Previous installments: Introduction: Paris for the Holidays, Saying Goodbye to American’s Old Business Class, and a Suite at the Park Hyatt Vendome American First Class Lounge Chicago O’Hare and Business Class, Chicago – Paris Park Hyatt Paris Vendome Executive Suite Paris is a fantastic city to experience food. But it’s also a city with a lot of truly mediocre (or worse) food, catering to tourists in large volumes. Those places are often near where tourists congregate – the top spots to visit. You have a large number of people, the rents are high, restaurants cater to both volume and lowest common denominator tastes. So if you want to eat well, and conveniently, near tourist spots it takes a little bit of work. Since I found a couple on this trip, I thought it was worth…
The Solution to Sleeping on Short Overnight Flights
Short overnight flights, like flying Eastbound East Coast to Europe, can be frustrating. You leave at night and arrive in the morning and have a full day ahead of you, but to really take advantage of it you need to sleep. (Here’s how I beat jet lag.) New York, DC, or Boston to London or even Paris can take less than 7 hours. You want: A fully flat seat in business class All aisle access so no one is climbing over anyone else and waking them Meal service to end quickly, and lights out quickly, so you can sleep. I don’t want to be woken for breakfast, the second meal on a short overnight isn’t going to be impressive (though I’ll try it if I’m up anyway). I don’t take a Bose noise cancelling headset…
Review: Battle House Renaissance in Mobile, Alabama (and My Strangest Taxi Experience)
I spent Thursday night at the Battle House Hotel, a Marriott Renaissance property. It was booked at my host’s $99 rate there, so a fantastic value for arguably the nicest hotel in town and certainly the nicest one near my morning meeting. The lobby of the hotel is fairly grand. When I checked in my Marriott Silver status — yes, I’m a silver from nights last year (while I’m a Hyatt Diamond and Starwood Platinum from nights, and a Hilton Diamond from a promotion targeted at American Airlines Executive Platinums) — was acknowledged in a funny way. The agent said, “Do you have dinner plans for tonight? Because of your silver status we have an offer where you will get 500 bonus points if you join us for dinner in the dining room here.” Umm..…
“He’s Famous in Airport Lounges” and the Upcoming DFW Lounge Crawl
I had an interesting check-in experience at the American Express Centurion Lounge in Dallas last week. I’ve come to expect meeting readers in airport lounges, it’s great fun and I’m fortunate it seems to happen in almost every lounge — whether it’s the Singapore Airlines Private Room or the American Airlines Admirals Club in Austin, Los Angeles, Chicago, or DC. (Although not in every lounge..) I also run into frequent flyer folks checking into hotels, at breakfast, or any number of other times and of course on planes. I’ve put enough photos of myself on the blog that I guess I’m pretty recognizable. It’s great, you recognize me, I love it when you come and say hello. I consider myself to have reached what amounts to the very lowest rung of fame. There’s ‘real famous’…
I Flew United Again.. and Liked It!
I flew American into Mobile, Alabama. But to stick with them for the return I’d have had to spend an extra 3 hours in the airport. That’s way too much time to spend in the MAA Executive Lounge. There were Delta options, but they were at least 50% more expensive. Now, I made a point not to fly United as the actual merger of operations with Continental approached at the beginning of 2012. I’ve flown mostly American, and that’s worked out great for me. American was providing the best value for a top tier elite in my view, especially during its bankruptcy. And once I started flying American, I wouldn’t go back to an airline without inflight wifi. I’ve flown other carriers, of course, but it just never happened to be United. So I was…
If You’re Flying on Awards and Cheap Tickets, You’re Not Bad for the Environment
Tyler Cowen once wrote that when you fly, you may be more expensive for airlines operating more flights, and concomitant emissions. A simple model of route expansion is that higher demand increases the number of total flights by some probability. For the system as a whole, the decisive flying unit has to come somewhere and there is no reason why, on average, it can’t be you. In other words, at least in stochastic terms you can’t escape the blame. In fact though we do know whether you have a high – or an exceptionally low – probability of affecting the number of flights, size of aircraft, and emissions. It simply isn’t true that every airline passenger and every ticket has the same contribution to emissions. If you’re pulling inventory out of a low fare bucket,…
You’ll Be Surprised Which Airlines are Actually the Biggest, an Award Booking Trick, and More Cathay Seats
News and notes from around the interweb: I’m giving away 5 prizes each of a $200 gift card and top tier elite status with National Car Rental. Leave a comment in the entry thread, that’s all you have to do to enter. There are surprisingly few entries so far, which makes chances of winning pretty good.. Cathay Pacific, which reduced seat capacity out of San Francisco when it downgauged 747 flights to Boeing 777s, is adding a third flight there three days a week. Emirates Skywards is reducing mileage-earning on the cheapest economy fares and increasing the cost of some upgrades. Redemption chart remains unchanged, so folks transferring from American Express Membership Rewards for awards are unaffected. Passenger traffic and airline seat capacity in 2014. Delta overtook United to grab the number two spot in…
$20 Hotel Credit for Flight Booking On Orbitz Through the End of the Month
I like booking airline reservations through online travel sites like Orbitz, rather than directly, because it allows me to quintuple dip: My usual frequent flyer miles My usual points from credit card spend on the purchase A rebate for going through a shopping portal The online booking site’s rewards. Right now booking airline reservations through Orbitz has a nice bonus: Orbitz Rewards will give you $20 in credit towards hotel stays for each flight you book through January 31. You’ll need to be logged in, as an Orbitz Rewards member, and see the $20 offer on your itinerary to receive it. It will only show up on flights that are $50 or more, so you aren’t going to buy flights just for the bonus. Orbitz lauched their current rewards program in October 2013 (see “The…
Hacking My Way into an Airport Lounge for Free
Leaving Mobile, Alabama I decided to visit the Mobile Airport Authority Executive Lounge. That’s one readers of my lounge reviews might not have been expecting. Of course, I didn’t even realize that the Mobile, Alabama airport had a lounge. Let alone that it’s free, if you know how to access it. This is an airport-run lounge with a membership program. Annual membership is $50, and immediate family get in free with the member. Active duty military are free, too. And they sell guest passes for $10, although I have no idea how they sell these since the lounge itself is unmanned. They also offer Complimentary one-day pass for first visit. I don’t know about you, but I’m likely to find myself in Mobile, Alabama only once. After clearing security the lounge is on the left,…
When Frequent Flyer Fraud Units Go Off the Rails
I’ve written before about how to deal with the ‘worst case scenario’ of having your frequent flyer account locked for suspected fraud. There are times, though, that even I’m vexed. Airlines and hotel programs see ‘loyalty program fraud’ as a bigger issue than ever before — whether it’s simply breaking the rules of a program by selling miles, or large scale account hacking (as has recently happened with some programs). There’s a balance that programs need to strike. They want to enforce their rules, and they need to limit unnecessary costs. But they don’t want to swing the pendulum too far in the direction of enforcement where they make legitimate members jump through too many hoops. That would undermine their business objectives. Members frustrated by their programs aren’t going to participate in the programs, at…
