News and notes from around the interweb: Malaysia Airlines is taking heat for the quality of the Nasi Lemak (a national rice dish) that it served in economy on a ~ 750 mile flight. The carrier promises to take “mmediate measures to improve the quality of its in-flight meal.” Meanwhile rival discount airline Air Asia (tagline: “Now everyone can fly!”) touts the quality of its own nasi lemak. Imagine such a rivalry in the U.S.! (HT: uggboy on Milepoint) Starwood is offering double points for eating at their hotel restaurants when you aren’t staying there as a guest. Woman went berserk on a Delta flight when another passenger turned her down for sex. Perhaps Delta’s planes just didn’t offer convenient places to join? If you got in any Hyatt Gold Passport reward night reservations before…
Air New Zealand’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Safety Video Is Live!
On Sunday I mentioned that Air New Zealand was about to debut a new safety video, Safety in Paradise, marking 40 years of flying to the Cook Islands — a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit safety video. And I posted a ‘making of’ video. Now the safety video itself is live. And they declare ‘the beauty of safety’. It’s all the traditional safety instructions, in bikinis, on a beach. And it has a good sense of humor about itself. Are you more likely to look up from your book (or, in the States, electronic devices) and pay attention to a non-traditional safety video? You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s…
Sheraton Macao Apologizes for Accusing Me of Stealing Coffee
My Sheraton Macao story was surprisingly controversial. Mostly I thought it was funny, I’m standing in my bathrobe at 6:30 in the morning, with a hotel staff member in the room pointedly accusing me of trying to scam them for 4 free cups of coffee. It was a minor thing in the grand scheme of things, but one of my more awkward hotel moments. And it brought out many divergent opinions from readers. I’m often surprised by the things that get peoples’ juices flowing! (I tend to think I’ll get more comments on things like 100,000 mile bonuses, but what do I know?) I thought I’d post a follow-up. As I shared in the comments earlier, I had tweeted the post to @spg and I received a response. They replied fairly quickly on Sunday night…
British Airways Visa 100,000 Mile Signup Bonus is Back!
Note that I do not receive referral credit for this offer at the time of this writing. British Airways and Chase are back with a 100,000 Avios signup bonus. (Update: No longer available.) You will get 50,000 bonus Avios after $2,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.2 25,000 bonus Avios after $10,000 in purchases within the first year of account opening.2 Plus an additional 25,000 bonus Avios after you make an additional $10,000 in purchases also within the first year of account opening.2 Together that’s 100,000 bonus Avios, which is enough for a round-trip business class award flight.3 Taxes, fees, and carrier charges are approximately $1,250 per adult in business class based on travel from Seattle to London.4 As with offers for this card over the past year and a half,…
40% Discount on Purchased United Miles
Through February 17 United is offering up to a 40% discount on purchased miles. Buy 15,000 to 39,000 miles and receive a 25% discount, or buy 40,000 miles or more for a 40% discount. United now allows the purchase of up to 150,000 miles per year. But would you want to at this price? You’ll still pay 2.26 cents per mile all-in with the 40% discount (requiring you to buy at least 40,000 miles). And while that would have been a little high — I’d not really have wanted to buy miles above 2 cents, though this is as low a price as United directly sells miles for — in a post-devaluation MileagePlus world I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where I’d be buying 40,000 United miles, enough to get the price down…
Lufthansa First Class Award Space Wide Open from Montreal (and Vancouver)
Lufthansa generally does not release first class award seats more than 14 days prior to travel to members of its partner frequent flyer programs like United MileagePlus, Air Canada’s Aeroplan, or Avianca’s LifeMiles. That makes it really hard to book. Most people make their award travel plans more than two weeks out, and even if you’re booking close to departure there’s also the return flight to worry about. As a result, Lufthansa first class awards don’t really exist for most people anymore. Which is a shame, because Lufthansa has tons of flights from so many North American cities. And they offer one of the better products across the Atlantic, especially on the ground in Germany (to read about the incredible Lufthansa First Class Terminal in Frankfurt, including photos and menus, see here, here, and here).…
Earn Miles for Paying Your Mortgage and Other Bills (and Liquidate Gift Cards for Free)
You should read this blog post by ‘Frequent Miler’. He describes Evolve Money, a new service that will let you pay bills (for free) with prepaid debit cards and gift cards. It’s a great way to liquidate those. They don’t publish a comprehensive list of the bills they let you pay. This service is a loss leader for them so they don’t just let you add your own merchants to pay. But you may be able to pay your mortgage, even, with a mileage-earning debit card (like the Suntrust Delta debit card) or liquidate a MyVanilla Debit card (that you funded with Vanilla Reloads) or even MasterCard/Visa gift cards that you purchased with a credit card at a store where you earned bonus miles. You’re allowed $1000 per day in bill payments currently. As they…
Frequent Traveler University Hotel Sold Out, Where to Stay?
On Friday I mentioned that the upcoming Frequent Traveler University event in Seattle (April 25-27) was nearly 90% sold out. Now, it seems, it’s 95% sold out and not only is the hotel room block full, the host hotel — the Seattle Airport Marriott — is completely sold out. There are still about 25 tickets available for the event as of this writing. So if you want to attend the event and pick up one of the last remaining tickets, where should you stay? My suggestion is the Hilton Seattle Airport. According to Google it’s 0.3 miles, a 6 minute walk, between the two hotels. The current cancellable rate there is $129, and both points and cash and points rates are available. Cash and points is 12,000 points plus $50. There may be additional discounted…
Discounted Inflight Internet, When Buses are Good, and Improving US Airways (Bits ‘n Pieces for February 9, 2014)
News and notes from around the interweb: When I discussed the challenges of American and US Airways combining operations at LAX, I expressed hope for the least bad option of offering busing inside security between American’s terminal 4 and the much smaller US Airways operation that’s moving to terminal 3. It turns out that the move and shuttle are supposed to start February 12. I’d prefer greater frequency, but the shuttle will run every 20 minutes. US Airways will be extra legroom Main Cabin Extra seating to its coach cabins. Gogo inflight internet is offering 15% off an American/US Airways monthly unlimited pass. Apparently the $39.95 price will be going up March 15, but existing monthly customers will be grandfathered at the old rates. Etihad Guest is offering status matches up to their Gold (mid-tier)…
The Sheraton Macao Accused Me of Stealing Coffee (And Showed Up to Investigate)!
Several days ago I woke up a little after 6am at the Sheraton Macao Hotel (full trip report to come) and decided to order up coffee from room service. They explained that I could tell them how many cups of coffee I wanted, and that’s what they would fill the pot to. So I asked for 6 cups. A short while later room service delivered the coffee. It seemed awfully light for 6 cups. I poured two cups, and the pot felt nearly empty. So I called back down to in room dining. The same person I ordered from answered, and she remembered that I had ordered 6 cups. She said she’d send up 4 more cups right away. So at 6:30am there’s a knock on the door, and the man who delivered the first…
