia… a two-night Hyatt Place stay… well, there will also be a high-end laptop bag/briefcase coming down the pike as well. Stay tuned! And I’ve just learned that I may have another set of Hyatt nights to give away on Twitter, more in the coming days, follow @garyleff!
I’m Giving Away a 2-Night Hyatt Place Stay + Personal Assistant Services for 2 Months
Regular readers of this blog know that I’m a huge fan of the Hyatt Gold Passport program. Over the last year they’ve really stepped it up a notch. First, they matched Starwood (and Hilton) on award redemption by making all standard rooms redeemable with points. Then, they punched up their elite benefits, as the first to offer free internet to all elites and by offering not just catch as catch can suite upgrades based on availability at checkin but four confirmed at booking suite upgrades a year for diamonds. That way Hyatt’s top tier elites can choose to have suites when it matters most to them, not when they show up and get lucky. (One of the most frequent complaints from hotel loyalty program elites is getting the big room on their own business stays…
Great BoardingArea.com Giveaway Coming March 22!
It’ll be offered in conjunction with the American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card — a card I recommended back in October for high-spend road warriors, the card earns triple Membership Rewards points on airfare. Here’s how Randy Petersen describes the prize. a trip for two to the Gold Coast of Australia. All air, hotel, etc. will be paid for and this is a revenue ticket, meaning lots of bonus miles. (Get it? Gold card, Gold Coast? Heh.) And what’s more, the winner will even get the cash necessary to cover taxes incurred by winning the prize. Each participating BoardingArea blog will get to give away one finalist entry. The more BoardingArea blogs you read, the better your chances to win. And c’mon, we’re not that popular as far as these things go, your chances are actually…
Terrorists, Please Identify Your Luggage
Jeffrey Miron reports that lon Amtrak requires luggage to have identifying tags, or security will confiscate them when unattended. A strong message to terrorists: put your (a?) name on the bag, or else!
San Francisco Takes On LAX: Connect Here, We’re Better
I get press releases all day long from travel providers, and 99% of the time I spare you, my readers, from having to hear about them. They usually read something like, “New survey research discovers that X% of travelers say they want to get away for Y holiday, and Z is a great place to [Book Your Travel Online / Stay for a Romantic-Exciting-Fun Time / Waste Large Amounts of Your Hard Earned Dollars]” And on occasion when I reply to the PR hacks with a legitimate question, even just searching for how in the world there’s something to write about, I don’t hear back. Most PR firms send out press releases hoping something’ll stick but don’t know enough about what they’re pitching to speak intelligently about it, or they’re too lazy to do the…
Podcast on American Airlines and Oneworld Awards
The new Upgrd podcast is up, this time discussing American Airlines AAdvantage awards. I didn’t join the sho this week, but after listening if you have any questions about booking awards with American miles hit the comments here and I’ll offer up my suggestions.
Very Nervous About an Upcoming Flight
I’ve got a major first class award redemption coming up, one that’ll definitely be worth a report here, involving some of the better carriers in the world and some amazing hotel rooms, not to mention a very famous restaurant. But I couldn’t start the award out of my home city, and so I’ve booked a separate ticket to connect up to the start of the award. That always makes me nervous, because in the event of irregular operations that causes a misconnection the onward carrier isn’t responsible for re-routing you. When I booked my flight, I gave myself better than a six hour connection. And there was a flight an hour after the one that I booked as a backup. But since that time the ‘backup’ flight has been pulled from the schedule. There’s no…
300 Free Priority Club Points
Via Lucky: You can earn 300 Priority Club points by completing this quick survey. The points post instantly. The answers are all obvious. This is their program, they’re going to say it’s good, so you can earn points from ‘all of the above’ and your benefits are ‘all of the above.’ They’re not going to advertise other brands, so theirs are ‘all of the above.’ They have lots of hotels. The only question where the answer may not be obvious is how many nights or points it takes to get to Platinum elite status — 50 nights or 60,000 points, the latter being exceptionally easy (and these 300 points count).
